Wednesday, May 22, 2013

How to Exact Your Toll of Revenge on Bankers

Listening to the Bill Burr podcast, one of his common refrains is to rip on the bankers. He recently bought a house and realized that he more or less signed away his life for 30 years.  However, like most teens-50 somethings, he has a very simple understanding of economics and because of this defaults to blaming a handful of bogie men for the condition of the US economy, bankers being the most prominent.

Like blaming "big oil" or "evil corporations," he doesn't really know what he's talking about.  To figure it out would take too much time and effort, and since it makes simple logical sense in his world view of economics, his ire and hatred is directed towards bankers.  However, unlike "evil corporations," "corporate executives," and "big oil," Bill Burr, and every one who disproportionately blame bankers for the ills of our country...

are right.

Though accidentally right, I am here to tell you now, after working in banking for nearly 20 years,  Bill Burr and everybody else who blames bankers and the banking industry for our economic problems today are right.  Bankers are the verminous scum you suspected them to be and you should have every ounce of contempt, despisement and hatred for them.

Are there some good bankers?

Of course.

Are there some banking executives that truly are there to make good loans and grow the economy?

Absolutely.

But in my experiences such quality people account for less than 15% of those employed in the banking industry.

For the most part, bankers and banker-eqsue types fall into two categories.

Dumb and evil (and sometimes both in a Venn Diagram sort of way).

Dumb bankers lack the intellect and mathematical skill to fully analyze and assess the quality and risk of loans they are making.  They have practically no knowledge of accounting or financial analysis and out themselves rather quickly by being the "rain maker" or "salesman" (or most commonly admitting to playing high school football).  They're always "in it for the deal" or "trying to find a way to get it done."  In reality they are simply that.  A knowledgeless salesman trying to get a commission on a product that is flawed to a person who is unlikely to pay them back.  They don't care about loan quality, they don't care about their clients, they don't care about them employer, and (since the banking industry is backed up by the FDIC and Fed) they don't care about the taxpayer.  They have no other skill and very much like other pure-sales jobs, quantity is quality because they get their commission.  Again, not because they're evil, but they're too stupid to connect the dots between a taxpayer bailing them out and the crappy loans they constantly bring to committee.

Evil bankers can be stupid as well, but typically know, or at least don't care, what they're doing.  They KNOW the client isn't going to pay them back.  They KNOW they're condemning the client to file for bankruptcy in the future.  They KNOW they're financially crippling their clients, their employer and the nation, but they just plain don't care.  They're going to get their commission regardless of morality and will sell anybody under the bus if it financially benefits them.  They view themselves better and more valuable than most people and is again why (I explain in "Worthless") most finance majors are finance majors because they are too lazy to  study calculus, but still want to make the salary of an engineer.    Worse still, in booming times when it's nearly impossible to NOT make money, they charter their success to their "intelligence" and not the massive macro-economic forces behind that success.  They buy luxury cars they can't afford, houses they can barely pay for, and trophy wives sure to learn the difference between debt and equity spending when they invariably divorce.

In short, it is not only perfectly normal, but it is your right to hate, loathe and wish the utmost of atrocities upon most bankers.

Of course "the utmost of atrocities" would largely fall under "illegal."  Much as I would like to hunt down bankers I personally know and release an unimaginable hell upon them, I can't for it is illegal.  However, that doesn't mean you, I or anybody else can't exact our toll of revenge from the banker scum, especially in a legal matter.  And that is what I intend to show you how to do today.

Understand that while you may think bankers are sitting up top some sky scraper, smoking cigars on a mahogany desk, that is the furthest thing from the truth.  The majority of bankers are not your "Goldman Sachs" types living it up and whooping it up with other people's money.  The vast majority of bankers are miserable people, who just like everybody else, has every day problems.  But worse for them (and this where your revenge comes in) is the fact they work in banking, and this makes their lives miserable.

First, the banking industry is different and unique from most other industries in that it constantly gets bailed out.  However, there is a negative consequence to that.  Recessions, much like your liver, filter out deadweight and underperforming companies and people.  If you can't provide a good product at a good price, booming or busting economy, you simply go away.  This "survival of the fittest" aspect of economics is not only a law, but ensures that only the most competent, efficient and productive people remain, getting rid of the losers.

