Monday 18 August 2008

Banking, Guilt and Reciprocity

A question that has fascinated me since I first learned about the bankers various frauds is this -

Why do people fall for it?

And then, after debating with people who knew about it and defended it -

Why do people want to fall for it?

When I found out I had been conned, I was straight into writing letters, making phone calls, visiting branches to make sure that what I had found out was true and then to tell the bank to stick it's "debts" up their collective bumholes. (I did get them all cancelled too, a story I shall tell sometime.)

I finally realised the reason that the scam and scheme work - Guilt and Reciprocity.

This is the reason that the bankers fraudulent scheme works, ultimately. Most humans have an inbuilt desire to reciprocate equally when they receive some benefit from someone or just from good fortune.

Salesmen make use of this fact with the "free offer," which is really a hook into peoples sense of reciprocity. When people have to acquire banknotes or the bankers permission to get something that they like - a house, a car, or whatnot then they automatically assume that they should give something of equal value in return.

Not doing so creates a sense of guilt for the vast majority of humans. If we do a favour for someone, we can be annoyed or upset when nothing is returned, "not even a thank you" is a grumpy refrain we have all heard from time to time. If we lend one of our cherished possessions to another, we expect to have them looked after and are annoyed when they are not. There are few things worse than breaking or losing something vauable entrusted to us by a friend or family member.

Luckily for the bankers, the bulk of people equate this interpersonal lending with what the bankers do. Because of the massive cost disparity between the bankers issuance and the general populations effort to acquire that issuance and the fact that the bankers usually have whatever they give out back within a very short time frame indeed, these feelings of reciprocity and guilt are entirely misplaced.

We as general citizens have to work quite hard, take risks and put up collateral to acquire the bits of paper with dead gangleaders on them. The taxman is exceptionally keen to take them from us at every turn, traffic wardens want them, if you want a licence you need them. Families argue about who should have what amount of them, businesses compete for them.....life can be hard without them.

The banker just prints them.

To him they are more or less free. They require little effort and they always come home to him when he does give them out in a very short amount of time indeed. He doesn't sweat for the paper, he doesn't have the taxman bothering him (they are best friends) he doesn't have to go to work all day to acquire the paper. He just writes it down and he's got it.

Take out a loan with a bank and spend it in the morning and by teatime the banker will have his cash back, safe and sound. No need for reciprocity, no need to feel guilty, no need to do anything further.

And that's if it ever even leaves the bankers grasp or is printed at all......which doesn't happen all that often in this modern electronic world.

Do you owe workmen who just tell you they have built a wall for you?

Do you owe a mechanic who just tells you he has fixed your car?

Do you owe a banker who just tells you money has been moved around on your behalf?

Nope. No need for reciprocity, no need to feel guilty, no need to do anything further.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Take out a loan with a bank and spend it in the morning and by teatime the banker will have his cash back, safe and sound."

Incorrect.

The bank loan to you is an assett of the bank backed by a claim to your labour. That assett can be sold to another party who wants the interest that comes from having a claim to your labour over a long period of time.

The money that you waste that comes back to the bank the next day can only mainly come back via the deposits of those on whom you wasted the banks money.

The fact is the deposits that return to the bank via the people who profitted from your stupid spending is a liability to the bank and is owed to these people. It is not the banks money (mainly). only the smaller amount of their money that is being paid to the bank the next day becomes the banks money.

The bank still has a valid claim to your labour.

Or perhaps you can explain how it works in the alternative universe?

Injin said...

In the real world there are just items and their location in time and space.

The bank has no claim to anything because it has no supporting facts to it's claims.

The reason you (and pretty much everyone who looks at this issue) get confused is because you assume that all the paperwork that is attached to banking means anything.

It doesn't.

It's a huge distraction from what is actually an amazingly simple confidence trick.

Anonymous said...

If you hire a digger and dont return it as agreed then you will find that there are ways of ensuring that you and others do not do this again.

If you borrow the banks power then its the same thing and they have the courts and armies to do it instead.

A bank with no power is a useless bank.

If you think that banks have no claims and no power to enforce their claims then the alternate universe is different to where i come from. In my world it is not a confidance trick that they have power. Their power is plainly visible.

A bank *allows* you to use its power and expects to get it back with interest.

Injin said...

"If you hire a digger and dont return it as agreed then you will find that there are ways of ensuring that you and others do not do this again."

Not if you already have the digger back, there isn't. A courtroom session would go like this -

You - "I want my digger back."
Judge - "Where is it now?"
You - "In my garage."
Judeg "Escort this man out please Bailiff."

