Voodoo Banking System
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I don’t know who first coined the phrase “voodoo banking,” but it certainly seems appropriate in light of the 2007-? financial crisis. If you are having trouble understanding the vast amounts of money being poured into the banking system by the world’s governments – you are not alone, and I suspect this is intentional. The human mind can only grasp certain figures, and once the idea of “trillions,” of dollars, pounds, or bottle tops is being used, it is impossible to comprehend how much this is. How much is a trillion? I cannot visualize it – and I would think most people just say “a lot,” in their head. But there is "a lot," and there is "a lot."
I have actually lost count how much is being created, quantatively eased, printed, committed to, government guaranteed, government stimulated, rescued or whatever other euphemism is being used to lull the stock market into a false sense of security, but I refuse to believe banks that were on their last legs just a few months ago are now magically healthy. Solvent even.
Which is presumably how the term “Voodoo banking,” came about. What we have in effect is banks that are “walking dead,” or “zombies.” And we all know what happens to zombies. At least in the movies. If it is not making sense to you that the banking system that failed by being over borrowed is also being propped up by borrowing more – fear not. There is a good reason that it makes no sense to you. This is simply because it makes no sense.
Actually that is not completely true – it makes no sense of you are on a certain side of the fence – which is only about 99.9% of the population, so we should be fine. In the unlikely event that the recent borrowing bubble is re-inflated by the voodoo government witch doctors, the only possible outcome I can see is a bubble the size of which I cannot grasp.
The simple fact is – governments the world over are panicking. Mr. Obama promised “change” to get himself elected, and I fail to see how continuing the policy of pouring limitless amounts of new money into a dead banking system is in any way a “change.”
The British government has got so ruffled and they are so desperate to distract away from the real issues that we are actually being allowed to be outraged at the amount of “expenses,” Members of Parliament have been stealing from the taxpayer for the last million years. You know things are bad when politicians start telling the truth.
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I like the term "Wall Street Banksters." Voodoo or Zombie life insurance companies are next on the list.
@ Cindy - Coincidentally - the same week it is "leaked" that elected officials are stealing money - The Bank of England announced that it was printing another £50 billion lol
@ Ralph - yeah I like that one too. :) You can put newspapers and TV companies on your list pretty soon also.
It's all a conspiracy. I'm telling you! Wait and see! :D
Australia went from $60 Billion surplus, to $120+Billion deficit. Telling the truth? Hah! They don't know what truth is. LOL
lol
It is - and you didn't believe me when I told you months ago that was going to happen lol
Excellent work. Very accurate Mark and yet it only scratches the surface.
The absolute fraud of monetary capitalism is possibly the greatest illusion ever perpetrated.
Any hope of a democratic civil society is flushed down the commode the instant a nation relinquishes control of its currency to private business.
“If the American people ever allow banks to issue their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations which will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson
“The end of democracy and defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
The Bank of the United States is one of the most deadly hostilities existing against the principles and form of our Constitution. The system of banking is a blot left in all our Constitutions, which if not covered will end in their destruction. I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling futurity. “
Thomas Jefferson
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
I’ve researched this area extensively and written perhaps too many hubs regarding it. Nevertheless, I will continue. When one digs into the past it becomes very clear, in short order, that the worship of wealth and power is in fact an obscene fundamentalist religion that has been, for millennia, seizing ever greater control of Earth and its peoples. We have seen throughout history what unbelievable carnage can be wrought when fundamentalism becomes too powerful.
I believe very sincerely that this for-profit paradigm is the primary force driving the human race toward extinction at ever increasing speed. The combined effects of religious fundamentalism, nationalism and capitalism are a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
I know we’re not supposed to promote our own hubs but I have NO ads on ANY of mine and I don’t write them with any hope of making money.
I just want to let people know what’s been going on, to stimulate critical thinking. So, given the excellent insight this hub displays, I think you would find what I’ve written about capitalism and the free market to be of interest.
Thanks CWB - I apprecieate the comment.
I have read some of your hubs. I tend not to make too many comments on hubs because of the endless arguments. I already have enough of those with the religionists in the forum lol
And you may want to edit your comment if you still can - I don't know what that lot is lol
Sorry, I'm not clear on what lot you're referring to. Please claify.
