April 30 – May 6

APRIL 30

2014 – IMF APPROVES $17.01 BILLION LOAN TO UKRAINE IN EXCHANGE FOR “ECONOMIC REFORMS”

The IMF money comes with stringent terms, what used to be called “Structural Adjustment Programs,” which includes spending cuts, privatization/corporatization of public assets, laying off of public employees, increased prices and debt restructuring. IMF loans in essence transfer economic sovereignty domestically to international bankers.      In the case of Ukraine, the requirements include a 50 percent increase in the price of gas for households, as well as a quick pension reform and lower government spending.

The World Bank warned on April 10 that the loan terms set by the IMF would cut 2014 consumption in Ukraine by 8 percent, as well as erode capital investment.

MAY 1

1871 — KNOX V LEE US SUPREME COURT DECISION

This decision was one of several popularly known “Legal Tender Cases” during this period (the others were Hepburn v. Griswold and Julliard v Greenman). The Supreme Court reversed their earlier decision in Hepburn v. Griswold (1870). The decision upheld the Legal Tender Act declaring that making paper money legal tender did not conflict with US Constitution (Article 1). The decision allowed debtors to repay debts in Greenbacks rather than gold or silver.

2012 – “97% OWNED” VIDEO POSTED ONLINE

“When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it’s essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo

2018 – “A GREEN BANK OF ENGLAND” INTERNET POSTING

“The Bank of England is uniquely placed to explain the links and trade-offs between the low-carbon transition and other economic objectives, and to promote both where possible. It can retain its operational independence over monetary and financial policy even if the goals or parameters of policy are altered. Indeed, the choice of those goals is fundamentally a political question: political reform has modified the Bank’s purpose to suit historical and economic context in the past. The climate crisis presents an urgent change in context. The UK needs a central bank with a mandate which reflects that.”

A Green Bank of England

MAY 2

2012— SPEECH BY FEDERAL RESERVE GOVERNOR DANIEL TARULLO AT THE COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS

“It is sobering to recognize that, more than four years after the failure of Bear Stearns began the acute phase of the financial crisis, so much remains to be done–in implementing reforms that have already been developed, in modifying or supplementing these reforms as needed, and in fashioning a reform program to address shadow banking concerns. For some time my concern has been that the momentum generated during the crisis will wane or be redirected to other issues before reforms have been completed.” [Note: The political influence of financial corporations has prevented any serious banking and monetary reforms from being passed. Those that were passed have been watered-down during the implementation phase out of public spotlight thanks to intense lobbying from the same financial corporations]

2013 – “TAKING NOTES 22: THE NEED FOR A DEBT STRIKE” ARTICLE PUBLISHED

“The real problem, however, seems to be a failure to see the real relationship between debt and economic growth. And in this lies an issue of morality, as well as the root cause of climate change, increasing inequality, political conflict, and a host of other modern ills. Let me phrase the case in a series of propositions…

“Four, the reason we must perpetually grow exponentially is that we have a debt-based financial system. Money, in almost all countries, is issued as debt. Thus the economy must continually produce interest on debt or profit on investments or collapse…

“If it is true, that most of our environmental, political and social problems stem from the requirement of perpetual exponential economic growth, and if it is true that this stems from a debt-based financial system, then the only way to solve the problems of environmental devastation, social and economic inequality, and the continuing concentration of political power, is to reform this system. And the only way to convince those in power to implement reforms, is to threaten to withhold from them, the wealth that the great majority is expected to return to them. In other words, threaten a debt strike….

“To this end, I have drafted a Debtor’s Bill of Rights that outlines the threats we face and the rights we must demand.”

https://philosophersforchange.org/2013/05/02/taking-notes-22-the-need-for-a-debt-strike/

Debtor’s Bill of Rights at https://web.archive.org/web/20150508194126/http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu:80/richard.robbins/bill_of_rights.htm

2019 – DESIGN OPTIONS OF SOVEREIGN MONEY – A FULL OVERVIEW

“The goal of a sovereign money reform is to place the money creation into the hands of a public institution that serves the public interest. However, there are still many different design options how to implement this, i.e. what instruments should be used to steer the money supply or if the payment system should be run by the state or private payment providers. To bring more clarity to the discussion, this article provides an overview of the wide variety of design options for a sovereign money system.

“Among the member organizations of the International Movement for Monetary Reform regarding some of the design options there is consensus on best solutions but in other cases opinions vary quite a lot. Obviously though, often it can’t be generalized what is best, as that depends on a country’s specific circumstances and institutions. What’s reasonable for Germany might not be reasonable for South Africa or Canada.”

internationalmoneyreform.org/news/2019/05/design-options-of-sovereign-money-a-full-overview/

MAY 3

1939 – TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM TOWERS, GOVERNOR OF THE BANK OF CANADA (1934-54) BEFORE CANADIAN SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND COMMERCE

Question: “But there is no question about it, that banks create that medium of exchange?” [i.e., bank deposits]

Towers: “That is right. That is what they are for.”

Question: “And they issue that medium of exchange when they purchase securities or make loans?”

Towers: “That is the banking business, just in the way that a steel plant makes steel.”  (p. 287)

Towers testified that just as steel corporations create steel, banking corporations create money. The difference is that steel corporations start with iron ore and apply labor and technology. Banks, by contrast, create money out of thin air…as debt.

2011— “REDUCING U.S DEBT AND CREATING JOBS THROUGH PUBLIC CONTROL OF OUR MONEY SYSTEM” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA AND GREG COLERIDGE, HUFFINGTON POST

“Be it for ignorance or by intention, few federal elected officials have examined how a change in the way money in our nation is created and issued could reduce our nation’s deficit and debt and, in doing so, increase millions of vital jobs to transform our economy.

One of the few exceptions is Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who during the last Congressional session introduced H.R. 6550, The National Emergency Employment Defense Act.

The three essential measures include:

1. Moving the mostly private Federal Reserve System under the US Treasury Department…

2. Making the power to issue money a public function — bypassing the current system, which invited the careless and risky lending that, led to the global economic crisis…

3. Enabling the U.S. government to use its money power — creating and spending money into circulation — to address pressing infrastructure needs such as repairing our crumbling roads, bridges, rails and highways…

The irony is that these three provisions would institutionalize what most Americans falsely believe already exists: That the Federal Reserve is public. That banks only loan money that they possess. That the government creates our money. Wrong on all counts.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reducing-us-debt-and-crea_b_857230

MAY 4

1970 – IRISH BANKERS STRIKE – LIFE GOES ON

Irish bank employees go on strike over low wages. Over 85% of the country’s reserves were immediately locked down. The strike continued into the summer. By then, something odd happened — not much happened.

According to the Central Bank of Ireland, “The Irish economy continued to function for a reasonably long period of time with its main clearing banks closed for business.” The strike lasted for 6 months.

What did the Irish do for money?

“The Irish started issuing their own cash. After the bank closures, they continued writing checks to one another as usual, the only difference being that they could no longer be cashed at the bank. Instead, that other dealer in liquid assets – the Irish pub – stepped in to fill the void…

“In no time, people forged a radically decentralized monetary system with the country’s 11,000 pubs as its key nodes and basic trust as its underlying mechanism. By the time the banks finally reopened in November, the Irish had printed an incredible £5 billion in homemade currency…

“Some checks had been issued by companies, others were scribbled on the backs of cigar boxes, or even on toilet paper. According to historians, the reason the Irish were able to manage so well without banks was all down to social cohesion…

“[O]f course there were problems…Irish companies had a harder time acquiring capital for big investments. Indeed, the very fact that people began do-it-yourself banking makes it patently clear that they couldn’t do without some kind of financial sector…

“But what they could do perfectly well without was all the smoke and mirrors, all the risky speculation, the glittering skyscrapers, and the towering bonuses paid out of taxpayers’ pockets. ‘Maybe, just maybe,’ the author and economist Umair Haque conjectures, ‘banks need people a lot more than people need banks.’”

http://evonomics.com/why-garbage-men-should-earn-more-than-bankers/

2004 – “THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY & MONETARY JUSTICE USING GOVERNMENT CREATED MONEY TO FUND PUBLIC PROJECTS’ TALK BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS

To Lords, British MP’s, and monetary reformers at Parliament.

