21 Comments

And the bankers just keep rolling in the dough.

Game of Thrones.

The world needs to eliminate bankers.

Expand full comment

Islamic Finance is probably OK.

Expand full comment

John, to be honest, does the 'principal' in Islamic finance not merely equal 'principal plus accrued interest over the lifetime of the loan' in Western finance?

If it doesn't fine. But what matters is the total paid over the totality of the loan, not what the interest rates were.

Expand full comment

I am no expert, but usury puts the risk all on the borrower, and Islamic finance shares risk and benefit/profit between lender and borrower.

Islamic finance is more of a partnership-in-enterprise arrangement.

Russia has set up 5 Islamic financial institutions recently, as I recall.

The digital Rouble is not an interest-bearing instrument.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Nov 9, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Lots of things lead to collapse, like bad weather and used-up farmland.

In a period of expansion through war and colonization, usury kicks ass, but it can't do steady-state.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Nov 9, 2023Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I read that North Africa and the Sahara used to be lush.

;-(

Expand full comment

If you eliminate usury, again, finally, you will much curtail the bankers.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Nov 9, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

However, the money conjured is still debt-based money. The money-as-debt system has to be changed to a money-as-proxy-for-actually-existing-stuff system. Gold, silver, grain, salt, oil, "stuff".

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Nov 9, 2023Edited
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Michael Hudson: This is not a new problem. The ancients could deal with it.

https://jacobin.com/2021/12/michael-hudson-interview-debt-forgiveness-cancellation-ancient-rome-christianity

Expand full comment

America has lost any claim to moral superiority over the nations of the planet. Are we men or are we beasts? Genocide is NEVER right.

Expand full comment

Let us have madness openly.

0 men Of my generation.

Let us follow

The footsteps of this slaughtered age:

See it trail across Time's dim land

Into the closed house of eternity

With the noise that dying has,

With the face that dead things wear--

nor ever say

We wanted more; we looked to find

An open door, an utter deed of love,

Transforming day's evil darkness;

but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,

and within the head

A rotting bog of lean huge graves.

Kenneth Patchen

Expand full comment

Patchen seemed too dark for me just a few years ago. Now, sadly, not.

Expand full comment

Ah. I loved his poetry in college. And to this day obviously.https://youtu.be/82COs3cuLC8

Expand full comment

Hi John, thanks for your valued service! By the way, thanks also for sharing this picture of a young man.

Expand full comment

Thanks Frank. The yellow Tokyo Tower t-shirt my son brought me from his recent work-trip makes me look younger.

Expand full comment

It's very hard too see how Biden has a defence in law, let alone in moral terms, against the charge that he 'supports genocide' in Gaza.

1. He refuses to call for a ceasefire, which means he will do nothing to stop Israel continuing the murders, now around 15,000 and at least 10 times the numbers of Israelis claimed dead on October 7th.

2. He seeks to suppress the right to free speech of a duly elected Congresswoman of Palestinian descent, who is admirably free of the need to suck AIPAC's financial genitalia.

So Biden won't stop the killing and he tells those that call it out for what it is to shut up.

If I were on a jury and Biden were in the dock, I'd ask the judge if I could make a statement after delivering our verdict, as I would like POTUS to hear the full opprobrium of those who hold him- and almost all of his Capitol Hill grifters in contempt.

Expand full comment

Rachida Tlaib is a jackal in a sheep's clothing. And both of them ( Biden & Tlaib) are from the same party that hates America let alone the Jewish people.

Expand full comment

It's fair to say that 'the Jewish People' hate the Palestinians and much more genocidal in demonstrating that. You might not like what Tlaib has said, but she hasn't just bombed 15,000 mothers, fathers and children to a pulp, has she? And nor has Hamas.....

Expand full comment

If Ram is a typical Zionists, hating "Jews"(Ashkenazis) is worse than bombing Palestinians.

Expand full comment

I left you some comments on some of your blog posts.

Your "avatar" reminds me of Cheech Wizard.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Nov 9, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Shredded cedar.

Expand full comment