July 30 – August 5

JULY 30

1718 – DEATH OF WILLIAM PENN, QUAKER WHO ESTABLISHED THE PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA, THE FUTURE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

The wide-spread reputation for freedom and religious tolerance of the Pennsylvania British colony under Penn extended beyond Penn’s life to include monetary freedom. The legislature in 1723 passed an act authorizing the issuance of “bills of credit,” documents similar to banknotes issued by the government which were circulated as money. They were issued in response to the fiscal crises of Pennsylvania – crises endemic throughout the colonies due to a shortage of British pounds. Colonial currencies helped facilitate economic exchanges.

1863 – BIRTH OF HENRY FORD, INVENTOR AND INDUSTRIALIST

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

2013 – “CREATION STORIES: MYTHS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF MONEY” BY CHRISTINE DESAN, Harvard Public Law Working Paper

A myth about the origins of money has long organized modern approaches to the medium. According to that creation story, money is the natural product of human exchange. It can be analogized to a commodity like silver that comes to hand out of the decentralized activity of trading or a convention like language that arises out of a consensus about the value of an item. But if we consider clues about money’s origins and extrapolate from its continuing practice, another story comes into focus. It suggests that money is a constitutional project, a mode of governance for a material world.” https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11689088

JULY 31

1881 – BIRTH OF SMEDLEY BUTLER, US MARINE MAJOR GENERAL (TWICE DECORATED)

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested…

“I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things that we should fight for. One is the defense of out homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”

Source: “War is a Racket”

1912 – BIRTH OF MILTON FRIEDMAN, ECONOMIST

“If you kill the Fed [Federal Reserve] and don’t kill fractional reserve lending, you’ve done nothing.” Fractional reserve lending is the bank practice of holding a fraction of money in reserves compared to the amount loaned.

He also said: “Only a crisis–real or perceived–produces real change. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend upon the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”

Source: “The End of Growth” by Richard Heinberg, p 231

JULY [Not certain of date] 

1939 – A PROGRAM FOR MONETARY REFORM RELEASED

A group of prominent economists issue a plan for US monetary reform. One of the co-authors of the plan, “A Program for Monetary Reform,” was University of Chicago professor and Quaker Paul H. Douglas (later to become U.S. Senator). More than 230 economists from 150 universities approved it without reservations, while an additional 40 supported it with some reservations.

In assessing the problem of the day, the PMR states, “If the purpose of money and credit were to discourage the exchange of goods and services, to destroy periodically the wealth produced, to frustrate and trip those who work and save, our present monetary system would seem a most effective instrument to that end.” It also stated a monetary system based on a gold standard “has had…disastrous results all over the world.”

The PMR called for government creation and maintenance of the quantity of money. “Our own monetary policy should…be directed toward avoiding inflation as well as deflation, and in attaining and maintaining as nearly as possible full production and employment.” The plan also called for eliminating fractional reserve lending – the process of banks loaning out many more times the amount of money in their possession. Back in the 1930’s the reserve requirement was 5:1. Today it’s 10:1. Some of the major banks involved in the economic collapse of 2007 had ignored this law and were loaning out 50 times their reserves. The PMR called for a 100% reserve requirement – banks could only lend the amount of money they possessed.

The document goes on, “In early times the creation of money was the sole privilege of the kings or other sovereigns – namely the sovereign people, acting through their Government. This principle is firmly anchored in our Constitution and it is a perversion to transfer the privilege to private parties to use in their own real, or presumed, interest. The founders of the Republic did not expect the banks to create the money they lend.

Their plan to reduce the national debt was simply to have the government purchase government bonds with new US debt-free money.

August

AUGUST 1

1100 – BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY I OF ENGLAND

About 1100 AD, the King ordered the creation of a unique form of money. Made of wood, the currency was called “Tally Sticks.” They were polished sticks of wood declared by the Sovereign King to be good for the payment of taxes. The sticks were used as money by England for 726 years – including the period of the British Empire. It may be no coincidence that shortly after the Bank of England (a private entity) was established in 1694, it attacked the Tally Stick system. Nevertheless, the Sticks were accepted as money for another 100+ years, until 1826.

1900 –  PUBLICATION OF THE MONETARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES BY CHARLES J. BULLOCK

“In all parts of the country many of the earliest banks were conducted with extreme recklessness or utter dishonesty. In New England, the first crash came in 1809, and this was followed by the enactment of more stringent laws regulating the business. In 1814, 1837, and 1857, there occurred general suspensions of specie payments by most of the banks in the United States; while periods of suspension in particular localities were even more common…

“When a Boston bank sent a batch of currency to New York for redemption the collector of the port seized the bills upon the pretext of preventing a run on the New York banks. A messenger sent to South Royalston to demand the payment of $10,000 in notes issued by the local bank was arrested upon a frivolous charge in order to avoid such a request. Nothing was more common than a state of public opinion which condemned every attempt to obtain specie from the banks. To ask one of these institutions to fulfill the promise printed on the face of its bills was a disgraceful act, which indicated a lack of public spirit, or was proof positive of a desire to start a ‘run.’ In Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri, between 1855 and 1859, certain persons who presented notes for redemption were threatened with lynching or a coat of tar and feathers. Some states established public institutions that were no better than the loan banks of colonial days. These were designed to do a banking business upon the ‘faith and credit’ of the states and to supply the people with paper money.” pp 84-86.

https://books.google.com/books?id=NgtLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR7&dq=charles+j+bullock+monetary+history+of+the+united+states&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR4vKwnOLaAhWM6oMKHZ85CbAQ6AEIKDAA&fbclid=IwAR2uZVtnJMez-HUWM3301nyR-n-sC6NLQQrepqX0i–pR61TUAMX2OIYshw#v=onepage&q=charles%20j%20bullock%20monetary%20history%20of%20the%20united%20states&f=false

2012 – PUBLICATION OF  “CHICAGO PLAN REVISITED” A WORKING PAPER BY MICHAEL KUMHOF AND JAROMIR BENES

“The focus of the [IMF] study is the so-called Chicago plan of the 1930s which the authors have updated to fit into today’s economy. The basic idea is that banks should be required to have full coverage for money they lend; this is called 100% reserve banking, instead of the currently prevalent system of fractional reserve banking. Under this proposal, banks would no longer be allowed to create new money in the form of credit in connection with their lending activities. Instead, the central bank should be solely responsible for all the creation of all forms of money, not just paper money and coins. The advantages of such a system, according to the authors, are a more balanced economy without the booms and busts of the current system, the elimination of bank runs, and a drastic reduction of both public and private debt. The authors rely on both economic theory and historical examples, and state that inflation, according to their calculations, would be very low.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicago_Plan_Revisited

AUGUST 2

2005 – “THE 1930s CHICAGO PLAN AND THE AMERICAN MONETARY ACT” POSTED ONLINE BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA

“Why is monetary reform so critically important?