Here is the problem; WE failed to keep track of our elected official’s self-serving voting activities. When they did not perform to OUR satisfaction, we failed to oust them---that is the real fix for the world’s problems.
@ CWB - There was something wrong with the text in what you had written - but it seems to have fixed itself now - so no worries :)
@ Nancy - Really? I think you are being a little naive there. There is an element of truth, similar to the stock holders of the banks being at fault - but seriously - do you really think YOU can get anything changed?
The real answer to the worlds economic problems is for people to stop spending money on what they cannot afford using credit they are not good for.
The role of the banks should have been to lend sensibly rather than just trying to boost their own bonuses by lending to every Tom, Dick or Harry that could stand up and scribe an X.
Well that is certainly part of the problem. But who encouraged people to do this?
Who encouraged people to do this?
The capitalist marketing machine, which has infiltrated every level of human existence. It has become an indoctrination machine that begins its work on each of us almost from the moment we are born. It affects everyone to a greater or lesser degree.
Exactly. Almost from birth we are bombarded with advertising that encorages us to consume, consume consume. Almosty regardless of the cost.
I guess the 2nd half of my comment was suggesting who was partly to blame. The banks just made getting credit far too easy for anyone (so they could get their bonuses), so a lot of people got their hands on money they either couldn't or had no intention of paying back. End result is the tax payers getting saddled with the debts so that the whole banking system didn't collapse around our ears.
The same people who created this catastrophe are still getting paid their bonuses on the premise we couldn't afford not pay these stars of the financial industry lest they get upset and leave to go work elsewhere. Just makes me shake my head in disbelief.
I don't disagree however that our whole society is based on growth, growth and more growth and has been for years so whole generations have now grown up expecting the best of everything without necessarily working for it or paying for it with hard earned cash.
That's the end of my rant now, honest, I have work to do!!
I agree. Not sure where t is going to end because what I see happening at the moment can only make things worse. Whether that is next year or in three years time is unclear - but it is not looking good.
Well Mark, IMHO "not looking good" is very optimistic.
What I see is The Project For The New Third World Amerika. That's just my little parody of PNAC.
"Green Zones" for the wealthy and a great big "Red Zone" for everyone else.
Gated, guarded, opulent, privatized fortress communities for the elite and the festering, barren, rotting corpse of a land, scourged by generations of gluttonous consumption, for everyone else.
Seems to me that certain scifi writers may have been the most accurate profits of the new age.
No shit. I happen to know that Citibanks "losses" over the next two years are around 2 trillion dollars. Like I said - not sure where it is going to end - but it is not looking good is the best I can say.
In Europe - all the Eastern European countries are all gone broke - and much of this is owed the Eurozone banks. We are looking at insolvency for 90% of the world's banks.
At my age I don't know how much of it I'll live to see, but these are most assuredly times of great change.
My concern now is for my grandchildren.
CitiGroup should be dismembered and sold off piece by piece. It should never have been allowed to grow into such a monstrosity. If Sandy Weill had been born Italian he would have headed the Mob up and down the East Coast. (Apologies to Italian-Americans 99+ percent of whom are wonderful people.)
Not enough.
The Federal Reserve must be absorbed by the Treasury and all currency must be issued and controlled by the government as stipulated in the Constitution, (Art.1, Sect.8)
U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8
Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
“Our government has the sovereign power to issue money and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure - health and education - rather than misusing the money system for speculation as banking has historically done.”
And how is it that they say the banks are in dire straights from "Betting" on loans. Derivatives and credit default swaps should have been regulated. This should be obvious to any highschool kid who has been given the basics of the formula.
That is certainly part of the problem. I mean - the British gov Inc tore up their anti trust laws in about two seconds flat to allow Lloyds to take over another bank. And the UK Gov Inc is printing money like it is going out of fashion.
What troubles me that I don't see a call for regulation alongside this incredible giveaway to the banks. Basically they are gutting 95% of us to float the other 5%, and really, it's more like the top 1/2 of 1% who are reaping the most benefit. But people here are SOOOOO ungodly stupid they are out in the streets with tea bags hanging from their hats, defending the right of the rich to rape them in the ass. Maybe we deserve to collapse--you know, clean up the gene pool a little-- but it certainly isn't fair to drag the rest of the globe down with us.
