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19 Jan 09

An Economy of Faith and Trust - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

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brooks comment

The Federal Reserve, as a private corporation owned by our banks, creates money and loans it to the government and its member banks (and increasingly everyone else it would seem) at interest. This is not a conspiracy; it is the result of an act of Congress in 1913. At the origin of these loans the principle is created, but the interest required to pay back the loan is not created.
You couldnt print more money than you had gold. Economists would likely argue that this search for the interest to pay the loans is what drives growth.
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- So the irrational behavior that you describe is the only behavior that the system would tolerate as everyone attempted to create more and more wealth to pay the interest and keep the system in balance. One might conclude that the system is irrational and not the people. I would suggest that when the environment is rational and, yes, based on real trust, people are more than happy to behave accordingly. Lurching into the idea that we are all somehow wacky and cant be trusted is not an acceptable conclusion to draw in the absence of understanding economic construct that got us here in the first place.

05 Apr 08

HaloScan.com - Comments

www.haloscan.com/...121834496291152409 - Preview

comment reply obama conversation race whiteness

you need to wake up
There is no denying the atrocities that took place against black folks in those days. There is also no denying that discrimination still exists to some extent today. I admit all of those things, and I am sorry about them. I wonder if you are just as willing to admit that things are much better for black people today?
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- let's get on with solving race problems that exist today. Remembering the past is fine. We can learn from it. But dwelling exclusively on the past is not productive of any useful solutions. Rather, it stirs up more hatred and resentment and the negative cycle continues into the next generation. Someone has to stop the insanity. I am willing to do my part. Are you???
- Billy Jack says, "Far too many white people are filled with hatred and bitterness toward people of other races. Far too many black people find their identity, personality and even careers in their blackness..."
- Once upon a time -- not so very long ago -- there was no such thing as whiteness or the white race, just as there was no such thing as blackness or the black race. Those unscientific distinctions and associated invidious stereotypes had to be invented. It so happens that they were invented by folks who invented their own identity of whiteness to establish their moral superiority to people being held in slavery.
- And you know what? It wasn't just about skin color. It was always first and foremost about accepting an identity of racial supremacy. Even the Irish in America were "black" before they were "white." Don't believe it? Look it up.
- Wow, no wonder white folks are bitter. Having to carry around all that self-deception willful ignorance all those years. And for what? A lousy seat at the front of the bus and a place at the front of the job queue that are no longer even guaranteed by law!
- When I was kid there was this committee of Congress called the "House Un-American Activities Committee". To be an "American" you had to believe in certain things and not believe in other things. The things you couldn't believe in included socialism or self-determination for people in other countries where American corporations had business investments or, sometimes, just being against Jim Crow segregation