Here's a plan: starve the beast

[oddlots]

Via Jesse's blog.

"We have only one option remaining to fix this ourselves, to starve the beasts, and it is, simply: Stop Doing Business With Them."

http://anecdotaleconomics.blogspot.c...evolution.html

At least its better than wasting time writing to politicians.

[WDCRob]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

A full list of the firms considered TBTF would have been nice.

[jtabeb]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

Via Jesse's blog.

"We have only one option remaining to fix this ourselves, to starve the beasts, and it is, simply: Stop Doing Business With Them."

http://anecdotaleconomics.blogspot.c...evolution.html

At least its better than wasting time writing to politicians.

Well at least one other person besides me is advocating this, Amen.

[ricket]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

Well at least one other person besides me is advocating this, Amen.

I try to tell as many people as possible about banks and how your money isnt really there, nor is it safe. They use your deposits to speculate in risky investments, and if it fails you have to pay your own money back (plus interest!). They are criminals and I don't do business with nor enable such criminals. The easiest way to do that is to simply not use them. Keep your money in a safe, at home, protected by the 2nd, and only spend what you need.

You'd be surprised how much you save by just being present when the money changes hands (vs. using a debit card).

[charliebrown]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

Here is my program.

1) On april 15th, instead of going to a tea party I clicked a mouse and moved 5 figures of t-bills into muni-bonds. Thereby depriving the treasury of the money, and not having to pay fed tax on this. I'm nervous about the muni-market, so i am watching it closely. If the muni-market starts getting killed, im not sure what to do, move to gold? This is my safe money, so I dont want to speculate.

2) If you bank at a bail out bank take your money out. There are plenty of community banks, and credit unions that will happily take your money are federally insured and will probably give you better service.
I have an account at Chase, will start shutting that down today. The amount of derivative contracts on these banks balance sheets is so large that with some kind of a big event the bank will become insolvent if it is already not.

Here is a link to a bank safety screener. I don't know how accurate the measures are or how often they are updated. but its a start.
http://www.thestreet.com/screener/in...ngsindex&tab=3

3) If anyone wants to chime in other legal ways to starve the beast I am all ears.

[WildspitzE]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

I'm nervous about the muni-market, so i am watching it closely. If the muni-market starts getting killed, im not sure what to do, move to gold? This is my safe money, so I dont want to speculate.

Ah, what? Don't cut off your nose to spite the face.

[charliebrown]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

i am using vanugard tax free money market. In my 20 year history with vanguard i have seen they dont buy a lot of crap to pump up returns. Also since these are short maturity i dont expect a lot of interest rate sensivity. If we have armegeddon, i suppose i will lose on this, but if we dont have armegeddon where will gold go?? 600??

Since the gvt has decided to debase money, there is no safe store of value anymore. either you hold cash with no return, and possible loss of value through inflation, or loss of purchasing power through exchange rate, or you hold an asset like gold, oil etc. where you have to find someone to sell it to before you go to sam's club to buy grocereis.

btw i am increasing my gold position on every dip. but this is on the speculative side of my holdings.

[Supercilious]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

Here is my program.

1) On april 15th, instead of going to a tea party I clicked a mouse and moved 5 figures of t-bills into muni-bonds. Thereby depriving the treasury of the money, and not having to pay fed tax on this. I'm nervous about the muni-market, so i am watching it closely. If the muni-market starts getting killed, im not sure what to do, move to gold? This is my safe money, so I dont want to speculate.

2) If you bank at a bail out bank take your money out. There are plenty of community banks, and credit unions that will happily take your money are federally insured and will probably give you better service.
I have an account at Chase, will start shutting that down today. The amount of derivative contracts on these banks balance sheets is so large that with some kind of a big event the bank will become insolvent if it is already not.

Here is a link to a bank safety screener. I don't know how accurate the measures are or how often they are updated. but its a start.
http://www.thestreet.com/screener/in...ngsindex&tab=3

3) If anyone wants to chime in other legal ways to starve the beast I am all ears.

Charliebrown, I applaud actions and starving the beast is the right thing to do. However, I believe the beast is far more perverse than most of us believe, we have been all taken hostage, and the normal starving methods do not work any more.

The core of the problem is the monopoly the beast has imposed on the money creation and circulation. The dollar is their sign (not in the biblical sense).

We are in destroyed between the hammer (the FED) and the anvil (the Treasury that gets our taxes). The FED is the key element in creating an artificial scarcity of money and attaching interest to the money supply, and the bank credit builds further interest on the original interest bearing money created by the FED. This is nothing else than an unconstitutional private tax levied on all of us.

