Not another religion post

The monetary system of the world is its unofficial religion. Everyone works for money that’s agreed? Everyone also builds their lives around money. yeah you can deny it. What? Me? a slave to money? are you crazy? I’m just doing this cos i like the job and the perks are not bad either. A bowl of free basmathi rice everyday and a piece of fried fish is no laughing matter.

Not if you're not Shanthiram, a hermit in Uyankelle, it isn’t.

The money is created through the fractional reserve banking system. Where its supply is expanded by ongoing lending. Basically money is printed. And that's how it’s created right? We all know that. So wtf is this moron talking about you may be asking. Yes money is created through printing. The government prints the money. Then they deposit it in the banking system. The commercial banking system. And now the magic starts.

See what happens is banks operate on a Fractional Reserve system. Meaning that they just have to have a given fraction (or a part say, 20%) of the total amount of money they have lent out. Which also means that, once, say you or me, deposit 1000 bucks in the bank, the bank can keep 200 rupees and lend out 800 without creating new money, OR, they can keep the 1000 bucks with them and give out an additional 800 rupees cash on top of that as new money. So theres 800 rupees in the system that didn’t exist before. And that’s how banks increase the quantity of money.

So the chap who borrows the 800 rupees goes and deposits it in another bank, or buys a pizza from Dominoes and Dominoes deposits that in their bank account. This bank then repeats that procedure and creates 640 rupees on top of the 800 rupees in its reserves and lends that out. Typically after some complex mathematics it is possible to deduce that the eventual amount of money created by that initial 1000 rupees is somewhere closer to nine times as much.

So how is the money printed? I mean you and me know that only Central Banks can print money right? Most money is actually electronic (its the new plastic apparently) There need only be that initial amount of actual cash physically present in the system.

This is why a bank run is potentially so disastrous. If all of us wanted to cash all our funds at the same time; CRASH!.

So anyway, what does all this have to do with us being slaves to money? About money being religion and about worship at the altars of cashier counters? Ah, one word; Interest.

See the banks control money. They make it and they distribute it. And they charge interest for lending money. Every single dollar or rupee that goes out of a bank needs to be returned with more money. So where does this money for interest come from?

Nowhere. It doesn’t exist.

So where does it come from? I mean, how do people pay their loans if the money for interest doesn't exist? How can the banks demand more money than they have lent out? They are the ones who create the money. All the money in the system/ economy has been created by the banks. The system outside the banks cannot create money. So how can the system essentially pay the bank back with more money than the banks have given it in the first place? They can't. There’s only a limited supply of money. So the system or an economy as a whole cannot pay all its debts.

Therefore foreclosures, bankruptcies etc, are inevitable where the system as a whole is concerned.

But where individuals are concerned, paying back their debts becomes their primary concern. They start businesses, work 8 hours a day, grow crops etc so that they can support their lives and pay back their debts. Basically they have to slave to earn money in order to feed and clothe themselves. This drives greed and need. it turns into the law of the jungle out there. If the system as a whole owes more money than the actual quantity of money available, then the people in that system will have to fight each other to get that money. And there is born what we refer to as the rat race.

The weak get left behind, as the strong fight them for the amount of the limited resource that is money. For money is always limited, because the requirement for it is always greater than its actual availability.

So the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed grow in numbers as they get pushed out of the race. The world plunges into more despair while being embroiled in a 'system' of money so sacred that all its citizens want, is more of it.

We are all trapped. The world is a hamster wheel and we are all running as hard as we can to get as much money as we can, for we need money to survive. We are slaves, yet we believe we are free. But even Mr. Bill Gates isn’t free, he's only got someone else to carry him.

Apologies for the long post. It was inspired by Zeitgeist: Addendum which i watched recently, but information on the fractional reserve system can be found on wiki. Information on the whole monetary system and its evil influence may be less hard to come by, i haven't checked. But its nowhere that logical reasoning cant get you. So is religion money? Is money religion? Are any of us actually free from religion? Are we not all hypocrites?

Btw, listen to the tracks from Slumdog Millionaire, good stuff for a Monday morning!

Pax.