“The World’s economic problems are rooted in the miscontrol of our money systems which have been based on an inadequate concept of the nature of money…

“HALF OF THE PROBLEM IS The failure of economics from Adam Smith to the present to define or discover a concept of money consistent with both logic AND history. Economists rarely define money, assuming an understanding of it…

“THE OTHER HALF OF THE PROBLEM is the Mythology of Money – that what A Lot of People Think They Know About Money, just isn’t so.”

https://www.monetary.org/14-frontpage/98-zarlenga-s-talk-at-the-house-of-lords-london

2021 – “WILL JUST MONEY REFORM CAUSE INFLATION?” POSTED ARTICLE BY VIRGINIA HAMMON AND MARK PASH

“No. It will establish steady-value currency that will eliminate the economy-wide boom and bust cycles caused by our current system, and that can eliminate the possibility of high or hyperinflation.”

Will Just Money Reform Cause Inflation?

2021 –  “WHAT IS ENOUGH?” ONLINE ARTICLE BY HOWARD SWITZER

“The nascent monetary reform movement emerging world-around supports three reforms. To be clear, this will not fix everything, it will only help make everything fixable. This will allow a transformation of society. There are three reforms that must be implemented simultaneously to create and protect a debt-free sovereign monetary system. They are:

1. The FED is nationalized and put under the Treasury, precisely what most of us mistakenly think it is now.

2. Bank creation of money as debt is decisively stopped. Banks will only loan money that already exists, exactly what most people mistakenly believe happens now.

3. The federal government creates and spends into existence US Money in non-inflation/deflationary amounts for the needs of the nation and its people. Again, what many mistakenly think is happening now.”

https://howardswitzer.medium.com/what-is-enough-8d6db712ef5a

2021 – “WILL JUST MONEY REFORM CAUSE INFLATION?” ONLINE ARTICLE BY VIRGINIA HAMMON AND MARK PASH

“When we change our money system from debt-money created by private bankers to government-created asset money, will that lead to inflation?

“No. It will establish steady-value currency that will eliminate the economy-wide boom and bust cycles caused by our current system, and that can eliminate the possibility of high or hyperinflation.”

Will Just Money Reform Cause Inflation?

MAY 5

2005 – QUOTE BY ALAN GREENSPAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

“The use of a growing array of derivatives and the related application of more-sophisticated approaches to measuring and managing risk are key factors underpinning the greater resilience of our largest financial institutions. Derivatives have permitted the unbundling of financial risks.”

[NOTE: Three years later, the U.S. financial system imploded, causing what was called the “Great Recession,” but for many was a depression that resulted in lost homes, jobs and opportunities.] 

2015 – REALITY CHECK: COULD THE GREENS CHANGE HOW MONEY WORKS?

“Buried half-way through the Green Party’s manifesto is a pretty radical suggestion that could fundamentally change how money works…

“There are two common misconceptions about how money currently works:

• The Bank of England controls the amount of money circulating around the economy, perhaps by “printing money”
• The ability of private banks to lend is limited by how much other customers have deposited in their vaults

“Neither of these is quite true…

“The Greens want a central body to take on the job of creating money: ‘a new monetary authority, independent of day-to-day government control’…

“This would mean commercial banks would become ‘no more than the custodians of publicly created money in current accounts’…

“In other words, the amount of money in the economy would no longer depend on banks’ willingness to lend.

If the policy were to be implemented, it would mark a step-change in how money works.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32592671?fbclid=IwAR2UfvaJzsPvPnif2FtPVEWeOjpUCDsowDsqL0L25A3FYvdX-2j_Psu8FtA

2021 – “WHY CBDC’S (CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES) WILL LIKELY BE ID-BASED” POSTED ARTICLE

“Central banks are realising CBDCs will have to be intimately linked to identity to deal with illicit finance and bank disintermediation risk.

“Goldman Sachs’ econ research division, headed by Jan Hatzius, has a status report out this week on central bank digital currencies, and it inadvertently homes in on two factors that are increasingly becoming understood as essential in CBDC structures worldwide…

“As the report notes:

“Central banks have been cautious to avoid two key risks that CBDCs could pose. To avoid disintermediating banks by depriving them of their deposit base, central banks have imposed caps on balances, paid no interest on CBDC, or considered imposing a penalty interest rate on holdings above some threshold. To avoid facilitating illicit activity, central banks have mostly decided against fully anonymous accounts or capped anonymous transactions, and have tasked commercial bank intermediaries with monitoring customers and transactions.”

https://www.ft.com/content/88f47c48-97fe-4df3-854e-0d404a3a5f9a?fbclid=IwAR1LQNrbEGKtws2TogB-glS2pRm30Oll_qMrZ1IPS4VJjeFmW9QofijQYGA

MAY 6

2020 – ‘FROM THE COVID ECONOMIC DISRUPTION TO A SUSTAINABLE WORLD,” ARTICLE PUBLISHED

“The immense suffering caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic brings into sharp focus the tremendous failure of our global civilization to meet the basic needs of most of humanity. But this is only a taste of things to come if we do not decisively change how we live in order to preserve the fundamental preconditions for civilization itself…

“Economic System Revitalization Plan…

    Expand the money supply through Central Bank bonds for investments in Sustainable Infrastructure, a Job Guarantee, and/or a livable Universal Basic Income (UBI)…

“Our current economic system requires relentless growth in activities that are destroying the basis for human life on Earth. But it is an artificial construct in which private banks create money through the issuance of debt that transfers money from the less well-off to wealthy elites. This is the root cause of our astronomical income and wealth disparity that is being exploited by right-wing demagogues supported by the super rich.”

From the Covid Economic Disruption to a Sustainable World

April 23 – 29

APRIL 23

384 BC – BIRTH OF ARISTOTLE

“The most hated sort of wealth getting is usury, which makes again out of money itself and not from the natural object of it.  For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money…of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”

“Money exists not by nature but by law.” This is one of the most insightful comments on money of all time.

871 – REIGN OF KING ALFRED OF ENGLAND BEGINS

King Alfred (Alfred the Great) implemented a law that moneylenders who took usury would forfeit all their possessions to the King.

1616 – DEATH OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. HE WAS BORN ON THE EXACT SAME DATE IN 1564

“Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich?

Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks.”

– From The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, act 3, sc 3

[Note: The word “coin” is a verb, a common usage of the period. The same is true in the phrase “To coin Money” in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the legislative branch the authority to “create” or “coin” our nation’s money supply. Was true then. Is still true now. Yet, banking corporations have largely usurped this public authority – creating money as debt, loaned to the government, which must be paid back with interest. We the People must end the hijacking by banking corporations and banksters of our Constitutional authority to create our own money for purposes that we collectively determine, not banks and bankers which create money as debt that must be paid back with interest.] 

2018 – POSTING OF VIDEO “TODAY’S SOURCE OF MONEY CREATION” BY RICHARD WERNER

Professor Richard Werner, Chair in International Banking, University of Southampton, England provided this overview of how money is created in nations throughout the world and the impacts and consequences of the current system.

