Posted on 03/29/2013 5:37:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Throughout history, there have been “peasant uprisings” in response to ill-treatment by rulers. These “peasant uprisings” have many details but one basic message: “Please, Sir, don’t beat me so hard.”
From the perspective of the rulers, a few peasant uprisings are a sign of good management. If there were no such uprisings, it means that you should exploit the peasants a little more aggressively.
“Peasant uprisings” don’t accomplish much. “Occupy Wall Street” was one such peasant uprising.
Sheep also go “baaaa” when they are shorn.
What does work is: a new vision. You need an alternative to the present power structure. Whether a Communist Revolution in some places, or an Independence Movement and Democratic Revolution in the United States in 1776 (and France in 1789), a very clear alternative to present rule is proposed. This vision animates the imagination of the people, and drives them to fight until the old order is deposed and the new order (for better or worse) is introduced.
This is revolution. It begins in the imagination.
If you want to End the Fed, you need to create a vision of what would replace it. It needs to be a sound vision, not one with obvious problems, because nobody is going to risk it all to overturn the existing order for something that is clearly a pile of horse poop.
Historically, the choice between Mercantilist and Classical monetary approaches, floating currencies vs. a gold standard, has also been a choice between monopoly currency control and distributed or “free market” currency control. There are exceptions — the Bank of England was both a monopoly currency issuer and the gold standard’s greatest example — but that pattern has recurred over time.
In the United States, we have had a Federal Reserve currency monopoly essentially since about 1940.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
If the minimum wage is kept to a reasonable level, it can be a good idea. A $9 minimum wage would be 54% of the median wage of $16.57 per hour as of May 2011. That was nearly two years ago, so call it 50% of the median wage. This level seems about right to me.
Well, if it seems about right to him I guess it's OK.
Changing all Private Land Deeds from "fee simple" to "Allodial" Titles/Deeds to stop the Madness of never owning your property due to ever increasing Real Estate Taxes.
The Treasury must be the ONLY issuer of money, paper money, not “backed” by anything.
It must publish, publicly - publish - (have I said it enough) how many dollars it issues every time it issues dollars.
This money creation power, if given to private sector entities, gives them control over government - since government then must come to those private sector entities, hat in hand, to ASK for money.
Obviously, the private sector entities who are currently enjoying this privilege currently exert enormous control over government and politics inside the US.
Consequently, they have articles like this printed up ad nauseum to convince people that having their own government’s Treasury create money would be a problem.
What we’ve NEVER been taught in our so-called “history classes” is that the most powerful banking/finance institutions in America CAUSED all the panics we’ve experienced.
How ? By spreading a few rumors then selectively withholding credit. This creates liquidity problems for the institutions which then can’t borrow. The “power people” made sure institutions within their orbit were well-financed during the “panics”, and, in classic style, bought up assets at a large discount.
After the “panics”, they had their “experts” clamor for whatever new laws they want and spread the myth that government caused the panic.
It’s really logic 101: government must be the sole creator of money, and that money should be difficult to counterfeit. The private sector must then earn money instead of just creating it. The government will then NEVER need to borrow, it can simply create money if it needs it. Counterbalancing that - if as I said above the amounts created are published - is the perception on the part of the public that too much money creation will devalue all their assets that are held inside the nation, since they are denominated in the national currency. Too much money printing by the Treasury would result in the wealthy, powerful people of the nation getting very active politically and putting a stop to superfluous money creation (i.e., percentage growth in money supply higher than percentage growth in total private sector assets).
The only people in the private sector who support government borrowing are those who are IN the sovereign debt industry or in industries tightly linked to it.
This is why Wall Street and many people who work for those firms HATE the idea of ending the Fed.
That is why wealthy and powerful people in America today love the private-sector money-creation industry.
That is why wealthy and powerful people in America today love the idea of government deficit spending.
Amazingly - the wealthy and powerful of America today will not use their influence to stop the bankrupting of government and the dependency of the poor on government.
DUH ! The more borrowing the better to them.
The fallback position for the money-creation industry is to require the government to buy gold (a market they have thoroughly controlled for centuries) every time the government creates one of its own dollars. You can see how the citizenry is still, in that case, enslaved to the private sector money-creation industry via the government.
The next step? Monetary reform.
