12 21 min 2 yrs

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. This is true now more than ever. It’s called the “poverty tax” – the surcharge people pay for not having savings or access to prime credit and being consigned to fringe finance. Invoking 5th article of mafia capitalism, the fringe finance refers to the array of alternative financial services (AFS) offered by providers that operate outside of centrally insured banks, from chit funds to private lenders, pyramid scheme insurers, IIM roi hoopla and more..

Take the example of Venture capital or Mudra plans or Gujju Banking / Finance Bazaars, which expects some stunning rates of financial extraction in the poverty industry to rise, and it has created funds to invest in start-ups and small firms with big growth potential in the fringe finance sector. The market that investors want to tap is the unbanked (people without current or savings accounts) and the underbanked (people who rely on both traditional and alternative financial products) for development of its own clones.

Why are venture capitalists so interested in this market? In a blog post titled “Not Unbanked: Untapped,” a venture fund manager explains, “It is fair to say that most of these products are generally more expensive than what most of us pay. APRs (annual % rates of interest) higher than 30% (if not 300%); plus transaction costs; money-transfer costs; access to funds for 2-4%; etc..” The payment services segment of AFS has seen some of the most spectacular growth in recent years, where prepaid cards are making inroads and recording profits that rival the always-profitable cashing outlets.

Studies on credit card, medical, student and housing debt show the ways in which we are all made to pay for basic social survival – for the rest of our lives. This is the sober capital idea of a “debtor” – a person who borrowed money and owes a sum of money to a bank or government agency. But mafia capitalism means that governments make cuts and the people have to go into debt to survive. The burden of sustaining “life” gets shifted from the state to the individual and household. Most households are drowning in all types of debt we know. Debt is a way of controlling us – making us weak, afraid and financially unstable.

But the rabbit hole goes much deeper. What about those who don’t have debt in traditional sense? Are they debtors too? Answer is clear: Yes. We are all debtors, whether we have debt or not. Debt affects us all. How?

Explore about broader notions of debt, from local govt debt to alternative financial services, only begin to make these connections. Our whole system runs on debt and credit – our households, our cities, our countries and all those who slip between the cracks. From state bonds that we never agreed to, to the low-income or unemployed worker forced to take payday loans or daily wage offers after being excluded from “mainstream” credit, the whole world has become indebted. This is how the 1% maintains their wealth and power.

Is your city or state experiencing a budget deficit? Is your state laying off public workers and cutting services – chanting minimum governance & maximum profiteering? Are local hospitals understaffed and underfunded? Do you worry about whether your child’s school will have enough money to provide students with a quality education? If this is happening in your community, you are a debtor. And do not forget: the deregulation laws that led to the emergence of this rotten financial system that enables the 1% to go on looting and indebting the poor was orchestrated by our so-called elected representatives cum law makers.

Over the last decades, our common goods and resources have been privatized to profit the 1%. In the wake of reduced public funding, cities and states have taken out more and more loans to pay for everything from basic operations, like sewers, to large developments, such as housing, energy, health, telecom, utilities or water projects. States are forced to partner with capital markets to tap revenue streams because banks & financial institutions control access to credit markets. The only way cities and states can win access to those markets is by issuing bonds. But that means stock market profits from those bonds through interest payments and through securitization, as traders repackage bonds into debt bundles which are sold and resold on those volatile / manipulable networks of global capital speculators, hiding inside towering high-rises.

Ultimately, this becomes logical predicament of the poor in our debt-finance system: it costs poor people significantly more to use money – to spend it, to save it, to invest it, to borrow it, to send it “back home” – and you have less money to begin with. If you’re poor, the more you engage with the debt-finance system, the more wealth you lose and the more indebted you become. Meanwhile, private finance owners, funded political parties, shameless bhakts, bankers and investors, who enjoy lower financing costs and have more money to begin with, profit from your loss and acquire pieces of your debt; Devil Market Digits comes to own pieces of your future. These are the workings of a hacked financial system: on the bottom are relatively high-cost services marketed to the growing and changing ranks of the un-banked and the under-banked.