2018 – POSTING OF VIDEO “WHY I SUPPORT SOVEREIGN MONEY” BY LARRY KOTLIKOFF

Professor Larry Kotlikoff, Professor of Economics, Boston University, former Senior. Economist, US President’s Council of Economic Advisers provided this overview of the concepts of limited purpose banking and sovereign money, as well as why he favors the adoption of such a such a system in nations around the world.

APRIL 24

2014 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE IN FINANCIAL TIMES: “STRIP PRIVATE BANKS OF THEIR POWER TO CREATE MONEY” BY MARTIN WOLF, CHIEF FINANCIAL WRITER

Since banks create money out of thin air, they should be stripped of this power, and limited to normal depository functions. Wolf indicates the centrality and importance of the issue with his subtitle: “The giant hole at the heart of our market economies needs to be plugged.”

APRIL 25

2012 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, “TARP OVERSEER DEBUNKS BAILOUT MYTHS: BIG COMPANIES HAVEN’T REPAID TARP FUNDS…AND FUNDS TO HELP HOMEOWNERS HAVEN’T BEEN PAID”

“Apologists for government bailouts push two main myths:

-That all of the bailout funds have been repaid

-That the bailouts helped the average American

But the official government overseer of the Tarp bailout program – the special inspector general for TARP, Christy L. Romero – has debunked both myths.

Today, Romero wrote the following to Congress:

After 3½ years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”) continues to be an active and significant part of the Government’s response to the financial crisis. It is a widely held misconception that TARP will make a profit. The most recent cost estimate for TARP is a loss of $60 billion. Taxpayers are still owed $118.5 billion (including $14 billion written off or otherwise lost).”

2020 – OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL MOORE ON FACEBOOK FROM HOWARD SWITZER

“Thank you! Planet of the Humans is a wonderful and powerful film because it exposes the reason WHY we have to change our civilization, the way we live on this planet, and do it NOW. It also gives us a hint at WHAT is responsible for the horrendously destructive perpetuation of this system.  “Its all about the money.

“Now can you please expose the myths about money? Delve into Capitalism, the “private control of the creation and allocation of what we use for money,” which is credit/debt? All our money is created by a private for-profit industry run by the oligarchy, which allows them to direct the entire economic development of the world. They have sufficiently proved that such power in the hands of a few means very bad decisions. Money is the most influential of all man-made systems and money is more about power than it is economics, which is why it should not be in a few private hands but in broadly represented public hands. Just like the American Revolution, Mike, it’s all about the money.

“A friend of mine says “Public money won’t fix everything but it makes everything fixable.”  (the Continental and  the Greenback were both debt-free public money) It would be so great to explore a vision of what a Public Money System is capable of in transforming our ‘economics of greed’ into an ‘economics of care.’ The pandemic has shown us how fast the air and water clears when we stop what we’re doing. We need to rebuild the local economies destroyed by capitalism and localize food production on a massive scale and only a public money system is capable of doing that. Instead of wealth flowing to the few at the center, it flows out to the many. This is because it is not money issued as debt, it is money issued as money, a permanently circulating public asset, based on a share in our national equity.

“The story of money is the story of power, and I find it vexing that it has been left out of our history books for so long. I would LOVE to talk to you more about this and help you uncover the story.   howard.s@monetaryalliance.org

Switzer is on the Board of the Alliance for Just Money

APRIL 26

1914 – DEATH OF GEORGE ‘DIVING RIGHT’ BAER, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA & READING RAILROAD CORPORATION, WHICH WAS OWNED BY BANKER J.P. MORGAN

“The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends”

APRIL 27

1637 – HOLLAND SUSPENDS ALL CONTRACTS DURING TULIPMANIA BUBBLE

Tulip mania or tulipomania (1636-37) was a period during which contract prices for new tulip bulbs in Holland exceeded more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble (or economic bubble). People from all walks of life sold homes and land at low prices just to speculate on the rising tulip prices. Prices suddenly collapsed in February 1637. By March, tulip prices had crashed by 90 percent or more. There were widespread defaults on purchased contracts. Long-term economic decline followed. The suspension of contracts gave the seller the right to sell contracted bulbs at market prices.  

2009 – COMMENT BY DICK DURBIN, US SENATOR, ILLINOIS

“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

[Note: What was a refreshing bit of true reality in 2009 is even truer today. The finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector tops all sectors in political campaign contributions (or are they investments?) to Washington politicians. The return on their investments are substantial – no indictments of top bankers responsible for the 2008 subprime crisis and financial implosion, bailouts galore…and, of course, the continuation of the license to print debt money that is loaned to the US – at interest. Between the economic stimulus bill and Repurchase loans, more than $13 trillion has been pumped into the financial markets since September 2019…and counting. Meanwhile, help for small businesses from the stimulus bill was initially only $379 billion, an amount already depleted. Banking corporations and banksters still “own the place,” and that includes elected officials of both political parties.]

2021 – “WEBINAR WITH MICHAEL HUDSON: A 4000-YEAR PERSPECTIVE ON ECONOMY, MONEY AND DEBT” ONLINE POSTING

“The Bible talks about jubilee years that recurred at certain intervals when all debts were written off. This was to correct imbalances that arise in economies over time. When economics professor Hudson in 1994 published his research that biblical debt relief dates back two thousand years to the Babylonian and Sumerian traditions, it was very controversial. Today it is recognized by Assyriologists, but among most economic thinkers the idea is taboo.

“Why was debt write-off a matter of course several thousand years ago, but not today? Hudson’s research shows that, as he writes, ‘Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid.’ How then will it be resolved? Do you want to know more? Watch this webinar.”

APRIL 28

1937 – BIRTH OF SADDAM HUSSEIN, IRAQI PRESIDENT/DICTATOR

Hussein announced in November 2000 that Iraq would no longer accept dollars, only euros, as payment for Iraqi oil. The inherent strength of the US dollar for decades has been passed on the “petrodollar” – the policy that only dollars could be used to purchase oil from any nation. An end or even serious threat to the petrodollar system would reduce the dollar’s value – causing severe economic decline in the US. Many believe this announcement was the major reason, not anything to do directly with the 9/11 attacks in the US, for the US invasion of Iraq. 

2017 – “MEET THE DOUGHNUT, THE NEW ECONOMIC MODEL THAT COULD HELD END INEQUALITY” ONLINE ARTICLE POSTED

“Money creation: why endow commercial banks with the right to create money as interest-based debt, and leave them to reap the rents that flow from it? Money could alternatively be created by the state, or indeed by communities as complementary currencies: it’s time to create a monetary ecosystem that can fulfill this distributive potential.”

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/the-new-economic-model-that-could-end-inequality-doughnut/?fbclid=IwAR1Yk2-WkWv04nJeN4nhrurQ-z2fbSl5O37ArFjylJCJ5zbZfYYCRfffQkQ

APRIL 29

1947 – DEATH OF IRVING FISHER, PROFESSOR AND ECONOMIST

“Thus our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess. “

2006 – DEATH OF JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, AMERICAN ECONOMIST, PUBLIC OFFICIAL AND DIPLOMAT

“In numerous years following the Civil War, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus.  But it could not pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no more bonds to back the national bank notes.  To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.”

[Note: The same is true today. Since most money is created as debt via loans (to individuals, corporations and the government), paying off the debt would reduce the money supply. A severe depression would inevitably result since not enough money would exist to permit all our economic transactions. The solution is not to “reform” our debt-based money system, but to replace it with a system where money is created debt-free. This is needed today more than ever.]

