August 27 – September 2

AUGUST 27

2014 – “DETHRONE ‘KING DOLLAR’ OPED, NEW YORK TIMES BY JARED BERNSTEIN

“There are few truisms about the world economy, but for decades, one has been the role of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It’s a core principle of American economic policy. After all, who wouldn’t want their currency to be the one that foreign banks and governments want to hold in reserve?

But new research reveals that what was once a privilege is now a burden, undermining job growth, pumping up budget and trade deficits and inflating financial bubbles. To get the American economy on track, the government needs to drop its commitment to maintaining the dollar’s reserve-currency status.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/dethrone-king-dollar.html?_r=0

2017 – “ON PUBLIC MONEY – THE NEED ACT” video posting

“Joe Bongiovani and Jamie Walton of the American Monetary Institute discuss the details, ramifications and implementation of the NEED Act.”

AUGUST 28

2014 – “A POSSIBLE TIPPING POINT FOR SCOTLAND” ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON POSITIVE MONEY WEBSITE

This is an excerpt from James Robertson’s newsletter:                 

“Scotland will hold a referendum on 18 September. It will decide whether the outcome will be “Yes, Scotland will be independent” or “No, Better Together“…

If the result is independence for Scotland, one particular question will be especially interesting: Money. It hasn’t been decided what currency an independent Scotland should use…

At present there is a comparatively high level of support in Scotland for a Yes referendum vote. But the prospective danger of expulsion from the UK sterling currency might start a shift of opinion towards a cautious No. If that happens, what rabbit could the Scottish National Party leader, Alex Salmond, and his colleagues pull out of their hat to counteract the shift?

It could be monetary reform. Alex Salmond could announce that the present Scottish Government is preparing a feasibility study in the light of the developments at Item 2 above. The study would report on whether, after winning a Yes referendum, an independent Scotland should adopt a democratic currency with a money supply created as a debt-free public service to society as a whole, instead of the present money supply created as debt by commercial banks at great profit to themselves and great cost to society at large.”

http://positivemoney.org/2014/08/possible-tipping-point-scotland/

AUGUST 29

1786 – BEGINNING OF SHAYS’ REBELLION

Sparked in large part by personal debt, nonpayment of salaries, and collapse of the national currency, farmers in Massachusetts, led by Daniel Shays, attack a US Armory. The lack of a focused response to the uprisings led to calls to reforming the Articles of Confederation. The Philadelphia Convention, which followed, rather than reforming the Articles of Confederation, created a new more centralized Constitution. While less democratic in many ways (as it was drafted by and gave exclusive rights only to white, male landowners), the new Constitution empowered the government to coin its own money, separate from banks and financial institutions.

2005 – DEATH OF JUDE THADDEUS WANNISKI, AMERICAN JOURNALIST AND POLITICAL ECONOMIST

“There was a big party at Morgan Stanley after the Mexican peso devaluation, people from all over Wall Street came, they drank champagne and smoked cigars and congratulated themselves on how they pulled it off and they made a fortune.”

AUGUST 30

1930 – BIRTH OF WARREN BUFFET, INVESTOR

“Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.”

2019 – “HOW CAN WE PAY FOR A BETTER WORLD: CHANGE THE MONEY SYSTEM,” VIDEO BY VIRGINIA HAMMON

A short (4 min) introduction to our money system, why our money system choice matters, and why changing to a Just Money system can make it possible to pay for a better world.

AUGUST 31

1959 – ROBERT B. ANDERSON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY UNDER PRESIDENT EISENHOWER

“When a bank makes a loan it simply adds to the borrowers’ deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan.  The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposit; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone.  It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.”

SEPTEMBER 1

1764 – PASSAGE OF BRITISH CURRENCY ACT

The Act banned Colonial paper money as legal tender, severely limiting commerce and widening the trade deficit between England and the Colonies. Colonists were forced to pay their taxes only in gold or silver. Many, including Benjamin Franklin, claimed this was one of the major triggers, if not the major trigger, of the Revolutionary War.