Coming back to South Asia, origins of this mess are many decades old when the public banks controlling 80% of system’s assets were state-run, lent too freely to infrastructure and industrial projects, mostly the ones backed by politically-connected cronies and socialist aristocrats. Today, we see the continuation with their GenXYZ replicas staring at smart dashboard driven boom-and-bust stats in the lightly regulated shadow private banks, which controls the remaining system, flying high in tech clouds & AI (acche din) jargon. These are mixed economies, cannot blame the academic principles of pure capitalism or pure socialism, when countries are mostly ruled by idiots incapable of understanding, forget practicing either ways of lifestyle with any perfection or commitment whatsoever.

Anyone fighting the 1% is a debt resistor. We are all debtors now.

Ref: Debt Resistance Manual, Economists, Mutated Democracies, #JugaadBanks, #CorruptionOfScale

12 thoughts on “Fringe financing – Article 5 of mafia capitalism

  1. A HappyHoli financial system of looting and indebting the poor workers was orchestrated by our so-called elected reps cum law makers! Only religion of ruling elite and govt ministers is gathering as much raw power for profiteering of its bhakts. Hinduism / hindutva showoffs are just for shining their #5G KavachKundal invested in as goodwill PR assets amongst hypnotized gangs and social media / mobile apps infected populations.

  2. Despite odds viz limits of democracy, systemic global inequalities, education’s role in manufacturing ignorance, abuse of public resources, diminishing workers’ rights, etc.. its always boom time for the 1% and its financial mafia. And do not forget: the deregulation laws that led to the emergence of this rotten financial system that enables the 1% to go on looting and indebting the poor was orchestrated by our so-called elected representatives cum law makers.

  3. Collection agencies are counting on you to not do your homework. Debt collectors themselves are making less money and this is a recipe for more aggressive and increasingly illegal tactics. Even if the collection agency does not engage in activities and techniques that are technically illegal, they are likely to use intentionally obfuscating tactics. If this sounds like the kind of thing that we’re all used to from credit card fine print, loan deeds and account / club membership terms, that’s because it is so by malicious design NOT some innocence.

  4. From ancient times there have been powerful debt resistance movements that have challenged the harsh penalties associated with debt default, including debt enslavement and debt incarceration. In ancient Athens there was a practice of enslaving either the debtor or one of their family members if their debt was unpaid. This practice expanded to the point that civil wars broke out between debtors and creditors so often that the very survival of the city-state of Athens was in question. This crisis stimulated a major change in the Athenian legal system that outlawed the debt enslavement of fellow citizens and became a model for many societies down to the formation of the American republic.

  5. Masses are not bonded slaves, whom capitalists can keep on financially and physically exploiting for its own ends / profits without consequences, sooner or later. Re-plan along with your advising partners. No original ancestor ever taught “hoax financing” as much possible just to enjoy life, love, culture & nature at the expense of others… many dangers in selectively adopting history or AI lessons!

  6. Don’t care, any power or its pimps may feel free to send “Digital Supari Goons” for saying below:

    Despite what apologists for capitalism would have you believe, it is possible for humans to live comfortably and sustainably within a system that does not rely on deception, oppression, and exploitation. It’s so important to remember that capitalism is an “extremely” recent invention, along with its Gujju variants in India and many other nations. For almost all of humanity’s 200,000+ years of existence, we got along just fine without it, living mostly in harmony with our surroundings. Our only hope at this point is to get rid of the system that is literally killing us. It’s a matter of survival not only for humans but for countless other animal and plant species being sacrificed on the altar of maximum profits and infinite growth.

  7. Gujju Development Models are built on planned obsolescence. A Growth Death strategy that allows companies to sell products and services with an artificial expiration date, to make the products easily perishable or by using clever AI marketing to make them look more modern than natural. This helps to increase sales and get regular customers who have a steady income. Updates and upgrades of Medicines, Devices, Android, iOS, TV Boxes, OTT Apps are instant examples among many others.. Digital India as strategic colonizing tools smartly used to rebuild loot-wing empires?

  8. Schindler’s unicorn gang of millionaires, who work to acquire, maintain, and exercise power for billionaires, as the earth boils. These are not hiding shadowy figures, but daring bankers, public relations experts, political bond investors, media movers, wealth managers, corporate executives, accountants, lawyers, traders & brokers; and without their help, the billionaire fascist kleptocrats currently trying to burn your children alive, to keep doing bloody capitalism even as we run out of planet, would simply not be able to exercise, or retain power.

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