“Because the money power has more impact on citizens’ day to day lives than the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. It’s really a fourth branch of government, and leaving it in private hands is dangerous and unacceptable –it negates the balancing of powers principle of our constitution and creates an aristocracy –a plutocracy –the rule by wealth.A privately controlled money system can nullify hard-won reforms in other areas such  as the environment, medical care, or peace initiatives because such concentration of wealth and power will eventually overwhelm and be used against the people to unwind whatever other gains we’ve achieved. Witness the attack onRoosevelt’s social security reform.You can’t secure real progress with the private control of society’s money system behind your lines.”

Click to access Chicago-Plan-and-American-Monetary-Act.pdf

AUGUST 3

1871 – BIRTH OF VERNON PARRINGTON, AMERICAN HISTORIAN

“The only safe and rational currency is a national currency based on the national credit sponsored by the state, flexible and controlled in the interests of the people as a whole.”

1956 – STATEMENT OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN ON MONEY CREATION

“’There should only be one source of money; one fountainhead from which flows the nation’s blood to vitalize commerce and industry, ensure economic equity and justice and safeguard the welfare of the people. . . . In other words, it has always been and still is our contention that the prerogative of creating and issuing the money of the nation should be restored to the state.”

Source: “Tolkein’s Mythos,” http://barnesreview.org/pdf/TBR2004-no5-4-7.pdf

2017 – VIDEO PRESENTATIONS ON MONETARY REFORM AT DEMOCRACY CONVENTION, MINNEAPOLIS, MN

“ON MONEY: THOUGHTS ON OUR MONEY SYSTEM AND OUR HISTORY OF PUBLIC MONEY” by Joe Bongiovanni

“MONEY, SCHOOLING AND EDUCATORS: CREATING A CRITICALLY INFORMED MOVEMENT FOR MONETARY REFORM AND ECO-JUSTICE” by Steven Walsh and Lucille Eckrich STEVEN WALSH AND LUCILLE ECKRICH

CLIMATE CHANGE AND MONEY: HACKING AT THE ROOT BY HOWARD SWITZER

“ON PUBLIC MONEY: THE NEED ACT” by Jamie Walton and Jon Bongiovanni

AUGUST 4

1961 – BIRTH OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

The Obama administration prosecuted virtually no one for the financial crimes connected to the 2007-09 financial crisis.

“Since 2009, 49 financial institutions have paid various government entities and private plaintiffs nearly $190 billion in fines and settlements, according to an analysis by the investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. That may seem like a big number, but the money has come from shareholders, not individual bankers. (Settlements were levied on corporations, not specific employees, and paid out as corporate expenses—in some cases, tax-deductible ones.) In early 2014, just weeks after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, settled out of court with the Justice Department, the bank’s board of directors gave him a 74 percent raise, bringing his salary to $20 million.

The more meaningful number is how many Wall Street executives have gone to jail for playing a part in the crisis. That number is one. (Kareem Serageldin, a senior trader at Credit Suisse, is serving a 30-month sentence for inflating the value of mortgage bonds in his trading portfolio, allowing them to appear more valuable than they really were.) By way of contrast, following the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, more than 1,000 bankers of all stripes were jailed for their transgressions.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wall-streets-bankers-stayed-out-of-jail/399368/

2022 – “WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGES THE U.S. DOLLAR” POSTED ARTICLE

“The launch this spring of the Digital Berkshares cryptocurrency marks the latest step in a decades-long effort to foster a self-sufficient economy in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, a popular retreat for affluent, educated Northeasterners….

“In 2006, it re-launched Berkshares and formed a purpose-built nonprofit to issue them. This time, Berkshares were worth a dollar each and could be purchased for a discount from local savings banks as a way of boosting the businesses that accepted them. The notes themselves were created with assistance from a member of the Massachusetts Crane family, which supplied Paul Revere with the paper for notes that financed the American Revolution, and has supplied paper for U.S. currencies ever since.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/04/crypto-goes-farm-to-table-00048309

AUGUST 5

1964 – PUBLICATION OF “A PRIMER ON MONEY” BY THE U.S. CONGRESS, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC FINANCE 88TH CONGRESS, 2ND SESSION

“The dollar is based on credit and every dollar in existence represents a dollar of debt owed by an individual, a business firm, or a government unit.”  

2020 – “MONETARY REFORM AND THE NEXT PANDEMIC” ONLINE POSTING

“True monetary reform–where we issue money without borrowing and paying interest that we are now doing under the current private banking system–will produce additional money supply into circulation without excess inflation. These are the three main reasons why we will have substantially more money availability:

1. Monetary reform eliminates the interest charges on creating money. These old charges can be put back into the economy.

2. We do not live in a world of scarcity anymore. We can produce or grow enough goods and services to house, feed, clothe and educate the world’s population.

3. The extreme diversity of distribution of newly issued money will provide the benefits to prepare for the next pandemic. (In other words, one will not need collateral to receive new money)…

“So when the next pandemic hits, everyone has their basic living needs already taken care of!”

Monetary Reform and the Next Pandemic

2020 – GLOBAL LIVE PREMIERE OF “THE CON” DOCUMENTARY SERIES

“An in-depth investigation into the 2008 financial crisis nine years in the making. Through interviews with regulators, former officials, foreclosure victims, industry whistleblowers, and journalists, THE CON connects the dots to what America used to be and where we’re headed in 2020, as nearly 40 million American’s are currently claiming unemployment. Stay tuned for a live conversation with the filmmakers and voices from THE CON after the screening.”

https://www.thecon.tv/event

Excellent description of the series at

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/aug/05/the-con-series-documentary-great-recession

July 23 – 29

JULY 23

2012 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, “SEVEN LARGEST U.S. BANKS HAVE CREATED THOUSANDS OF SUBSIDIARIES TO AVOID TAXES: FED REPORT”

“America’s seven biggest banks now have more than 14,500 subsidiaries around the world, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (h/t Bloomberg). They have hatched more than 10,000 of these subsidiaries since 1991, largely in an aim to skirt regulations and taxes, according to the report.”

2021 – “1ST JUST MONEY FESTIVAL” OF THE ALLIANCE FOR JUST MONEY – VIDEO

“Opening Remarks, Breakout Room Discussions, and Post-Discussion

JULY 24

1862 – DEATH OF MARTIN VAN BUREN, 8^TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“It can only be when the agriculturalists abandon the implements and the field of their labor and become, with those who now assist them, shopkeepers, manufacturers, carriers, and traders, that the Republic will be brought in danger of the influences of the MONEY POWER”

2012 – COMMENTS BY NEIL BAROFKSY, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM (TARP)

Neil Barofksy says on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the Treasury Department’s housing policies were “Foaming The Runway For The Banks.” More TARP money went to help American Express than all the struggling homeowners.