2021 – POSTED VIDEO “MODERN MONEY, FORGET THEORY: DEBUNKING THE MMT S(TAB)HYPOTHESIS” BY JEFF EDER

“The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton is the apex of MMT thought so that is where I am going to focus my efforts in debunking their theory that the government spends money into the economy before taxing and borrowing can occur. Their acronym of choice is S(TAB) government Spending before Taxes and Borrowing. Sometimes it is what you don’t say that can be deceptive and in this case Kelton and other MMT advocates completely ignore the fact the majority of money in circulation is created by privately owned commercial banks through the loans process and is not contingent on any funds from the government. This alone should dissuade any objective thinker from taking their theory seriously. To the casual reader unaware of this fact they can be led down the rabbit hole and I’m going to show you how MMT does it.”

April 16 – 22

APRIL 16

1804 – DEATH OF WILLIAM MACLAY, SENATOR OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE 18TH CENTURY

“Bank bills are promissory notes, and, of course, not money. I see no objection in this quarter.”

1915 – DEATH OF NELSON ALDRICH, LEADER OF REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE US SENATE

Aldrich was a key proponent of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, a bill creating a National Monetary Commission in 1908, which studied the problem of monetary instability following the financial Panic of 1907. The Commission played a pivotal role in calling for “reform” of the US monetary system. The Act also established the “Aldrich-Vreeland system” which through the Comptroller of the Currency authorized some banks to issue new money. This helped the US deal with the financial crisis associated with WWI. The expanded money power of the government, however, was meant to be short-lived. The final volume of the Commission’s report called for a privately owned central bank, the “National Reserve Association,” in which “[c]ontrol was to be exercised completely by private bankers.” Passage of this Act was a stepping-stone to passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

2019 – “MOMMY, WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM” VIDEO POSTED

“In this episode of Mafiacracy Now we see in irrefutably cold detail how the criminal banking cartel maintains not only control of, but sovereign status within, the U.S.

“Everything else is piss, dodge, sham and weave.

“The book of Leviticus will end up looking like a fantasy vacation before these inbred psychopaths are finished with our husks.

“The launchpad for this springtime message of hope is a scientific paper in the field of… gasp… economics! No. Seriously. Not some stealth advocacy team slinging equations from tensor calculus and diff-EQ like the coked-out snake oil salesmen who define that sad “profession.” But a real paper about an actual experiment. Behold: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070

“You won’t see this one in your econ textbook, that’s for damn sure.”

2020 – “‘DIGITAL DOLLAR’ REINTRODUCED BY US LAWMAKERS IN LATEST STIMULUS BILL”

“The concept of a digital dollar that can be used to provide U.S. taxpayers with stimulus payments to weather the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has once again been floated by lawmakers.

“Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced a new proposal to have the federal government issue $2,000 per month to residents by minting a pair of $1 trillion coins and using these to back the payments. The Automatic BOOST to Communities Act (ABC Act) also brings back the idea of a digital dollar, describing the concept using similar language to a series of bills introduced last month.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/digital-dollar-reintroduced-us-lawmakers-165056167.html

APRIL 17

1790 – DEATH OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Franklin printed the paper money for several of the American colonies, most of which developed their own currency – separate from British money. This was an important revolutionary step toward independence, as well as essential to conduct economic transactions in the colonies since British money was in short supply.

“In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one.”

[Note: This from Geri Perry, author of “Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy: The New Trifecta”: Franklin made his statement without acknowledging the fact the the British government returned to the colonies their right to coin money in 1773 via an “Act to explain and amend” the 1764 measure. The amendment said that the colonies would henceforth be able to issue money “for the publick Advantage” which could be made “a legal Tender to the publick Treasuries” in payment of taxes and other dues. That is why this complaint was left out of the long list of complaints contained in the Declaration of Independence.]

1837 – BIRTH OF JP MORGAN, US FINANCIER AND BANKER

John Pierpont Morgan dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. His empire consisted of banks but also hundreds of other corporations via interlocking corporate directors and financial investments. The “House of Morgan” was also one of the key players in organizing politically and backing financially the campaign to pass the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the largely private Federal Reserve System.

APRIL 18

2012 – PUBLICATION OF DAILY CENSORED ARTICLE “CARL HERMAN EXPLAINS WORKING WITH THE CRIMINAL 1%: TWO UN SUMMITS, MONETARY REFORM”

“The 99% must achieve factual command of the basic facts how money and credit are created, or else continue their debt-damned existence under an oligarchic and Robber Baron-era structure.

Monetary and credit reform can be understood with three simple areas of facts that are taught in basic economics and easily verified:

1. The US does not have a money supply; we have its Orwellian opposite as a debt supply. This is because the US leading banks won legal right through passage of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act to have private banks and the Fed create debt for what we use as money, and then charge the 99% for its use.

2. The policy choice of a debt supply compounded with interest cause ever-increasing aggregate debt that can never be repaid….

3. Monetary reform creates debt-free money that extinguishes the debt, and allows government to become employer of last resort for infrastructure investment (hard and soft….

Obviously, monetary and credit reform benefits 100% of humanity because it guarantees full employment, optimal infrastructure, and no government debt/interest cost…

Americans cannot be responsible citizens without understanding this fundamental structure of money.”

http://www.dailycensored.com/carl-herman-explains-working-with-criminal-1-two-un-summits-monetary-reform/

2020 – “COVID-19, CAPITALISM, NEOLIBERAL DEBT & THE NEED FOR SOVEREIGN MONEY” ARTICLE REPRINTED BY TIM DEMUZIO

“As COVID-19 spreads around the world threatening the ‘normal’ operations of global capitalism, governments on the centre, left and right have been issuing large stimulus packages in efforts to stabilise the financial haemorrhaging as businesses shut and unemployment soars. This crisis is made

worse by the mountains of corporate and consumer debt that have accumulated over time to keep businesses turning over and households afloat…

“In our present crisis, I would argue that those of us who want to see a better world for our families and future generations should consult the most progressive idea ‘lying around’: sovereign money – an idea it should be said, that was never broached by Keynesians or free marketeers. Though the technicalities regarding how to achieve this project, as well as the institutional and accounting arrangements for establishing such a system can be debated, in general sovereign money is the idea that democratic governments should be in control of new money creation and that new money should be issued as a public credit or dividend based on the productivity of the economy. Outside of the environmental emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic, the biggest challenges of today are the dearth of public money, the creation of private money as debt, and the need to bring forth an economic system that works in the interests of all, not just the 1% and their obsession with their differential rates of return.”

Covid-19 Capitalism, Neoliberal Debt & the Need for Sovereign Money

APRIL 19

2014 – STATEMENT OF ANDREI KOSTIN, PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE POWERFUL RUSSIAN VTB BANK

“It is time to change the entire international financial system that considers the dollar the key reserve currency…The world has changed. [China’s] Yuan and [the Russian] Ruble have to take their place in international transactions.”

2020 – “THE PANDEMIC AND THE ECONOMY: A STATEMENT OF THE AFJM BOARD OF DIRECTORS” POSTED ONLINE

“The government is about to spend a lot of money. Why should the government have to borrow it when the Constitution gives Congress the authority to create money? Why should we as taxpayers have to pay interest on that money as it is created by the banking system? The government creates the demand for money; it doesn’t currently create money, itself. But with appropriate legislation it could. That legislation has been written and was introduced into Congress in 2011 as H.R. 2990. It should be reintroduced and given serious consideration. It would set up the machinery within the government to create money and spend it into circulation for the public good. It would also end creation of money by the private sector. It lays out how we can transition from the bank money-as-debt system we have now to the Just Money system we need—money as a public asset lubricating the exchange of goods and services we produce…

“Under the pressure of the moment imposed by the pandemic, while we deal local issues as best we can, let us not fail to keep up our efforts toward fundamental reform of the money system that will serve all of society. Let us use this enormous disruption as stimulus to build a just and prosperous society for all. For this purpose, the Alliance has recently launched a campaign around an adopted Resolution calling for a National Monetary Commission to look into the current dysfunctional system and consider possible alternatives like a sovereign monetary system as we discussed above. The Alliance has also initiated a Petition asking Congress to create the proposed National Monetary Commission.  Read the Resolution and sign the Petition. Use the resources of the Alliance For Just Money and How We Pay for a Better World to keep telling our neighbors, friends, relatives, colleagues, media, and elected representatives at all levels that now is our time to make a real difference and to make the world safe for our children and theirs.”

