CB wrote: > For there to be a "killing", it seems somebody has to get "killed". > For the speculator to win a lot of money , seems somebody has to lose > a lot of money , or that money reproduces like a biological organism > and is hunted down by the speculators ( animal spirits ? smile). Who > is it that gets "killed " ?
in financial markets, it's usually the "small savers" (those with less funds) who are "killed." First, they fee fees for financial services. Second, they make a lot of mistakes, partly due to the encouragement of brokers (who charge them fees for it). For example, many small savers tend to buy high and sell low, because they see high prices and assume that prices will continue to rise. The "big savers" profit from this, if they can. > The issue of speculating with other people's money is interesting. > Even the basic process of a bank. - loaning other people's money and > collecting interest on the loan, and then keeping part of the interest > rather than giving it all to the people whose money is loaned , > correct ? - seems like theft. it's not "theft" by bourgeois legal standards or the mainstream economic view (natch). The bankers pay low interest rates to depositors and earn high rates on loans, but this "spread" is seen as a reward for "financial intermediation," for facilitating the flow of funds from those with excess funds (funds they don't need to use right now) to those in need of them. Looked at from a Marxian perspective, banks are sharing in the society-wide theft of surplus-value from labor by the capitalist class. Marx said that bankers are able to get a piece of the action (my phrase, not his) because their financial intermediation role was seen as valuable by capitalists. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