However, in bailing out the banking industry this "purging" or "purification" process never takes place and crappy bankers, from crappy banks get bailed out and/or simply go down to the next crappy bank to start a new job.  In other words it would be like you eating some salmonella-infected food, which your body promptly vomits up, only for you to re-eat it, re-sickening yourself again, re-puking yourself again and so on and so forth.  Bankers, for the most part, are this regurgitated vomit constantly re-introduced and never-leaving the banking industry.

But ask yourself the question, how fun or productive is it constantly having to work with regurgitated vomit?  In other words, with such a low-quality and low-caliber class of people employed in the industry, can you imagine how painful it must be to work with such losers?  8 hours a day of dealing with inept co-workers, none of which are competent at the 8th grade math banking requires?  Egomaniacs who all think they're better than one another, and the politics, back-stabbing and corporate BS drama that ensues?  I've witnessed it and experienced it and it is PAINFUL.  It is veritable torture to go into work, day in and day out and deal with such ineptitude, egomaniasm and deceit.  It is this fact, that most bankers must suffer their own ilk, that should give you at least a couple of ounces of flesh.

Second, the bankers are one thing, but the clients are another.  Matter of fact, they're equally low-class and low-quality as the bankers.  And not only do the bankers get to tolerate each other, they get to tolerate their miserable clientele as well.

At one bank I worked at the fattest, most disgusting woman (she looked like the gal in Raiders of the Lost Ark who was having the drinking contest with Mariam) traipsed her obese ass into the bank to cash a check.  The check was for $6,000, an amount this sow never saw in her life.  She was always overdrawn on her accounts, had well over $1,000 in fees, and was just a miserable, pathetic, excuse for a human being.  But what made this great was just how obvious it was she had printed this check off of a cheap ink-jet printer.

My solution was simple - call the cops and get this vermin arrested for passing fake checks.

But oh, no.  Not for the staff nor my boss.  How did we know it was fake?  How did we know she purposely printed this off?  Besides (and pay attention to this) we needed her late and overdraft fees because those (despite never being paid) made this a profitable account.

Another client came into my office wanting a loan.

A loan for what?

A loan for GAS MONEY.

Gas money for what?

Gas money for (and pay attention to this) visiting his new-born grandson in Denver that had to get heart surgery due to complications of the birth.

I didn't know what angered me more.  Him lying to my face with some BS story or the fact he was a 60 year old man resorting to make ends meet by requesting a BANK LOAN FOR GAS!!!

Regardless, I could go on with stories, but you get the point.  Most bankers are not dealing with quality clients, quality borrowers who intend on paying them back.  Most clients are cut from the exact same regurgitated vomit cloth as the bankers.  And this makes the bankers' lives miserable.

Third, along the line of crappy clients is the fact that the majority of work bankers do today is not developing new business or lending money to help expand some successful operation today.  It's dealing with problems from the past.  Specifically, "problem loans."

Problem loans are loans that are simply that.  Problems.  They're not getting paid back, the client is late, the client has split town, you name it, the bank isn't getting paid.  This then requires the banks to "resolve" these problem loans. However, here is where the banks and bankers shoot themselves in the foot.

Since the economy still sucks, there are no new or potentially profitable loans to make.  This puts the focus and onus of most banks today on saving EVERY SINGLE PENNY FROM THEIR PROBLEM LOANS.  In other words, since there is nobody banging down their door to borrow money, they instead focus on trying to save as much money as they can from bad loans.  This means around 90% of a banker's time is spent dealing with:

1.  Collateral that has deteriorated WAY below what is owed on the loan.
2.  Tracking down problem clients to hopefully, maybe, potentially getting them to make a payment.
3.  CONSTANTLY negotiating with their vomitesque clientele to refi, extend-and-pretend, short sell, restructure their loans
4.  CONSTANTLY hounding the clients to get 2009-2012's tax returns, balance sheets and financial statements
5.  Tracking down assets that had been stripped of the property and pledged as collateral

Ironically, however, a vicious spiral develops.  Since the only business most banks have are these problem loans, they are practically forced to constantly keep these losers afloat.  This chains most bankers to their loser clientele, making their jobs even more miserable and providing you an added ounce of flesh.

Fourth, Frank-Dodd.  Frank-Dodd is legislation that resulted from the financial crisis and housing bubble.  In short it is a MONSTER of a piece of regulation and I cannot emphasize just how detailed, invasive, and petty it is.  I was paid for two days to (and pay attention to this) change a cell in an Excel spreadsheet from reading "Sources of Repayment" to "Financial Capacity of Repayment" for all of our loans.  There rarely wasn't a day where our contacts at the OCC and FDIC weren't handing down some new and minor change our bank had to make.  And so petty and pointless were they, I was and still am to this day, convinced Frank-Dodd was nothing more than a means to punitively punish the banking industry.

