They bring prosperity by creating financial products that ultimately ensure that projects get financing. You can think of these products are machines, and you can think of the bankers as the engineers. The interest ensures efficiency - the money goes to the most productive projects (as none of the projects with the expected return below the rate of interest will get financing).
They wouldn't be able to bring their products to market and to have a job without the bankers. The value of the bankers' contribution is above whatever it is they earn, as people enter into contracts with the bankers voluntarily, and they wouldn't do it if what they got out of the contract would have a lower value than what they had to pay to benefit from the contract.
See, when you earn money by helping others (which is the case for every transaction in the labor and goods markets: in the absence of coercion, the buyer of X values X more than what the buyer pays for X, and the seller values the payment more than X, so both benefit from the transaction), the more a person wants money, the higher incentive that person has to find a way to be useful to others and to contribute to society. People respond to incentives. The person with the largest incentive will work the hardest to achieve his or her goal, and will get the most results (which translates to helping the most people/providing teh most valuable contribution).
according to this, the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve lending is the greatest thing that ever happened. I think it all just screws wealth into the hands of a few.
It is.
For me, the important part is that these institutions increase everyone's standard of living and wealth. I don't mind the fact that a lot of the wealth ends up in the hands of the productive people who had actually generated it. I am not one of those productive people, and I am thankful to them for keeping my standard of living so high.
It dramatically increases the amount of funds available to be lent out. As a result there is more investment into capital (i.e., factories, machinery) and more gets produced, increasing our standard of living.
I never understood the idea that every thread strictly needs to stay on a certain topic. A lot of threads are redundant threads, and if they didn't stray, then every similar thread would be a carbon copy of eachother.
Makes sense. Would it be possible for the moderators to move these replies to that "Goldman Sachs Asks in Biotech Research Report: 'Is Curing Patients a Sustainable Business Model?'" thread?
This isn't true. Buddhism doesn't lack god(s).It is...kinda, there is no God in Buddhism which is why Buddhism is for everyone whether you are an atheist or a Christian! I used to be atheist but the older i got the more i realize that i am actually agnostic. Buddhism is about balance, you can't completely rule out anything, kindness is good but don't be too much of anything. Love yourself but don't grow egotistical. Love but don't be blind to deception. Just my opinion =)
Maybe in certain sects of Buddhism but Buddhism is either a religion or a philosophy. Westerners generally view it as mostly philosophy whereas most Asians view it as religion. Fact is that nowhere in siddarthas teaching does he mention the existence of God nor does he advise you to pray to a God.
It's both. I'm Asian so I would see it as more of a religion. He doesn't engage with discussion about gods much but he absolutely mentions spiritual stuff. He lived in India so being an Indian aesthetic, he probably believed in the Indian gods.
Yes he lived during a time of polytheism and he could very well be agnostic or even atheist but we don't really know and theory crafting really wouldn't lead anywhere anyway. He wasn't the first person in search of enlightenment and there were already famous and established Brahman's who preached about God on the daily. He couldn't possibly say that there was no god in a land of pagans because the very virtue of Buddhism is humility.
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