JULY 25

1876 – BIRTH OF CONGRESSMAN LOUIS T. MCFADDEN (R-PA), CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE BANKING AND CURRENCY COMMITTEE

“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.  I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.  Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions.  They are private credit monopolies; domestic swindlers, rich and predatory money lenders which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers…The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board.”

2011 – PRESENTATION OF “WORKINGS OF A PUBLIC MONEY SYSTEM OF OPEN MACROECONOMICS – MODELING THE AMERICAN MONETARY ACT COMPLETED,” BY KAORU YAMAGUCHI, PROFESSOR, DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY, KYOTO JAPAN

“Being intensified by the recent financial crisis in 2008, debt crises seem to be looming ahead among many OECD countries due to the runaway accumulation of government debts. This paper first explores them as a systemic failure of the current debt money system. Secondly, with an introduction of open macroeconomics, it examines how the current sys- tem can cope with the liquidation of government debt, and obtains that the liquidation of debts triggers recessions, unemployment and foreign economic recessions contagiously. Thirdly, it explores the workings of a public money system proposed by the American Monetary Act and finds that the liquidation under this alternative system can be put into effect without causing recessions, unemployment and inflation as well as foreign recessions. Finally, public money policies that incorporate balancing feedback loops such as anti-recession and anti-inflation are introduced for curbing GDP gap and inflation. They are posed to be simpler and more effective than the complicated Keynesian policies.” 

This paper was originally presented at the 29th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society in Washington D.C. http://monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DesignOpenMacro.pdf

2016 – “CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY: THE END OF MONETARY POLICY AS WE KNOW IT?” POSTED ARTICLE BY MARILYNE TOLLE

“I argue that taken to its most extreme conclusion, CBcoin issuance could have far-reaching consequences for commercial and central banking – divorcing payments from private bank deposits and even putting an end to banks’ ability to create money. By redefining the architecture of payment systems, CBcoin could thus challenge fractional reserve banking and reshape the conduct of monetary policy.”

Central bank digital currency: the end of monetary policy as we know it?

2020 – “TWO FLAWS IN FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING” JOURNAL ARTICLE BY RALPH MUSGRAVE

“The existing bank system, fractional reserve, is inherently risky because it involves accepting deposits while lending out about as much money as has been deposited, and telling depositors their money is safe, which it quite clearly is not and for the simple reason that if a bank makes silly loans, it cannot repay depositors. That problem is currently dealt with via taxpayer backed deposit insurance and billion-dollar bail outs for banks…

“Second, having a bank lend on your money is just as much a commercial transaction as having a stockbroker lend on or invest your money, and it is not the job of taxpayers to shield those involved in commerce from loss, unless there is an extremely good reason for doing so, which in this case there is not.

“The best solution to the above two flaws in fractional reserve is to abandon all state support for banks while letting those who want their money to be totally safe deposit it with the state, something the people in several countries have actually been free to do for a long time anyway. And that arrangement equals full reserve banking.”

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yuDcdiuaud8ionc6bWp5qzN7X7JjotCV/view

JULY 26

1925 – DEATH OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, SECRETARY OF STATE

“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government…Those who are opposed to the proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business.  I stand with Jefferson…and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business…When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and … until that is done, there is no reform that can be accomplished.”

JULY 27

1694 – ROYAL CHARTER GRANTED TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND

King William II (William of Orange) created the privately owned central bank via a charter (a license to exist) out of urgency. England needed to rebuild its navy to counter the French, but the sovereign King William II lacked the money or credit. He traded his exclusive right to create money to the private bank. The bank raised money from shareholders, which was loaned to the King at interest. The bank also created money out of nothing. As William Patterson, the bank’s co-founder and early Director, said, “The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.” The bank is located in the 1 square mile City of London, a separate city within the larger London municipality.

2012 – NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS ADOPTS A RESOLUTION AT THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTION TO INVESTIGATE ESTABLISHING A POSTAL BANKING SYSTEM

The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important to the effort to save the public Post Office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a successful history of postal banking, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States itself; and that postal banks could serve the 9 million people who don’t have bank accounts and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers, giving low-income people access to a safe banking system.  “A USPS bank would offer a ‘public option’ for banking,” concluded the resolution, “providing basic checking and savings – and no complex financial wheeling and dealing.” At one time, the Postal Savings System offered savings accounts to depositors, but no loans. When banks failed after the Great Depression, many people shifted their remaining funds. The Postal Savings System held upwards of 20% of the nation’s savings in the mid 1940’s. Commercial/corporate banks opposed the efficient system (post offices served as bank branches) and lobbied for their limitation and finally elimination, which occurred in 1967. One wonders to what extent current efforts to eliminate the Post Office are based on eliminating this legitimate alternative to private banking corporations.

JULY 28

1919 – BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA FOUNDED

The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in the US. Its primary deposit base is the State of North Dakota. All state funds and funds of state institutions are deposited with the Bank, as required by law. Other deposits are accepted from any source, private citizens to the U.S. government.

2014 – PUBLISHED POLL OF UK PARLIAMENT MEMBERS SHOWING THEIR IGNORANCE OF MONEY CREATION

100 MPs were polled through Dods Monitoring in July 2014. MPs were asked to read a number of statements and indicate whether they were true or false. They could also select “Don’t know”. In response to the statement “Only the government – via the Bank of England or Royal Mint – has the authority to create money, including coins, notes and the electronic money in your bank account.”, 71% said this was true, 20% said it was false (the correct answer) and 9% said they didn’t know. There was no significant difference between the parties. In response to the statement “New money is created when banks make loans, and existing money is destroyed when members of the public repay loans.”, only 12% of MPs gave the correct answer: true. 64% of MPs said this was false, while 24% said they didn’t know. The full results can be found at http://bit.ly/1qTZHHa

2019 – “ON MONEY: THE LIBRA VERSUS SOVEREIGNTY” BY GOVERT SCHULLER POSTED ARTICLE ONLINE

“A US-based progressive monthly, The Nation, just published an article about the Libra by MMT enthusiast Rohan Grey, titled: ‘Facebook Wants Its Own Currency. That Should Scare Us All. Instead of embracing Facebook’s Libra, we should be rallying for a public option for digital currency.’

