Banks and scandals

Our nation looks out at the various banks, with their collapses, and numerous economic scandals, and we find that, too often, there is no explanation, no reasoning, and the pundits in the media are so bold as to call some scandals 'penny ante' in comparison with others.

It is not any different, whatsoever, for a person to end a life via banking, or to end their lives via highway robbery. It is no different if the theft is legally condoned or if the theft is by taxes. Taking from people, without recompense, without process, without justice, is wrong. Taking from a man's work to fund another man's idleness is wrong. While I concur that the disabled need support, that support should come from the towns and states, not from the Federal government. While I concur that the people need help sometimes, that help must come from their own people, not from a government with its own agendas.

Bailing out banks is stealing from those very people whose money was mismanaged. Those that claim any diversion is 'penny ante', or less severe, are farcical in their argument. That money, stolen by gunpoint or stolen by taxes or stolen by financial instruments, is equally stolen. Those that would have used it for their own security can no longer do so, and those that would have used it to invest in the security of others no longer can.

These people invested, and chose to invest in a work of trust. Those banks betrayed that trust. These people are taking a loss, even if the assets are *still there* in an environment of inflation. If they cannot access the assets, the assets are not there for them. If the assets are lost (as is the indication by the SEC in the Stanford case) then there has been a theft which may well risk the lives of those who invested, and chose to depend upon that trust.

To call it penny ante? Well, I have one quote for you.

But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then you are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.

– Thomas Paine

It is no different burning a house, than losing it to another, via taxes or any other means, by inflation, by redistribution, by deed theft, by government seizure, than to lose it by theft or murder.