Do you believe the fundamental structure of...

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

...our monetary system is severely flawed and needs to be rethought, redesigned, and then rebuilt from the ground up?

--------------------------------

---snip---

Using panic to centralize power

As I document in my forthcoming book, Power of Money: The Rise and Decline of the American Century, in every major US financial panic since at least the Panic of 1835, the titans of Wall Street -- most especially until 1929, the House of JP Morgan -- have deliberately triggered bank panics behind the scenes in order to consolidate their grip on US banking. The private banks used the panics to control Washington policy, including the exact definition of the private ownership of the new Federal Reserve in 1913, and to consolidate their control over industry, such as US Steel, Caterpillar, Westinghouse and the like. They are, in short, old hands at such financial warfare to increase their power.

Now they must do something similar on a global scale to be able to continue to dominate global finance, the heart of the power of the American Century.

That process of using panics to centralize their private power created an extremely powerful, concentration of financial and economic power in a few private hands, the same hands which created the influential US foreign policy think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921 to guide the ascent of the American Century, as Time founder Henry Luce called it in a pivotal 1941 essay.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that people like Henry Paulson, who by the way was one of the most aggressive practitioners of the ABS revolution on Wall Street before becoming Treasury secretary, are operating on motives beyond their over-proportional sense of greed. Paulson’s own background is interesting in that context. Back in the early 1970s Paulson started his career working for a notorious man named John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s ruthless domestic adviser who created the Plumbers’ Unit during the Watergate era to silence opponents of the president, and was left by Nixon to ‘twist in the wind’ for it in prison.

Source: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3857.shtml

Also see Zeitgeist Addendum when you have a couple hours to spend -- pretty enlightening

[Hydra]

1. Our system of economics and money

Benefits a VERY few and wrecks the environment that we depend on and the lives of millions in the process. The idea that this is the best we can do is laughable.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. Agreed.

[zeemike]

3. Yes it is, but the fix is not that complicated.

Because in order to fix it not just patch it up you must understand the root cause of the problem.
And it is not greed as you might think but a system that not only encourages it but rewards the greediest.
Greed we will always have with us and we cannot change that in a short time. but the system that rewards can be.
Like a fundamental change in the Stock Market itself....Make stocks worth only what the dividends are worth and end the trading of stock except the swapping of actual stock one for one.
Yes that is what I am suggesting, make stocks worthless to speculators..

Secondly put a cap on the maximum interest able to be charged...like 7%.
That would take all the quick money makers right out of the loan business which then could be handled by people that were satisfied with a slow steady growth of their assets instead of the quick buck artist.

OK I got my flame retardant suit on....

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. This is the kind of rethinking we're in need of...

...I like the idea of taking the big Wall Street speculation casino table away.

Also, I don't know how it is we've been conned for so long into going along with a privately held usury agent (The Fed) which charges interest on every dollar created -- there can never be enough dollars to pay off an ever spiraling debt. This is a Ponzi scheme.

Zeitgeist Addendum is worth a look and treats the topic of our horribly flawed monetary system pretty thoroughly. It runs about two hours and can be found in the Google Video repository.

[zeemike]

5. Thanks...What do you think would happen to the Fed if

The speculation was attacked and eliminated?
I am no economist so I have to ask.

But one thing I know would happen is that unemployment would go up as the day traders and speculators would be unemployed and need a job if they had not yet made there fortune of spent the money on expensive toys.
but that could be a good thing as these people would then be available for real work that actually created something even if it was only a burger and frys.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. I'm not sure what would become of the Fed or how it would be...

...affected by eliminating or severely curtailing market speculation. It's a good question.

It wouldn't bother me in the least to see Wall Street casino addicts pushed away from the table and out onto the street with all the rest of us.

[zeemike]

Sory double post

The speculation was attacked and eliminated?
I am no economist so I have to ask.

But one thing I know would happen is that unemployment would go up as the day traders and speculators would be unemployed and need a job if they had not yet made there fortune of spent the money on expensive toys.
but that could be a good thing as these people would then be available for real work that actually created something even if it was only a burger and frys.

[Greyhound]

6. How about simply removing the interest that is unconstitutionally charged

us on the money created by us? The Federal Reserve was purposely created to take control of the nation by monopolizing it's currency. The Founders knew this scam very well and tried to avoid it by reserving the power to coin money and establish it's value to Congress.

