The Big Bad Banks

 "Who's afraid of the big bad banks, the big bad banks, the big bad banks..."  Before we get to the issue of who's afraid of the big bad banks, first let's clarify what a bank even is. A bank is an institution that allows you to borrow and deposit money, in it's simplest sense. The difference between a local small bank and a big bank (or corporate bank) is first off the size or amount of those banks across the world, second is how much money they receive from the federal reserve (or other organization used to bail out the banks depending where you are in the world.), and third is what their "connections" are. To be labeled as a big bank first off you have a profit of billions of dollars all made off of interest of the money you lend out, second you have to lend out WAY more money then you actually have in your vaults and rely on others to bail you out when people rush on the bank to withdraw their money (which at this point is no longer there), and finally to basically create money out of thin air and be willing to use underhanded techniques to get what you want.
 The term "like stealing candy from a baby" is one we all know but probably wouldn't carry out, big banks take this saying and turn it into bank practice. In this analogy we are the babies and not our money, but basically our life is the candy, but they have us so entranced we don't realize we're being robbed! When we need money we head to the bank to ask for a loan, this loan has attached interest on it so we have to pay not only what we borrowed but a lot extra. We make the payments in small monthly amounts so we don't think much about it, but as time goes on we might need more loans for other things as these loans stack up we're sucked into a seemingly endless vacuum. The cycle continues, paying our loans not having enough money getting loans to pay our loans, all because we need money. This poses the question "what is money?" in the paradigm we live in it's a necessary element of our lives.


The definition of money as we know it, is an abstract idea, the paper dollars we know as money are basically a note that says I.O.U., yes our money is basically debt! Originally money was based off of gold, but as people found light weight paper easier to carry around, bankers printed more I.O.U s than gold they had in their vaults. Click here for an amusing easy to understand video on money and banks.
 Now what banks are the bad ones? Basically any commercial banks, but here's a list of the 15 biggest banks by total assets in the world as of 2014, and what country they're from.

1. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) - China 
2. HSBC Holdings - United Kingdom
3. China Construction Bank Corporation - China
4. BNP Paribas - France
5. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group - Japan
6. JPMorgan Chase & Co - USA 
7. Agricultural Bank of China - China
8. Bank of China - China 
9. Crédit Agricole Group - France 
10. Barclays PLC - United Kingdom 
11. Deutsche Bank - Germany 
12. Bank of America - USA 
13. Japan Post Bank - Japan 
14. Citigroup Inc - USA 
15. Société Générale - France 

 Something I found interesting is that the World Bank and the IMF (the two go hand in hand) were no where mentioned on any of the lists that I found online. Though the World Bank portrays itself as an innocent organization with two goals of "End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3%" and "Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country" this couldn't be farther from the truth. The IMF as well (International Monetary Fund) tries to portray itself as an innocent organization claiming: "The IMF works to foster global growth and economic stability. It provides policy advice and financing to members in economic difficulties and also works with developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty.". While this sounds ideal and a fantastic idea, the truth about what the World Bank and IMF do is a much darker picture. The very poor nations that they claim to help they exploit by lending huge sums of money then making these poor countries pay back their debt with huge amounts of interest. This creates a vacuum that the country is inevitably sucked into, they're forced to borrow more money which puts them even more in debt. In the end it's the citizens who suffer, they become poorer and in desperation go to work in unsafe factories for astronomically low wages. For more information visit this website about the real nature of the two organization.

 So now that you know your money can't be trusted with anyone the question is "where the right place to keep it?". Credit Unions are a slight bit better then banks, but in my opinion they're not entirely trustworthy (slightly ironic as I have a savings account with one). Basically the only safe place to keep your money is in your own personal vault! But in all seriousness, gold and silver have been shown throughout time to retain their value, so purchasing it now is theorized to be a good investment. Another long term option for your money is the Rudolf Steiner Foundation Social Finance (RSF Social Finance) "RSF is a pioneering non-profit financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. In partnership with a community of investors and donors, RSF provides capital to non-profit and for-profit social enterprises addressing key issues in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship."     

  

  Resources

• http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/bank1.htm
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8
• http://cdn2.collective-evolution.com/assets/uploads/2014/01/How-To-Change-The-World.pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank 
• Story Of Stuff, by Annie Leonard
• http://www.worldbank.org/en/about/what-we-do
• http://www.imf.org/external/about/overview.htm
• http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/07/19/solution-to-world-poverty-abolish-the-world-bank-and-the-imf/
• http://rsfsocialfinance.org/about/our-story/