The points I make seem clear enough to me, but I want to dilate on one issue: that of legalized theft of wealth.
People who save and invest their own money in things are not thieves. They are angels, as indeed some types of investors are called. They are necessary for good ideas to be converted into actual products and services. In a free market, EVERYONE can eventually be able to do this. The successful owner of a gas station can lend money to his son to start his own. There is nothing heinous or evil here, intrinsically, as the Marxists constantly attempt to argue.
When classes are permeable, when new wealth is constantly being created by economic growth, then all classes are RISING. The American poor have more stuff than 3/4ths of the world. This because an incredible amount of overall wealth has been generated.
The theft comes when the money loaned is not money saved, but rather money created for the purpose. Look at the large office buildings downtown in most major cities. They belong either to banks or insurance companies. I do not grudge insurance companies their wealth, although it is abundantly clear many of them use the legal system to insulate themselves from competition. In particular, most States discriminate against multiple potential insurance providers, in a manner clearly contrary to the Commerce Clause.
Banks, however, use deposited money as an operative pretext. They want to create money, and simply take enough money in in deposits that a plausible fiction can be created that they can actually offer up all the deposits, if asked, without trouble and at the same time. This is clearly not the case. Such a condition is called a “run”, and has caused the collapse of many, many banks. Bear Stearns, as I understand it, in effect folded as the result of an institutional run.
Doubling money, creating legal counterfeit money: this is the primary means of wealth reallocation, aka theft. The Central Banks of the world exist to facilitate this. In our own country, the Federal Reserve is in effect COMPOSED of the banks who want their backing. The government has nothing to say.
Just consider how much money banks control. Consider how dependent our economy is on the extension of credit. Where we used to make things, it seems now everyone just wants to get in the banking business. Where we used to pay cash, low interest rates (the Fed), and inflation have caused people to borrow. As I understand it, 15 year mortgages used to be the norm, they were carried by local banks, and they were paid off in full. It’s not hard to understand how easy money leads to real estate inflation.
I will add, too, that “inflation” can happen in sectors and places. There are national indexes or whatever, but if you look, say, at Las Vegas, there was HUGE price inflation, huge disconnects between what it took to build a home and what someone was eventually willing to pay. The sheer profitability of this is what led to overbuilding, and the current glut. That and foreclosures, of course.
If we look at this as a game of pin the tail on the donkey, where the tail is the right suspect, then Marx was wrong, and so are his modern followers. What we need to do is fundamentally reimagine a financial system that does not depend on money creation and inflation, but rather stable currency. Such a system will be FAIR, robust, and sustainable.
Surely some intelligent Liberal out there can grasp this point. You are out there crusading for justice. If you are unwilling to pick the right enemy, then you are a leftist; if you care about getting the thing right, then you are a Liberal. I will find common ground with you in a second if you pick the right enemy.