Does such regulation hurt the economy?

Absolutely.

Does such regulation prevent loanable dollars from getting out into the economy, harming economic growth.

You bet.

Does Frank-Dodd drive up the cost of banking for consumers and customer?

Darn tootin'.

But it is a NIGHTMARE for the bankers and banks to deal with and they deserve every second of it.

In the end, what you need to do is step back and look at what has become of the banking industry.  It is not this high-flying, romantic, booming and advancing field that it may have been.  It is not the "Mad Men" sort of martini's and golf Hollywood has painted it as.  And it certainly isn't a functional or sane segment of our economy exploiting you or other innocents.

It is hell.

It is
  • Arguably now the most regulated industry in the country (bar medicine)
  • Populated by the country's most incompetent and corrupt people
  • Serving, pampering and baby sitting the country's worst financial basket-cases
  • Whose only future prospects are cleaning up messes of the past with no economic growth to exploit in the future
And that same banker scum, that disproportionately caused the economic and financial problems we have today, are forever condemned to work in that industry because...

well...frankly...

they have no other talents and no other industry would ever hire them.  They are stuck there with the regurgitated vomit both as coworkers and clients for the rest of their "professional" lives.

And knowing that is where you should get your full pound of flesh.

If you liked this post, consider buying Aaron's book "Behind the Housing Crash" where he chronicles his adventures and exploits in banking during the build up to the housing crash.

And if you REALLY want to piss off bankers, start buying your stuff via Captain Capitalism's Amazon affiliate program.  Nothing would irk his previous bank-employer scum than seeing him make millions on a business model purely based on ripping the banking industry a new one.

28 comments:

Glen Filthie said...

I dunno about this one Cap.

I will take your word on the industry - hell, I have several friends that bailed out as you did because they just couldn't handle the BS.

But at the end of the day nobody is a victim of the bank. They spell out the terms of everything they do; it is up to you to sign on the dotted line of the contract.

To me, what it boils down to is that there are two types of stupid in this world: those that are honestly misinformed or otherwise unable to think critically - and those that are deliberately ignorant and obtuse. Most of those people in the second group find themselves able to profit from it or get special consideration they wouldn't get otherwise.

Your grandparents (or great grandparents) of the Dirty 30's will show us all the way forward in the days ahead. Save your money. Keep it in a tin and not in the bank. Stay out of debt. Avoid useless extravagances. Value and develop independence.

There is no need to exact vengeance on bankers IMHO; they will cut their own throats in the days ahead - and those of their client scum as well. It is a universal law that stupid people always get what is coming to them.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me that you are getting a fantastic deal if you can take out a 30 year mortgage at today's ridiculously low interest rates. BUT you can't borrow more than 1/3 of the value of your house, you must be able to easily handle the monthly payments, and you can only use the loan money to invest in yourself, not waste it on useless consumption.

Hamilton said...

Glen, many people were victims of evil bankers. You must have missed the people who were getting foreclosed on when MAKING PAYMENTS. Or the folks who were foreclosed on illegally via robo signing. Or the bankers who have murdered to cover their trails of fraud. Or the general population who have lost trillions because the market bubble.

Unknown said...

Great analysis, Captain and I found myself agreeing with the majority of it! The best medicine against the worst of the bankers would be not to do business with them in the first place and read the terms of the contract really carefully before signing to anything, like a loan! How many people have gotten screwed over by credit card debt but didn't even bother to read the damn promissory note and figure out how high the APR was going to be?

By the way, Bank of America is probably the worst all these big TARP affiliated banks. I tried opening a checking account with them (I now only use BB&T and Citibank for that stuff) and those idiots gave me a lot of crap over how I needed to go their branch and get my information verified when they had already sent me a card and everything because I had created the account online. I had no problem creating my BB&T and Citibank accounts online but Bank of America had to be the exception. I heard a lot of horror stories of people having their houses foreclosed on by Bank of America even when the person wasn't even at fault at all and had been making due on their payments!

There's plenty of incompetence from both sides of the equation.

Robert the Biker said...

Not to stand up for these knobs, but wasn't there also an issue of them being compelled to make some of these toxic loans by the Clinton government, because 'axin if you can pay be rayciss'

Anonymous said...

