Fractional-reserve banking is not real banking it is pseudo banking

If a bank has reloaned customer deposits it has performed a deception to their customers because it is no longer solvent, as it purports to be. If many more claims now exist on the money that we have given to the bank we have been defrauded. If someone is able to reloan many times a customer deposit they should not then be able to describe themselves as a bank, they have simply inflated the receipt. The banks have deceived people if many more receipts are issued for the same item. Banking is fraud if people do not understand that their deposits have been inflated, and the practice should not then have the name of banking.

Nothing bad will happen if no taxes are collected

The best way to organise a group of people is without a central Government, then we are being reliant upon spontaneous order. Aggression is never required for a civilised life, even if it is institutionalised. No wealth is reliant upon violence and aggression, even if we can have elections to choose the flavour of the aggression.

Banks can't fail because of deposit insurance

The Government are employees of the central bank.

Because people trust deposit insurance, from the Government they will leave their money in the bank. People 'trust' the banks for no other reason than they have deposit insurance, there is no other reason that they would use an insolvent bank. People don't value the credit of insolvent firms unless they have a banking licence. The banks are trusted because of deposit insurance, they (the banks) cannot go out of business.

A bank with deposit insurance should not be allowed to make a loan with reserves

People only want fiat cash because of taxation, otherwise banking would not be a threat to prosperity. Tax makes fiat cash valuable.

Because of deposit insurance there is no significant reason why a bank would not issue deposit accounts for free, without requiring payment of cash, other than the cost of maintaining the account and the risk of losing reserves if the money is taken out. The bank has no real need for reserves.

The people using fiat currency do not differentiate between cash and credit, so there is no premium for holding cash, deposit insurance makes cash have the same value as credit to the Government. The Government doesn't care that the banks are insolvent, it forgives them and has been exploited by the banks. Fractional-reserve banking is illegal because stealing is illegal.

Banks should not be allowed to make a loan which will result in the bank holding fewer reserves than it owes in demand deposits, to do so should be illegal. The banks should not be allowed to make loans because the Government provides deposit insurance. It should be illegal for a guaranteed bank (a bank with deposit insurance) to make loans.

The banks owe money to many more people than they are able to repay simultaneously

It is a crime (for a bank or anyone) to spend money which it does not own. If Fractional-reserve banking (Frb) is illegal then the bank doesn't own customer deposits, they are owned by the customer, despite being in the care of the bank, for safekeeping. If Frb is legal (but not protected) then the bank can loan the deposit out and inflate customer deposits, without necessarily having the advantage of deposit insurance. It is a legal error to think that the bank is in ownership of warehouse deposits, and the bank has performed a crime in spending them. Most people making a deposit will only do so on the understanding that the assets will not be sold by the bank, otherwise it makes no sense to go to the effort of using the bank, even if they are compensated with a guarantee. Many people are not aware that to make a deposit (at a bank) is to exchange cash for bank credit, it is not a warehouse if it can sell the goods, the bank is not a guardian of the goods.

Without receiving deposits the bank will not be able to make new loans, because it will not have enough reserves to do so. The bank requires customer deposits for no other reason than to increase reserves. Many people are not aware that their money is not held on their behalf, it is (should be) no consolation to them that the money has 'only' been loaned, rather than spent, because it is worth nothing if it cannot be called in quickly. The money, once loaned, is deposited again in the bank and so now more than one person has a claim on the cash. It is not made clear to people that they do not have an exclusive claim on their deposits.

Governments like to tax people but they are following the electorate

Elections are ridiculous not because the choice of parties and candidates is so poor, but because only a nasty person or organisation would require people to vote to protect their security. It is ridiculous for people to be required to vote for their freedom, it should normally be presumed in a civilised community. It is natural, then, for every absent vote (in the general election) to be a 'no' vote cast in parliament, for the opposition against Government proposals.

Only someone loyal to the Government would take part in elections willingly and with enthusiasm. Simply because elections are held is no reason to participate in them, and it is still a crime to be aggressive as a consequence of (the outcome of) voting, so the election is not mitigating against the act. The people often instruct the politicians to be aggressive but it is not good to follow their orders if we do not believe in it ourselves. Just because the majority of people want you to do a crime, doesn't mean that you should do the act, it is better to resist (or rather, not be convinced by) their instructions.

Voting is a form of political pollution

Just because we have permission to vote doesn't mean that we should. It is better to desist from doing harm, even if it might give us some satisfaction. Voting is harmful, it ruins the country.

There is nothing inherently virtuous about the group

The individual has every right to do as they please provided they do not do a crime, even if their freedom offends the group. If the group wants to violate individual freedom then it is being tyrannical in its philosophy.

The State spends what the people earn

The State is not hardworking, they are lazy aggressors, it is charities and the private sector who do all the work.

