OT: "Solution to Financial Woes -- End Debt-Based Dollars" - Mark Anderson
- From: Howard Duck <hbduck@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:09:06 -0500
Solution to Financial Woes -- End Debt-Based Dollars
A conference in Chicago looked at ways to solve the current financial
crisis constitutionally by taking over the Fed and ending debt-based
dollars.
By Mark Anderson
CHICAGO, Illinois - The American Monetary Institute's (AMI) annual
conference here at Roosevelt University happened just as the federal
government was wrapping up its nearly trillion-dollar plan to further
in debt the American people by buying the worthless assets of certain
Wall Street interests at public expense. This and other financial
skullduggery have even the most politically casual Americans
trembling, while wondering if this is finally "the perfect storm" that
will capsize our "ship of state."
American Free Press covered the Sept. 27 session of AMI's Sept. 25-28
event. Moderated by noted author and AMI President Stephen Zarlenga,
the session had an academic flavor, but its bold exploration of the
history of debt forgiveness, the nature of money, who ought to issue
it and other topics - including observations on the so-called
"bailout" - painted a picture that stands in stark contrast to the one
presented to distraught Americans by the big government-big media
alliance.
Absent from media pronouncements are any facts or recommendations that
might focus public attention on the root causes of what may turn out
to be the nation's worst-ever financial crisis - much less any real,
lasting solutions. But AMI is among several sources covered by AFP
that seek real understanding of the seemingly complex issue of money.
Entire schools of thought, especially in the economic realm, are
censored in this "free" nation, but, as AFP has learned covering the
AMI event and several other programs, "the cure" is within every
citizen's grasp, just waiting to he heard and acted upon. The
individuals and organizations that attended the AMI conference
communicated a viewpoint that has some tricky variables and points of
debate, but it centers on sound principles and ideas that could lead
to a profound economic revival.
Notably, this is not a Ron-Paul-style call for a return to "sound
money" in the form of a gold standard; that view, whose backers
support abolishing the Federal Reserve System, has many merits and is
widely discussed. But here, we're talking about a somewhat different
vision in which the Fed is stripped of its unchallenged privilege of
issuing the nation's currency and setting interest rates without
genuine public oversight (and without audits). Indeed, the private
central bank that has commandeered the United States since 1913 would
be nationalized and kept only for basic operations, due to its
knowledge base.
Whether to nationalize or abolish the Fed, of course, is a question
that needs to be carefully considered.
Imagine the U.S. Treasury issuing its own money, instead of what we
have now, where the Treasury prints it at the Fed's behest (for only
pennies per note, regardless of the denomination) and hands it over to
the banking fraternity so the bankers can loan it back to the U.S.
government at interest (in the process, the Fed gets government bonds
that pledge the labor of all Americans behind the debt).
Cutting the Fed out of the creation and issuance of money, which is
AMI's favored scenario, means money would be spent into circulation
interest-free as a sovereign function of government, according to the
U.S. Constitution's provision that Congress is responsible for the
money function. Gold standard or not, reformers agree that printing
interest-free money is the reform that central bankers dread.
Focusing on aspects of the "social credit theory," which is neither
socialism nor monopoly capitalism, AMI speaker Nicolaus Tideman, an
economics professor from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, noted: "I
think we need to regard society as a money-issuing collective, in
which we all have equal shares."
He added that, since this intriguing theory - explained in detail as a
workable plan in a book obtained at the conference by AFP - calls for
paying a regular equal "dividend" to all citizens simply by virtue of
their citizenship, one option would be to have the government announce
$10,000 loans to all citizens to be paid back in five years. The
people receiving the money could retire numerous personal debts.
Depositing the money in local banks would address community needs.
But the kind of dividend called for in the groundbreaking book In This
Age of Plenty: A New Conception of Economics - Social Credit, takes
the form of regular payouts, not loans, to every member of the
citizenry, all of whom are treated like members of an economic
cooperative, wherein private enterprise and innovation are fully
encouraged and everyone, even the unemployed, would receive non-debt,
U.S. national money (not Federal Reserve debt notes) as members of a
common enterprise blessed with the natural resources provided by God.
Because working and contributing to the nation's productivity would
mean higher dividends for all, the incentive is to work, not to loaf.
This is the worldview in this book, published by the Pilgrims of St.
Michael (aka, The White Berets), based in Canada.
The extreme usury that Jesus of Nazareth rightfully condemned when he
drove out the moneychangers is strangling the people, as several AMI
speakers noted. Commentator David I. Kelley and Mr. Zarlenga concurred
that usury is not just high interest rates; it's actually "taking
unfair advantage of the financially weaker."
Kelley, referring to current events, condemned the gross misuse of the
nation's financial mechanisms and the havoc being wrought. He said
usury is an "anti-social use of money" where "the borrower is a slave
to the lender and the debtor to the creditor." He said real capitalism
means fashioning raw materials into goods sold for profit. But, he
said, "We have replaced the primacy of labor over land and capital" -
where labor is the most important element - with the idea that "money
becomes a god in and of itself."
He lamented that America is "always placing labor behind capital," and
American businesses aren't even allowed to operate without massive
capital behind them. Kelley went on to note what was later expounded
on by Dr. Michael Hudson - that for centuries debts at all levels were
forgiven on a cyclical basis and the slate was wiped clean so society
could rebuild, free of turmoil and strife. However, under the current
monetary matrix, significant debt forgiveness is virtually unheard of
in a world where nearly everyone is an economic serf.
Hudson noted how the famed classical Greek leader, Solon, literally
rescued his nation by abolishing personal slavery as debt security.
Farmers who had been banished from their own land were returned to
their farms as all debt contracts were cancelled and seized land was
returned to rightful owners. Hudson added that, for centuries, those
who financed transoceanic voyages and land caravans were only paid
back if the ventures were successful, as long as fraud was absent.
"If the shipper lost, he did not have to pay the creditor," Hudson
said. "Interest was paid as a portion of the surplus to the public
sector if everything (in the venture) goes as it's supposed to." He
added that, The Lost Tradition of Biblical Debt Cancellation is the
name of a book whose self-explanatory title points to a practice that
favored borrowers over lenders. The practice goes back to Babylonian
times. Referring to the "barley debts" of Sumeria, he said: "In the
Near East for thousands of years the first act of new rulers was to
cancel consumer debts" - especially those owed by the poor.
Fast forward to today. Hudson noted that, in the current "bailout," we
see "just exactly the opposite of ancient times," in that the U.S.
government advocates a plan to further indebt the average person to
the monied class. This means only canceling or absorbing the debts of
the rich, even though the Democrats claim to have the interests of
poorer homeowners in mind, Hudson noted, adding that the current
ruling class is ruthless.
Hudson concluded that there are laws on the books in New York state
which, applied nationally, would nullify debts when loans were made
beyond the debtor's ability to pay.
Today, he said, America is "favoring the creditors instead of
debtors," overturning centuries of doing things the other way around.
.
- Prev by Date: OT: How Can We Have Capitalism with No Capital? - Rep. Ron Paul
- Next by Date: Re: Comfort Food Reading & Non-Comfort Food Reading
- Previous by thread: OT: How Can We Have Capitalism with No Capital? - Rep. Ron Paul
- Next by thread: WWOT: On what it means to be human (LONG!)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
