The best video or article on money is the one people understand. This short video is from England where they call a non-interest bearing currency Positive Money instead of Greenbacks. Back in the 1930s Irving Fisher had similar ideas called the Chicago Plan and wrote a book entitled 100% Money. Please watch this video.
I have explained before that Depressions are periods of time when Unpayable Debts are cancelled. In Germany in 1923 debts were cancelled through Hyperinflation. In 1933 in America debts were cancelled when home mortgages and farms were foreclosed. Businesses went bankrupt.
As the video explained, under our monetary system we have to take out a loan to get money into circulation. If we paid off our national debt, we would have no money to buy and sell with so we would be reduced to carrying bushels of wheat around to buy a bicycle or a gallon of gas.
The video also explained that the majority of our money exists as checking accounts. This is because Bankers are allowed to create money every time we take out a loan. Mrs Jones deposits £1,000 but the Banker is allowed to loan out £10,000 and charge interest on that full amount. While Mrs Jones is lucky to receive 1% on her deposit, the Banker can charge 10% on £10,000. And he can charge a lot more if he loans it out on credit cards.
Booms and Busts are generated by this ability to loan out more than you have on deposit which is called fractional reserves. Booms are created because the money loaned out is added to total investments. There might be no real demand for a product but a substantial increase in loans can artificially create demand. As the video explained, most of the money loaned into existence goes into the Housing Bubble and into Financial Speculation. Neither of these help build the real economy. As these debts are cancelled, the Money Supply contracts, the economy shrinks, businesses fail and workers lose jobs. This is the inevitable Bust that follows the Boom.
This need not be. President Lincoln issued Greenbacks. It was money created as a public utility. There was no interest paid for its creation. It was spent into circulation in lieu of taxation. The other monetary reform suggested by Irving Fisher in the Chicago Plan of 1933 was to ban fractional reserve banking. Two IMF economists recently reviewed the Chicago Plan and concluded that ending fractional reserve banking would make Bank Runs impossible.
I would like to pass on to the people in the Positive Money movement in Great Britain a few suggestions. Monetary growth ought to be pegged at long term economic growth in the real economy. If you think of Prices as a ratio of Goods and Services to the Money Supply, then over the long run price stability should be easily achieved. Just increase the Money Supply at the same rate as the GDP.
I would like to increase the rate of growth by releasing scientific advances held in secret by the federal government. Also please note that professional economists said we need to increase the Money Supply 1% faster than the GDP due to hoarding.
I have cited many times the works of Borisov who said at least 3 million Americans starved to death in the 1930s and that as many as 7 million could have starved but that record keeping was too poor to prove the latter figure. I am living in a country that will quite literally cease to exist if ten million or more of my countrymen die from starvation. We are months and certainly not more than a year and a half away from what I have called the Great Starvation.
I have radical solutions. There are too many Too Big To Jail Banks. They rig all the markets. Matt Taibbi said in Rolling Stone that the Conspiracy Theorists were right. All of the markets are rigged. Both of our political parties are controlled by Wall Street. The same can be said for the UK, their main parties and the City of London. There are politicians in America promoting war under the false impression that wars will solve our economic problems because it worked when WW II cured the Great Depression. This kind of talk could get us all killed. The US military has had to tell both Bush and Obama at different times that they were not interested in launching World War III by attacking Iran and Syria. If the Obama administration tried to start a war over Iran or the Ukraine, the US military response might be a military coup against Washington and New York.
I would suggest the following reforms. Debt Cancellation is critical. Unpayable Debts drag down the economy. The Babylonians had a formula that told them when it was time to issue a proclamation canceling debts. We need worldwide Debt Cancellation. All government debt should be made illegal. Only a worldwide response is capable of stopping the Bankers who are pushing us to a One World government. Instead of invading foreign countries I think the US military should be used to invade the Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein, Dubai and other offshore bank havens to seize the assets of Financial and War criminals. The lawyers in those countries will have client lists and corporate names whose assets will need to be seized.
These funds will be needed to fully fund pensions that had been looted and to cancel government debts. Americans have tens of thousands of government agencies which collectively have tens of trillions of dollars in assets that can be used to fund pensions and pay off government debts. See http://www.CAFR1.com.
I agree with Professor Steve Keen that we need to give every adult citizen $20,000 in credit to pay off personal debts. I disagree with him only as to sources of funding Debt Cancellation. I also agree with him when he says we are headed to the worst Financial Crisis in 500 years with Great Britain being hit especially hard. That is certain to happen if we do not schedule Debt Cancellation very, very soon.
The other reform I would like to see is to have pensions made illegal. All promises of a future income should be paid today in present value. The payment should be made to a retirement fund held in your name at a local cooperative trust. These trusts could make small loans, issue credit cards and possibly offer simple insurance with the profits to be used to fund retirements.
The cooperative trusts would remove the the funds that Wall Street and the City of London have been using as their personal ATM machine. This would protect us from theft. It would also protect us from demagogues who see our retirement funds as a source of tax revenue for their pet projects. But most importantly the cooperative trusts would challenge and indeed overtake the power of the Too Big To Jail Bankers. And that will be a Day of Rejoicing for the working and middle classes.
Related Articles:
Confirming Matt Taibbi: The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/confirming-matt-taibbi-the-conspiracy-theorists-were-right/
2014: Bank Runs, Depressions, Austerity and Food Riots
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/2014-bank-runs-depressions-austerity-and-food-riots/
Wall Street’s Plans For The Great Starvation
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/wall-streets-plans-for-the-great-starvation/
The next article is about the Chicago Plan which promised to end Depressions.
IMF Economists: ‘We Were Wrong.’ Will Someone Please Tell The Press And The Politicians.
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/imf-economists-we-were-wrong-will-someone-please-tell-the-press-and-the-politicians/
Is An American Military Coup The World’s Last, Best And Only Hope?
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/is-an-american-military-coup-the-worlds-last-best-and-only-hope/