“This is an interesting article and deserves close scrutiny for several reasons. First of all it sounds the alarm about this proposal by a group of transnational corporations led by Facebook to capture the privilege of issuing currency at the expense of sovereign, public institutions.”

On Money: The Libra versus Sovereignty

2021 – “A CENTRAL BANK CRYPTOCURRENCY TO DEMOCRATIZE MONEY” POSTED OPINION BY YANIS VAROUFAKIS

“Since 2008 – and more so during the pandemic – central bank money has been showered, via private bankers, on the ultra-rich, while everyone else suffers stagnation and austerity. The time for change is now, and the way to do it is by creating central-bank cryptocurrency…

“Central-bank digital money will happen sooner or later. The great struggle over who will control the payment system and the money tree will continue. But we have a chance to use new technology to democratize money, to reclaim control over the money supply, to offer savers a decent interest rate without precipitating a new depression, and to lay the groundwork for a universal basic dividend – in short, to press the money tree into the service of people and the planet.

“Who controls transactions, interest rates, and money creation controls politics. That’s why the powers-that-be will fight this proposal tooth and nail.”

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-bank-cryptocurrency-democratize-money-by-yanis-varoufakis-2021-07?fbclid=IwAR1wU0RyJyqm8lxe27TQEHgizzsOqmgoBSAMjCIA3ZHJTCp9DKsM47w2sYU

JULY 29

2011 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE “YOU CAN’T SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS WITH MORE DEBT” BY BEN DYSON, DIRECTOR, POSITIVE MONEY

“We cannot solve a debt crisis by adding more debt.

It`s a fact that seems to have been completely missed by the IMF, European Union and our own government.

“The solution to Greece? More debt. The solution to the US government`s inability to fund two simultaneous wars from tax revenue: more debt. The solution to the high indebtedness of ordinary people in the UK? Get banks lending again: let`s have more debt. …

“What we need now is not more debt, but less of it.

“But for the economic mainstream and those young and inexperienced civil servants who are deciding how to fix one of the largest banking systems in the world, it seems perfectly normal to let banks create money out of nothing to lend to people who already have too much debt. The idea of taking that power away from the banks, and using newly-created money to actually reduce the indebtedness of ordinary people seems radical and somewhat dangerous to them.”

2019 – “MICHAEL HUDSON: THE COMING SAVINGS WRITEDOWNS” POSTED ARTICLE

“Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be. That point inevitably arrives on the liabilities side of the economy’s balance sheet.

“But what of the asset side? One person’s debt is a creditor’s claim for payment. This is defined as ‘savings,’ even though banks simply create credit endogenously on their own computers without needing any prior savings. When debts can’t be paid and debtors default, what happens to these creditors?…

“Writing down savings by a few percentage points helps bring the glut of creditor claims marginally back towards balancing bank deposits with the ability of debtors to pay. But such marginal moves are rarely sufficient. A quantum leap is needed.

“Governments have long followed a basic guideline when faced with a need to devalue their currencies (for instance, as the dollar was devalued against gold in 1933). Nothing is worse for a politician or central banker than to be overly shy when it comes to devaluation. The motto is, ‘Always depreciate to access.’ That means at least 25 percent, often a third when a basic structural adjustment is needed.”

Michael Hudson: The Coming Savings Writedowns

July 16 – 22

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JULY 16

1979 – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF SAN FRANCISCO AD FOR COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS IN “COMPUTERWORLD MAGAZINE”

“Some people still think we’re a branch of the Government. We’re not.”

[Note: You can’t get any clearer or more succinct than this!]

JULY 17

1862 – PASSAGE OF POSTAGE CURRENCY ACT

The act authorized the issuance of 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent notes – which were needed to substitute for gold, silver and copper coins, which were hoarded. This fractional currency US debt-free notes, sold in perforated sheets like stamps, were redeemable by the US Post Offices at face value in postage stamps until 1876. 

2022 – UNITED STATES CRYPTO MINERS ARE NOW USING AS MUCH POWER AS HOUSTON

“The New York Times reported this week that just seven of the biggest Bitcoin mining companies are now using nearly as much electricity as all the homes in Houston combined, meaning that all crypto mining in the country is almost certainly already using much more…

“There’s no doubt crypto mining is horrible for the environment. Maybe the next congressional investigation will focus on not if, but how much, the industry is contributing to climate change.”

https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-crypto-miners-power-houston?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&fbclid=IwAR2hz5UcAs6meyVwzLGEfljlo5Ewd-P7_YZLrDhQRR5MPqNVCTC0VvbAjDc

JULY 18

1941 – BIRTH OF STEPHEN ZARLENGA, FORMER  DIRECTOR, AMERICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE, AUTHOR OF “THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY”

Several quotes….

“I am suggesting that the nature of human affairs requires the government to have four branches, not three, the fourth branch to embody and administer the monetary power.”

“When society loses control over its money system, it loses any control it might have had over its destiny.”

“One thing we have found is that all serious monetary reformers come to very similar conclusions, whether they start from a Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Islamic or Secular viewpoint. These call for elimination of the Fractional Reserve System – for stopping the use of debt for money, whether public or private.”                                                  

“Over time, whoever controls the money system controls the nation.”

“True monetary reform must take a better path. AMI’s research indicates that money, properly defined, is a legal institution of society and government; not a commodity or economic good of the markets; that if money is a legal institution, then the control of monetary systems can be rightfully viewed as a proper function of government; much as the law courts are.”     

“Money has value because of skilled people, resources and infrastructure, working together in a supportive social and legal framework. Money is the indispensable lubricant that lets them ‘run.’ It is not tangible wealth in itself, but a power to obtain wealth. Money is an abstract social power based in law; and whatever government accepts in payment of taxes will be money.”

JULY 19

1844 – PASSAGE OF BANK CHARTER ACT BY BRITISH PARLIAMENT

The Act curtailed and eventually ended the right of banks to issue banknotes. The right to issue paper money became the sole authority of the Bank of England. NOTE: They could still create money via lending (fractional reserve lending).

2013 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, THE PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE DIALECTIC, OR: MONEY AS PART OF THE COMMONS” BY ANTHONY MIGCHELS

“Surely it’s a no-brainer to say that the Government at this stage must urgently retake the monopoly on currency from the Money Power. The US Government pays 450 billion per year in interest payments to international banks and other Governments to service its National Debt. With the BIS now openly calling for higher interest rates it will quickly get much worse. Government money allows for a reasonable financing of the State and is the very least monetary reform should aim for.

But to say something is better is not to say something is ideal. And Government money can be designed in good and bad ways. The good ways decentralize power, the bad ways centralize power…”

2015 – ARTICLE “THE FEDERAL RESERVE – WHICH CREATED QUANTITATIVE EASING – ADMITS QE DOESN’T WORK.”

