Default, Bankruptcy, Ethics, and Morality
Who is the most immoral person in the world?
I am hearing a lot of online personalities, especially those advocating for the end of the current state of the world and the economy, speaking ominously about coming signs of depression. They are quick to highlight crashes in housing prices, increases in bankruptcy rates, and trends indicating increased mortgage defaults, credit card balances, and overall financial strain. They are well versed in criticizing irrational Federal Reserve policies or unjust taxes, but it feels like they stop short at understanding these issues in terms of ethics and morality.
That is the subject I'd like to meditate on. Let's take the following headlines:
Morality is simply the principles one uses to determine right and wrong. In every situation and in every action, a moral code is used by people to guide people in being right, more than they are wrong, and to avoid harming others or failing at a task. For instance, murder, theft, fraud, lying, and cheating are all generally accepted examples of moral failings, regarded as wrong across all current and historic cultures regardless of whatever laws, customs, or traditions were in place at that time.
In this way, you can hear moral language being written into these reports.
- More student loan borrowers are walking away from their debt, suggesting that people are responsible for, meaning they are admitting that they lied when they said they would pay the loan back.
- Mortgage delinquency reveal struggling local economies, suggesting that a more capable and strong economy would result in a world of lower mortgage delinquencies.
- Tax evaders are being hunted and the UK is justified in the hunt, suggesting that tax enforcers are in the right and tax evaders are in the wrong.
Consider now who these headlines label as the victims and who they label as the victimizers.
- The victimizers are those who have a responsibility to pay something in which they don't or can't pay.
- The victims are those who are deprived of a payment they are entitled to.
When we see mortgages and credit cards going into default, who is the victim? Why is the bank entitled to payment? Why is the loan recipient entitled to pay the bank? At a surface level, the answer is simple. There is a contract in place between the bank and the loan recipient and this contract creates obligations. How do we know there is a contract? In general, contracts are created when two parties put up reasonable consideration in exchange for a desired benefit. Both parties must exchange one thing of value for another. Obviously the home owner exchanges the title to real property, but what does the bank bring to the table? One might say they bring money, but this isn't true. A person at a bank creates a loan by putting up existing capital from deposits or other assets. This person creates a loan simply making an accounting journal entry into their books. In other words, a home buyer gives the bank a down payment of actual money in exchange for the privilege of receiving a new amount of new money created out of thin air.
One can also see the nature of this practice if everyone was allowed to engage in it. If you or I were allowed to pay off the bank's loan by simply entering payments into our bank account without any effort, this would be considered fraud and counterfeiting. If it is fraudulent for you or I to create money out of thin air, then it is also fraudulent for the banks and the Federal Reserve to do so.
Therefore, is it the banks who are harmed when a loanee defaults or is it the property owner who is harmed when he or she is tricked into giving up their property in exchange for tokens created without any effort on behalf of the bank? Who has the right to seek damages?
Obviously it is the banks who are engaging in immoral behavior, enriching themselves by means of a fraud. Their claims to the title of the property secured by the contract made possible by their practice of counterfeiting dollars is null since the contract is without consideration. The bank failed to provide something of value in exchange for the title. The bank offered the 30+ years of payments promised by the home buyer in exchange for a title on a property which it could not own without a valid contract. Since the bank cannot be considered the rightful owner of a person or of his time and energy, the contract in which the bank secured the title is null and void.
Therefore, is an increase in defaults a moral failing on the population or the sign of moral virtue? Since the essence of an ethical action is survival and the essence of an unethical action is sacrifice, it is easy to see that any rejection of theft, deception, and fraud is a sign of moral virtue. We must question our moral code when we allow banks, who engage in theft with every loan they create, to be considered victims of default. They are no more victims of default than a common thief who claims the right to take your car and cries "I'm being cheated!" when you refuse.
This is, by the way, precisely the argument that was made by a Minnesota man and Justice of the Peace in 1968. He argued that his mortgage contract was null and that the bank had no right to repossess the property because the contract the bank used to secure the title was null due to a lack of appropriate consideration.
You can read about the case and the press afterwards are the links below:
The issue here and across the whole world is simple. By practice, propaganda, and confusion, banks and monied interest have led people to believe that theft and fraud are moral goods. These interests haven't outright said that theft and fraud are right but have instead managed to convince people that their loans and banking practices are not theft or fraud. In one sense, it is not the bank's or monied interest's fault for promoting these practices. They are simply trying to survive by means of trickery and deception. One could argue that their practice is immoral to a degree because it is contains a critical error. Not only does it destroy wealth by means of inflation, it is also powerless to achieve the desired outcome, especially in the long-term. Consider, for instance, how the cotton of the plantation south was picked. Was it by the crack of the whip or by the willful effort of the slaves? If you had to have only one, which would by the actual cause of the picked cotton and which would be promoted cause of the slave owner? Those who brandish whips, guns, and any other kind of threat know that their actions are not causative. Without the willful, purposeful efforts of their victims, their actions would result in only poverty, pain, and eventual death.
No, the greater sin lies with those who succumb to these practices and who do not accurately judge what is being done to them and what they are willingly accepting. If a thief breaks into your home and steals the food in your kitchen, the thief is engaging in taking on a considerable risk, which could be considered unethical. The community would be right to catch the thief, put him in prison, and return the food to the owner, leaving the thief worse off than before he broke into the home. But if the home owner, doesn't press charges and if the community allows such practices to spread, who is the immoral one? If thieves are allowed to thrive and survive with the permission of their victims and neighbors, how could you classify the thievery as unethical? And if the victims agree to accept the food stolen from them as payment for some other kind of value, who is to blame? but the moral cowards who allow it to happen voluntarily.
Therefore, who is the most immoral person in the world? The banks who create fraudulent loans or the people who pay them voluntarily? Of these two people, who can it be said is surviving and who is succumbing? Who is the most deserving to receive wealth and who is most deserving to be poor? The most immoral person is the one who willingly sacrifices his or her virtues, wealth, energy, time, and effort to the iniquity of others. Such a person has allowed his understanding of morality to become inverted, and deserves the consequences of such a betrayal and of allowing a gun and a whip to be his motivation, poverty, pain, and death. Such is the nature of our world controlled by banks and the fake money they have created. Such is the nature of our world which claims that sacrifice is moral and survival is immoral.
It would be a moral victory for any man to accurately act in the knowledge that his loan and any contract secured at his expense by the bank as fraudulent, illegal, null, and void. It would be a moral victory for people to demand real value in exchange for their time and energy, instead of working for worthless paper. It would be a moral victory for the world to expose and nullify all loans secured with Federal Reserve Notes and outlaw the practice of fiat banking forever. It would be a sign of a moral renaissance to see paper and digital number unable to purchase something as precious as gold or silver.
For the last century, America and the people of the world have lost their sense of morality, sacrificing it to pursuit of power and the exercise of mindless force. May we rediscover our spirit, may we renew our love for survival, and may we cheer the end of all forms of crime in the name of Life.
Comments
Post a Comment