Here’s my current understanding of the genesis of worldwide economic crises, and the underlying mechanisms of our economic system. It emerged from some very interesting discussions with friends.
The current economic system relies on “fiat money”, that is, money without (full) Gold backing. Only in the fiat money system, money can be “generated” (by the state printing it), only in this system inflation is possible (through money printing) and only in this system, book money is possible.
Book money is used as follows: a bank gets some deposits of “real” fiat money from private persons, and lends this to other persons or banks. The fact that this money can be lent a second, third etc. time means the generation of “book money”, which far exceeds the amount of cash money. And the fact that money is lent only in exchange for interest rates (that are higher than the inflation rate) means that the need for money permanently increases. Which is only possible through increasing the amount of book money, by lending to an ever increasing number of people (to earn from the interest rates). The bigger this number of people has to be, the more riskier the business gets (lastly including failing subprime lends). And, the credit acquisition includes also an ever growing number of credit grantors, including the state, at last, which has to support breaking banks.
But if no new credits can be given out or lent finally, a credit crunch happens, and then the financial system breaks and is restarted. This happens once in every 70 years or so; the last time was the worldwide economic crisis in 1932, and currently we have the current repetition. Resetting the financial system means, basically, state bankruptcy: the state had to use money printing to overcome the credit crunch, because even the state could not lend any money from banks anymore (it had done this too often already and is yet no longer deemed credit worthy). Excess use of money printing means, however, hyper-inflation, and then, the start of a new currency.
The fact that credit is promoted that hard means that companies have to take credits, in order to keep up with competitors who took them first. Which means that companies tend to end in excess production in the end, like the worldwide car industry currently (at the end of 2008).
Excess production also means that people have to work harder than necessary, as they work for products that the world does not need. It is an important insight that the amount of work to fulfill the basic needs of humanity is limited. Given the means of industrial production and justified wages for one’s work, nobody of us had to work more than 1,5 hours a day on average. Now, how comes that we don’t get the justified wages? First, because the ratio of government expenditures to gross national product is currently at approx. 50% (in Germany), so that you can only use 25% of the money you earn to buy a product, the rest goes to the state (50% of the money you earn, and 50% of the money you pay to the vendor). Of the 25%, the vendor and the chain of distributors get their share, the inflation (some kind of modern confiscation) gets its share, and the finance system owner get their share though the interest rates that companies have to pay. So in the end, you can buy stuff and services for just approx. 5% of the money you earn, though you got the 100% on your bank account. The trick is this: the theft happens after you get your money, not before! (Addition: from the 5%, you can rarely buy any quality products, as vendors try to sell trash.)
I stated above that system breakdowns (with all the collateral and disergistic effects)
are inherent in our financial system, due to credit promotion. And then, that the credit promotion is the reason of excess production and inadequate wages. Now, the big question is, who does profit from all this if the people loses? Those who give out credits and are able to rescue their property in time. Which are, the super-rich people in the world: those whose property the world is. As they have so much more than they can enjoy personally, their properties serve only the purpose of might. (And, of course, security: people try to be independent from God, but fail upon dying.)
So, the end result is this: stressful life, inadequate wages, and economic crisis is just a result of the might aggregation of some. To answer the question where the resources went that should be in the hand of the people: might was bought with them, in the indirect sense of “buying” as “trading possible efficiency for something else”. Might as a horrendous price. About 95% of the gross national product, as stated above. And we all pay this sad price since the emerge of Nimrod. Yes, we could call our current financial system a modern form of slavery: it looks nice from the outside and comes along with some nice things like freedom of speech (enabling me to write these lines), but its character is just about retention of power as the slavery system was.
A quick hint to a solution: search autarchy, either as a group or individually, either explicitly or (better) implicitly. Implicity autarchy is e.g. a side effect of a well functioning Christian congregation: it is a solidarity group, needing little from outside. For example, it needs no psychiatrists, social workers, banks, family tutors, health insurance, old age insurance etc., and in tough times also no physicians, food providers and others. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord reigns, there is truly freedom.
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