2021 – “MONEY IS TRULY WORKING AGAINST US” ONLINE ARTICLE BY JOHN HOWELL

“If the government were to use its Constitutional authority to create (issue) money, there would be no need for government borrowing – for deficit spending. The US government has issued money under four administrations and has never abused that prerogative. Compare that with the record of the Wall Street banks in recent years. Following the 2008 crash, big banks paid $110 billion in mortgage-related fines for their role in inflating a mortgage bubble that helped cause the crisis. Do we really want the unelected officials of these institutions to continue to control our money supply?

“The Federal Reserve Act formally outsourced money creation to the banks. This experiment has failed. Under the Federal Reserve, the dollar has lost more than 98% of its value, and democracy is now threatened by the extreme concentration of wealth and power in a few hands while most Americans face financial insecurity.

“Legislation to make the needed change in the money system has been written and was introduced into Congress in 2012. It should be reconsidered now. For more information go to the Alliance For Just Money (www.monetaryalliance.org).

Money Truly is Working Against Us

SEPTEMBER 2

1839 – BIRTH OF HENRY GEORGE, ECONOMIST, POLITICIAN AND AUTHOR OF “PROGRESS AND POVERTY”

“[I]t is the business of government to issue money…To leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government. When, in the progress of society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government function become still stronger. The evils entailed by wildcat banking in the United States are too well remembered to need reference. The loss and inconvenience, the swindling and corruption that flowed from the assumption by each State of the Union of the power to license banks of issue ended with the war, and no one would now go back to them. Yet instead of doing what every public consideration impels us to, and assuming wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the General Government the power to issue paper money, the private interests of bankers have, up to this, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of which a large part, though guaranteed by the General Government, is issued and made profitable to corporations.”

1877 – BIRTH OF FREDERICK SODDY, NOBEL PRIZE RECIPIENT (CHEMISTRY) AND MONETARY REFORM AUTHOR

“There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. Our money system is nothing better than a confidence trick.”

Also, “, “To allow it (the monetary system) to become a source of revenue to private issuers is to create, first, a secret and illicit arm of the government and, last, a rival power strong enough ultimately to overthrow all other forms of government.”

2020 – DEATH OF DAVID GRAEBER, ANTHROPOLOGIST, OCCUPY MOVEMENT ORGANIZER, AUTHOR OF “DEBT: THE FIRST 5000 YEARS”

“When banks make loans, they create money. This is because money is really just an IOU. The role of the central bank is to preside over a legal order that effectively grants banks the exclusive right to create IOUs of a certain kind, ones that the government will recognise as legal tender by its willingness to accept them in payment of taxes. There’s really no limit on how much banks could create, provided they can find someone willing to borrow it. They will never get caught short, for the simple reason that borrowers do not, generally speaking, take the cash and put it under their mattresses; ultimately, any money a bank loans out will just end up back in some bank again. So for the banking system as a whole, every loan just becomes another deposit. What’s more, insofar as banks do need to acquire funds from the central bank, they can borrow as much as they like; all the latter really does is set the rate of interest, the cost of money, not its quantity. Since the beginning of the recession, the US and British central banks have reduced that cost to almost nothing. In fact, with ‘quantitative easing’ they’ve been effectively pumping as much money as they can into the banks, without producing any inflationary effects.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity

August 20 – 26

AUGUST 20

1935 – BIRTH OF RON PAUL, US CONGRESSMAN

Referring to the Federal Reserve, he stated, “maybe there’s too much power in the hands of those who control monetary policy?  The power to create financial bubbles. The power to maybe bring the bubble about.  The power to change the value of the stock market within minutes.  That to me is just an ominous power and challenges the whole concept of freedom and liberty and sound money.”

