Capitalism: The End is Near

[جوري]

Capitalism: Is this the Beginning of the End?

Adam Belaon

Nov 13 |00:00
Last Updated on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:54

The wall-street protests inspired similar protests throughout the world against the capitalist system. People are not asking for a tinkering around the edges or for some minor modifications but for a fundamental paradigm shift away from the status quo. One of the challenges of the protestors is to arrive at some specific demands.

Many thought the history of ideological development ended with the emergence of secular democratic capitalism. It couldn’t get better than this they all thought. Since the Crash of 2008 and with the continual economic instability impacting the lives of many ordinary people, capitalism has lost its self-evidential status and assumed legitimacy. People are not falling for the idea that this is the fault of a few greedy bankers in an otherwise good system.


The wall-street protests inspired similar protests throughout the world against the capitalist system. People are not asking for a tinkering around the edges or for some minor modifications but for a fundamental paradigm shift away from the status quo. One of the challenges of the protestors is to arrive at some specific demands. I believe one of the reasons this is particularly challenging for them is that people have been starved of any real public discourse and debate that probes into the system as it currently stands and to possible alternatives. The system has been bubble wrapped from receiving any real critique since those who benefit from the status-quo are the richest and hold most sway over the agents of change like politicians and the media. In addition to this the whole system of financial transactions are deliberately obfuscated to prevent an easy analysis. It has reached the point where not even the highly paid slaves (stock market traders) doing the dirty work on the trading floor even know the reality of what they are buying and selling, all they know are a few basic rules about how the ‘casino’ works and off they go.

They are portrayed as highly intelligent and I’m sure they feel as such, the public are assured that they are integral to our nation’s economic success and do an immensely complex job, and consequently, this justifies the grotesque bonuses and salaries they enjoy. In reality the big money on offer simply makes them play the casino harder and faster and gives them less time to consider the repercussions of what they are doing.


The instinctive gut feeling a Muslim should have is that these protests are healthy, and in fact we should be trying to help fill the void in monetary ideological thinking that the current protests lack. For instance, a very simple demand should be that people are taxed according to their retained wealth and not their income; this would mean the poorest pay no tax at all and those with more money stashed away pay more - similar to the system of zakat. Furthermore Islam has guidelines on trading that would prevent the speculation in oil and basic food stuffs that are rampant in stock market trading. The volatility this creates in pricing is literally the cause of starving people in poorer parts of the world. One thing is for sure, for these protests to actually get anywhere they need to make some clear demands before they are fobbed off with the gesture politics of minor banking reforms that do nothing but rearrange the chairs on the proverbial titanic.


The important thing to understand is that capitalism is not just a dry system of economic policies - a neutral set of edicts which we just so happen to have adopted. Rather capitalism is a system propped up, watched over and run by its rich influential guardians who manipulate economies and markets by tugging on the mechanisms the policies were created to provide them with. This makes removing capitalism much more difficult because you’re not simply removing one theory of economics for another, rather you’re trying to remove people who have power and authority from positions they like to be in.

A famous Chinese curse translated says, ‘May you live in interesting times’. The thing Muslims living in the West should fear is being turned into the scapegoats of present day economic hardship that people find themselves facing. To deflect attention from the system that has served them so well one should expect the heat to be turned up against the ever present danger of the ‘Muslims of Europe’ trying to take-over from every corner. In a recent al-Jazeera interview given by Slovenian-born philosopher Slavoj Zizek, he mentioned his fear of a new type of fascism taking root in Europe. He stated that he didn’t fear the Muslims of Europe but the false protectors of a Judaeo-Christian legacy. He said, “be aware Brevic (meaning Anders Brevic who recently went on a killing spree in Norway) is the clear case of something paradoxical emerging now – anti-semitic Zionists. He went on to say that Brevic was not a lone madman, rather he had the basic attitude of many American conservative Christian fundamentalists today. More interestingly he went on to say, “Are the representatives of the state of Israel aware of what they are doing? They sold their soul to the devil – they made a deal with those political forces in the west which are by definition anti-semitic. They told them you can play your racial games there so long as you let us do the same with the Palestinians."