Stephen Williamson, the Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, writes in a new Fed white paper published on July 9 the following:

    “There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed inflation and real economic activity. Indeed, casual evidence suggests that QE has been ineffective in increasing inflation.

    “Thus, the Fed’s forward guidance experiments after the Great Recession would seem to have done more to sow confusion than to clarify the Fed’s policy rule.”

2019 – “THE CONSTITUTION AND A JUST SYSTEM OF MONEY” BLOG POSTING

“It is my contention that the lofty aspirations formulated in the Preamble to The Constitution of the United States certainly cannot be realized if we are unable to provide ourselves with a just system of the one absolute, man-made necessity for survival in modern society — money…

“Our Constitution gives the power to coin (create) Money to the Congress. This Constitutional Money Power cannot be given away legislatively by the Federal Reserve Act or any other legislation without a Constitutional Amendment. Despite the fact that the Federal Reserve System has been in place since 1913, its legitimacy and that of private banks creating our money has never been ruled upon by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Constitution capitalized important nouns such as Power and Money and used the lower case for verbs such as coin. The verb ‘to coin’, in addition to meaning make or mint a coin, also means to create or invent such as ‘to coin a phrase’. The entire constitutional justification for the Federal Reserve System and private money creation rests on the false premise that the Constitutional statement on the Money Power vested to Congress refers to only the creation of coins.”

The Constitution and a Just System of Money

JULY 20

1903 – DEATH OF POPE LEO XIII

“On the one hand there is the party which holds the power because it holds the wealth, which has in its grasp all labor and all trade, which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is powerfully represented in the councils of State itself.  On the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sore and suffering. Rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless under a different form but with the same guilt, still practiced by avaricious and grasping men…so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself.”

– Statement on usury, 1898

2021 – “DAVID GRAEBER’S ‘DEBT’ SHOWS US HOW TO THINK ABOUT THE POST-PANDEMIC, CLIMATE CRISIS ECONOMY” POSTED ARTICLE

“In the beginning was debt. In David Graeber’s sprawling epic on the history of money, he charts its shape-shifting from credit to coinage, to credit again, then bullion and finally to virtual currencies. Throughout, debt is the constant and Graeber makes a ferocious case that it is the lens through which economics might be better defined…

“He kicks off with a convincing demolition job on economists’ origin myth that money grew out of the barter. But barter is so obviously unworkable — what would you do when you needed milk but your neighbour with the cow had no need of your roses? — that, to this day, nobody has found anywhere it actually existed. ‘No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there has never been such a thing.’ Yet the myth is continuously perpetuated in economics textbooks, from Adam Smith to Joseph Stiglitz. Why? Because it positions economics as a discipline whose foremost concern is competitive advantage, facilitated through the division of labour. All deeper human motivation — passion, adventure, curiosity, sex or death — is neatly erased.”

https://marker.medium.com/david-graebers-debt-shows-us-how-to-think-about-the-post-pandemic-climate-crisis-economy-e5555835f366

JULY 21

1911 — DEATH OF MARSHALL MCLUHAN, CANDADIAN PHILOSOPHER OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

“Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”

Exactly. The general public is unwilling or unable to believe that the vast majority of the money of our nation isn’t created by our public government, but by private financial entities out of thin air as debt.

2010 – PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS THE “DODD-FRANK WALL STREET REFORM AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT”

“…Dodd-Frank does not solve the TBTF (“too big to fail” financial institutions) problem. Congress did not adequately strengthen statutory limits on the ability of large complex financial institutions (“LCFIs”) to grow through mergers and acquisitions. The enhanced prudential standards to be imposed on SIFIs under Dodd-Frank rely heavily on capital-based regulation, which has repeatedly failed to prevent financial crises in the past. Moreover, the success of Dodd-Frank’s supervisory reforms will depend heavily on many of the same federal agencies that failed to stop excessive risk-taking by LCFIs in the past and, in the process, showed their vulnerability to political influence wielded by LCFIs and their trade associations.”

https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications/985/

2011 – REPORT BY US SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS ON AUDIT OF THE US FEDERAL RESERVE

“The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. ‘This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.’ “

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/the-fed-audit

2020 — “A SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS – JUST MONEY NOW!” VIDEO POSTING

“How can we the 99% stay healthy, pay our rent and mortgages, put food on our table, and protect our wealth through these days of trauma? This video explains how we can quickly provide a basic income and medical care for all Americans to put a floor back under our economy. We can ease through this pandemic and economic crisis with a sampling of Just Money – public, asset money. Just Money will establish an economy that is just, sustainable, and democratic, and provide the funds that we desperately need to pay for a better world.”

JULY 22

1950 – DEATH OF WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING, 10^TH PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA, 1935-48.

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations’ laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile…. The Liberal Party believes that credit is a public matter, not of interest to bankers only, but of direct concern to every citizen. The Liberal Party declares itself in favor of the immediate establishment of a duly constituted national bank for the control of the issue of money in terms of public needs. The flow of money must be in relation with the domestic, social, and industrial needs of the Canadian people…If my party is returned to power, we shall make good our monetary policy in the greatest battle between the money power and the people Canada has ever seen.” Mackenzie King won re-election. The private Bank of Canada, which had been a private corporation, was converted to a “Crown Corporation,” belonging to the people of Canada.

2012  – PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN BLOOMBERGVIEW BY NEIL BAROVSKY, FORMER TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM (TARP) INSPECTOR GENERAL

“Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.”

[The same captured politicians by the banking corporations prevents any serious monetary reform – and will no doubt continue until banking corporations and, in fact, all corporations no longer possess the inalienable first amendment constitutional “right to free speech” to lobby and donate/invest in elections]

2015 – TALK BY CONGRESSMAN JEB HENSARLING (R, TEXAS) ON THE FAILURE OF THE POST-FINANCIAL IMPLOSION DODD-FRANK “REFORM”

“The Dodd-Frank architecture, first of all, has made us less financially stable,” he said. “Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer. But because Washington can control a handful of big established firms much easier than many small and zealous competitors, this is likely an intended consequence of the Act. Dodd-Frank concentrates greater assets in fewer institutions. It codifies into law ‘Too Big to Fail’ and taxpayer-funded bailouts.”

http://www.mpamag.com/news/on-its-fifth-anniversary-hensarling-slams-doddfrank-23302.aspx

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July 9 – 15

JULY 9

1778 – FIRST STATES RATIFY THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

Eight states signed the Articles on this day. Other states followed shortly thereafter. The Articles granted the Federal Government the authority to issue money and determine its value if nine states agreed. The Articles comprised the original U.S. Constitution.