Monetary Reform Priciples
Sound monetary reform requires: 1.) the issuance of all money (legal tender) by the State, exclusively; 2.) in amounts calculated to stabilize the general price level; 3.) without debt obligations to private persons, 4.) with all lending to be performed by private legal persons, exclusively; 5.) while safeguarding the widespread ownership of private property.
Note: The principal point here is to replace private creation of money by debt-based, bank-book-entry create (i.e. by bank loans), based on fractional reserves (i.e. high powered money) which is inherently unstable and unjust, with government creation of money by credit-based Treasury deposits and U.S.Notes (i.e. for government payments or purchases) which are based on full reserves (i.e. not high powered money), by definition for the benefit of all the people and not just for bankers.
As Swedish reformer Boudewijn Wegerfif noted, the steady raising of reserve requirements will inhibit the ability of banks to manipulate the money supply and price level in order to undermine the government’s commitment to stabilize both.
For those who do not know: the Federal Reserve is NOT a government agency but a privately held bank that supplies dollars in exchange for government debt.
Nice post. Clearly explains the situation.
In other words turn it over to the very banks that contributed heavily to the recent financial crisis? The "too big to fail" people? No thanks.
| Account | Assets | Account | Liabilities |
| Cash | $500 | Customer Deposits | ($14,000) |
| Government Securities | $2,500 | Short-term Debt | ($3,000) |
| Short-term Loans | $13,000 | Long-term Debt | ($2,000) |
| Long-term Loans | $6,000 | Bonds | ($2,000) |
| Shareholder's Equity | ($1,000) | ||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |||
| $22,000 | ($22,000) | ||
| Account | Assets | Account | Liabilities |
| Cash | $4,500 | Customer Deposits | ($3,000) |
| Government Securities | $0 | Short-term Debt | ($8,000) |
| Short-term Loans | $9,000 | Long-term Debt | ($8,000) |
| Long-term Loans | $8,500 | Bonds | ($2,000) |
| Shareholder's Equity | ($1,000) | ||
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |||
| $22,000 | ($22,000) | ||
The Treasury must be the ONLY issuer of money, paper money, not “backed” by anything...
Transparency, accountability, responsibility. Debt reduction/elimination, less taxes, sound money/paper, stable free republic.
Amen
That's the way it should be. The people should have control over the government. What can you possibly be thinking?
The government will then NEVER need to borrow, it can simply create money if it needs it.
Do you even understand the concept of "inflation"? That printing money dilutes the value of what already exists? Your hatred of banks and love of government are driving you to some very, very bad conclusions.
Let’s take a simple illustration.
A nation with a population of 1,000 people.
Amongst them, the wealthiest net worth is $1 million, the poorest $0.
Let’s say it averages out to $23,000 net worth per capita; the nation’s total net worth is therefore $23,000,000.
Let’s assume at this point that the total money supply (wampum) is $3,000,000 wampum (about 13% of the total national net worth).
The 1,000 people conduct their business using the $3,000,000 wampum that exist.
Now, 100 years passes. Let’s assume zero inflation rate for 100 years.
After that same 100 years, however, the population has expanded to 4,000 people.
If we had the same per capita net worth, we would have a total net worth of the population of $92,000,000 wampum.
But we’d still only have the same $3,000,000 wampum in circulation. Wampum would be 4 times as scarce as they were 100 years ago. The total wampum would only be about 3% of total national net worth.
It would be much more difficult to get one’s hands on actual wampum (not wampum “on account”, but wampum) after all that wealth accumulation, even though the average person still had the same net worth.
If wampum had been created, however, to match the population growth, it would simply (to use the algebraic terminology) drop out of the equation in terms of having an influence on the economy one way or the other. We’d have $12,000,000 wampum in circulation, still about 13% of the total national net worth.
The other major factor, of course, where money should be created is when per capita net worth actually increases over time. The underlying driving force with that is technological advancements, where fewer people are required to do the current jobs and they find other productive things to do that people are willing to pay for to earn money. We then find total long-term capital assets increasing over time in their usefulness and the standard of living increasing correspondingly.
If one has ever tried to run a business, one knows that a certain amount of one’s assets must be kept in ready, spendable cash, in order to pay bills as they come due.
Depending on the type of business, a workable ratio of cash to assets will vary. Some businesses generate large sales with few assets, others have a large amount of fixed (long-term) assets relative to Sales / transaction volume and therefore will need much less cash on hand relative to the total assets figure.
