Treachery!! Предательство!!
The feared “Soviet” secret service, the KGB, was always controlled by the the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the USA). As such, the CIA - KGB played an insidious and decisive role in the destruction of the Soviet Union.
The KGB's successor in conspiracy, the “Russian” secret service FSB (ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России) is likewise controlled by the CIA.
Among the manifold CIA – FSB tasks in stifling Arnold Lockshin is to block almost all commentaries sent in response to my material on the internet.
Arnold Lockshin, political exile from the USA living in Russia
ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - по приказу своего секретного постоянного хозяина - американского ЦРУ блокирует почти все отправленные мне комментарии.
И это далеко не всё.
Арнольд Локшин, Политэмигранта из США
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Capitalist “solutions:” Phony-baloney money
Can money be divorced from reality? To bourgeois economists, money is not a commodity. They may differ about what money actually is, but they deny the Marxist scientific and historically accurate approach.
“The age of commodity money gave way to the age of paper money. The essence of money is now laid bare. Money, as money rather than as a commodity, is wanted not for its own sake but for the things it will buy... This leads to a paradox: Money is accepted because it is accepted.
“By ensuring careful engraving, the value of money can be protected from counterfeiting. The fact that private individuals cannot legally create money keeps it scarce. Given this limitation in supply, modern currencies have value. They can buy things, independently of any gold, silver, or government backing” (Economics, Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, 13th edition, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1989, p. 227).
Clearly, this is absurd: “Money is accepted because it is accepted.” We could continue along these lines: birds sing because birds sing, the sun shines because the sun shines, etc. etc.
“The fact that private individuals cannot legally create money keeps it scarce.” For working people, money may indeed be “scarce.” But not so for governments or powerful banks. A country's government or the central bank can physically print or, far more commonly now, issue electronic money in whatever quantities it deems necessary. Nothing “scarce” here. It is worth noting in this regard, that the central bank of the US – the Federal Reserve – is a private corporation owned exclusively by the biggest banks of the country and has the unique authority to issue as much US money as it sees fit.
“What lies behind an American $10 bill? Is it 'backed' by gold, silver or anything? Not a thing. Many years ago, people believed that our (US – AL) currency had value because of 'gold backing.' There is no such pretense today.
“Today, all US coins and paper currency are fiat money. This term signifies that something is money because the government decrees it is money. More precisely, the government states that coins and paper currency are legal tender, which must be accepted for all debts, public and private. Metallic backing of money is of no practical significance in the US today” (Economics, Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, 1989, p. 228).
“The government states that coins and paper currency are legal tender, which must be accepted for all debts, public and private.” This is essentially government diktat. But what happens when the government issuing a particular currency ceases to exist? The money of a defunct country loses all “value.” Try purchasing commodities with Soviet rubles, Confederate (US) dollars, etc. (We ignore the macro-economically insignificant phenomenon of the collectors' value of obsolete coins – especially if they contain gold or silver – or even paper currencies, if they are rare.) If one had purchased gold before the demise of the USSR, the gold, of course, would still retain value. But the Soviet ruble now has no purchasing power, no “value” whatsoever.