By constantly abrogating it's power to those that seek to profit from it, the US Congress ensured our eventual subservience to the banking cartel.

It is worth noting, however, that prior to the creation of the Fed, the whole fluctuation of the value of our currency never exceeded 7.5%. That's about 120 years of relative stability. Also, by creating the boom-bust cycle that we have suffered under with the Fed, they create an environment far more suitable to bending national policy to their own ends. There is profit in chaos, so we get artificially created chaos.

Prior to Raygun, we laws against usury that effectively capped the interest that could be charged.

Prior to ours, no fiat currency has lasted more than 30 years. We stretched it further, but since the system requires constant expansion to avoid collapse, and since we lived in a closed system with absolute limits, the Ponzi scheme must fail sooner or later.

[zeemike]

8. But it seems to me that it is all integrated with the market.

With out the market and speculation what would the Fed be printing money for?
The present model is that a business man wants to grow and has not the money to do it and so he borrows to grow his business with the idea he can make enough to pay for the loan and the interest plus a profit for himself.
When credit became easy the speculators who only speculated were rewarded and encouraged.
Flush with cash the big time players started companies that built houses. or should I say Mc Mansions and sold them with get rich quick loans.
The old way of doing it was to save some of his profit until he had an operating fund big enough to expand.
So only the successful business man got bigger. And one who had a good product that people wanted.

[Greyhound]

12. One of the primary reasons for the census is for, ostensibly, the Congress to determine

how much currency needs to be in circulation to keep exchange flowing smoothly without an excess which causes inflation. The charging of interest was never the intent and is inherently immoral as it represents a theft of labor/product.

Your businessperson that needs additional capital to expand or start a business is exactly as it should be, it is the bank charging interest to lend that which they do not have nor own that begins the problem. It creates an unearned accumulation of wealth for which nothing was produced, this unearned income in turn creates the basis for the inflationary spiral which inevitably leads to what we have today. It is immoral on it's face and is a detriment to the overall economy as it is a disincentive to produce.

There should be no finance "industry", merely a service provided by the government and paid for through taxation.

[zeemike]

13. Like I said I am not an econimist...but I understand that

And you explained it well.
And anyway that usury has noting to do with capitalism. Capitalism basic idea is the pooling of resources to do work that no one individual could do by himself. And the incentive for it is sharing in the profit of the enterprise.
And I have no problem with that. the problems arise when they "trade" the stocks and use those trades to earn unearned income which produces noting of real value.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

9. Eliminating interest seems a very straightforward...

...and at the same time immense change to introduce -- the creation of money doesn't belong in private hands.

The 5th of five of the presentation "Money as Debt" touches on this:

5/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kpSbkaD4tM

Here are the other four:

1/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8

2/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sanOXoWl0kc

3/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTv1fo6sKmo

4/5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qicabStQkc


You may already be thoroughly familiar with this material, I didn't mean to suggest that you're not in posting these links.

[Greyhound]

21. I'm just very happy that at least some of us are aware of how far from where

we should be we've come. We are living their nightmare, unrestrained rule by an isolated, insulated, completely indifferent oligarchy, that has established a totally parasitic coterie that has grown to such proportion that the host is dying.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

24. Well put. And I would add that I think the power structure they've...

...erected here, completely dependent on a continually maintained fear and ignorance among the masses, is really much more vulnerable than most of us are willing to believe.

[Greyhound]

33. I've never understood why so many people seem incapable of seeing

that we have all the power and we don't need them at all.

...and thank you.
:kick:

[Terry in Austin]

10. Definitely agree. Any ideas how else to do money?

Creating money based on debt seems to be a little too ethereal -- at least, the way it's currently practiced. For one thing, there's too much temptation to expand the money supply arbitrarily and skim the excess. That's government's "hidden tax." And money creation via fractional-reserve banking is a racket, at best... maybe even a little spooky, if you think about it.

I don't necessarily agree with the gold bugs, either, because there are money-supply problems when it's based on precious metals. The money supply should be able to expand (or contract) in an accurate representation of the amount of actual wealth in an economy. The problem is, the amount of metal you have is what you have, which in a growing economy would have a deflationary effect over time.

Then, if somebody strikes a mother lode somewhere, the money supply is distorted in an inflationary direction. It's really just some metal that somebody dug up, but society says that the metal is money. The problem in this case is that there is no new wealth for the newly-dug money to represent. More money chasing the same amount of goods and services equals inflation.

