On 16/10/2013, at 8:32 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have another question for you - a big chunk of investment capital today
> comes from institutional investors which include for a large part savings
> and retirement funds of millions of grunts who saved their meager earnings
> for the old age. Does the interest earned on these investments constitute
> a parasitic capitalistic profit?
It may surprise you to learn that I am a shareholder in a banking institution. My partner and I are joint holders in about $1,000 in value of shares in a former credit union which was privatised (de-mutualised) a few years ago.
Never got around to getting rid of them, even though I know for a fact the management of this bank is relatively incompetent. (I once had to seek outside intervention from the regulator just to force them to deposit a cheque, because the manager of the branch didn't understand that a cheque written to someone else, but endorsed as "not negotiable" could be still deposited in anyone's bank account. And his superiors refused to correct the obstinate moron.)
Anyhow, point is, the dividends that are paid to us on account of those shares are profit on capital. Doesn't make a scrap of difference that I am an unemployed lumpen-proletariat from the boondocks. Profit is not dependent on moral virtue of the recipient. Some capitalists are wife-beating mongrels, some are the nicest people you could ever meet.
And of course just because I get a bit of pocket change in dividends doesn't make me a capitalist. If I were getting enough to get me off the dole, now that would make me a capitalist, if a somewhat threadbare one. But I can't see that happening, since I don't even buy lottery tickets.
Now the profit earned on superannuation funds is a slightly more complex question. Most retirement funds here in this country are derived from compulsory superannuation contributions levied on employers. They are then, by law, managed by what we would agree are rentier capitalists, who manage these huge superannuation funds.
The nominal beneficiaries of these super funds have no say in any of this, cannot get at the money except under strict rules to transfer their share to another parasitic super fund. One day they may derive the benefit of whatever profits remain after the parasites who manage the funds gobble up billion in fees and charges, or maybe not. Either way, the super funds cannot in any realistic way be viewed as belonging to "millions of grunts who saved their meagre earnings for the old age", until/unless they reach the legal age at which the rentier super fund managers are required by law to hand over their share of the loot.
For instance my partner got a couple weeks casual work awhile back. Naturally, her employer was required to make the minimum super contribution into an approved fund. About a year later she got a statement from the super fund. It explained that her fund had got certain deposits, then detailed how these funds had been eaten up in fees and charges and the balance was now zero.
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. ;-)
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas