Speech: Capitalism vs. Debt-ism… and the lost concept of Economy, by Fredo Moreno

To start I’d like to show you the definition of CAPITAL = “Wealth in the form of money or property. The remaining assets after all liabilities have been deducted; net worth. An asset or advantage.”

[From Middle English, principal, from Old French, from Latin capitālis, from caput, head]

Capitalism is probably the most successful economical system of all the “–isms” we have had so far.

To be successful in Capitalism you need to have a Capital, to have capital you need to have ideas, be creative, energetic, you want to surpass the competition; you want to achieve customer satisfaction. And there are two key ingredients that if left won’t make it possible to accomplish capital, they are “hard work” and “in ethics”.

When people lose sight of these key ingredients they struggle to have or maintain a capital (thinking they work hard), ending up with a minus capital or debt, at that point the only thing you can do to survive is to work hard.

I find it quite intriguing that the government never has done anything to educate people about economics or about ethics. Economy is “the careful management of resources.” The only ones educating people about economics are the capitalist manipulating people through the mass media like: the press, the radio, the TV, movies, the Internet, etc. They have educated people 180 degrees on the opposite direction “get a credit card, get a school or personal loan, earn points and rewards, enjoy life and have fun, you don’t have to work hard, out ethics is the real way to live life.”

The common people will eat Wheeties, because TV teaches them to eat Wheeties. They get into credit card debt because they get that credit or debt for free. Some people in their twenty’s already into some debt they know they are not going to pay off. 20-30 years ago only entrepreneurs credit and into debt to run and expand their business, you see Credit is from latin “credere = belief”, so you had to be really smart to be believed. Now the creditors don’t care if people are smart.

An ideal Capitalism would be something like: “I have this great idea, I create on it, I put all my energy into it, maybe I create this new gadget or do a special service that people will like and will pay for, I work hard on it, I create some capital and I re-invest it and make it grow.”

The way it is nowadays is more like: “I get a student loan because otherwise I cannot study, I get a credit card so I can buy the things I cannot afford, now to live the America dream I have to incur a Mortgage so I can have a house, and with that house I can get more loans by refinancing, and the house is automatically going to increase in value, and I’ll never will end up paying it so I might as well just re-re-re-finance, so I can pay my credit card debt so I can buy what new stuff and a new car.”

And so America from being a free market, a free of enterprise economy where people could have ideas and create products to compete with others and have fun, and have wealth has been gradually sliding into a communistic economical system where people don’t really own things, things are owned not by government but by capitalists governing the society, like the Americans did 20-30 years ago. The great invention “the credit card” made people feel they no longer have to have sweat on their forehead to have money. They don’t even have to think at all.

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The step down from that is being educated “to buy cheap” forget about what is it made of, where is it from or what the “Jones” are going to think “just buy the cheapest” “buy it when it’s on SALE” “we can always buy in Wal-Mart or 99 cent stores at a better price”, “well, maybe we should go to the swap meet”, “let’s stop at those street vendors they always have it cheaper”, people are like hypnotized they turn their heads to “On sale” “Special discount” “Great deal”, even to be a salesman all you need to be able to do is to say “It’s on sale”.

Buying cheap drives good American craftsmen, professionals and any America who’d like a decent pay, out of business and into poverty, the real winners are the foreign capitalists, just by the simple fact that anything in any other country cost less, and because it has been easier for them to trade with Americans their prices beat any American competitor. This also has forced American companies to move out to 3^rd world countries.

So if I had kids who I knew were going to grow up in the upcoming America, I’d teach them what a resource was and how they have to act smart to manage their resources carefully and how they’d have to be committed and work hard and be ethical so they could create a capital from that, so they could have a better chance to have some power and some freedom.