So -- we've tried different ways to do money, and we still don't have it quite right, apparently. What are some other possibilities?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

11. Here's a link to an interesting online book...

...written by a British man named Edward Hamlyn:

Dr. Edward Hamlyn died peacefully at home in August 2007 aged 85 years. Dr Hamlyn campaigned tirelessly for Monetary Reform and was writing materials to his dying day with the happy knowledge that the local paper published some of his material on the last day of his life.

http://www.monetaryreform.org/moneytextbook/index.htm

---snip---

This revelation shows very clearly how a thoroughly exploited, dishonest monetary system is the cause of inflation. Another example is the credit card. If you use your Barclay card Visa to purchase goods and the time to pay expires you start to pay 19% interest per annum. If you use the card in a cash machine and run out of time you find yourself paying 27.9% interest per annum.

When you stop to think of the ease with the which people can be enslaved by debt, it is quite obvious that we are looking at corruption in high places. It also reveals the importance to everyone, of restoring to Government, the sole right to create and issue new money. It also helps us to see how it must be done correctly.

“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers . By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayer will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity” Abraham Lincoln

Having seen how to avoid inflation we can now see how to determine the correct speed with which to issue new money in order to service economic growth. The sole purpose of money should be as a means of exchange. Therefore money must stand proxy for the value of what is being exchanged. That value is determined by the cost of bringing goods or services to the market place, at a price which will assure their future availability. By measuring the rate of increase of this trade, we get the rate at which to increase the money supply.

There is nobody to decide this figure for us. We work it out for ourselves. Of course this does not apply to the individual but it does apply to the Nation. My definition of a Nation in this context is a group of people who have their own independent Government. “Independent” is the operative word.

[Terry in Austin]

25. Credit and money

It's no stretch to equate credit and money. Our national money is created entirely from debt, and commercial paper -- that pervasive and apparently essential lubricant for the gears of our economy -- is one fig-leaf away from being privately-issued money.

If we take this equivalence, and also take the view that it's the government's job, and only the government's, to issue money, then we'd have to conclude that no one but the government should be allowed to issue credit. Money would then truly be under public control. For anyone else to lend money at interest (i.e, extend credit) would be just as illegal as counterfeiting currency.

This would certainly be a radical departure from our current system of private banking, but a profoundly healthy one, imo.

Hamlyn's work looks very interesting, and I'll give it a further read. Thanks for the link!

[Greyhound]

22. Time. Universal, constant, and representative of actual value.

It makes it impossible to hide the costs of production which is what has enabled 5% of the population to appropriate 75% of the earth's resources.

Thoughts?

[Terry in Austin]

26. Agreed. Our time, as labor, is all we really "own"

Natural resources -- the ingredients of all goods -- are all really just appropriated, if you get right down to it.

Arguably, the land, minerals, forests, etc. are gifts of nature, and any claim of ownership to them is simply a political fiction. If anything, we all own them in common. Nineteenth-century thinker and reformer Henry George made a compelling case for treating all land as our commons, and showed the very beneficial policy implications that would follow from this.

George's reasoning could well be extended to all gifts of nature. We apply our time and labor and skills, adding value to the raw materials to turn out finished goods. The labor is actually our own, but the materials were in some way appropriated. Ideally, the appropriation would be according to some process of common consent -- a process that is cheerfully ignored by our present system.

In the case of services, it's a little simpler -- our own labor is all we're selling.

Either way, it's very reasonable to argue that the only real value we can legitimately sell or trade is our own labor, so perhaps our money should be based on units of that value -- hours.

In fact, many http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency">alternative currencies do just that: e.g., Ithaca Hours, Berkshire Bread, LETS and other mutual credit systems. Maybe these will serve as laboratories to help develop a better monetary system for all of us.

Certainly, the idea of time-based money brings out some very fundamental democratic issues: all of us have the same number of hours in the day, so why is it that a guy in a suit talking on the phone makes 100 times more than a guy in overalls fixing a car? Does that mean he's 100 times better? Our society should come to grips with questions like this. We'd certainly be better off for it.

[Greyhound]

32. Thanks for the reply and the links, I did not know about Henry George before.

One of the factors that makes me think that this is viable is that, thanks to the global fiat currency systems, the infrastructure to implement this is already in place and a straight conversion could be done with minimal disruption.