The Pandemic and the Economy: A Statement of the AFJM Board of Directors, April 15, 2020

APRIL 20

1868 – BIRTH OF JOHN HYLAN, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY, 1918-1925

“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government, which, like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen….At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.”

1999 – POSTED PAPER: THE ‘CHICAGO PLAN’ AND NEW DEAL BANKING REFORM

“During the 1930s, there were numerous proposals put forth to modify the financial system. The ‘Chicago Plan,’ submitted in 1933 by economists at the University of Chicago, recommended abolition of the fractional reserve system and imposition of 100% reserves on demand deposits. Despite the radical nature of this proposal, Phillips argues that it played an important, and hitherto neglected, role in the banking legislation passed during the New Deal. The paper addresses the question of whether our present financial problems might have been avoided had the – “Chicago Plan” been fully implemented during the New Deal. 

“Phillips provides a historical analysis of banking reform during that era, and explores the reasons why the Chicago Plan was not adopted. On the surface, it appears to have been defeated as a matter of pure political expediency. The Banking Act of 1935, by institutionalizing Federal deposit insurance and the separation of commercial and investment banking, successfully restored the public’s confidence in the banking system. Moreover, Roosevelt was satisfied since the act permitted enhanced control over monetary policy by a reconstituted Federal Reserve. 

“The Chicago Plan ultimately succumbed to alternative (and less stringent) measures embodied in the Banking Act of 1935, but its principles (e.g. restricting bank assets and limiting taxpayers’ liability from Federal deposit insurance) have reemerged in the contemporary debate over banking reform in this country: after all, there has been a rejuvenation of the 100% reserve plan via “narrow banking” or “core banking” proposals. Though the early New Deal legislation must be considered a success since it remained relatively unchanged for almost fifty years, a formidable challenge is posed in devising a financial system that will last well into the twenty-first century. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=160989 

[Note: It’s time to revisit these questions again: Who should have the power and authority to create money? For what purposes(s)? Should banks be able to issue loans without adequate reserves?]

2010 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, “BANKING REFORM SELLS BETTER WHEN ‘WALL STREET’ IS MENTIONED”

“Americans are about evenly divided on the merits of giving the federal government new powers to regulate large banks and major financial institutions; however, they offer greater support when the issue is more specifically framed as regulating “Wall Street banks.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/127448/banking-reform-sells-better-wall-street-mentioned.aspx

APRIL 21

1910 – DEATH OF MARK TWAIN, AUTHOR

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

”I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars.”

“A banker is a man who loans you umbrellas when the sun is shining and demands it back the moment it looks like rain.”

Classic Twain.

1946 – DEATH OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, BRITISH ECONOMIST

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some…Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

APRIL 22

EARTH DAY – CREE INDIAN PROVERB

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money.” Seems an appropriate quote on this day.

2018 – “THE GREEN PARTY US POSITION ON BANKING REFORM” WEBSITE POSTING

17. Nationalize the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, reconstituting them and the Federal Reserve Systems Washington Board of Governors under a new Monetary Authority Board within the U.S. Treasury. The private creation of money or credit which substitutes for money, will cease and with it the reckless and fraudulent practices that have led to the present financial and economic crisis.

18. The Monetary Authority, with assistance from the FDIC, the SEC, the U.S. Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, and others will redefine bank lending rules and procedures to end the privilege banks now have to create money when they extend their credit, by ending what’s known as the fractional reserve system in an elegant, non disruptive manner. Banks will be encouraged to continue as profit making companies, extending loans of real money at interest; acting as intermediaries be- tween those clients seeking a return on their savings and those clients ready and able to pay for borrowing the money; but banks will no longer be creators of what we are using for money.

19. The new money that must be regularly added to an improving system as population and commerce grow will be created and spent into circulation by the U. S. Government for infrastructure, including the “human infrastructure” of education and health care. This begins with the $2.2 trillion the American Society of Civil Engineers warns us is needed to bring existing infrastructure to safe levels over the next 5 years. Per capita guidelines will assure a fair distribution of such expenditures across the United States, creating good jobs, re-invigorating the local economies and re-funding government at all levels. As this money is paid out to various contractors, they in turn pay their suppliers and laborers who in turn pay for their living expenses and ultimately this money gets deposited into banks, which are then in a position to make loans of this money, according to the new regulations.

Source:

Green Party US. 2014. “Monetary Reform (Greening the Dollar)”. July 2014. 

Comment:

Planks 17, 18 and 19 faithfully reflect the three prongs promoted by The American Monetary Institute. For more see:  “Formulations of the Three-Point Policy Proposal for Monetary Reform“. Alpheus, 6 Feb 2018.http://www.alpheus.org/the-green-party-us-position-on-banking-reform/?fbclid=IwAR0Vval2tUABiPvKb2-iqAWsag5OBjOspC6FrlE9DAayNjpg4EYiVDB-VRI

April 9 – 15

APRIL 9

1626 – DEATH OF SIR FRANCIS BACON, PHILOSOPHER, BRITISH LORD CHANCELLOR

“If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master.  The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”

APRIL 10

1816 – CHARTER APPROVED FOR INCORPORATING THE SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

As with the earlier Bank of the United States, the Second National Bank of the United States was private with many of the largest investors foreigners and those representing great wealth. Congress chartered (licensed) the bank for 20 years.  It’s worth remembering that corporate charters are democratic tools once used by sovereign people (that would be We the People) to control and define corporate actions. As a result of bank practices geared to serving the interests of banks/bankers, (including limiting the issuance of money into the economy – which triggered economic stagnation), President Jackson pledged that the bank would not be issued a new charter after its 20-year charter ended. Without a charter – which provides those forming corporations certain legal protections (then and now) – corporations cannot exist.

1858 – DEATH OF THOMAS BENTON, US SENATOR FROM MISSOURI

“I object to the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, because I look upon the bank as an institution too great and powerful to be tolerated in a government of free and equal laws.  Its power is that of the purse, a power more potent than that of the sword; and this power it possesses to a degree and extent that will enable this bank to draw to itself too much of the political power of this Union and too much of the individual property of the citizens of these States.  The money power of the bank is both direct and indirect.” http://yamaguchy.com/library/benton/benton_187.html

2012 – “EXPONENTIAL ECONOMIST MEETS FINITE PHYSICIST” BLOG POSTING

“Some while back, I found myself sitting next to an accomplished economics professor at a dinner event. Shortly after pleasantries, I said to him, ‘economic growth cannot continue indefinitely,’ just to see where things would go. It was a lively and informative conversation. I was somewhat alarmed by the disconnect between economic theory and physical constraints—not for the first time, but here it was up-close and personal. Though my memory is not keen enough to recount our conversation verbatim, I thought I would at least try to capture the key points and convey the essence of the tennis match—with some entertainment value thrown in…

“The evening’s after-dinner keynote speech began, so we had to shelve the conversation. Reflecting on it, I kept thinking, ‘This should not have happened. A prominent economist should not have to walk back statements about the fundamental nature of growth when talking to a scientist with no formal economics training.’ But as the evening progressed, the original space in which the economist roamed got painted smaller and smaller.”

Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist

APRIL 11

1932 – PECORA COMMISSION HEARINGS BEGIN – INVESTIGATE CAUSE OF US DEPRESSION

The investigation was launched by a majority-Republican Senate, under the Banking Committee’s chairman, Senator Peter Norbeck. Hearings began on April 11, 1932, but were criticized by Democratic Party members and their supporters as being little more than an attempt by the Republicans to appease the growing demands of an angry American public suffering through the Great Depression. Two chief counsels were fired for ineffectiveness, and a third resigned after the committee refused to give him broad subpoena power. Ferdinand Pecora, an assistant district attorney for New York County was hired to write the final report in January 1933. Discovering that the investigation was incomplete, Pecora requested permission to hold an additional month of hearings. His exposé of the National City Bank (now Citibank) made banner headlines and caused the bank’s president to resign. Democrats had won the majority in the Senate, and the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged the new Democratic chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, to let Pecora continue the probe. So actively did Pecora pursue the investigation that his name became publicly identified with it, rather than the committee’s chairman. Pecora not only documented a litany of abuses, but also paved the way for remedial legislation. The Securities Act of 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 — all addressed abuses exposed by Pecora. It was only poetic justice when Roosevelt tapped him as a commissioner of the newborn Securities and Exchange Commission.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission

APRIL 12

1866 – CONGRESS PASSES THE CONTRACTION ACT

The Act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to begin retiring Greenbacks (public debt-free money first issued by the Lincoln Administration) in circulation and to contract the money supply. By 1876, two-thirds of the nation’s money had been called in by the bankers. A contraction of the money supply when demand is high causes depressions, which is what happened from 1873-79.

1910 – DEATH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY, MONETARY THEORIST

“For as the currency question is of first importance and we cannot solve it or escape it by ignoring it.  We have got to face it and the best way to begin is not by wrangling about speculative opinions as to untried schemes but to go back to history and try to get hold of some firmly established principles.”

1945 – DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

 “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson … The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United States – – only on a far bigger and broader basis.”

APRIL 13

1743 – BIRTH OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“This institution (the Bank of England) is one of the most deadly hostility against the principles of our Constitution…suppose an emergency should occur…an institution like this…in a critical moment might overthrow the government.”

“And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

“Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.”

2015 – DEATH OF EDUARDO GALEANO, URUGUAYAN JOURNALIST, WRITER AND NOVELIST

Great quote for monetary reformers: “The system steals with one hand what it lends with the other.”

[Note: This is never more true than the present time. The $450 billion corporate slush fund bailout given to the Treasury Department in the recent economic “stimulus” bill was handed over the Federal Reserve, which in turn handed it over to several major banking corporations to distribute to “needy” mega corporations. These banks will profit from the administration of the funds.]

2021 – “HOW MONETARY REFORM SOLVES CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION” BY MARK PASH

How Monetary Reform Solves Climate Change and Environmental Contamination

“Now we have the biggest global crisis in World history that of Climate Change and Environmental degradation. And the current money-banking system in 2020 lent over a trillion dollars to fossil fuel companies. This is going in the opposite direction for adequate climate control. We have most of the technical solutions. Then, what is missing? It is mainly money! Therefore, we have to “Go Back to the Greenbacks” and eliminate the unsustainable, extremely skewered, private money system…

“The following is a list of specific operations solving climate change that we can implement to save our planet and how they can be funded from the new money system of “Back to the Greenbacks”…

“Solar Alternatives…

“Electric Automobiles & Trucks…

“Land…

“Refrigeration…

“Aircraft…

“Water & Agriculture…

“Research & Development…

“Manufacturing…

“Environmental Firms & Trees…”

How Monetary Reform Solves Climate Change and Environmental Contamination

APRIL 14

1948 – RETIREMENT OF MARRINER S. ECCLES AS CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE US FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD

“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”

2018 – WORKSHOP, “’WHAT’S MONEY GOT TO DO WITH IT?’ WOMEN AND MONETARY REFORM” AT 3^RD ANNUAL 4W SUMMIT ON WOMEN, GENDER AND WELL-BEING AND 41ST WISCONSIN WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES CONFERENCE, MADISON, WI

“As Earthlings and females, we understand the need to protect habitat and future generations. But doing so requires monetary and economic stability for caregivers, their families and communities. Unfortunately, due to a flaw in how legislators institutionalized it 105 years ago, our money system systematically and increasingly impoverishes most living creatures to serve the interests of the very few. Ironically, habitat collapse and economic instability caused by our monetary system imperil rich and poor alike. It is crucial to understand this flaw and how our money system currently works, who benefits from and who pays for it, and how we can correct it. This interactive session with friends of the American Monetary Institute (AMI) will help participants to explore these issues and how to become part of a growing national and international movement for sovereign money reform. We will tell you about a suite of three concrete monetary correctives that together will create a level playing field from which we can eliminate poverty, end debt slavery, and sustainably rebuild our earthly commons for a thriving future.”

Facilitators/speakers were Susan Peters, Lucille Eckrich, Mary Sanderson and Bo-Young Lim – all affiliated with the American Monetary Institute

2019 – “JESUS & THE MONEY SYSTEM – A PALM SUNDAY REFLECTION” BY REV. DELMAN COATES ARTICLE PUBLISHED

“Debt-based money and not simply the need for more financial regulations create the conditions for the moral hazard and speculative activity of Wall Street. Their power over the money supply, and the power to create what is used as money out of nothing give them almost divine power to control society…

“Dr. King said, “If a soul lives in darkness sins will be committed. But the guilty one is not the one who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” The nation’s debt-based money system is the cause of the darkness, and it is not until we have the prophetic courage to envision an alternative world that we will create a monetary system that benefits the many rather than the few. It has been done before. It will take knowledge and courage to do it again, but we must be willing to be like Jesus and overturn the tables of today’s moneychangers.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jesus-the-money-system-a-palm-sunday-reflection_us_58e2a7eae4b09deecf0e18f1

2020 – “THE PEOPLE WANT THEIR MONEY BACK, PART 1: WHY A NATIONAL MONETARY COMMISSION?” posted article by Joe Bongiovanni

“Over the years, many have questioned the necessity of establishing a Congressionally-mandated ‘Commission’ to inquire into the national money system with the goal of achieving what is essentially a revolution in how our money system works – a change from private issue and gain to public purpose and benefit.

“For over 100 years, monetary reformers have called for fundamental change from a private (corporate), temporary, debt-based money system which privileges the banking and financial class to a public, democratic, permanent, equity-based system of money that serves the needs of the people who create the real national wealth. Such a reformed system would then be capable of fulfilling what Dr. Frederick Soddy (Nobelist and Father of the ecological economics movement and its supporting science) termed The Role of Money, namely to distribute the increasing national wealth among our wealth creators instead of the already wealthy. Only the Congress, and the law, can make these changes happen. Only a national monetary commission can give Congress the task and duty to bring that about. Only Congress can establish this National Monetary Commission (NMC).”

The People Want Their Money Back, Part 1: WHY a National Monetary Commission?

2020 – “THE PEOPLE WANT THEIR MONEY BACK, PART 2: SHIFTING THE TIDE OF OUR MONETARY UNDERSTANDING – A RESOLVE” posted article by Joe Bongiovanni

“At the very start of the discussion about AFJM Resolution One, On the Establishment of a National Commission of Inquiry into the Monetary System of the United States of America, there were key questions: (1) Why call for a “National Monetary Commission” (NMC), and (2) Why adopt a “Resolution.” That first question stands answered in Part 1 of this article.

