Aren't Banks Just Another Ponzi Scheme?

Today's news says that Madoff will STILL not go to jail, yet be confined to his posh apartment. Poor guy!

Madoff was arrested on what they call a Ponzi scheme.

He took in investors money, and then paid the original investors "dividends" with new money taken in from new investors.

My question.

What is the difference with what Madoff has done with what banks do every day.

They take in your deposit, and loan it to someone else. But if they take in a $100 deposit, and loan out $1000, where do they come up with the other $900?

Well, they borrow money from the central bank, who prints the money to make up for the difference. Yet if you foreclose on your house, guess who gets the deed. The bank gets the deed, even though they never had any money in the first place.

Why are banks not being "strung up" for their Ponzi scheme?

People say life couldn't go on without banks.

I beg to differ. I say, life would be much better without them.

Think about how much of your hard earned money it takes to run a bank.

Without that money going to the banks, and their fat wallets, the money would go directly into the economy. Yet we throw $350 billion at them, and they hoard it, like it was theirs to hoard, and then have the nerve to tell us that we don't need to know where the money went, and then ask for more!

It took a full month for many in Congress and the American public to realize that billions in bailout funds were not going to be used the way they thought.

Instead of purchasing failed mortgage assets, the Treasury Department used the taxpayer money to buy preferred shares of stock in select banks.
...
But in the first weeks of the bailout, select banks become in-the-know quickly. Several of them have said it was "federal regulators" who approached them and urged them to apply for bailout money ... even before the public or Congress were aware this would be its use.

www.cbsnews.com...

I say, down with banks. They are evil. Not necessarily the people who work there, but the system is evil. They are part of the Beast. And yet we feed them.

[edit on 12-1-2009 by doctordoom]

Nice comparison, but the best comparison would be our Social Security System. That is the ultimate Ponzi scheme. You don't have to do business with a bank....but you have to pay social security...there is no opt out option.

You are 100% right banks are ponzi schemes, as is the US and every other country who uses centralized banks that are based on a fiat currency.

But again this is the only way to grow an economy, if a bank makes a loan to someone and that loan is repaid and the person who took it is able to build a profitable business then hires people and those people might one day venture out and start a business and the bank loans them the money (see where im going?)

Basically you are right they are ponzi schemes but if done right then its for the best.

Or to put it in a different perspective...Before the dollar was removed from the gold standard, gold was $35/oz. The average wage was $35/wk. The average wage today is nowhere near 1 oz of gold per week. In fact it is about 1/3oz of gold by my estimation.

Got to love that progress, eh?

Aren't Banks Just Another Ponzi Scheme? Yup.

Originally posted by doctordoom
[...]the system is evil. They are part of the Beast. And yet we feed them.[...]

The banks should have died. Notice how the financial charts (on indexes such as DJIA, NASDAQ, etc.) indicate the health of the Beast. People ride the ups and downs on expectations that the economy (or beast), much like its heartbeat (or trends), would get better or worse. It's not just another Ponzi scheme. Banks are scams.

It's a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. And people don't even realize or understand it.

I refuse to have a bank account. I refuse all credit. The closest thing to it is I use pre-paid credit cards for shopping online and paying bills. And that is money that doesn't stay in an account for very long since it already has a purpose when I put it on.

Proud to be 100% debt free.

Debt free? Nice!

The house I'm buying I financed through the owner. Not only does he get a healthy monthly payment, as I financed for only 8 yrs through him, but he gets a healthy interest too, but nothing near what a bank would have charged me.