The 'Credit Crunch' explained aka That's NumberWang!!

Pocket money - Weimar style...

Now seems like a good time for a quick recap on the basic Weimar 1923/ United States 1929 - 'It's the Bankers stupid' Conspiraloon™ model of what 'Credit Crunches' are really all about


aka From relative Freedom to Serfdom in half a dozen or so easy stages...

• central bankers increase money supply by creating masses of money out of thin air and lending it out at low interest rates

• prices on the essentials of life - food, water, fuel, housing - rise as a result of the massive increase in money
  

(though thanks to everything being electronic now most people don't need to buy wheelbarrows this time around)

• because the inflation is driven by increased debt not by increased income, incomes/wages don't rise at the same rate as prices

• to keep up with the inflated prices people, businesses and nations take out larger and larger loans

• the bankers put their own wealth somewhere safe (invested in essential utilities and commodities) and then sharply restrict the supply of money

• people, business and nations either go bust and sell their assets to their creditors at knock-down prices or they don't go bust but are saddled with huge loans owed to banks and which are now harder to pay off because there is less money around. Those people, businesses and nations effectively become tenants in their own homes, factories, farms and countries
  

...and that's NumberWang!!




and it's probably worth pointing out the rather obvious fact that if and when a bank does goes tits up it's more than likely that depositors (or, in the case of Northern Rock, tax payers) will lose some or all of their money but it will be a cold day in Hell before borrowers see their loans vaporise in a similar way

It's also worth noting that the German people were smart enough to realise that they had been deliberately and systematically fucked over in the 1920s but, sadly, dumb enough to be conned into blaming the wrong group of people. Fortunately, we live in more enlightened times and the chances of us being distracted into blaming all our ills on one particular innocent ethnic or religious group, rather than a small bunch of elitist fuckers, are now virtually zero

Well, maybe not quite zero

.