“But the answer to both should be familiar to us all: the purpose is to overcome our national monetary ignorance. It is especially important to inform and to empower those whose consent is needed in order to do something about our monetary system. We hereby Resolve to do just that…

“This initial public-money powered benefit is a benchmark of how our money MUST and will fulfill its true role in a modern monetary economy: the role of distributing national wealth created by the 99 Percent – as best we can and as much as possible – to that same 99 percent of Americans. Under the current system, where the 1% have a legal (though illegitimate) leash on the operations of our money system, our national wealth concentrates in the hands of that One Percent…

“But FIRST, we’ll NEED a BRIDGE:

“From Our Collective Money Ignorance to Its Understanding.

“Please read the Alliance’s Resolution. Please understand it. Please question it in any way you care through our Blog. Please sign our Petition  for advancing the Resolution’s key purpose – achieving a Congressionally-authorized National Monetary Commission. Please join us in this critical effort in any way you can to make the revolutionary change that is needed. We need to move from private to Public money. We need to so this NOW. Because it’s OUR money system, our common good.

The People Want Their Money Back, Part 2: Shifting the Tide of Our Monetary Understanding – A Resolve

APRIL 15

1865 – ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Under Lincoln’s administration, the US Government issued 450 million “Greenbacks” – interest and inflation free money. They weren’t government bill, bonds or any other debt-bearing note. This was money not borrowed from banks, but created (as authorized in the US Constitution, Article 1, Sec 8) by the government to meet the nation’s needs.

2023 — TAX DAY

Why are taxes so high? Why does it feel we aren’t getting back in programs and services what we put in? Part of the reason has to do with the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend every year paying interest on the national debt. That interest goes disproportionately to the very wealthy. And that interest would not exist if instead of borrowing that money (including from banking corporations), we created interest-free and inflation-free money as stipulated by Congress in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. Why be enslaved by debt when we could be liberated by democratic money?

April 2 – 8

APRIL 2

1792 – COINAGE ACT PASSES CONGRESS

Congress used its power (as established under the U.S. Constitution) to establish a national Mint. The act authorized the creation of U.S. money — something that we have since forgotten and that Congress has willingly handed over the private banking corporations. Article I, Section 8 states that the government has the power to “coin” money. Coin is used as a verb, as in creating money.

2011 – EMAIL TO HILLARY CLINTON FROM SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL ABOUT QADDIFI’S GOLD (FROM WIKILEAKS)

“On April 2, 2011 sources with access to advisors to Salt al-Islam Qaddafi stated in strictest confidence that while the freezing of Libya’s foreign bank accounts presents Muammar Qaddafi with serious challenges, his ability to equip and maintain his armed forces and intelligence services remains intact. According to sensitive information available to this these individuals, Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French.franc (CFA). (Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.”)

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528

2015 – “ICELAND IS PROPOSING A RADICAL CHANGE TO ITS MONETARY SYSTEM” published article

“Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank.

“The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled ‘A better monetary system for Iceland'”.

https://www.businessinsider.com/iceland-is-proposing-a-radical-change-to-its-monetary-system-2015-4

APRIL 3

1729 – PUBLICATION OF “A MODEST INQUIRY IN THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF A PAPER-CURRENCY” BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

“As we have already experienced how much the Increase of our Currency by what Paper Money has been made, has encouraged our Trade…”

“Thus the Riches of a Country are to be valued by the Quantity of Labour its Inhabitants are able to purchase, and not by the Quantity of Silver and Gold they possess…”

The paper currency reduced the inconvenient method of barter transactons, expanded businesses and promoted the settlement of the area. New York and New Jersey experienced the same prosperity when they began printing and circulating their own paper currencies.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0041?fbclid=IwAR3lPyQJiHKSdjhGAV_MRiKDJh8l7-MqigRJcr4e4z4n2GiVOGTHzv2KAHI

1912 – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK IS A FRAUD QUOTE BY H. L. BIRUM SR.

“The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they ‘create’ the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their “Federal Reserve Notes” and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.”

2020 – “WAS THE FED JUST NATIONALIZED?” BLOG POSTING BY ELLEN BROWN

“The Fed has evidently abandoned its vaunted “independence” and is now working in partnership with the Treasury. In some sense, it has been nationalized. A true partnership, however, would make the printing press available for more than just buying toxic corporate assets. A central bank that was run as a public utility could fund programs designed to kickstart the economy, stimulate productivity and generally serve the public.

“The reason the Fed is now working with the Treasury is that it needs the Treasury to help it bail out a financial industry burdened with an avalanche of dodgy assets that are fast losing value. The problem for the Fed is that it is only allowed to purchase or lend against securities with government guarantees, including Treasury securities, agency mortgage-backed securities, debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and (arguably) municipal securities. To get around that wrinkle, as Wolf Richter explains:

“’[T]he Treasury will create (or resuscitate) a series of special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to buy all manner of financial assets, backed by $425 billion in collateral conveniently supplied by the US taxpayer via the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The Fed will lend to SPVs against this collateral which, when leveraged, could fund $4-5 trillion in asset purchases.

“’That includes municipal bonds, non-agency mortgages, corporate bonds, commercial paper, and every variety of asset-backed security. The only things the government can’t (transparently, yet) buy are publicly-traded stocks and high-yield bonds.’”

https://ellenbrown.com/2020/04/03/was-the-fed-just-nationalized/?fbclid=IwAR2t1xNd8lrOCEtEn_TQfd9zHVAvO1om3rOEseO5WASn-bMgyrCCn9r20aU

APRIL 4

1834 – US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTES AGAINST RECHARTERING THE SECOND BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

The US House voted 134-82 against rechartering (re-licensing) the nation’s central bank – a private bank not ultimately accountable to the public but to its shareholders. Charters were originally considered democratic instruments of public control to keep corporations accountable – as opposed to today where charters are issued automatically as long as minimal conditions are met and a fee is paid. The bank had established loan policies that were detrimental to the nation’s economy but very profitable for its owners. The bank’s President, Nicholas Biddle, had threatened to harm the US economy by restricting the nation’s money supply if the charter were not renewed. The bank shrank the money supply. A financial panic and deep depression followed. President Andrew Jackson was convinced all the more that the private bank should not be in charge of issuing and circulating the nation’s money supply.

1883 – DEATH OF PETER COOPER, US INDUSTRIALIST, PHILANTHROPIST (FOUNDED COOPER UNION) AND GREENBACK CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT

“The substitution of greenbacks for National bank notes will make a uniform currency of money. A greenback legal tender is to the full as much real money as a gold legal tender, the only difference being that as many nations make gold a legal tender, there is more demand for it than for paper legal tenders which have the sovereign stamp of only one Government. The substitution of greenbacks for National bank notes would have the bounty now paid to banks which being invested as a sinking fund would in less than thirty years pay off the whole debt of the country.”

2016 — “ENDING TOO BIG TO FAIL POLICY SYMPOSIUM” SPONSORED BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF MINNEAPOLIS

“Seven years after the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the biggest banks are still too big to fail (TBTF). Without action, they continue to pose a serious, ongoing risk to our nation’s economy. It’s time to seriously consider bold and transformational solutions to address TBTF once and for all…The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is launching a major initiative to develop a plan to end TBTF and prevent similar economic devastation from hurting the American people.The Minneapolis Fed’s #EndingTBTF initiative will explore various proposals from expert researchers and incorporate input from a wide range of thought leaders, culminating in an actionable plan to end TBTF, which will be released by the end of the year.” https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/special-studies/endingtbtf

APRIL 5

1764 – BRITISH PARLIAMENT PASSES CURRENCY ACT PROHIBITING COLONIES FROM PRINTING THEIR OWN MONEY

As early as 1723, the colony of Pennsylvania showed that it was possible for money to be issued by the government in the place of taxes without causing inflation. Money was printed and circulated there and elsewhere. No taxes needed to be collected in PA from 1723 to the 1750’s as a result. The Bank of England pressured the British Parliament to pass the Currency Act. Benjamin Franklin believed that passage of the Act caused poverty and triggered the Revolutionary War.

