Читать книгу CWT Ideology - Алексей Муратов - Страница 4

The Earth and humankind are being held hostage to

the political and financial system. This system protects the

interest of financial elites and is bitterly unfair towards people

and destructive towards nature. This system is based on the

colonization and exploitation of people, states, energy, minerals

and technologies. The way global capital is being exploited is at

the root of religious conflicts between people and communities.

For centuries the financial system has been taken control of

the world’s resources and markets, and influenced governments,

mass media, education, medicine and even our food supply. A

few of the world’s richest families and their corporations exert

direct control over the scope of all major human activity.

How could this happen? To answer this question let’s turn

to history.

The history of money extends back over thousands of

years. At the dawn of the human civilization, when there was

no money, only hard work could give you clothing, shelter and

food. Over time the main human occupations (gathering and

hunting) moved to the next level and our ancestors could raise

cattle and grow their own food. As a result, a surplus of goods

and produce started to appear.

A tribe which had a large number of animal skins but short

of grain could exchange with another tribe that had a surplus of

grain. This is how bartering started. As humans developed, the

barter also developed and covered an even greater number of

goods and services.

The most famous example of bartering in human history

is the bargain of Peter Minuit in 1626. For trinkets and beads

costing $24 he obtained the island of Manhattan. In 1993 the

island was valued at $50 billion.

Gradually people realized that carrying a bag of wheat or

dozens of skins for exchange was not very convenient. By trial

and error humans began using silver and gold as an equivalent

for exchange. Gold and silver could not be faked or spoil, so

they served as money for a long time.

Jewelers began minting gold and silver coins. They needed

a reliable storage for gold and silver ushering in the first safes.

Soon, traders and the general population began to rent space in

the jewelers safes to store their coins and valuables. So, long

before credit existed jewelers began to lease shelves in their

safes earning income from that business.

Years later one jeweler began to understand that people

never came for their gold all at once. This occurs because

people were holding onto obligatory bills given by the

jeweler as a proof of the stored gold. These bills were

considered real money in the market instead of the gold

as it was more convenient and easy to exchange. Sellers

of goods accepted them as receipts for payment of goods.

Borrowers began to take loans in this paper form instead

of real gold.

The jeweler came up with another business – he started

to lend his gold at an interest. He used his own and the

stored gold of the merchants and townspeople, who kept it

for safekeeping. But since everyone never come at the same

time, this business grew rapidly. The ability to give loans

was limited only by the amount of gold in the safe. Then

the bankers came up with an even more daring idea. Since

they were the only ones who knew how much gold was in

the safe they could issue obligatory bills for gold that they

did not have. If all the investors would never come at the

same time to collect, then who would find out? They figured

out how to make money out of thin air. This was the origin

of the phrase “to make money out of thin air”. Jewelers

who realized how to make money out of thin air are today’s

bankers.

That principle became the ground of the existing

financial system that began to take shape about 400 years

ago. Bankers began to lend to governments, who used that

money to wage wars of conquest, and to merchants, who

conducted “business” by exploiting new territories. Since

the governments depended on the banks’s money, they not

only allowed them to make money out of thin air but also

legitimized this process by skewing the ratio making it 9

to 1. Today this is called a “fractional reserve” system.

Today this works in most of the worlds banks and

accepted as a part of the banking philosophy. For example,

if you deposit $1000 into an account, the bank can then

turn around and lend someone else $10,000 in the form

of credit based on this fractional reserve system – legally

creating money out of thin air.