Regarding inflation and currency devaluation, certainly if the creation of wampum money exceeds the need for it in the economy - you are precisely correct - the value of wampum starts eroding.
It’s essential to note that if money (wampum) is not created fast enough, and wampum (money) becomes increasingly scarce (like in the first example), then a valid “investment” would be in wampum itself ! If dollars you earned this year, say $40,000 after taxes, could purchase 2 brand new automobiles, or support 1 person for one year (food, clothing, etc), etc., and if you knew that the same $40,000, 20 years from now would enable you to purchase 4 brand new automobiles, or support 2 people for one year... then simply sitting on the cash would be a valid investment alternative that many people would opt for. We would then see businesses having a hard time finding investment capital because everyone would be simply holding cash. Having a very low rate if inflation provides an environment that motivates investment in business. Inflation becomes radically destructive of wealth, however, when it starts getting anywhere near the normal, long-haul return that one can expect from business investments in a truly legitimate competitive environment, which I find to be between 7% to 8% annually. If business returns are much more than that, competition pares them back; if they’re much less, the risk/return proposition stops making sense and participants will tend to exit the marketplace. Given that “natural” ROI level, if the cost of borrowing is much higher than that, the borrowing starts not making sense financially except in isolated special circumstances such as certain high-growth opportunities. Therefore, if I’m trying to lend money to business at say 6%, 8%, 10%, etc., and inflation is in that same range - then I’m taking on risk by lending - but my return is almost entirely eaten up by inflation, a situation that again, in the long run, would only make sense to desperate investors. Clearly, when inflation gets much beyond 2%, the economy becomes much more of a rough ride for almost everyone.
In no way do I “hate” banks. They simply should not have the power to create money, any more than any other business. (Of course, as I said in my prior post, fractional reserve lending is really not creating dollars, it’s just a series of deposits and loans that increase the size of balance sheets). Also, like all businesses, they work best when owned by individuals and are not traded on an exchange (i.e., public), because owners have appropriate authority and responsibility and are more dedicated to keeping the bank solvent (since they stand to lose their investment in the bank if it fails and can influence the management sufficiently). Certainly the worst possible scenarios for bank ownership are a) publicly-held b) monopolies and c) government involvement in ownership, boards of directors and laws or regulations.
Credit - properly used - facilitates quality business operations and banks can also function as an excellent investment for the banks owners.
Also noteworthy is the fact that shadow banking emerges when proper banking is pushed out of the marketplace by government - we see this today in a BIG way.
One must understand about my prior post - the idea is that right now, if government deficit spends money on handouts to buy votes, big finance/business actually benefits because the issuance of government debt creates an “easy money” economic environment that they benefit from in many ways. With the system I’m talking about, with government not borrowing and not paying interest on debt, but printing money - big business/finance would get the exact SAME punishment as ALL Americans if the government printed too much too fast - inflation and devaluation of their dollar-denominated assets. This would cause big business/finance to actually oppose printing excess money to buy votes. Their so-called “care” about “social programs” would evaporate, and government spending would suddenly become for everyone a burden on them to be avoided.
Take GE, for example, a well-connected new world order firm. They don’t care about the government paying interest on debt, because they don’t pay much, if any, in Federal Income taxes once you factor in all the credits they use. Then factor in the other side: Sales. They sell all sorts of things to the government - so they love government spending on their products and services.
(Incidentally, it was GE’s power-grid management software that had a race-condition bug that was a key part of the chain of events that lead to the 2003 blackout; also, they enjoy, for all intents and purposes, monopolies in various industries).
If we finally had wealth and power in America opposing big government, we would be “part” of the way to putting government back to only it’s legitimate tasks, i.e., defense, diplomacy, justice and some minor things in say interior / administration.
I think we should have all that we need from government for less than $1 trillion in spending. I think that SS/MC should a) get split back away from the Federal budget and viewed ALWAYS ENTIRELY on their own (they have their own payroll deductions) then b) they should be phased out and the public should, inside of 20-40 years, be completely BACK on its own in terms of medical care and retirement. This would require a system where monthly capitation payments were made directly to hospital systems/networks instead of to insurance companies. I think the cost of such plans would be under $200 per month in today’s dollars and offer actually improved care and technology.
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