2007 – CITIGROUP CEO CHARLES PRINCE INTERVIEW WITH THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Explaining his bank’s excessive money creation through the creation of risky sub-prime loans,

“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will get complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.”

JULY 10

1509 – BIRTH OF JOHN CALVIN, FRENCH THEOLOGIAN AND PASTOR

Many believe Calvin broke the ice on the legitimization of usury (interest on loans). The Catholic Church prohibited it, based on the Biblical passage, Deuteronomy 23, verses 19-20. Calvin was part of the Protestant Reformation. His response to the issue, which carried considerable influence, was: “usury is not now unlawful, expect insofar as it contravenes equity and brotherly union. Let each one, then, place himself before God’s judgment seat, and not do to his neighbor what he would not have done to himself, from whence a sure and infallible decision may be come to. To exercise the trade of usury…is much less tolerable among the children of God; but in what cases and how far it may be lawful to receive usury among loans, the law of equity will better prescribe than any lengthened discussions.” Benjamin Nelson, “The Idea of Usury, From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood,” p 79.

1832 – ANDREW JACKSON VETOES LEGISLATION TO RENEW THE CHARTER OF THE PRIVATE SECOND BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

“Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country?… Should its influence become concentrated, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.”

1983 – PUBLICATION OF “FISCAL POLICY AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN ISLAM” Edited by ZIAUDDIN AHMED, MUNAWAR IQBAL AND M. FAHIM KHAN

“Money creation is a social prerogative and hence the benefits of the process of money creation should accrue to the whole society which can best be achieved through 100 per cent reserve system.”

JULY 11

1862 – LEGISLATIVE ACT AUTHORIZING US GOVERNMENT TO ISSUE MONEY

Congress passes legislation to issue and circulate $150 million in non-interest bearing, debt-free notes – Greenbacks. This is authorized in the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.

2011 – STATEMENT BY STEVEN KEEN, ECONOMIST, ON QUANTITATIVE EASING

“This is the biggest transfer of wealth in history,” as the giant banks have handed their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the countries and their people.

2014 — POSTING OF VIDEO “CENTURY OF ENSLAVEMENT” BY THE CORBETT REPORT

“What is the Federal Reserve system? How did it come into existence? Is it part of the federal government? How does it create money? Why is the public kept in the dark about these important matters? In this feature-length documentary film, The Corbett Report explores these important question and pulls back the curtain on America’s central bank.”

Century of Enslavement (video)

2019 – “INSIDE THE BATTLE FOR THE NEXT GLOBAL MONETARY SYSTEM – FACEBOOK LIBRA VS CENTRAL BANKS” VIDEO

A description of the emergence of crytocurrencies, especially Facebook’s “Libra”

https://goldsilver.com/blog/inside-the-battle-for-the-next-global-monetary-system-facebook-libra-vs-central-banks/

JULY 12

1804 – DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

He was a major proponent of First Bank of the United States – a privately owned national bank. The name was to deceive people into thinking that money creation was done by the government instead of corporate banks. The nation’s money was created out of thin air and loaned to the government – at interest – and to private individuals. Eighty percent of the stock was privately held. Hamilton called the public debt “a public blessing” because of his belief that it would tie the wealthy (who would own the government bonds) of the country to the government, and they would, in turn, provide political support for higher taxes, to make sure that there was enough money in the treasury to pay off their principal and interest.

[Note: We must not be confused. While the musical about his life is a tremendous artistic production, it sugarcoats Hamilton’s efforts to centralize government, deter small “d” democracy and create a privately owned central bank that enriched already rich investors.]

1895 – BIRTH OF BUCKMINSTER FULLER, AMERICAN ARCHITECT, SYSTEM THEORIST, AUTHOR, DESIGNER, INVENTOR, AND FUTURIST

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

That’s what the American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA) does.

2012 – GREEN PARTY USA CALLS FOR MONETARY REFORM IN PARTY PLATFORM

Green Party Platform:

“Democratize Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve System: Place a 100% reserve requirement on demand deposits in order to return control of monetary policy from private bankers to elected government. Selection of Federal Reserve officers by our elected representatives, not private bankers. Strengthen the regional development mission of the regional Federal Reserve Banks by directing them to target investments to promote key policy objectives, such as high-wage employment, worker and community ownership, ecological production, and inner city reconstruction.”

2022 – “WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM” POSTED ONLINE ARTICLE

“In the US, coins are made at the US Mint and issued by the Treasury via our central bank, the Federal Reserve. Cash bills are printed by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and issued (through a slightly convoluted process) by the Federal Reserve. But only a small fraction of the money used in our economy is bills or coins. Most of what are considered cash transactions are done with debit cards, checks, or electronic transfers—bank-account money. The money involved in these transactions is just account entries; no dollar bills or coins are involved. Most of the money both here and throughout the world is bank-account money, and it’s created by commercial banks when they make loans.

Where does money come from?

JULY 13

1832 – CONGRESS FAILS TO OVERRIDE PRESIDENT JACKSON’S VETO TO RENEW THE CHARTER OF THE SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF THE UNITED STATES

In his veto message to renew the misnamed “national bank” (it was actually a private bank controlled/owned by stockholders, a majority of whom were foreigners), Jackson stated: “Controlling our currency, receiving our public monies, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence…would be more formidable and dangerous than a naval and military power of the enemy.”

1956 – QUOTE OF J.R.R TOLKIEN, AUTHOR (THE HOBBIT AND LORD OF THE RINGS) AND UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD PROFESSOR, IN CONDOUR MAGAZINE

“The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or what is most important of all, the banker of the backer. Enthroned above all, in a manner without parallel in all past, is the veiled prophet of finance, swaying all men living by a sort of magic, and delivering oracles in a language not understood of the people.”

2011 – “GREENING THE DOLLAR,” POSTED ARTICLE BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA

“Real progress on monetary reform is being made. Don’t swallow the widespread negativism spread, out of error or by design, which tries to convince people that there’s no use in fighting for justice.

“That strategy was taught by the Taoist philosopher Sun Tzu in The Art of War. He advised that the best way to defeat opponents is to convince them to surrender by convincing them that victory is impossible. Rather than falling for it, steel yourself! Progress on solving our monetary problems does take time, yet it is being made and will continue to be made.

