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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Throwing the Gun
  • Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 09:54:16 EDT



> >I simply do not see how average Joe benefits. Instead, I see the same
> people who were reckless before, being able to slide through, with some
> discomfort. And, I see Average Joe being crushed

Curious, Bob, that you persist in seeing that with all evidence and logic to
the cotrary. Wendy has this one pretty much correct.

Rather than take an individual (or the average individual) and show how he is
involved in credit, you get a more accurate picture if you separate each
persons Average-Joe-ness from the part of him that ins't that average Joe.

That is, to the extent that Joe is involved in the idle moving about of money
from there to there hoping to dip his thumb into the flow for his living, to
that extent he is going to be hurt.

For example, I have a cell phone, but it most certainly does not imply a
credit contract. It's prepaid. Likely, says I, those credit based prepaid
contracts will wane and fall by the wayside and prepaid service will thrive.
And as
a result people will stop wearing their cell phones like earrings and gabbing
about nothing 24/7. Yet another good by-product of the coming depression.

I read this morning a montage of whiners (I know some lists they could join)
saying their business was being throttled for lack of credit. One fellow
points to three empty cubicles in his "computer service" business and says, I
have
these three empty stations but can't borrow the money to hire three new
people. Say what?? You business is on such a razor edge you cannot hire
someone
unless the bank pays them? That business needs to fail and new businesses
not
based on that need to take its place.

Another was a woman running a 'financial counseling' company who could not
continue if the bank would not loan her more money. A business giving
advice
needs borrowed money ..... for what? That business needs to fail.

And so it went, a business to make party banners, nail salon, a company to
advise people on the best car loan, etc. All companies that do not have to
buy
inventory or anything else traditionally thought of as a reason to borrow
money, and yet they all said if they could not get a line of credit, they
would go
out of business. Fine. It ought to happen.

You may be surprised how fast people revert to being Average Joes and live
lives outside the credit game. Some like those ridiculous "businesses"
won't.
And people whose access to goods and services depends entirely on dipping
their thumb in the vast streams of money and credit that so recently swirled
about
us and yet never produce any good or service themselves ... these people
won't.

In one of the film interviews I have of Scott Nearing he is chopping his
firewood at the age of 95 and delivering a monologue on the economy all the
while.
He was an economist by profession. He says, "I wish the bankers would find
useful employment for themselves and leave the economy alone."

That may be the upshot of this. Everyone who has been making a living by
passing around sacks of money and credit to each other may hve to find useful
employment for themselves.

And as to the fact that people have cell phone contracts, credit card
balances, depend on credit to earn a living, and have a mortgage or rent
beyond their
means ... and they will be 'hurt'. That's one way of looking at it. They
way I look at it is that it will hurt them like a fever hurts you when you
have
a sickness. It helps you get over it. Time to get over it. </HTML>




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