There is no reason for a Libertarian to stand for office

It makes no sense for someone against aggression to present themselves as a politician, for election. If we are against aggression we would want to see the Government reduced in size, we would not want to participate in it. The argument that we can make a difference from the inside is flawed, even if we are a liberal ruler, there is still room for another ruler to follow behind who is not so. If we don't need a Government then it makes no sense to become (a member of) one as we do nothing other than reinforce and solidify the position. It is a contradiction for a Libertarian to stand for office.

Those who refuse to vote for a Government are rejecting aggression

It's not a very nice thing to do to force people to accept your offers, with the threat of violence. It's always best to allow people to refuse so that you can be sure you have not violated the rights of the other person in every transaction. If we are able to refuse then our rights have not been violated, by definition. We cannot complain if we can (are able to) safely refuse. An offer is not an offer if it not refusable, it is a command, which is not civilised.

Proportional Representation makes it more difficult for single parties to dominate the Government without forming a Coalition

The function of Government is to set the law and limit freedoms, many limitations to our 'freedom' are justified as with typical crimes, we do not have a right to steal for instance.

When we come to vote we will be given a choice between parties which offer some freedoms and some protections. The advantage of a proportional system of voting is that we have no need to vote for a party with constrains us unnecessarily (limits our freedoms) given that we likely have the ability to choose a party which provides the protections we want. If a party, such as a hypothetical extreme Libertarian party chose, for example, to provide no protection against theft it is likely that voters would choose almost any other party, even a Communist party as an alternative. People prioritise protection over freedoms, often with good reason. If the choice available to voters is narrowed, as with First-past-the-post, this means that to get the protections we want we must give up many freedoms. A party seeking to win a Fptp election must offer protections (restrictions) that a bulk of voters demand, if they do not satisfy those requirements they will lose. A different system would mean that other parties than the Fptp mainstream parties can do well in spite of not offering all the 'protections' provided by the mainstream parties, because not all voters require all the protections. A voter who has a weakness for State protection in a particular area, under Fptp doesn't mind that, very often, many other freedoms are removed by voting for the collectivist party, they do not mind because they have been given what they want. To get a Libertarian Government under Fptp requires the electorate to be particularly educated about natural rights, and it is often too much to expect. With PR it doesn't matter (so much) if people are ignorant and selfish because the system makes it more difficult for them to steal from each other. PR makes it more difficult for one party to have control of the Government.

It's better if companies are limited in the number of employees they utilise

It might be a good idea to limit the number of employees in each company. This way, it would make it easier for each additional member (up to that limit) to add value to the firm, thus reducing the difficulty in finding a job. To improve employment conditions, we have a right to impose limits on the size (determined by number of employees) of any company. If a company gets too big it will dominate the market and make it very difficult for competition to get established.

Banks can make cash

Fractional-reserve banking is fraudulent because we know that a bank does not even need to have any reserves for its deposits to retain value. Usually deposit insurance is required to maintain value, but even without, it remains the case that deposits which are not backed by what most people would view as money, have value in the economy. Prices reflect more than the base supply of cash, from which we can deduce that some fraud has occurred. Until the cash appears (the debts are monetised) the bank credit and even Government credit is mispriced due to this problem of people being confused and unaware of the reality of the situation. Most people have assumed that the price of money (cash) reflects its quantity, or alters for some other innocent reason, they are not aware of the nature of bank and Government inflation and since it would be an easy process for this education to take place, we can deduce that what is happening is fraud. People have been deceived into thinking there is no reason to suspect that banks are inflating the currency. The fraudulent part is that people don't know the money supply is going up, and it is, the authorities who have a special distinct legal advantage have exploited this situation to their advantage and failed to inform people about it. The ability to print currency has been handed to the authorities (both banks and Government) and it has been exploited to their advantage in secrecy. It is hard to imagine, given the distaste for the system held by those who understand it, that anyone would choose to be under this system, it is because people do not know about it that it is allowed to continue. Not many people would vote for it, given the choice.

It is foolish for a person in authority to take advantage of those for whom responsibility is held. If we wish to exploit people then we should be more honest and describe ourselves as a thief or a tyrant. It is also deluded to imagine that the interests of the subjects are served by the immense (and unfair) wealth provided by the fraudulent baking system, to imagine this to be the case is to be deceived. The theft is possible only because people do not know about it. The bankers sell pyrite not to someone who thinks it is gold, they sell it to someone who thinks pyrite is rare and in limited supply, while all the time more of it is being manufactured. The typical person is not aware that banks can make more of what they value, fiat currency, cash.