The second part of the serfdom chain is represented by the taxes we all have to pay to the state/government . These government taxes have to be paid in dollars, and that means in that in order to pay your dues to the government you have to subject yourself to the private tax attached to using dollars.
The Founding Fathers were not against personal (income) taxes only because they wanted to keep more money in the pockets of the people, but because they realized that a direct tax on the fruits of the labour of an individual is a very dangerous tool that can be used for enslavement. That was about preserving freedom, more than about preserving wealth.

Therefore I believe that switching from treasuries to munies doesn't really starve the beast. You just feed it almonds instead of peanuts.

I think the only way to starve the beast is to avoid paying the private tax of using dollars. Unfortunately I believe there are only few methods left to starve the beast, and these methods have limited efficacy. I'm thinking of:
a) withdraw all your money from stocks, 401k, IRA, savings account etc.

b) If you are confident you understand the crooked market you can manage your own investments and cut a little bit from the profits of the beast. This akin to be an investment Robin Hood, but be careful. The market is these days so fraudulent there is a high chance they will legally steal your money through market manipulation, and your wealth will become a juicy snack for the beast.

c) keep all (or most) your dollars savings in gold or silver. I'm talking about the real gold or silver which is bar, coins, rounds etc not the paper/financialized gold such as shares in ETF's, ETN's or even gold trusts. Keep the precious metals not in a bank safe deposit box but somewhere on your property, stored safely under a lock (preferably in close proximity of your guns and ammo ;)). Use dollars only for day to day expenses, such as paying house bils, mortgage, gorceries.

d) if in your area there are alternative currencies in circulation, use them any time you can. It really helps the comunity. But be careful some of alternative currencies can be abused and end up in fraudulent collapse.

If you really have your blood boiling in anger and only if you decide to make this a personal fight, there are more extreme ways. And those extreme ways have nothing to do with violence and hanging banksters. They are far more efficient than that

I'm talking about getting involved in your community, helping others and receiving help without a ledger, in what I would like to call goodwill barter. I know nothing about you, but since you are on iTulip since 2007, my guess is that you know more about money, finance, banking and economy than 99% of your friends, neighbours and relatives.

First thing you can do is to spread the knowledge. Help people understand what they are dealing with and how can they protect themselves. Providing good quality information is not the same with giving business advice (telling others what to do and to rely on your judgement and expertise). Last year, I believe that only by providing information about managing savings and retirement funds I starved the beast of more than one million dollars (money that would have been otherwise lost in the market had those peopel kept listening to their investment experts). Not much, but decent. You should get involved into this only if you have time, patience and determination to fight back, because it can be very frustrating at times (even if IMHO the results are very rewarding in the end and people you helped will be grateful).

Another thing you can do is to get into direct barter. Last year I had to do some major plumbing replacement operation, and one of my former neighbours has a small plumbing company. Instead of paying my buddy (got a very decent quote) I made a deal to work two weekends for him. Yep ... I was a plumber apprentice for two weekends. Not only I had a lot of fun, but more important, I think, I got a good understanding of his line of business and on the small business perspective (it was like a field trip). As a result of my second job :cool:, I talked my friend into doing some things different and more efficiently. Last year he saved $25 k and this year may be the first year his business will have no debt. (and I got most of the plumbing work for free)

Also, last year one of my neighbours, a very nice old lady who is an art teacher, wanted to start selling her painting on the web. After paying about $20k to various web designers, consultant, awebber shams (including paying $5k to an internet consultant that almost convinced her to join a MLM chain and sell on her website pet food next to her paintings ) she got ... basically nothing. It took me a weekend to figure out what it is needed and how to do it , and I did her website (including the paypal shopping chart buttons, domain registration etc). Now she is selling her paintings without being fleeced by the normal art business network. As a result, I got one full year of free art lessons for my nephew. Again, it's little money, but it is still circumventing the system and it feels good. (And you can call me crazy but IMHO spending a weekend doing html, css and java beats the hell out of being among a lot of tight asses at the race track or at some pointless charity event . Disclosure: not all charity events are pointless and a snob fests and not all people going to the race track are tight asses.... only the majority )

A friend of mine went even more overboard than me. He is of german descent and his family has been in banking for at least seven generations. Yes he is a banker, but he is not a bankster. He remembers the stories told by his great great grandfather about banking business in a small town in Bavaria.