“For example, I was invited to give a talk at the 2007 US Green Party Convention to explain the need for monetary reform. On advice of an old friend, I called my talk “Greening the Dollar.” Now, four years later, thanks to Dee Berry and Ben Kjelsus of Kansas City, MO, the US Green Party has come forward with a marvelous monetary reform plank for its economic platform! For the first time in our nation’s history, a national party has proposed an effective solution to our malfunctioning monetary system! We applaud their remarkable courage and intelligence to present a genuine alternative to our malformed and unjust money system.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greening-the-dollar_b_897727?fbclid=IwAR03-w4EvLxwyyiCU_syM7YOW-TPnj5USqVmKDxZtULVWvG4UaDt1LVtpts

2013 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE, “EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS ARE PRIVATE…EXCEPT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”

Most Americans Still Don’t Know that Federal Reserve Banks Are Private Corporations

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/everyone-knows-that-the-federal-reserve-banks-are-private-except-the-american-people.html

2021 – THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS RADICALLY CHANGED FROM A CENTRAL BANK TO A BAILOUT KINGPIN. AMERICANS JUST HAVEN’T PAID ATTENTION – UNTIL TONIGHT”

“This evening, the PBS program, Frontline, will do something that corporate broadcast media has failed to do since the financial crash of 2008. Frontline will air the results of its year-long investigation of the most powerful financial institution in the world – the central bank of the United States – known as the Federal Reserve, or simply “the Fed.”

“The Fed’s radical makeover of itself began in December of 2007 when the Fed decided, on its own, that it had the authority to secretly pump out trillions of dollars in cumulative loans to prop up the mega banks on Wall Street, as well as to the foreign banks that were on the other side of Wall Street’s hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivative trades. The Fed secretly ran that program through at least July of 2010 according to the eventual audit that was conducted by the Government Accountability Office. (That audit only came about because Senator Bernie Sanders attached an amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010.)

The Federal Reserve Has Radically Changed from a Central Bank to a Bailout Kingpin. Americans Just Haven’t Paid Attention – Until Tonight

2022 – “WALL STREET INVENTED AN INVESTMENT THAT’S EVEN WORSE THAN THE ONE THAT CAUSED THE 2000 CRASH,” POSTED ARTICLE BY JARED A. BROCK

“Rent-back securities

“These horrible investment products are absolutely awful.

“Basically, the instrument bundles together rental payments from rent-trapped tenant-serfs along with mortgages on the rental units as collateral.

“Once bundled, the seller markets them as a super-safe investment and sells them to the highest sucker/bidder…

“Rent-backed securities are hot…

“Why did Blackstone create rent-backed securities?…

“Rent-backed securities will inevitably destroy lives…

“Why doesn’t America destroy rent-backed securities?…

“How to end rent-backed securities”

https://survivingtomorrow.org/wall-street-invented-an-investment-thats-even-worse-than-the-one-that-caused-the-2008-crash-c24dc4520176

JULY 14

1833 – DEATH OF WILLIAM M. GOUGE, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON, EDITOR OF THE PHILADELPHIA GAZETTE, PUBLISHER OF THE “HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BANKING SYSTEM” AND A “FISCAL HISTORY OF TEXAS”

“The large extent of bank influence is not easily seen.  We seldom see an identified bank or a money corporation candidate running for office; but when questions arise which affect them, the banks have agents at work, whose operations are the more effective because they are unseen.”

JULY 15

2012 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE, “ASSET HOLES: US ‘LEADERSHIP IN MONEY, CREDIT, CAFR SURPLUS TRILLIONS” BY CARL HERMAN

“The great news is that economic solutions are obvious:

Monetary reform: the US doesn’t have a money supply, but its Orwellian opposite of a ‘debt supply.’ Banks and the Fed create what we use for money as debts, then charge the 99% interest for its use. Monetary reform has government transparency (yes, unimaginable without total Occupy victory) to create debt-free money for direct payment of public goods and services. This has game-changing triple benefits of full-employment as government becomes the employer of last resort, optimal infrastructure, and falling prices because infrastructure contribute more to productivity than cost.”

July 2 – 8

JULY 2

1787 – LETTER TO JAMES MADISON FROM GOUVENEUR MORRIS, ONE OF THE PRIMARY ARCHITECTS OF THE US CONSTITUTION

In describing the motives of the owners of the new Bank of North America, Morris stated,

“The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will…They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by [the power of] government, keep them in their proper spheres.”

1881 – PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD SHOT. HE DIED 10 WEEKS LATER

“Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce, and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.” (attributed quote)

1961 – DEATH OF EARNEST HEMINGWAY, AUTHOR

“How did you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

From The Sun Also Rises

[Note: What is true of individuals is also true of governments. This is exactly why we must democratize our monetary system through enacting an updated version of the NEED Act, called the American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA) as proposed by the Alliance for Just Money (…not to mention reordering our fiscal and tax priorities to address the needs of the 99%.]

2016 – “MONETARY REFORM AND SOME JULY 4 THOUGHTS” UPDATED ARTICLE BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA

“The continuing crisis for many millions of our people gives an important opportunity to reform our monetary system and eliminate the privilege banks have to create what we use for money, when they extend loans; to eliminate their power to cause financial crises and obscenely concentrate wealth into undeserving hands.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/monetary-reform-and-some_b_7718508

JULY 3

2011 –  “MONETARY REFORM, PART I: END THE DEBT” ARTICLE BY LARRY WALKER, JR.

“Free Our Money – So what’s the problem? You know, you think about it all the time. It’s debt, debt, debt! The way our economy is set up now, the only way it can grow is through incurring more debt, either by government, business or consumer borrowing. Our economy cannot grow without increasing its money supply, and the only way that new money can be introduced, under the present monetary system, is through debt. But growth through debt really amounts to nothing more than spending next year’s income today. It’s a vicious cycle, one which has reduced millions to poverty, and to lives of indentured servitude. It’s time to end the debt, now…Why does the federal government print money, give it to the Federal Reserve, and then borrow its own money back at interest? Couldn’t the government simply print United States Notes, rather than Federal Reserve Notes, and spend it into the economy without a middle man?” http://larrymwalkerjr.blogspot.com/2011/07/monetary-reform-part-i-end-debt.html

2020 — PUBLICATION OF AN ANALYSIS OF STEPHANIE KELTON’S NEW BOOK “THE DEFICIT MYTH” ON MODERN MONETARY THEORY

“The most serious flaw in Stephanie Kelton’s book is ignoring the role that commercial banks play in issuing digital money in the currency of the land. Kelton implies that the federal government is the sole issuer of currency both digital and paper. It follows that the government must first spend money into the economy before people can pay taxes or borrowing can occur, in MMT parlance they use the acronym S(TAB). The reality is that digital money is created by commercial banks through the loans process, not the government! Normally taxing and borrowing by government follows (TAB)S. However, if the government had the political will to create money and spend it into the economy it could. MMT analysis leads to another absurd assertion that taxes don’t actually pay for anything on the federal level. I have covered what I believe to be the most important blunders, other MMT concepts are less critical in their descriptive analysis. It is my sincere wish that Stephanie Kelton and other MMT reevaluate their descriptive analysis and continue to pursue their prescriptive proposals.”