As for the current protestors they should be congratulated for seeing through the smoke and mirrors and realising that it is the system itself which is at fault. What is now required is the support and engagement of Muslims, especially if we don't want to be made sacrificial lambs for the crimes of those that run the capitalist system who are at one with Zionist ambitions.

http://www.islam21c.com/politics/372...ing-of-the-end

[MustafaMc]

Very good article. For there to be a fundamental paradigm shift in world economic system from capitalism it will require an extremely bloody grass roots revolution that most people aren't ready for. This will not likely happen until the existing monetary system collapses like a humongous Ponzi-scheme. I see that the West in particular is reaching or has reached the point of no return where either their economies go bankrupt or runaway inflation devalues the monetary system where even a loaf of bread costs an astronomical pile of dollars or euros. When this happens all-Hell will break loose and only Allah (swt) knows what is on the other side of this. I believe that the reason for the anti-Islamis rhetoric (Pam Gellar, Usama Dakdok, etc) and false flag terror blamed on Muslims is to provide a scape goat to blame and turn people's attention away from the underlying problems and to demonize the last remaining ideology to challenge 'secular democratic capitalism'. Americans fear shariah, but they care diddly squat about the trillions of dollars wasted on the 9/11 wars and that has gone to the exceedingly rich minority particularly since the 2008 crisis and bailout. These corporate elite still control a powerful military and will do everything possible to maintain the status quo or to infiltrate, undermine and sidetrack any uprising against them.

[Abz2000]

it looks like they clearly knew this would happen and are just milking the people of as much as possible before the overhaul,
They plan to create a global order where they control all the resources via global electronic currency,
But while they are instigating and steering this collapse, Allah's Plan takes over and khilafah comes in.

This was written by them over a hundred years ago, I would advise anyone to read it themselves rather than come to the media pushed opinion that it is false:

Protocol 3

.......This hatred will be still further magnified by the effects of an economic crisis, which will stop dealings on the exchanges and bring industry to a standstill.
We shall create by all the secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of gold, which is all in our hands,
a universal economic crisis whereby
we shall throw upon the streets whole mobs of workers simultaneously
in all the countries of Europe.
These mobs will rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot.

"Ours" they will not touch, because the moment of attack will be known to us and we shall take measures to protect our own..........


Protocol 10
.....4. WHEN WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED OUR COUP D'ETAT WE SHALL SAY THEN TO THE VARIOUS PEOPLES: "EVERYTHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY BADLY, ALL HAVE BEEN WORN OUT WITH SUFFERING.
WE ARE DESTROYING THE CAUSES OF YOUR TORMENT
- NATIONALITIES, FRONTIERS, DIFFERENCES OF COINAGES.
YOU ARE AT LIBERTY, OF COURSE, TO PRONOUNCE SENTENCE UPON US, BUT CAN IT POSSIBLY BE A JUST ONE IF IT IS CONFIRMED BY YOU BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY TRIAL OF WHAT WE ARE OFFERING YOU." ... THEN WILL THE MOB EXALT US AND BEAR US UP IN THEIR HANDS IN A UNANIMOUS TRIUMPH OF HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS. VOTING, WHICH WE HAVE MADE THE INSTRUMENT WHICH WILL SET US ON THE THRONE OF THE WORLD BY TEACHING EVEN THE VERY SMALLEST UNITS OF MEMBERS OF THE HUMAN RACE TO VOTE BY MEANS OF MEETINGS AND AGREEMENTS BY GROUPS, WILL THEN HAVE SERVED ITS PURPOSES AND WILL PLAY ITS PART THEN FOR THE LAST TIME BY A UNANIMITY OF DESIRE TO MAKE CLOSE ACQUAINTANCE WITH US BEFORE CONDEMNING US......

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion4.htm

[جوري]

^^ I have read this a couple of days ago.. It makes me wonder why people think the protocols are a fabrication when they're a living embodiment of their plan. 'Anti-Semitic' they call everything that's apparent to the naked eye!

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[جوري]

Why the euro crisis is an American problem

By David Frum, CNN Contributor
updated 9:21 AM EST, Mon November 14, 2011

Italy's longtime prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, stepped down in the wake of the eurozone crisis.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• David Frum: Americans have a big stake in the outcome of the euro crisis
• He says crisis could lead to a serious recession in 2012
• Europe is America's largest trading partner and biggest investor in the U.S.
• Frum: America should push for resolution of the crisis and provide money if needed

Editor's note: David Frum, a CNN contributor, was a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002. He is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.
(CNN) -- The Euro crisis is not just a Greek crisis, or an Italian crisis, or now even a French crisis.
It is an American crisis, too, a crisis that may thrust the U.S. economy back into recession in 2012.
If the Euro cracks up, many European banks who hold Euro-denominated bonds will discover that their bonds have lost value. The bonds won't fall to zero (hold on a second for the reason why not), but they will lose enough value to play havoc with the bondholders' capital. The banks will then either have to seek government help or stop their lending to businesses and consumers or both.

