Monday, October 17, 2011

The European Central Bank as Symbol of Capitalism?

Today’s headlines reads “Rallies vs. Corporate Greed Sweep World” (Inquirer, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press) [emphasis added]

Other than Rome’s, the demonstrations across Europe were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

My auto impulse response: WTFAYTA??!!

To save you precious seconds from searching, the acronym is the internet slang of "What The F*** Are You Talking About?"

Don’t these media guys know that…

Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

…is the 5th of the 10 measures of Marx-Engels Communist manifesto????

So how the heck does a ‘communist’ institution metamorphose into a symbol of capitalism???

Mises Institute’s Jonathan M.F. Catalán has a nice apropos cartoon depicting a past protest against the Aldrich Plan in 1912 or the proposed formation of the US central bank

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The parody presciently portrays what has been happening today: a political economy based on Too big to Fail Banks-central banking-welfare/warfare state or a central bank-led cartel.

The ECB as a symbol of capitalism serves as telling evidence of how media has either been totally ignorant or complicit to the political propaganda aimed at shifting the culpability away from the government to everyone else.

The snowballing populist protest has rightly been directed at central banks, but media and many people and even some protestors don't get it: Corporate greed exists because of the symbiotic political relations with Political greed.

The lyrics below from Depeche Mode’s 1983 song ‘Everything Counts in Large Amounts’ seems event relevant

The graph on the wall
Tells the story of it all
Picture it now see just how
The lies and deceit gained a little more power
Confidence - taken in
By a suntan and a grin

The grabbing hands grab all they can
All for themselves - after all
The grabbing hands grab all they can
All for themselves - after all
It's a competitive world


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