In those time the banker was not only the lender, but also financial advisor, market consultant, etc, all packaged in one. The banker was not the faceless financial mugger, but one of the pillars of the community (besides the doctor, the teacher and the mayor). So my friend, three years ago decided to use 200k of his own money to play the North American Grameen Bank. He started by going door to door to small businesses offering low interest (below prime) small loans . A small $10-20k low interest loan which comes with good business and financial advice can do miracles for a small private enterprise. In three years since he went the Grameen way he didn't have one single default, and he got more than keeping his money in treasuries. He is doing this as a hobby and as pursuing a safe investment. According to him it beats the hell out of golf.

This year if I'll have more time I may try to get in this Grameen hobby too.... My friend seems to be having a lot of fun.

[jtabeb]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

Charliebrown, I applaud actions and starving the beast is the right thing to do. However, I believe the beast is far more perverse than most of us believe, we have been all taken hostage, and the normal starving methods do not work any more.

The core of the problem is the monopoly the beast has imposed on the money creation and circulation. The dollar is their sign (not in the biblical sense).

We are in destroyed between the hammer (the FED) and the anvil (the Treasury that gets our taxes). The FED is the key element in creating an artificial scarcity of money and attaching interest to the money supply, and the bank credit builds further interest on the original interest bearing money created by the FED. This is nothing else than an unconstitutional private tax levied on all of us.

The second part of the serfdom chain is represented by the taxes we all have to pay to the state/government . These government taxes have to be paid in dollars, and that means in that in order to pay your dues to the government you have to subject yourself to the private tax attached to using dollars.
The Founding Fathers were not against personal (income) taxes only because they wanted to keep more money in the pockets of the people, but because they realized that a direct tax on the fruits of the labour of an individual is a very dangerous tool that can be used for enslavement. That was about preserving freedom, more than about preserving wealth.

Therefore I believe that switching from treasuries to munies doesn't really starve the beast. You just feed it almonds instead of peanuts.

I think the only way to starve the beast is to avoid paying the private tax of using dollars. Unfortunately I believe there are only few methods left to starve the beast, and these methods have limited efficacy. I'm thinking of:
a) withdraw all your money from stocks, 401k, IRA, savings account etc.

b) If you are confident you understand the crooked market you can manage your own investments and cut a little bit from the profits of the beast. This akin to be an investment Robin Hood, but be careful. The market is these days so fraudulent there is a high chance they will legally steal your money through market manipulation, and your wealth will become a juicy snack for the beast.

c) keep all (or most) your dollars savings in gold or silver. I'm talking about the real gold or silver which is bar, coins, rounds etc not the paper/financialized gold such as shares in ETF's, ETN's or even gold trusts. Keep the precious metals not in a bank safe deposit box but somewhere on your property, stored safely under a lock (preferably in close proximity of your guns and ammo ;)). Use dollars only for day to day expenses, such as paying house bils, mortgage, gorceries.

d) if in your area there are alternative currencies in circulation, use them any time you can. It really helps the comunity. But be careful some of alternative currencies can be abused and end up in fraudulent collapse.

If you really have your blood boiling in anger and only if you decide to make this a personal fight, there are more extreme ways. And those extreme ways have nothing to do with violence and hanging banksters. They are far more efficient than that

I'm talking about getting involved in your community, helping others and receiving help without a ledger, in what I would like to call goodwill barter. I know nothing about you, but since you are on iTulip since 2007, my guess is that you know more about money, finance, banking and economy than 99% of your friends, neighbours and relatives.

First thing you can do is to spread the knowledge. Help people understand what they are dealing with and how can they protect themselves. Providing good quality information is not the same with giving business advice (telling others what to do and to rely on your judgement and expertise). Last year, I believe that only by providing information about managing savings and retirement funds I starved the beast of more than one million dollars (money that would have been otherwise lost in the market had those peopel kept listening to their investment experts). Not much, but decent. You should get involved into this only if you have time, patience and determination to fight back, because it can be very frustrating at times (even if IMHO the results are very rewarding in the end and people you helped will be grateful).

Another thing you can do is to get into direct barter. Last year I had to do some major plumbing replacement operation, and one of my former neighbours has a small plumbing company. Instead of paying my buddy (got a very decent quote) I made a deal to work two weekends for him. Yep ... I was a plumber apprentice for two weekends. Not only I had a lot of fun, but more important, I think, I got a good understanding of his line of business and on the small business perspective (it was like a field trip). As a result of my second job :cool:, I talked my friend into doing some things different and more efficiently. Last year he saved $25 k and this year may be the first year his business will have no debt. (and I got most of the plumbing work for free)

