Conquistadors of Credit

After the physical exploitation of the earth is completed, stripped of its metals and petroleum, the bankers undertake the credit exploitation. This entails the offering of credit to the governments and citizens of the poorer countries — for the consumption of gadgets or creation of businesses or the building of infrastructure — and the long-term interest harvesting of the credit-based GDP growth that follows.

 

The bankers are the new risk-taking explorers of the planet and through securitizations, derivatives, and explicit State backing (tax payer guarantees limiting their downside risk), are able to strip wealth out of even the poorest inhabitants.

 

It all seems good and right in the beginning as the credit bubbles are created in the poorer countries, and the citizens are able to buy goods and services they were historically unable to afford. But the only real winners after the inflationary collapse can be the asset holders. And these assets will eventually be repossessed by the banks after the extension of credit has peaked, overall growth has flagged, deflation has destroyed those who were too leveraged, and the loans have now become unpayable.

 

It will be many generations before the collapse of the banking created credit-based growth model. 80% of the planet awaits the promises of growth offered by the banking credit apparatus. The Western world has been harvested, its economic soil deadened, the people and governments no longer able to accept further credit exploitation. But the impoverished rest of the planet is waiting and willing and the bankers have only just begun to exploit it.