Time based currency and outlawing the charging of interest fills all of societies needs and eliminates the dead weight of the, misnamed, financial industry.

We should, given the problems that are now plain to even the thickest, most dedicated, moran, begin to frankly examine the world as it is and explore alternatives to this fundamentally flawed system that was created for the sole benefit of an infinitesimal ruling class.

:hi:

[Terry in Austin]

35. Right on, greyhound!

:toast:

[Kip Humphrey]

14. Give me depositor owned community banking tied to the communities they serve

Employee-controlled, community-based Distributed Capitalism is the answer.

[lonestarnot]

16. Yes!

:applause:

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

15. Kick for a larger sample.

[BeFree]

17. KnR

This is an important discussion here. Folks need to read this. I gave it the 4th, who will be so kind as to give the fifth?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

18. Kick for a larger sample.

[Cerridwen]

19. K & R and a link to an idea - a "resource based economy"

http://www.thevenusproject.com/resource_eco.htm

Consider the following examples: At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.

In a resource-based economy all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative.

<snip>

At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth's inhabitants. Only when population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land do many problems such as greed, crime and violence emerge. By overcoming scarcity, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today's society would no longer be necessary.

<snip - more at link above>

Yeah, I know it's "pie in the sky" thinking. Some days, I just need to dream.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

20. "In a resource based economy...

...all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative."

And in a Ruling Class economy virtually all important resources, either directly or indirectly, are controlled by the Ruling Class.

It's pretty clear which kind of economy we currently live under and what direction we need to move. I've no doubt they'd like for us to believe real change is a pipe dream, but I don't think it is.

I am convinced though, that the real systemic changes we need will require massive, well organized, non-violent, non-cooperation with our ruling elites.

[Cerridwen]

23. Lemme throw a couple of ideas at you before I have to head out

for the morning.

"...the real systemic changes we need will require massive, well organized, non-violent, non-cooperation with our ruling elites."

Rather than massive, I think along the lines of statistically significant. In large enough numbers to be noticeable and in ways that are not "just coincidence." I don't expect the corporate owned and consolidated media to report on it so it would require a lot of little reporting around the country and via the internet.

Rather than well organized, I think along the lines of small groups of people "dropping out" of the systems and creating our own communities - in statistically significant numbers - as reported in towns and cities across the planet.

Massive and well organized can come later. I think we overwhelm ourselves with the scope of what needs to be done rather than take the first, and possibly stumbling, "baby steps." Here's an example from a book I'm reading right this second:

"...imagine that every time you sat down to eat, you thought about all the food you would have to eat during your lifetime. Just imagine for a moment that all piled up in front of you are tons of meat, vegetables, ice cream, and thousands of gallons of fluids! And you have to eat every bit of this food before you die! Now, suppose that before every meal you said to yourself, "This meal is just a drop in the bucket. How can I ever get all that food eaten? There's just no point in eating one pitiful hamburger tonight." You'd feel so nauseated and overwhelmed your appetite would vanish and your stomach would turn into a knot. When you think about all the things you are putting off, you do this very same thing without being aware of it." Feeling Good, David D. Burns, M.D., page 89 - "Overwhelming Yourself" (tip 'o the hat to TimeForChange for recommending this book).

We do this collectively every time we think about how much there is to change and think we have to have the numbers and the coordination just to start - so, we don't start. Maybe not you specifically, :D , or even me, so much. But collectively. We wait and wait for someone to remove the pile of food in front of us rather than taking just one bite. Sometimes, ya just gotta start.

As always, this is my opinion and your mileage may vary.

:hi:

And, now I'm off to help a friend paint her stairwell and to fix her printer problem. Have a great day...one bite at a time!

[balantz]

27. Yes n/t

[Poseidan]

28. no

Our system is fine, except the Legislative branch being broken. Article 1; Section 8 clearly states Congress has the power to regulate commerce. It does not say Congress has the power to de-regulate commerce. It makes no mention of de-regulation, because the entire notion of de-regulated Capitalism is ridiculous nonsense only a criminal or a moron would introduce. When Congress functions properly, and regulation is correctly enforced, there is nothing wrong with our economic system.

Although, there is room for improvement. Humans have a fatal tendency to believe everything is perfect, which prevents them from realizing actual potential.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

29. Kick for a larger sample.

[eridani]

30. It needs to be reconnected to the real world of products and services n/t

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

31. Kick for a larger sample.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

34. Kick for a larger sample.