Also, last year one of my neighbours, a very nice old lady who is an art teacher, wanted to start selling her painting on the web. After paying about $20k to various web designers, consultant, awebber shams (including paying $5k to an internet consultant that almost convinced her to join a MLM chain and sell on her website pet food next to her paintings ) she got ... basically nothing. It took me a weekend to figure out what it is needed and how to do it , and I did her website (including the paypal shopping chart buttons, domain registration etc). Now she is selling her paintings without being fleeced by the normal art business network. As a result, I got one full year of free art lessons for my nephew. Again, it's little money, but it is still circumventing the system and it feels good. (And you can call me crazy but IMHO spending a weekend doing html, css and java beats the hell out of being among a lot of tight asses at the race track or at some pointless charity event . Disclosure: not all charity events are pointless and a snob fests and not all people going to the race track are tight asses.... only the majority )

A friend of mine went even more overboard than me. He is of german descent and his family has been in banking for at least seven generations. Yes he is a banker, but he is not a bankster. He remembers the stories told by his great great grandfather about banking business in a small town in Bavaria.

In those time the banker was not only the lender, but also financial advisor, market consultant, etc, all packaged in one. The banker was not the faceless financial mugger, but one of the pillars of the community (besides the doctor, the teacher and the mayor). So my friend, three years ago decided to use 200k of his own money to play the North American Grameen Bank. He started by going door to door to small businesses offering low interest (below prime) small loans . A small $10-20k low interest loan which comes with good business and financial advice can do miracles for a small private enterprise. In three years since he went the Grameen way he didn't have one single default, and he got more than keeping his money in treasuries. He is doing this as a hobby and as pursuing a safe investment. According to him it beats the hell out of golf.

This year if I'll have more time I may try to get in this Grameen hobby too.... My friend seems to be having a lot of fun.

A)
and
C)

are what I do/have done. That's enough if say 100 Million people do it.

[strittmatter]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

A friend of mine went even more overboard than me. He is of german descent and his family has been in banking for at least seven generations. Yes he is a banker, but he is not a bankster. He remembers the stories told by his great great grandfather about banking business in a small town in Bavaria.

In those time the banker was not only the lender, but also financial advisor, market consultant, etc, all packaged in one. The banker was not the faceless financial mugger, but one of the pillars of the community (besides the doctor, the teacher and the mayor). So my friend, three years ago decided to use 200k of his own money to play the North American Grameen Bank. He started by going door to door to small businesses offering low interest (below prime) small loans . A small $10-20k low interest loan which comes with good business and financial advice can do miracles for a small private enterprise. In three years since he went the Grameen way he didn't have one single default, and he got more than keeping his money in treasuries. He is doing this as a hobby and as pursuing a safe investment. According to him it beats the hell out of golf.

This year if I'll have more time I may try to get in this Grameen hobby too.... My friend seems to be having a lot of fun.

Refreshingly, many of these types do still exist, and you are correct they are bankers, not banksters. And many are in good shape. They do things the old fashion way - they spend less than they earn. They would not think of putting themselves, their customers, their stockholders in jeopardy, regardless of whether any regulations or lack of says they can.

[TRake]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

A)
and
C)

are what I do/have done. That's enough if say 100 Million people do it.

I am just getting started with this. I picked up 5, 1 oz silver bars @ USD15 (USD75 total, no tax, no tip) today on my way to work. As I purchased them I visualized 100-200 loaves of bread times 5 in my future.

[charliebrown]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

i don't think so.

i would think that bread and silver will go up about the same.
so if silver is around $12 oz, and bread is $2 per loaf, each bar of silver you have today buys 6 loafs. Over a long period of time I would guess that this ratio will be about the same. This assumes no hanky panky guberment intervention. Price controls etc.

What will change is the price of the bread in dollars. I wouldn't be suprised to see bread at $4 dollars a loaf in 7 years. (inflation rate of 10% yr.) If you really believe the more extreme inflationists on this web site you will see $4 dollar a loaf bread in 3 years or less. Your silver will be $24 per oz, still buying you 6 loaves.

Additionally I don't think your wages will keep up with inflation. Even if they do, do you think the tax code will keep up with inflation, or will we all be making 250K in a decade?

[TRake]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

i don't think so.

i would think that bread and silver will go up about the same.
so if silver is around $12 oz, and bread is $2 per loaf, each bar of silver you have today buys 6 loafs. Over a long period of time I would guess that this ratio will be about the same. This assumes no hanky panky guberment intervention. Price controls etc.

What will change is the price of the bread in dollars. I wouldn't be suprised to see bread at $4 dollars a loaf in 7 years. (inflation rate of 10% yr.) If you really believe the more extreme inflationists on this web site you will see $4 dollar a loaf bread in 3 years or less. Your silver will be $24 per oz, still buying you 6 loaves.

