[p2p-research] Fwd: [ox-en] No more money trickery propaganda please

[Stefan Merten]

Hi Michel!

Now I am really upset!

2 days ago Michel Bauwens wrote:
> read the sentence again, use your brain,

I find it ludicrous that *you* ask *me* to use my brain. Obviously you
stated nonsense and now *I* shall use my brain? COME ON!!!

> and use the full context of the
> dialogue to understand that interests makes it indeed interesting to keep
> your money in the  bank.

If you give money to the bank then you do **NOT** keep it. This very
sentence you wrote just makes no sense. It's nonsense again. And it's
propaganda again because it is only said this way to invoke a feeling
of injustice in simple-minded people. It hides facts to make a certain
ideology look more logical and "just". It may not be your intention -
and frankly I hope it is not your intention. But it is the intention
of those you have this propaganda from.

If you give your money to the bank in fact you may get your money back
*under certain conditions* being part of a contract. If you are in bad
luck you may even not get it back at all, however - as people learned
during the latest financial crisis once again.

If I *keep* my money there is no such risk. I just keep it.

It is very easy to see that there is a major difference here. In fact
it is the difference between a pre-capitalist fortune keeper - who
really keeps her fortune - and a capitalist - who applies her fortune
by giving it to others to make profit.

> Explain to me how you would get interest under your
> cushion, I would be very very curious.

Sorry, it was *your* claim that keeping money raises interest. If this
would be true then I can keep it under my cushion with the same
effect. I'm just taking your statements serious.

Taking statements serious is a simple necessity in a scientific
approach. To think about what a statement actually means is a very
simple test of an assumption against reality. It is basic scientific
work - by which you are obviously shocked.

> I'm trying to put the conflict behind,

I have no conflict with you. To me all this feels very much like
shadow boxing on your side.

> but if you descend to such levels of
> ridiculousness, it makes it very difficult.

I'm really sorry Michel, but that it all but ridiculous. The question
whether you can keep your money or need to give it to someone else -
usually mediated by a bank but also in the form of shares - to get
interest is the all-or-nothing question here.

> Please, let's put that behind
> thus.

You are free to correct your statements so they make sense and - at
best - match the observable reality. It would be far better than to
leave the community just because someone says you are preaching
nonsense.

Frankly I'm curious how long it will take that you at least agree that
you can *not keep* your money and get interest for it. In science that
would be simply to recognize the observable reality and modify your
basic assumption according to it. As you wrote above you are still not
ready to modify your basic assumption - though you are now replacing
your basic assumption with sentences which are inherently
contradictory.

With a scientific approach the next step would be to question what
happens with the money you just gave to others. That would be the
research step. And it would be easy because it is well-known that
banks give money to capitalists in the form of credit. In turn the
capitalists then apply it to labor force and machinery to produce
products they can sell for a higher price than they had themselves for
the input. The logical conclusion is that interest is a share of the
profit of a capitalist. The amount of interest is directly coupled to
the amount of expected profit and the risk involved to actually make
this profit [1]_. In other words: What you are trying to accomplish
with your [named above] stuff is what actually happens in capitalism
all the time. It's in fact the very core of capitalism.

.. [1] Of course in a fully expanded exchange system at the end of its
       life cycle like contemporary capitalism it is a bit more
       difficult. It's a interesting task to research that. But the
       general principle stays.

I, Christian and others explained all that over and over again and it
is really not hard to understand. In fact it needs no theory at all.
It's all observable reality. But you constantly ignore this. Feel
free. But don't be shocked if others call this nonsense or - when
combined with an attempt to evoke certain feelings in simple-minded
persons - even propaganda.


						Grüße

						Stefan