David Frum


The bank crisis will translate into a severe Europe-wide recession, just as the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 created a severe recession in 2009.
Recessions that originate in the financial system cause more suffering and last longer than other kinds of recessions, a record painstakingly (and painfully!) documented by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart in their now-classic study, "This Time It's Different."
The European Union represents a bigger economy even than the United States. If the euro cracks, and euro-holding banks fails, the pain will cross the Atlantic, as the pain of the U.S. crash of 2008 crossed the Atlantic in the opposite direction.
European financial institutions may lose the ability to repay U.S. creditors, inflicting more losses on an already traumatized U.S. financial system.

Europe's moment of truth over eurozone

Europe's crisis, America's problem

Pimco CEO on Euro crisis
Collectively, the eurozone countries are far and away the largest foreign investor in the United States. If the eurozone economies slump, Americans will find it harder to raise capital for new projects and businesses.
As a single economy, the EU is America's largest trading partner. If it buys less, American exporters will suffer.
This catastrophe could erupt almost literally at any minute.
The United States is not helpless to avert this crisis. In fact, the United States could play an important role to avert the crisis, not only with money (although money may be needed), but also by standing with those Europeans willing to run the political risks to address the crisis.
But the indispensable first step is to understand the crisis.
Many Americans perceive the euro crisis as a crisis of government deficits and government debt. That may have been true of Greece, but it's certainly not true of France, the latest eurozone country to come under pressure in the financial markets. The German public debt is actually slightly larger than the French public debt, yet it is French bonds that the market is selling off.
Why?
If the euro cracks up, each country in Europe will be forced to (re)create a new currency of its own.
In such a world, German bonds would probably rise in value, while French bonds would probably fall quite sharply. As the markets become more anxious that the euro may fail, they exert pressures that help rip the euro apart.
Let me present some very simplified math, using made-up numbers, just to help explain the idea.
Imagine you were to buy a German bond worth 1,000 euros. That bond now pays interest of 20 euros a year, equivalent (let us say) to $30 U.S.
The crisis hits. The euro cracks up. Germany creates a new deutschemark equal to 1 euro. Your 1,000 euro bond is now a 1,000 new DM bond, paying 20 new DM a year. But because the euro implicitly undervalued German currency, it is highly likely that the new DM will rapidly appreciate against the dollar. In that case, your interest payment of 20 new DM would soon buy more dollars than your old interest payment of 20 euros.
Result: You are very happy to own German debt, despite the fact that Germany's total debt equals 83% of GDP.
Now imagine you were to buy a French bond worth 1,000 euros. That bond currently pays interest of 30 euros a year, equivalent to (say) $45.
But if the euro were to crack up, and France were to adopt a new French franc, that franc would probably decline against the dollar, because the current euro arrangement implicitly overvalues French currency. Instead of buying $45, your interest payment of 30 new francs might be worth only $30, perhaps even less.
Result: You are increasingly nervous about holding French debt, despite the fact that France's total debt equals only 82% of GDP.
People say: "The U.S. could become Europe if we keep accumulating debt."
Yet America's debt burden is already higher than France's, and markets accept U.S. debt with profound calm. The difference: it's not that markets are worried that France can't pay its debts. They are worried that France won't pay its debts with euros. By contrast, nobody doubts that the U.S. government can pay its debts with dollars.
America has in the past faced the kinds of problems that France, Italy and the others face now.
In the panic of 1893, holders of American silver certificates (the paper money of the time) suddenly panicked that gold was going to become more valuable relative to silver. They began demanding gold in return for their paper, eventually draining federal gold reserves to the legal minimum. At that point, the federal government refused to release any more gold, and the country plunged into one of the worst depressions in U.S. history, exceeded only by the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The U.S. in 1893 was a very rich country, and its debt burden was really quite light. The total resources of the country more than sufficed to pay its total debts, as the resources of France and Italy more than suffice to pay their debts.
This was not a debt crisis, such as you might have today in a genuinely poor African country. It was a crisis caused by issuing debt in a currency (gold back then, euros now) that the issuing government did not control.
Europe's options now basically reduce to two: Either smash up the euro to restore each individual government with its own individual currency (accepting a horrific recession along the way) or else build a single new pan-European government to control the new pan-European currency (with considerable inflation risk along the way).
Neither option is hugely attractive. Mistakes are easier to make than to undo. But the second choice does look seriously less ugly. Because the United States would suffer some of the pain from option one, it would be in the national interest to urge, and to contribute to support, the cost of option two.
Option two will involve transition costs. The original purpose of the International Monetary Fund, to which the United States remains the single largest contributor, was to ease monetary shocks. Here at last is the biggest of them all. The IMF needs to involve itself actively, and Americans should not begrudge the cost of averting what otherwise could be a financial and economic catastrophe of global impact.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/14/opinio...html?hpt=hp_t3