The bansk ghave no power to enforce their claims if you ask the right questions.

Anonymous said...

you keep using this argument that the money comes back to the banks when it is spent and you imply that the banks dont do anything other than take money for doing nothing.

The money returning to banks is deposits mainly and to a lessor extent interest.

The bank lends money out (the digger) and does not get the money back (the digger) until you return it

For a reason i cant understand you are believing the bank already has the money (the digger)

You seem convinced of this but I have no idea why you believe this.

Injin said...

It's not the depositors money.

It's the banks. It's always the banks money, no matter who currently posesses it. Once they have it back, then that's all she wrote.

They don't owe their depositors and no one owes them. It's a con at both ends.

I take your digger, I swap your digger for a JCB with someone else. They return your digger to you.

DO I owe you the digger?

Of course not, the idea is quite mad.

You seem to think that I can borrow your digger and then have you drive to my house in it later that day asking for it back and expect to be taken seriously.

Insanity.

Anonymous said...

quote:
"You - "I want my digger back."
Judge - "Where is it now?"
You - "In my garage."
Judge "Escort this man out please Bailiff."
"
/endquote

Where I'm a bit confused here is: doesn't the third party who deposited ("garaged") said Money (digger) now have a claim to it (called a deposit receipt), owed then by The Bank (as enforceable by a judge etc)? So that yes, it is in the garage, but there's a 3rd party holding a valid equal claim on it ie it's value/amount, now?

Or am I still delusional via all this allusion-all?!? (highly possible if not probable!) ;)

Quite a provocative blog going!
Thanx--- :)

Anonymous said...

If you borrow my digger and then swap it for a JCB and get somebody to return my digger to me then you do have an issue with me whether you want to deny it or not.

I had an agreement with you not some cunt who then has my digger.

The idea you can fuck around with my digger and not be responsible to me is what is insane.

As in the teddy bear example you gave where you fraudulently fucked around with my teddy bear and then wanted me to believe you had no beef with me

You are not living in the real world if you think you can swap what is mine to somebody else when it is *************you************* who is responsible for my property when you borrow it.

Go out and try it. Men have died for much less.

Thats the bit you are not getting here. The real world human animal part where if you fuck with people what you think is irrelevant.

Injin said...

Eye2i2

The money remains at all times the property of the banker.

He loans it, he doesn't give it away.

If he loans it, it never ceases to be his. If he gives it away he cannot ask for it back.

If he retains ownership of it in law but tells you that you that it's yours when you loan it.......naughty!

Injin said...

If you borrow my digger and then swap it for a JCB and get somebody to return my digger to me then you do have an issue with me whether you want to deny it or not.

Sure, a completely unresovable issue. You want me to give you your digger back when you already have it.

I can't, it's impossible.

No matter how aggreived you are, it doesn't matter, you have been made whole and the matter is settled.

Emotion doesn't change any facts.

Anonymous said...

Once again you have distorted the truth to appear to win.

Whereas in reality it is me who is wrapping a torgue wrench around your head for messing around with *my* digger.

It is irrelevant if you are happy to allow a person to swap your digger and only have feelings of wellbeing for that person when you get the digger back.

Seems to me that you have created an alternate universe here with the various tricks and slights of hand you employ. Seems to me that you enable yourself to always be right and can create whatever you want here with this kind of dishonest distortion of reality.

The truth in your universe depends upon a lie by you that you refuse to see. Truelly alternate!

Injin said...

Builder -

Is it possible to give you something you already possess -

Yes or no?

If you think yes, explain how.

If no, then I am correct.

The answer, of course is no. It is impossible for me to give you something that you currently possess.

Try it with a couple of kids. Hand an item to one of them, ask them to pass it on to the other kid, then take it back.

Finally ask the first child to give you what ou currently hold in your hands.

They'll laugh their assses off at your insane behaviour and rightly so.

Anonymous said...

Otay, you cleared the fog for me regarding the depositor's claim. When you clear the smoke and mirrors, the depositor's claim loops back actually to the "loan" recipient, not the bankster. Where indeed, the bankster got back his original digger.

But on the digger analogy, another significant aspect is that just as with the principle (digger) return, the interest is required to be paid in "diggers"*-- which in the current racket, of course can only be obtained from the banksters-- interest diggers "borrowed" themselves-- at interest! *(with the one exception to the interest payment form being: the collateral-- aka REAL estate/actual property.) Grrrrrrr!
Musical chairs game, Federal Reserve style.