Additionally I don't think your wages will keep up with inflation. Even if they do, do you think the tax code will keep up with inflation, or will we all be making 250K in a decade?

I'm sorry I didn't specify the type of bread. Actually, at the co. I work for there exists an inflation component for pay increases. That component does not counter extremes and you are right, my pay will not keep up.

Concerning silver, it does not belong at $12.75/oz. IMO this is grossly under valued. I am also keeping an eye on UNG as the government scares people out of that commodity. I also think, and have told my friends, that gold at $600/oz is history. I don't care if we rally for 2 months, 1 year or 10 years. To accomplish that inflation will have to be enormous and the government does not have enough gold capacity to counter. Those are my thoughts.

TRake

P.S. I am suggesting exploiting a tax loophole. Something wealthy people have done for decades.

[charliebrown]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

actually i did not mean to sound condescending i applaud your actions.
there has been conspiracy on both gold and silver for years about manipulation etc. i own 100oz physical silver and 1000 oz SLV.
I hope you are right about it being undervalued.

at goldenjackass.com there is a piece about the chinese trying to establish their currency as a reserve currency. they may trying to make it backed in part by metals both base and precious. If some country were to back its currency with silver we would see a nice bump up in price as they would have to buy large amounts for there reserve. so far the problem with silver it works great for daily trade as one ounce of silver buys a nice bag of staples. but if you want to store a large amount of wealth you need a large amount of silver at current prices.

suppose I want to take my kids college fund out of t-bills and stick it into silver? I have 30k saved, so that would be roughly 2500 oz. = 150 lbs.
same 30k stored in gold weighs only 30 oz. = 2 lbls.

Anyhow keep up the good work! Thanks for the tip on UNG!
Once I see any price momentum on this i will jump in.
Even if our silly gvt. discourages use of NG, you betcha the rest of the world will be buying it up probably our gas, and when the silly solar heads finally realize that solar cost 3x, fossil fuel costs. wind is cost effective if you have realiable wind, but is there enough wind??

So you watch the chinese swoop in to buy gas, to power their factories, while we pay 20c kWh to power ours.

I also write options to make money, the options on that thing is huge.
1.00 on a may 13.00. I usually buy low, if the price moves against me start selling options to recover my cost.

[TRake]

Re: Here's a plan: starve the beast

actually i did not mean to sound condescending i applaud your actions.
there has been conspiracy on both gold and silver for years about manipulation etc. i own 100oz physical silver and 1000 oz SLV.
I hope you are right about it being undervalued.

at goldenjackass.com there is a piece about the chinese trying to establish their currency as a reserve currency. they may trying to make it backed in part by metals both base and precious. If some country were to back its currency with silver we would see a nice bump up in price as they would have to buy large amounts for there reserve. so far the problem with silver it works great for daily trade as one ounce of silver buys a nice bag of staples. but if you want to store a large amount of wealth you need a large amount of silver at current prices.

suppose I want to take my kids college fund out of t-bills and stick it into silver? I have 30k saved, so that would be roughly 2500 oz. = 150 lbs.
same 30k stored in gold weighs only 30 oz. = 2 lbls.

Anyhow keep up the good work! Thanks for the tip on UNG!
Once I see any price momentum on this i will jump in.
Even if our silly gvt. discourages use of NG, you betcha the rest of the world will be buying it up probably our gas, and when the silly solar heads finally realize that solar cost 3x, fossil fuel costs. wind is cost effective if you have realiable wind, but is there enough wind??

So you watch the chinese swoop in to buy gas, to power their factories, while we pay 20c kWh to power ours.

I also write options to make money, the options on that thing is huge.
1.00 on a may 13.00. I usually buy low, if the price moves against me start selling options to recover my cost.

I like to buy options, have been for 10 years. What I do is buy some shares, say 100 of UNG. I then will buy some more when it goes further down, say another 100. If I can see an inflection point coming then I will buy calls to double my principle, and I will sell those calls as soon as I can make my position of 200 shares free. This has worked well for me with google, which is a strong company. Other than goog, i don't dare do that with anything other than commodities.

I work for a utility. We are considering running our coal units on natural gas because the price is almost at equilibrium and I think we are scared that we may not have enough carbon credits when that whole scam comes in to play. We would then be forced to run natural gas to save on carbon emmission. It is really fascinating. This tells me we are near a bottom in NG, because when we start to use it, we use a bunch. I am thinking other utilities are probably in the same boat.