[Abz2000]

what they don't seem to mention too often is the fact that this is not a trading crisis but a banking crisis,
the banks lend on usury past total reserves and past fractional reserve, then run out of even electronic non-existent money,
then they want to create more money from thin air but know that people will go mad at the inflation,
so they make it look like a mutual economic crisis and stock market issue by causing crashes via short selling etc,
and then get the carte blanche to create more non-existent money and lend it again on usury, causing an even bigger crisis further down the line.

it's surprising how they convince people that "america" or "europe" has to put in when neither "europe" - nor "america" have the funds.
they never seem to explain that this is just a license to print more illusory money and lend it to the people on interest,

this is the equation they have somehow convinced people to accept as possible:

total capital+interest = total capital

how on earth do they have a monopoly on money printing - lend it to the people on interest - and then demand that people pay them back that total + interest?
they know the paper is of no consequence and that it is really property on default they are after.


how can people not perceive that they are not lending the banks money to make a profit on and share it with them,
but are just giving them a license to lend them non-existent money on interest?
if they just returned to people's real money - gold and silver, then the money would be in the hands of the people.

36. How clear is the undeveloped power of thought of the purely brute brains of the GOYIM,
as expressed in the fact that they have been borrowing from us with payment of interest without ever thinking that
all the same these very moneys plus an addition for payment of interest must be got by them from their own State pockets in order to settle up with us.
What could have been simpler than to take the money they wanted from their own people?
37. But it is a proof of the genius of our chosen mind that we have contrived to present the matter of loans to them in such a light that they have even seen in them an advantage for themselves.

The purely brute mind of the GOYIM is incapable of use for analysis and observation, and still more for the foreseeing whither a certain manner of setting a question may tend.

In order to distract people who may be too troublesome from discussions of questions of the political we are now putting forward what we allege to be new questions of the political, namely, questions of industry. In this sphere let them discuss themselves silly! The masses are agreed to remain inactive, to take a rest from what they suppose to be political (which we trained them to in order to use them as a means of combating the GOY governments) only on condition of being found new employments, in which we are prescribing them something that looks like the same political object. In order that the masses themselves may not guess what they are about WE FURTHER DISTRACT THEM WITH AMUSEMENTS, GAMES, PASTIMES, PASSIONS, PEOPLE'S PALACES .... SOON WE SHALL BEGIN THROUGH THE PRESS TO PROPOSE COMPETITIONS IN ART, IN SPORT IN ALL KINDS: these interests will finally distract their minds from questions in which we should find ourselves compelled to oppose them. Growing more and more unaccustomed to reflect and form any opinions of their own, people will begin to talk in the same tone as we because we alone shall be offering them new directions for thought ... of course through such persons as will not be suspected of solidarity with us.

[FS123]

What is the alternative to capitalism? Most likely it will be replaced with socialism. The economy in the prophet's (pbuh) time is much closer to capitalist, where traders were allowed free market but ethically. Imo, socialism will prove much worse. The failing is not exactly of capitalism but it is due to corruption and greed.

[islamica]

Why the euro crisis is an American problem

By David Frum, CNN Contributor
updated 9:21 AM EST, Mon November 14, 2011

Italy's longtime prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, stepped down in the wake of the eurozone crisis.

I think he may have stepped down more becuase this rather then euro crises...



Italian PM accused of underage sex and related abuse of power
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=731835

Silvio Berlusconi investigated in teenage prostitution case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...stitution-case

[transition?]

