Financial Irony

There is financial irony that I hope isn't lost on the world when it discusses buying our way out of recession.

Money does not exist in the sense that we have come to understand it. An overwhelming majority of it exists theoretically in the banking system. When a loan is taken out, the money is created out of nothing, which lowers the value of actual money in circulation and dilutes the market. Our banking system does not create and lend this theoretical money to be kind; it expects to make a profit through the interest it collects on the loan. So when our problem is debt, how is compounding more debt on top of it a viable solution?

Some people say that spending money stimulates the economy, and it does. But at the end of the day, it does not stop the problem that money creates in the first place.

The recent G20 meeting in London was met with a large and misguided protest. The people there were largely being as revolutionary as the latest trend demanded. One man died in an alley as medics were assaulted trying to get to him. Some chanted, "abolish money" as if that would do anything productive.

Money is not the problem; its unregulated misuse is the problem. People not understanding what this misuse does is the problem. A country's currency should not be in the hands of private industry, it should be in the hands of the country. Government must distance itself in every sense from private industry and regain its control over corporations. Business owners and shareholders must be limited in their salary to a base percentage that is the same for every company. Taxes must be collected as an equal percentage from everyone; not on the products they purchase - certainly not on food - but on their salary. And most of all, we must end this belief that we can buy our way out of recession. Truly, we can only think our way out.