That was a woman in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

I always thought that was a man.

sth_txs said...

The banks are creations of the government and don't have much real incentive to serve the people.

It annoys me to no end that I can't simply refinance a mortgage to a lower interest rate with same credit union for a few hundred bucks and be done.

They would still make money off my butt, but nooooo. We must have silly rules saying the house had to risen in value and Dodd Frank now says I must pay for an 'official' market evaluation when before whomever the bank hired or did their own was perfectly ok.

No do admit they were better deal at the time than any body else in terms of paperwork fees (total BS!) than the others. And I pay my own taxes and insurance without the mortgage company banking the additional money for their benefit.

Ping Jockey said...

I always DID like credit unions better than banks.
Now I can understand why bankers/banks HATE credit unions so much.

aw3some0 said...

Excellent analysis and commentary once again.

sth_txs said...

"I always DID like credit unions better than banks.
Now I can understand why bankers/banks HATE credit unions so much."

Actually, even credit union are just another business so choose carefully. When buying my first house, I did apply to a credit union handling my car loan. There offer was just as bad as any bank.

As pointed out here, always choose carefully who you will do business with especially when thousands of dollars and years of commitment are involved.

Captain Capitalism said...

Credit unions are even worse than the the banks. They are the retarded, red-headed, step children of the banking world. I worked at one and they were just a charity basket case of incompetent losers.

FSK said...

> And if you REALLY want to piss off bankers, start buying your stuff via Captain Capitalism's Amazon affiliate program. Nothing would irk his previous bank-employer scum than seeing him make millions on a business model purely based on ripping the banking industry a new one.

Actually banksters don't care if you make a profit in your other ventures. They still get their cut of your wealth via taxes and inflation.

Morgan said...

blah evil...

they make loans that don't get paid back, but somehow those are profitable. because they are bailed out. the problem it government.

as hamilton says, they're evil because they foreclose on properties that are being paid for. does the bank have a law enforcement wing? no, the state enforces the laws they follow to foreclose. the problem is government.

they make confusing indecipherable contracts, that, again, are enforced by the state. if they're not understood the problem is the consumer, and if they're illegally enforced, once again, the problem is the government.

the incentives that are in place do not require evil people to make all of this stuff a foregone conclusion. and i don't want a banking industry that requires pure honest men in order to trust it.

i want banks to go out of business when they suck. i want people to be responsible for contracts they sign. as an uninterested party i don't want to be brought in to rescue two stupid parties (banks and consumers). the only entity that can force my participation is the state, and that is squarely where the problem lies.

Anonymous said...

I happen to be satisfied with the money transfer services that my Banker offers me. I like to be able to pay for my online purchases with my credit card. I like to be able to have my pay deposited directly in my bank account. I like to be able to borrow money on my credit card.

My banker makes it easy for me to manipulate money and make payments and he is well deserving of his fees.

What I don't like, however, is UPS's outrageous brokerage fees. From now on, I will do business with the USPS instead. Yes, this government owned company is more efficient for me than UPS. At least the USPS doesn't overcharge me with outrageous brokerage fees.

Anonymous said...

"If you can't provide a good product at a good price, booming or busting economy, you simply go away.

I resent that, why must I provide YOU ? Why should YOU get to decide if I should go away or not ? Why must everything be decided by market forces ? Why am I not allowed to simply provide for MYSELF without having to involve you ?

There is no dignity and no freedom in letting market forces dictate everything we do. Slavery to the market is SLAVERY.

This "survival of the fittest" aspect of economics is not only a law, but ensures that only the most competent, efficient and productive people remain, getting rid of the losers."

Survival of the fittest can go all the way to the battlefield and it can get dirty as in nuclear weapons, your wimpy AR-15 would be of no use then.

I refuse to be a slave to the market. The market is FORCE and it needs to be counter balanced with real FORCE.

The market needs checks and balance.

Anonymous said...

If you want to revenge against bankers, it's simple. Live well below your means all the time and put your money under your mattress. Pay cash and demand cash as often as possible.

Don't use the bankers. There is freedom in refusal to consume. There is freedom in simplicity.

I am wondering what really is wealth. Is it to obtain something you want ? Or is it to find out how to not need that something after all ?

I find that option number 2 is very liberating. I don't need to pay for that something, I don't need to pay to maintain that something and I don't need to be employed to earn the money to pay and maintain that something.

