And Justice For All

Once upon a time.. mankind existed in small isolated clumps and when the hordes came upon them they got ripped, raped and robbed. So they banded together for protection: protection of life, limb and property. And a whole new industry was born called "government". Now then Government said we need to consider the safety of our people so they invented the police and fire forces. And we need to protect our people from the ravaging hordes. So they invented the military. At each one of these steps it took money or the equivalent thereof. And the people gladly paid these newfangled things called taxes. So the people got to keep less and less of the rewards of their daily toil. Then the Government said "let us help you keep more of the fruits of your labor". And they invented banks. Banks who would lend you money or its equivalent. But you could pay it back at a small interest. At the same time the banks would pay a small interest on the balance in your account.

Let us do the math. On an average daily balance of $3000 the interest rate would be on the order of 0.3% annual percentage rate or APR. That same amount of money would be lent back to someone as a mortage at let us say 3% to 5% APR as the cost of borrowing on your mortage. That is a factor of ten(10) in favor of the bank. So the bank gives you $9 and gets back $90 on the mortgage. This gives them a net of $81. Now comes the Federal Government who allows them to charge as much as 30% in the case of credit cards. So the yield on your $3000 goes to $105 to the bank for the crummy $9 that they gave you in your bank account.

The banks take part of that money to lobby Congress to pass laws like the above. There is no way for the average citizen to compete with the power of the banks. When I was growing up we had usury laws whereby if a lender charged more than 8% he would go to jail. Oh well, maybe that is why we are becoming more polarized as time goes on.... the rich get richer etc. Look what it did for Rome... look what it did for Great Britain. And we are on the way.