From “The Deficit Myth and Modern Monetary Theory Revised: The Canadian Version” by Jeff Eder. Download it at

https://progressivemoney.ca/the-deficit-myth-revised?fbclid=IwAR1S60BPA_FeP2a8UcTKai83156ByU1r7BNCAg08g7iFWzoChsYq2d-Dw_w

JULY 4

1826 – DEATH OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

1892 – ADOPTION OF THE “OMAHA PLATFORM,” FOUNDING DOCUMENT OF THE POPULIST PARTY

“The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people…[The two political parties] propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of.

PLATFORM

We demand a national currency, safe, sound, and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to the people, at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent per annum, to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance, or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements….We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange

2018 – “DIGITAL CASH” BLOG POSTING

“All privileges of the banks must be abolished. They are no longer needed. Banks have those privileges to facilitate payment over distance. This was useful in times of stagecoaches and analogue telephones. But in the digital age that is outdated. It has long been possible to introduce a digital form of cash, which can be used for payment over distance, without involvement of any bank balance sheet. The quasi monies issued by banks can then be replaced by publicly issued debt free money. The monetary system is then based on interest-free property in money instead of interest-bearing claims to money.”

Digital cash

JULY 5

2015 – GREEK PEOPLE REJECT EUROPEAN CREDITORS BAILOUT PLAN

The Greek government called for a national referendum vote on July 5 in response to a proposed deal by lenders (European Union, European Central Bank and the IMF) to bailout Greece. The Greek government claimed previous international lenders were irresponsible in providing loans to the Greek government that they knew could not be repaid. Greece, as virtually all nations in the European Union, is limited in their political and economic ability to react to economic crises when they gave up their authority to issue their own currency as a condition to join the European Union. The Greek people rejected the bailout plan 61% to 39%. 

2019 – “GLOBAL PROBLEMS AND THE CULTURE OF CAPITALISM” BY GOVERT SCHULLER ARTICLE POSTED ONLINE

“When banks create loans and charge interest, they do not create the money to pay off the interest. This pushes the system into finding ways to grow the money supply by making ever more loans extended to consumers and businesses which need to find ever more ingenious ways to create or find things and services to be sold. ‘In other words, the money supply must grow if the economy is to remain healthy, and for the money supply to grow there must be a steady increase in the things or services that money can buy’ (4th edition, p. 11, italics in original). To keep the system going, Robbins argues, ‘there must be a constant conversion of things that have no money value into things that do–that is, there must be constant commodification’”.

Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism

JULY 6

1863 – BIRTH OF RICHARD MCKENNA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE MIDLANDS BANK OF ENGLAND

“I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money.  And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.”

2016 – PUBLICATION THIS MONTH OF “THE NATURE OF MONEY IN MODERN ECONOMY – IMPLICATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA AND ROBERT POTEAT

“This paper discusses the great importance of the monetary question, and briefly examines some of the dominant erroneous concepts of money and their effects upon societies. It also points and links to the great progress currently being made by researchers in this field, so readers can examine them more fully. It presents very brief summaries of what some of the important new papers do. It also aims at helping instructors in outlining a reading curriculum to assist in a long overdue understanding of money power. Finally, the paper presents a money and banking system proposal which has evolved since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and is now ready for implementation and has even been introduced as potential legislation into the United States Congress.” http://iei.kau.edu.sa/Files/121/Files/153818_29-02-04-Zarlenga.pdf

JULY 7

1896 – REMARKS OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN BEFORE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, CHICAGO, IL (BRYAN WAS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT)

“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government…Those who are opposed to the proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business.  I stand with Jefferson…and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business…When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and … until that is done, there is no reform that can be accomplished.”

1947 – DEATH OF HENRY FORD, INDUSTRIALIST, FOUNDER, FORD MOTOR COMPANY

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

2017 “OF MONEY AND MORALS” POSTED ARTICLE

In Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), the anthropologist David Graeber argues that before the advent of money, economic life within a community was a web of mutual debts. People did not behave as self-interested individuals – at least not from the perspective of a single transaction; rather, they would share food, clothes and luxuries, and trust that their peers would repay the favour in return. When we consider these origins of debt and credit – as a system of mutual aid between people who trust each other – it’s no surprise that so many cultures viewed charging interest as morally wrong….

Despite the many loopholes and exceptions, usury laws still had teeth. ‘It would be a mistake to regard the Church’s sweeping prohibition as a sort of Volstead Act respected only by partisans, casually enforced, and lightly regarded,’ write the economic historians Sydney Homer and Richard Sylla in A History of Interest Rates (2005). So why did the prohibition on usury fade away?

One interpretation is that it was simply dogma – just like the belief that the Sun revolves around the Earth – that diminished in force as the Catholic Church splintered and lost political authority…

Here’s another view on why usury became less sinful: economic development eventually meant it wasn’t worth the trade-off. 

In addition, the spread of banking ultimately transformed credit from a personal transaction between neighbours to a competitive, impersonal market. 

https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-usury-stop-being-a-sin-and-become-respectable-finance?fbclid=IwAR3fo8OqtSO8pgdjx1gfg5XzGAzjthGDabDOePf-vrgdM0Nus_RSOiHBr-w

2020 – “THE PROBLEM WITH THE ‘HAMILTON’ MOVIE” POSTED ARTICLE

“”Hamilton” was the perfect play for the Obama era because it fed into Democratic liberalism’s shift away from heroes like Thomas Jefferson — who represented a figure of rugged pastoral individualism — to Hamilton, the master banker/whiz kid financial planner…

“The distracting hand-wringing over his betrayal happens as he is engaged in debates over the ratification of the Constitution. The story focuses on his desire to create a central bank to assume all debts — at one point he taunts Jefferson by saying “your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor… so we get Congress get held hostage by the South.” But the drama over Reynolds glosses over his failure to speak out against the three-fifths compromise, which allowed Southern states to count Black people as three-fifths of a person for representation purposes…

[Note: Hamilton was a major supporter of creation of the First Bank of the United States. The bank had an enormous impact on the economy early on. Within 2 months of its creation, it flooded the market with loans and banknotes and then suddenly called in many of its loans. The result was the first US securities market crash — what became known as the “Panic of 1792” – the first of many panics, recessions and depressions due to the private/corporate control of our money system.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/05/opinions/hamilton-movie-mixed-messages-black-lives-matter-morales/index.html

JULY 8

1839 – BIRTH OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, OIL AND FINANCIAL CAPITALIST

“God gave me my money!”