Why the Alternative Vote electoral system is preferable to First-past-the-post

For those who haven't yet seen it, this is an excellent review of the Alternate Vote electoral system, by Dr Roger Mortimore http://bit.ly/hVgef2

As someone who favours a proportional system, I do see definite advantages to having a system like AV, over and above that of First-past-the-post. And to best explain the difference, we can think in terms of negative voting. By negative voting I mean to describe the situation whereby voters vote predominantly for the party which they consider to have the best chance of keeping out another, more feared, alternative. It is otherwise known as tactical voting, perhaps because of the 'negative' connotations of the word negative, but I do not mean to use it pejoratively.

If we assume the problem with First-past-the-post is that people have no choice but to vote negatively, and further that once they have made that choice they are limited to only one alternative, AV does offer a significant advantage. For someone who wants to keep a particular party out, under AV, they must simply (do no more than) vote for another likely winner in the second berth of their preferences. Unlike with Fptp, there is no urgency to make the tactical choice the first preference because, provided the feared candidate is rejected on the first preference, as would be natural, the race is not over (unless the feared candidate has already won, and tactical voting has become irrelevant) until at least the next stage of preferences will be taken into account. This means that, in effect, with AV voters get an extra choice (for tactical voting and rejection) above Fptp, which means they are able to vote tactically with their first preference (rejecting their second preference choice) and also with their second (rejecting the most feared mainstream party, this would be their traditional Fptp vote now relegated to their second choice).

With Fptp, voters are able to reject only one of the mainstream parties, with AV voters are able to reject certainly two (the second rejected candidate being that of their chosen second preference) which is preferable since this gives a better expression of the voters' wishes at the ballot box, and in the final analysis.

A party which appears as second preference has still been rejected, only to a lesser degree than a party which is absent entirely from the list of all preferences.

The Alternative Vote gives voters an extra tactical choice, compared against Fptp.

The banks cannot lose because of the subsidy of deposit insurance

No one is too big to fail. If banks lend more than they have in excess, to spare, they will become insolvent and reliant upon deposit insurance, as it is impossible for them to fail with deposit insurance. Bank deposits increase the money supply, if they did not then it would be possible for the banks to fail. This enables the banks (and some of their more fortunate customers, if they have good timing) to extract wealth from everyone else. The banks can increase the money supply with new deposits, by selling this debt to customers, the profit to the banks is the interest paid, insolvency is not a concern for them.

The investment behaviour of banks is not a major factor in their profitability, all of them are insolvent, it doesn't mater what the banks do, they win because of deposit insurance, they cannot lose.

The Government should give up and resign

Nothing bad will happen if we choose not to have a Government, or the Government resigns.

Banks are not like other businesses because they have deposit insurance

The banks rely upon Government to make their demand deposits valuable to people and customers. If the Government provides deposit insurance, there is no possibility to keep Government and not allow the banks to cause inflation. The Government do not need to insist on having deposit insurance, however.

Without the Government there would be no one to bail out the banks. It is only with a Government that it is possible to have Fractional-reserve banking, as in a free market it would (eventually) collapse. Government (and forced currencies) is a requirement for inflationary banking because otherwise an insolvent company would be worthless.

It's not possible to both have deposit insurance and allow the banks to fail. Banks are not a normal business if they have deposit insurance.

There is no reason why banks need to be protected from failure

Banks should be allowed to fail, just like any other business. If a bank has deposit insurance, with a fiat economy, this means that the liabilities of the bank retain their value in all circumstances. If this is the case, the bank cannot go out of business and it is protected from the possibility that it could fail. Banks can't fail if they have deposit insurance.

Only banks that do not lend out customer deposits should have deposit insurance

Deposit insurance should not be for banks which repeatedly lend customer deposits, only banks which keep the entirety of deposits in reserve should have the benefit of deposit insurance.

There is no reason to allow banks to inflate the money supply, if they have deposit insurance. A bank with deposit insurance should be prevented, by law, from on-lending customer deposits, so that the money supply does not increase.

Failure to regulate the banks in this way will result in an even higher quantity of deposits being monetised in the eventually of a significant bank run. Fractional-reserve banking should be illegal for banks with deposit insurance. Having insurance should mean that full-reserves are required for any bank.

Not everyone is able to inflate the money supply

Not everyone has deposit insurance and is allowed to inflate the money supply. Only banks are able to inflate the money supply, which is not materially different from counterfeiting.

If the Government is intelligent it would not have provided deposit insurance

If the Government were an intelligent organisation it would realise that to provide deposit insurance to the banking industry would lead to inflation of the money supply. The Government has demonstrated that it is a stupid organisation by providing deposit insurance.

Without deposit insurance banks would not be able to inflate the money supply

Banks cannot inflate the money supply unless they have deposit insurance. It's only because of deposit insurance that the banks are able to inflate the money supply.

Banks are not able to fail because of deposit insurance

Because of deposit insurance it is illegal for banks to be insolvent and go out of business.