There is wealth in demanding less. The rich would have a hard time remaining rich, let alone getting rich if people would content themselves with the minimum.

For me, the biggest freedom and the richest thing in life is to go outside and walk all day, exploring the woods, the roads and the city, worrying about nothing.

Captain Capitalism said...

Anon 452,

YOur thinking is flawed.

Market forces are reality. It is the manifestation of other people either deciding to engage with you in business or not.

You may as well argue against the law of gravity or that the sun is hot.

You can fight this all day, in the end it will be your life that suffers ignoring this reality.

Cpt.

Anonymous said...

Depending on where you live in the USA, there is no need for an expensive house. You could be fine living in a cheap TENT because there is no winter and no heating needs.

Just buy some patch of land and erect a tent and that's it. No banker and no mortgage. Piss an Shit in the river. Go fishing and grow potatoes for a living. Life is too short to waste it in mortgage payment.

Do you really need a wife and kids anyways ? Let nature perpetuate homo sapiens sapiens by itself. It was capable of creating us in the first place, let it perpetuate it by itself.

Anonymous said...

Captain Capitalism,

I never said that market forces were not a reality. They are.

I am saying that I will use REAL FORCE to defend myself against them because there is no dignity in having market forces dictate everything we do.

There used to be a time where the market was supplementary. Most people worked for themselves in hunting and gathering economies and used the market rarely, only to obtain things occasionally that they could not obtain by themselves.

Then, as the population increased and division of labor grew, the market became complementary, people still worked for themselves but engaged in the market in a more regular manner because they then needed it to obtain many things for survival. The market became complementary with the advent of agriculture and sedentarity. People where then landlocked and resorted to trade their products for the products of others.

But now, the market is MANDATORY. Whatever you do, you have to go through the market. This is UNACCPETABLE and I will FIGHT BACK with ALL I'VE GOT !!!!

This Darwinian gospel of survival of the fittest describes human life on earth as if it was a giant game of "Hole In The Wall" where the hole was decided by God and each market actor had to make it through the hole or else he will be pushed into the pool where he will be soaked.

Well, I will burst your bubble. The "Hole In The Wall" is the result of millions of market actors decisions. It's the result of the decision of everybody. It's everyone of us who decides what the shape and position of the hole will be. It's artificial, it is something we all decide arbitrarily based on our subjective wants and desires. It is not natural, it is not Darwinism and it is not from God.

Therefore, if I don't fit through the wall, it is because other people decided I didn't fit.

Do you really think I will let myself destroyed like this without a well deserved fight ?

Market "winners" and libertarians like to lecture people on the use of force but in nature force exists and if you make civilization into a survival of the fittest contest involving market forces and if those market forces which are the result of the decisions of others impact me, then I reserve the right to use real force and blast through that wall.

Why shoul I be your subservient serf ?

Anonymous said...

"You can fight this all day, in the end it will be your life that suffers ignoring this reality.

Cpt."

Captain, I will fight this to the last quanta of my soul and all the way to HELL. I don't mind the pain, it is more bearable than the shame of allowing myself to be your underdog.

I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE !!!!

Anonymous said...

The market should be an OPTION, not a MANDATE !!!

If the market is a mandate then stop preding it's about freedom and non-coercion. Admit it's a forcible arrangement that benefits the owners and those on top. Stop bullshitting us.

Market actions are a form of association. Freedom of association provides for freedom of non-association.

If I HAVE to deal with somebody in order to survive but nobody has to deal with me, then I will use FORCE.

Your free market capitalism has failed right here on that premise.

If you really want to claim that the market is free, then it must provide for freedom of non-engagement and I must be allowed to directly provide for myself and by myself by circumventing the market.

In order to have a prosperous and peaceful society, you need to rest it on three pillars:
1) The right to work
2) Freedom of movement
3) Private property rights

But if you try to arrange everything on private property rights alone, you will always have poverty and wars.

Anonymous said...

Why HR sucks and the hiring process is broken is also due in part to the fact that work and employment has been fused into a single and same entity that is to be exchanged through the market.

You can't simply wake up and start working for yourself, you have to be hired and employed. You are not allowed to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, you must be hired.

This resulted in HR departments and hiring departments being flooded with unqualified applicants.

If the market was an option rather than a mandate, companies would be approached by quality applicants because nobody would need to be employed before begining to work.

The idea that everything must be marketed is hurting everybody.