^ there's the system of The Khilafah. Capitalism is based on non existent money, lol. In Islam, we would have the gold standard, which would curb inflation/deflation by tying printed money to actual gold. Then it would e easier to pay back debts

[جوري]

What is the alternative to capitalism? Most likely it will be replaced with socialism. The economy in the prophet's (pbuh) time is much closer to capitalist, where traders were allowed free market but ethically. Imo, socialism will prove much worse. The failing is not exactly of capitalism but it is due to corruption and greed.

Filter down economics doesn't work. The problem here like Bill Maher put it. a bunch of us buying pizza and the first guy getting 79 slices and the rest left with one slice.. I don't know much about economics let alone Islamic economics but I think an amalgamation of the two systems would work.

You can't for instance create a company and hand the work to sweatshop workers overseas make zillions and then charge overly inflated prices at home, or allege to fix the problem by creating jobs but create only 169 jobs for 600 people and then offer no social well-fare to the rest branding them lazy.. The person responsible for their laziness is the one who created the problem to begin with.. Yes there are people who will fall off the curve and are natural free loaders but most people work hard and don't receive what they've worked hard for, while an elite 1% seems to have exorbitant rewards for no work at all and no talent either that's outside of thievery that is..

:w:

[Ramadhan]

what they don't seem to mention too often is the fact that this is not a trading crisis but a banking crisis,
the banks lend on usury past total reserves and past fractional reserve, then run out of even electronic non-existent money,
then they want to create more money from thin air but know that people will go mad at the inflation,
so they make it look like a mutual economic crisis and stock market issue by causing crashes via short selling etc,
and then get the carte blanche to create more non-existent money and lend it again on usury, causing an even bigger crisis further down the line.

The west financial system is built like a pyramid scheme, where derivatives are being traded, and the derivatives of those derivatives are further created and traded. The values of those downstream derivatives far far exceed the total value of the original equities held as collateral.
So collapses are inevitable.
Although I suspect that some collapses are actually "managed' and "arranged".

The failing is not exactly of capitalism but it is due to corruption and greed.

I believe that the institutional usury system is as much to blame.

[جوري]

Although I suspect that some collapses are actually "managed' and "arranged".

Yes.. Like I said I don't know much about economics but people are being puppeteerd by the folks who run the global banking system & it frankly doesn't matter where you're in the world, Saudi or Belgium or the U.S they're all tied in together..
The wall street protesters have the right guy for a change but we're just now waiting for the Zionists to come in like a Deus ex machina and save the day..

[Abz2000]

he just whacked him at the end :)

[FS123]

Filter down economics doesn't work. The problem here like Bill Maher put it. a bunch of us buying pizza and the first guy getting 79 slices and the rest left with one slice.. I don't know much about economics let alone Islamic economics but I think an amalgamation of the two systems would work.

You can't for instance create a company and hand the work to sweatshop workers overseas make zillions and then charge overly inflated prices at home, or allege to fix the problem by creating jobs but create only 169 jobs for 600 people and then offer no social well-fare to the rest branding them lazy.. The person responsible for their laziness is the one who created the problem to begin with.. Yes there are people who will fall off the curve and are natural free loaders but most people work hard and don't receive what they've worked hard for, while an elite 1% seems to have exorbitant rewards for no work at all and no talent either that's outside of thievery that is..

:w:

That is an example of Riba. The problem I see is most people don't know about Islamic economics, including muslims. So I'm not sure if that would be implemented. But Islamic banks did very well during the financial crises, because the requirement to keep the financial leverage lower. I hope that gets more people interested in Islamic economics.

[MustafaMc]

That is an example of Riba.

You hit the nail on the head. The fundamental error of capitalism is riba which is putting up money with the intention of getting more in return. Riba is different from buying goods and turning around and trying to sell them to someone else for more. This issue becomes exponentially magnified when regulations to control it are removed. After the 1929 crash, there were controls implemented, but they have systematically been removed. It seems we may be headed full-steam towards another global depression of epic proportions due to the current runaway capitalistic system.

[Ramadhan]

in Islam, prohibition of riba is so strict that it is of greater sin than eating pork, drinking alcohol and a son who has sex with his own mother. Allah SWT wage war against those who implement riba and prophet Muhammad (saw) cursed those who dealt in riba.

There are wisdoms behind the explicit, strict prohibitions, and we can only guess that its impacts is so destructive on social level as well as individual level.
The jews (and christians) were also prohibited by their prophets (pbut), but surely enough, the jews found a way to "tweak" their own scriptures so they delude themselves into thinking they can get away with instituting riba.