Without deposit insurance most banks which operate with insufficient reserves would fail, so then Fractional-reserve banking is not a chosen service and not of the market because it relies upon State intervention to exist. In a free market banks would be required by their customers to retain a high level of reserves, this is no longer a stipulation (by their customers) because of deposit insurance. Because of deposit insurance banks do not need to keep a high level of reserves. If there is no deposit insurance banks are not operating a Fractional-reserve system, even if they don't have enough reserves, in this situation they would be insolvent, which is very different from having (being allowed to have) Fractional-reserves. Without the existence of deposit insurance, no bank may be rightly described as a Fractional-reserve bank, only those with deposit insurance are so. If we advocate a free market then we know that this does not include Fractional-reserve banking.

Definition: Fractional-reserve banking does not mean insolvent banking, it specifically means the result of State intervention and deposit insurance.

An insolvent bank, in the free market, is not operating under Fractional-reserve conditions, it is simply nothing more than insolvent. Fractional-reserve banking is when a bank which would otherwise be considered to be insolvent is protected by the State and hence is no longer (then) insolvent. Fractional-reserve banking means that it is illegal for banks to be insolvent.

There is no reason to have elections if we want to tax people

The premise behind holding elections is that other people (the Government) have a right to violate our property if we do not deny (them) it. Unless we refuse, as a group, property will be stolen from each of us individually. If others do not reject (the) Government then neither are we able to. It might be nice of a thief to give us a chance to reject their offer but even if we do not choose to reject them, the crime remains. When we vote we do not correct the misapprehension in the mind of the criminal that they have a right to solicit this opinion on our property in the first place, that our property is of ambiguous ownership. The election makes no difference to the crime, or any aspect of morality.

If we don't get rid of deposit insurance the banks will continue to be able to inflate the money supply

We can say no more than that the banks might collapse if there is no deposit insurance, so then (we must presume) it prevents something worse, but it is not defensive because freedom is worse than nothing. If deposit insurance is not removed it enables the privileged banks to inflate the money supply.

Without deposit insurance there would be a crash of the banking sector

There is no reason to value bank deposits unless we are forced to pay taxes.

A good organisation would not allow the banking sector to inflate the money supply, it would protect its citizens from this type of inflation. Only a Government can allow ostensibly private firms to cause inflation, it cannot be done without (the threat of) force as people would reject this type of money as worthless. It is because the Government can issue money by fiat that it is able to extend this ability to private firms. If fiat currencies were (only) valued for their inherent value and not because of violence then banks would not be able to cause inflation. Banks are able to cause inflation only because Governments are able to 'create' value, they would not be able to do this except for the fact that fiat currencies are not chosen. If fiat currencies were voluntary and not forced then banks would not be able to cause inflation, deposit insurance hurts people because we are forced to value paper currencies, and hence we are then also forced to value bank receipts. Without taxation banks would not be able to inflate the currency.

We have no right to get something for free

If you get rid of the Government, the roads and hospitals will still exist, they are not (their existence is not) dependent on the Government.

No service is dependent on the Government, there is nothing (that is wanted) that the free market cannot provide. If it is not wanted then it will not be provided by the free market, but there is no problem with this. Nothing is vital that is not wanted, by someone, there is nothing that is wanted which the market cannot provide, unless we have an unreasonable desire, the market can provide everything which we could reasonably (rationally) demand of it. We have no right to ask for anything more than what is provided by choice. We have no right to force the Government to provide services, just as they have no (it has no) right to force people to pay taxation.

There is no reason for the Government to continue to allow the banks to increase the money supply

A Government which desires to maintain a sound currency should not allow the banks to increase the money supply. Most Governments have not prevented the banks from increasing the money supply. It makes no sense that the Government has allowed the banks to increase the money supply, it is to the advantage of no one.

It is not illegal for the banks to increase the money supply

If people think the banks have an equivalent quantity of money in reserve as they do to match customer deposits, they have been deceived. Since there is not likely to be a bank run, due to the deposit insurance, this arrangement can pertain for many years. If deposit insurance is not withdrawn the banks will be able to continue to increase the money supply, there is nothing to stop them.

A collapse of the banking system would not be the end of civilisation

There is nothing to stop the banks from pretending to have much more money in the vaults than actually exists. The presence of deposit insurance means that (as customers) we have no need to be vigilant about the activities of the banks. If we removed deposit insurance then banks would not be able to inflate the currency without the risk of going out of business, as it is (with deposit insurance) the central bank would be obliged to issue a great deal of currency if there were to be a bank run. It means nothing to have deposit insurance without the willingness to inflate the currency after a run on the banks, if it means anything, unless it is a bluff, it means a preparedness to monetise the obligations of the banking sector.

Deposit insurance might be a bluff.