1933 – PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER CONFISCATING GOLD

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, ordering all citizens to turn in their private gold. The Order prohibited the “hoarding” of almost all privately held gold coins, bullion and certificates “to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking” (i.e. the Great Depression) that was caused by the monetary policies of the privately operated Federal Reserve system.

2008 – DEATH OF CHARLTON HESTON (WHO PLAYED MOSES IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS}

[A stretch, but nevertheless, a means to share the following…]

From the Old Testament in the Bible, Deuteronomy 23:19

“Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn

interest.”

2021 – “THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CAPITALISM” posted article by Howard Switzer

“What drives this separation and disconnection from life? To understand the source of all this horror we must first look closer at capitalism and its main mechanism of power: money as debt. In the centuries old capitalist monetary system all money is created as interest bearing debt, credit issued by the commercial banking system when they make loans. This allows the owners of the big banks and their largest depositors to direct economic development through funding monopolies that dominate every industry. This was proved and diagramed by the Pujo Committee investigations in 1912.”

https://howardswitzer.medium.com/the-psychological-consequences-of-capitalism-8830577a3092

APRIL 6

2013 – PLAN FOR MONETARY REFORM BY POSITIVE MONEY IN THE U.K.

“This document presents a plan for monetary reform, based on a proposal initially put forward by Frederick Soddy in the 1920s, and then subsequently by Irving Fisher and Henry Simons in the aftermath of the Great Depression… While inspired by Irving Fisher’s original work and variants on it, the proposals in this paper have some significant differences. The starting point was the work of Joseph Huber and James Robertson in their book Creating New Money (2000), which updated and modified Fisher’s proposals to take account of the fact that money, the payments system and banking in general is now electronic, rather than paper-based. The reform presented here develops Huber and Robertson’s proposal further, building on a submission made by Ben Dyson (Positive Money), Josh Ryan-Collins and Tony Greenham (new economics foundation), and Richard Werner (University of Southampton) to the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking in 2010.” http://www.positivemoney.org/2013/04/the-positive-money-proposal-plan-for-monetary-reform/

2020 – “PRINTING MONEY IS VALID RESPONSE TO CORONAVIRUS CRISIS” POSTED EDITORIAL FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES

“In times of emergency, particularly war, central banks have often handed freshly printed banknotes to governments. The fight against resultant inflation was postponed until after any crisis. Despite the pandemic, the world is not yet in that position today. There is no need, for now, to relax the framework of independent, inflation-targeting central banking. Yet this kind of monetary financing should be a tool available to policymakers, if needed.”

https://www.ft.com/content/fd1d35c4-7804-11ea-9840-1b8019d9a987?fbclid=IwAR0r7Iv3mRe3k-K7kq6wq4Tx8lzr3_B_7rXYF2BFAKunKZhTmn-LNSrQIew

2021 – “A BRIDGE – PUBLIC BANKING ON THE PBI MODEL: WHY?”

 “There are three key issues.

1. Can public banking serve as a bridge to money reform? Can we both be successful?

2. Does the public Bank of North Dakota (BND) create money as other commercial banks do, or is it simply a development revolving fund basic bank?

3. Is the scale of public benefit enough to make public bank advocacy worthwhile?”

A Bridge – Public Banking on the PBI model: Why?

APRIL 7

1858 – BIRTH OF DAVIS RICH DEWEY, AMERICAN ECONOMIST AND STATISTICIAN

“The underlying idea in the greenback philosophy…is that the issue of currency is a function of government, a sovereign right which ought not to be delegated to corporations.”

APRIL 8

1838 – SLAVES USED AS COLLATERAL ON LOAN APPLICATIONS

“George Guion wrote to the Thibodeauxville Branch of Union Bank of Louisiana asking for a loan of 5,000 in addition to a 10,000 mortgage he already had from the bank on his plantation and slaves….As security for the additional loan he offered to the bank his plantation and sixteen slaves whose ages ranged from sixteen months to fifty years. It is unknown if the bank granted his loan…

“Although collateralized transactions usually accounted for a small number of credit transactions, slaves were the most popular form of collateral for those short-term and long-term loans that required collateral. For example, slaves accounted for 80 percent of the securities offered in recorded mortgages in antebellum East Feliciana Parish in Louisiana. Slaves could also be used as collateral for purchasing shares in Louisiana’s investment banks.

“In the South, slaves were property-they could be bought, sold and transported to any location that allowed slavery. As property, their owners could use slaves when they needed loans.”

https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/2288

2009 – “AMERICA’S DEBT CRISIS AND THE NEED FOR MONETARY REFORM” PRESENTATION BY JOE BONGIOVANNI, DIRECTOR OF THE KETTLE POND INSTITUTE FOR DEBT FREE MONEY

Part 1: Introduction

Joe promotes public, debt-free money creation by the US Treasury, as opposed to private money creation as debt by the Fed, as the solution to the debt crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AamPaXA_a0M

Part 2 Early History

Joe describes colonial and revolutionary monetary history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w0vyB9sq1Y

Part 3- Lincoln’s Greenbacks:

Lincoln and his experiment with debt-free money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzf3h-63sjk

Part 4 Post Civil War

The Greenback Party after the Civil War, Vermonter Bradley Barlow, the Crash of 1907. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWJK8pQ_uQ

Part 5 Federal Reserve Act: US monetary history from the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 through the Crash of 1929. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Q7IcTAgcQ

Part 6  Chicago Plan of 1933

FDR came to power in 1933, more than three years after the 1929 Crash. The national banking system was on the verge of total collapse, despite the Federal Reserve banking system being 20 years old. Fortunately, after the Crash, many economists saw the need for an alternative to the private Fed and it’s boom-and-bust prone fractional reserve banking system. These economists developed a proposal for complete monetary reform that would negate the Fed’s boom-bust cycle and impart soundness to the banking system. The Chicago Plan for Monetary Reform was sidelined in favor of Glass-Steagall and the FDIC. It’s time again for the Chicago Plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wp8N-Q_O4

Part 7: Robert Hemphill quote

Joe discusses the following quote from Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta GA

“If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation.

“This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is.

“It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TTVoNIpBjE

Part 8: Milton Friedman

Joe highlights Milton Friedman’s opposition of money creation by private banks by highlighting the following quote:

“A reform of the monetary and banking system to eliminate both the private creation and destruction of money and discretionary control of the quantity of money by the central bank authority. The private creation of money can perhaps best be eliminated by adopting the 100% reserve proposal, thereby separating the depository from the lending function of the banking system

“These modifications would leave as the chief monetary functions of the banking system the provision of depositary facilities, the facilitation of check clearance, and the like; and as the chief function of the monetary authorities, the creation of money to meet government deficits or the retirement of money when the government has a surplus.”

From A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability in The American Economic Review, June 1948, p.247. Available on the web at : http://www.jstor.org/stable/1810624

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tSXnXE1slk

Part 9: The Solution

Joe recommends the American Monetary Act (http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf), a draft of legislation being compiled by the American Monetary Institute as the most workable solution to the current financial crisis, and also the transparency legislation proposed by Dennis Kucinich. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lyGoTEJb6g

2018 – “JEKYLL ISLAND, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FEDERAL RESERVE” ONLINE POSTED VIDEO

Excellent explanation of the 2013 video describing the creation and impact of the Federal Reserve by Bill Still