I've been ignoring it and have not been writing financial hubs because it's so damned overwhelming at this point. It's so unbelievably bad--and there is Bernanke out in front of the press declaring the recession is over. As near as I can tell, we're totally screwed. I don't think the worst of it has even hit yet.
The problem is - the 95% will soon be broke. And that is a recipe for disaster.
And the feeling of helplessness that goes along with it. I mean I have no control over this and neither do the majority of us.
If they can just keep enough people happy, ignorant and in iPods...... LOL
Well, yeah. I'm broke already. Jobs here in the Sunday paper didn't even make up a full page-- a year ago it was pages and pages every Sunday. Of course, I live in Michigan. But still. It's alarming.
On the 'up' side--prices are falling (except for gas). And I got the vegetables planted.
It will get ugly though if enough people can't buy those iPods anymore. Maybe we will all get free iPods! It won't solve the problem, but it might keep us from killing each other for another month or two! :)
Every one is broke. The banks are broke, the govs are broke. I am seeing higher prices here - except for gas. No new iPod for me this year lol
"Derivatives and credit default swaps should have been regulated."
They should never have been allowed to exist!
The "economy" that is consuming Earth is based completely on lies, debt and oppression. Those who control it are deliberately and merrily driving the vast majority of humanity toward abject poverty or death.
The goal is to consolidate and secure all vital resources under the private ownership of a small cabal while significantly reducing the population of Earth.
Starvation, disease, multiple small conventional wars and natural disasters resulting from climate change will accomplish this depopulation without resorting to nuclear conflict, which would result in a world unfit for human habitation.
Thus the planet, though damaged, will still harbor very survivable, even bountiful oases where the master race can establish their fortified communities.
The resources remaining will be required to sustain a much smaller population and will therefore last much longer.
The planet, being subjected to much less demand on its carrying capacity, will be allowed to recover and enough population, outside the closed, protected fortress communities of the elite, will be kept alive to provide slave labor as needed.
Far fetched? Take another, broader look at history. Follow the cycles. Understand and realize what they have been building toward for millennia.
Adolf must be smiling up from hell at this moment. His dream of a master race is nearing fruition, though it won’t be exactly the race he had in mind.
Still, it’s the principle that counts.
CWB - You paint a scary picture. We can actualy make a difference I think - Consume less is the way I am going.
I agree about the credit default swaps - should never be allowed - and there are moves afoot to keep that rolling as we speak.
It's a start. Whatever is done must be done by the masses.
I am also ( as you see) actively and publlicly questioning what the fuck our governments and banks think they are doing to us.
I think there's a good chance that what they're doing is outlined in my comment from 14 hours ago.
I've found that most questions I submit to the "government" elicit nothing more than a terse, if not curt form letter. Usually the same one for quite a wide variety of different queries.
I have banged my head against that wall in the past. The best I can suggest is - buy gold, grow your own food and keep your head down. :(
Next hub in this vein will be on the Voodoo stock market lol
Hi Mark,
The banks certainly do seem to be zombies at the moment. It would be easy to imagine that the worst of this is over. The UK press is so occupied with the shennanigans at Westminster that there is very little news on the recession. First swine flu, now Douglas Hogg's moat. Makes you wonder what they'll come up with next. No. Wait. It'll be a protracted run-up to the general election. Anything to distract us from what's really happening.
I work in Estate Agency for part of the week. I mentioned to a friend of mine who deals in shares, that the housing market has improved recently. 'Ah, that would be a dead cat bounce.' he said, then went on to explain that during a bear market, when shares are falling, there will be a series of rallys, or false dawns, before the bottom is reached. Whether this is true of the housing market, I can't say, but I do know that just because the press has stopped talking about the banks doesn't mean that the problems have gone away.
Hi Amanda - the housing correction has a long way to go. My prediction in the UK is that average house valkues will fall to three times average salaries. :) Probably overshoot as well.
The stock market rally is a phantom - dead cat bounce for sure. the underlying fundamentals have not changed, nor has the liquidity crisis magically gone away.
This crap about MP's expenses is surely designed to distract away from the fact that the Church of England printed another £50 billion at the same time.
Good information on this hub.I am glad to read.
cindyvine Level 2 Commenter 3 years ago
lol, You are so right there, when politicians tell the truth it's time to get worried.