If you could setup a tent by the river and fish for a living, that would be one applicant less on the job market to make life difficult for everybody else.

The market must be made into an option again and must recede from being a mandate.

Captain Capitalism said...

You have every right not to participate in the market. That is for certain. But if you decide you want gas, then you must pay $4/gallon. If you want to be considered an "qualified candidate" for a job in corporate America today, you pretty much need your masters.


You do have the choice, but that doesn't mean the market doesn't exist and if you decide to participate in it that you will have to abide by its rules.

Glen Filthie said...

I would need to see a link on that to believe it Hamilton.

When you take a loan with the bank you SIGN A CONTRACT. There will be penalties if you break the terms - or if they do.

The banks can't touch you if you abide by the contract. If they do, then they are in violation of the contract and you have legal recourse against them. It's basic tort law. The only way they can screw you and get away with it is if the gov't is an accomplice - as they are in Cypress, for example.

That, of course, is the beginning of the end because economies then go underground. Once that happens, gov'ts are on borrowed time.

patriarchal landmine said...

he's red pill when it comes to women and feminism, but he's also definitely a leftist. maybe there's still time for him to break through the wall of liberalist bullshit.

Pulp Herb said...

But ask yourself the question, how fun or productive is it constantly having to work with regurgitated vomit? In other words, with such a low-quality and low-caliber class of people employed in the industry, can you imagine how painful it must be to work with such losers? 8 hours a day of dealing with inept co-workers, none of which are competent at the 8th grade math banking requires? Egomaniacs who all think they're better than one another, and the politics, back-stabbing and corporate BS drama that ensues? I've witnessed it and experienced it and it is PAINFUL. It is veritable torture to go into work, day in and day out and deal with such ineptitude, egomaniasm and deceit. It is this fact, that most bankers must suffer their own ilk, that should give you at least a couple of ounces of flesh.

I guess I'm in the 15% or maybe I'm not a banker just someone who works in a bank.

However, that 8th grade mathematics stuff strikes home. As I've said before I work in a mathematics group. Zero finance major only majors are in my group (some might have it but when talking degrees it's all math, physics, engineering, or economics so finance would be an add on). One of our regular products is projections of interest rates.

About three months ago a concern was raised about us providing forward rates (estimates of what a given product's interest rate would be at a future date). Some people were requesting rates for discounting (determining the value of a $1 at some future date now). Forward rates are not discount rates although the two are related by some simple math.

The concern was "this people don't know the difference most of the time and when they do don't know how to convert between them". My response was, "WTF, they are bankers. The ability to understand the difference between forward and discount rates and how to convert the two should be baseline knowledge of anyone beyond a teller."

However, it's not. My math degree, no finance experience self has more working knowledge of the math underlying finance after 2.5 years in the industry than people with a degree in it and a decade of experience.

Then people wonder why banks keep screwing up.

Andrew S. said...

Hey "Market is FORCE" anon, congratulations on posting the most retarded thing I've read all week.

I can just see you now at a bank: "I'm sorry anon, due to your bad credit and the way you run around shouting at us, we've decided not to offer you a mortgage"

"YOU'RE USING FORCE AGAINST ME AAAAAAHHHH BANG BANG BANG THIS IS SELF DEFENSE DIE DIE DIE!"

The market is the opposite of coersion. I have a good I have made, or a service I can perform, and I offer those goods or services for a price that I deem acceptable. Say I run a hamburger joint. A burger costs $4.50. It's totally your choice if you buy that burger. I don't have a squad of thugs who'll come to your house and beat you if you don't buy my burgers. You can buy my burger, go down the street to McDonald's and buy a dollar value burger, go to a grocery store and buy canned soup, sit on your heels rocking back and forth, whatever you want to do. The choice is entirely yours. If you don't want to participate in the market you can live in the woods and hunt/forage for your food.

kurt9 said...

The market should be an OPTION, not a MANDATE !!!

If the market is a mandate then stop preding it's about freedom and non-coercion. Admit it's a forcible arrangement that benefits the owners and those on top. Stop bullshitting us.

Market actions are a form of association. Freedom of association provides for freedom of non-association.


Yes, you have the right to not associate with others if you don't want to. All a market is where people exchange value with each other. It is nothing more.

Your anti-market tirade suggests you want something from others, but are either unwilling or incapable of offering anything in return. You feel that others "owe" you something. This is not "freedom". This is just parasitism.