5. ARE YOU DECAPITALIZING AMERICA?

Are you funding decapitalism? Are your savings and checking in a financial institution that lends your dollars to cause you inflationary suffering through higher prices and job loss? If you haven't taken time to investigate your bank, savings and loan or credit union, you may be indirectly putting yourself out of home and job. Or, do you complain about the immense federal deficit while your bank or money fund uses your money to buy the Treasury Notes that fund the political incompetence that you rile about? You may be providing the funds that are decapitalizing the

American Economic System Of Production.

You should not expect the benefits of capitalism, that is, more capita at work with increased productivity, if you naively catalyze "decapitalism."

Do you search the financial pages for tips on up-and-coming stocks so as to make a quick financial killing in old stale stocks without putting a cent into new production? If so, you are decapitalizing America. Stocks, bonds, and real estate are the foremost symbols of capitalism.

Would a country be capitalistic--and have the benefits of capitalism--if the inhabitants sought income solely from multiplying the symbols of capitalism instead of capitalizing actual production? No, the country would have the plague of decapitalism which America has.

Is a country capitalistic when the proportion of stock transactions involving old stale stocks rises while the proportion of new issues for capitalizing new production declines? No. Stale stocks are symbols of production issued in the past to capitalize plants that are now growing older and less efficient. The trade of stale stocks does not put a cent into production. This can be seen in the example of two people trading a share of IBM stock back and forth a thousand times in one day--not a single cent goes into production. The paucity of production stimulation occurs if a thousand brokers trade old stale stocks. Perhaps it is time to levy a tax on all stock transactions with the tax being split between the government and the corporation whose old stale stocks are traded? More important than the money that would fill production and government coffers would be the eradication of speculative activity that wastes time and money.

Does capitalism thrive when the bankers finance businessmen who have a history of acquiring, streamlining, and vivisecting existing production? In 1980, American banks contributed to the largest acquisition loan ever made, Seagrams' $3.2 billion.

When foreigners or domestics acquire and streamline some American production plants does the national productivity per capita increase? Are we blissful fools to confuse, prefer, or permit increased productivity per Seagram's worker in exchange for a decline in the national productivity per capita? Will an anti-inflationary increase of production occur as a result of some foreigner vivisecting some viable U.S. production plant to fit his cash-flow picture? Will the Canadian brothers who control Seagram pay the unemployment checks of the discharged American workers who were previously and profitably producing needed goods?

Are American industries inefficient at production? Or, are they merely inefficient at organizing a financial structure that will lend the savings of Americans to save American jobs? Wouldn't more Americans be willing to buy cars if the interest rates were not so high? Wouldn't $3.2 billion dollars in the hands of Americans provide a stimulus for autos, steel and homes?

Inflation is not only an increase in the money supply but a decrease in product availability. Will the new foreign owners lower the price of their products to compensate for the relative shortages that will occur as they consolidate, streamline and vivisect American production? Or will a price-gouging oligopoly be fueled? Is this capitalism? Or decapitalism?

The benefits of capitalism--a better standard of living--cannot be expected when the banks mislend money. One example of decapitalistic banking practice is lending money at lower rates to those who speculate for inflationary returns, e.g., the broker-loan rate. Brokers pay a rate below the prime rate charge to those engaged in the actual production of goods and services.

Stimulation of paper inventories apart from production inventories can only occur at the expense of "real" inventories. After all, only so much money circulates at one time. If money is lent to build the inventories of symbols, the inventories of substance must suffer.

Few savers know of the "brokers' rate" which is below the prime interest rate. The prime interest rate is quoted as the best rate for a nation's businesses that produce goods. Can a nation expect an expanding production base when the symbol-manipulators are subsidized with lower loan rates than those who produce the real substance?

Who pooled and mislent American dollars to generate unemployment and shortage inflation? Said another way, who has reduced capitalism in America and reduced both production and consumption per capita? Who most directly allowed decapitation of American production for the benefit of a fewer few? Who most directly has mislent the savings of the American citizen so that we have less production per capita and less capitalism per capita? The banking and financial community are the mislenders.

Can a nation expect the benefits of capitalism when the people themselves directly or indirectly (via Mutual Funds) speculate on the rise and fall of stale stock prices, stocks issued years ago? Do rising stock prices, due to people bidding in competition for owning old stocks, increase or decrease the actual production base of a country?

Each dollar shifted into stock or commodity speculation is a dollar missing from actual production investment. Does America need record breaking stock transactions or unprecedented levels of product transactions? Our choice is between booming symbols or a cornucopia of real products. Where America puts its money today determines what goods and services multiply tomorrow: As we sow, so shall we reap. The present trend in blind savings indicates that Americans would rather eat booming bankers and brokers than eat normal commodities.

The last sentence indicates the origin of the money mislent by financiers. Where does the money originate that is used to subsidize the multiplication of capital symbols which is a decapitalistic division of American production? Who originally lent their disposable income to bankers in the form of savings and checking? Who? The naive, blissful U.S. resident.

The average U.S. citizen does not realize that how he lends his money (to bankers in the form of savings) can cause higher prices, unemployment, taxation, and crime. People are blissfully allowing others to use their own money to put them out of food, jobs, and well-being.

Sadly, the United States is less and less capitalistic. The monetary and human resources are not being directed into capitalizing new levels of production or productivity. Is America stronger merely with more symbols of production: stocks, bonds, and currency? When the business of transacting symbols of capitalism crowds out the creation of the actual capital, decapitalism plagues a system of production.

Who has been entrusted with formulating legal policies that reflect the logical laws of production? Who has been elected to integrate and maintain a balanced system of production so that production increases per capita? Who has passed illogical legal laws that nurture the pursuit of wealth from the symbols of capitalism rather than from capitalizing production, e.g., tax shelters? Who has allowed American banks to mislend American savings to foreign, acquisitive decapitators that vivisect American industries and individuals? Our legisflators win this round of questions.

In summary, the productive backbone of America is actually funding its own decapitalism through saving and checking with counterproductive bankers. For a few pennies in usury interest, Americans give up dollars of income. Are you one of these small-time decapitalists undermining America?

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.
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