AUGUST 21

1824 – DEATH OF JOHN TAYLOR OF CAROLINE, US SENATOR OF VIRGINIA IN THE 19TH CENTURY

“As we all know that a regular influx of wealth, from a majority to a minority, is a regular influx of power, the United States ought to estimate the quantity of each, they are pouring into a banking interest. If no new banks should be created after 1808, nor the acquisition of the old increased, the five millions annually collected by the existing banks, at compound interest carried from the public to the corporations, in twenty years, above one hundred and eighty-four millions of dollars. Here is already a vast current of money and power running one way…”

2014 – PUBLICATION OF “PRINT LESS BUT TRANSFER MORE: WHY CENTRAL BANKS SHOULD GIVE MONEY DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE” BY MARK BLYTH AND ERIC LONGERGAN IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The article is at

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141847/mark-blyth-and-eric-lonergan/print-less-but-transfer-more#comment-1560497380

NOTE: Foreign Affairs is a publication of the power elite. Why would an article promoting giving money away to people be published in such a publication? Because the power elite knows that their financial system is in deep trouble. They’ve tried a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and Quantitative Easing (QE — which is printing money by the Federal Reserve and giving it to the banks and corporations), but the economy still hasn’t recovered. In fact, almost all economic fundamentals point to a severe downturn. The power elite, therefore, may be trying to get ahead of the economic populist curve by promoting what many at the grassroots say is a way to stimulate the economy — by giving money to people to spend into the economy and, thereby, increasing demand. This, in fact, is a provision of the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED Act). Missing from the author’s analysis, however, is an examination of the “need” to end the ability of banking corporations to create money out of thin air as debt — which represents the vast majority of the money created in our society. The quantity and use of money in our society should be by public decisions, not corporate banking decisions.

AUGUST 22

2009 – PUBLICATION OF “TWENTY QUESTIONS FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT THE AMERICAN MONETARY ACT”

The questions begin on p. 23 at http://www.monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/32-page-brochure.pdf

Below is the 1^st question asked and answered…

1) Won’t the government creating new money for infrastructure and other expenses cause inflation?

No. While this is an important concern, some of it is anti-government propaganda and it need not cause inflation, depending on where the new money goes, for example:

When new money is used to create real wealth, such as goods and services and the $2.2 trillion worth of public infrastructure building and repair the engineers tell us is needed over the next 5 years, there need not be inflation because real things of real value are being created at the same time as the money, and the existence of those real values for living, keeps prices down.

If it goes into warfare or bubbles (real estate/Wall Street/etc.) it would create inflationary bubbles with no real production of goods and services. That is the history of private control over money creation. It must end now. Government tends to direct resources more into areas of concern for the whole nation, such as infrastructure, health care, education, etc. The AMA Title 5 specifies infrastructure items including human infrastructure of health care and education to focus on.

Also remember, the American Monetary Act eliminates ‘fractional reserve banking’ which has been one of the main causes of inflation. And remember new money must be introduced into circulation as the population and economy grow or is improved, or we’d have deflation.

AUGUST 23

1935 – PASSAGE OF BANKING ACT

The law made the FDIC a permanent agency and raised the deposit insurance level to $5,000.

The Federal Reserve System was reformed with the transformation of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors to the Board of Governors. All board members were appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and the term of service was expanded to 14 years. Open-market operations were formalized in the Federal Open Market Committee and the Governors were allowed to determine interest rates and bank reserve requirements. These “reforms,” however, were window dressing. The power and authority to issue money as debt was retained in the hands of the private Federal Reserve and private banking corporations. Keeping reserve requirement decisions in the hands of the Fed only invites speculation and risk (reserve requirements are the ratio of money banks lend in excess of money they actually possess “in reserve” to cover loans. Banks loan many times the amount of funds in their reserve).

AUGUST 24

1916 – BIRTH OF ROBERT DE FREMERY, AUTHOR, RIGHTS VS PRIVILEGES

“It is not obvious that there are serious defects in our banking system and our tax system that deprive most of us of fundamental rights and bestow enormous privileges on others? How many riots must we endure?  How many prisons must we build?  How many of our rights must we lose?  How many of our young people must be sent away to fight in foreign wars before we decide that enough is enough?”

1922 – BIRTH OF HOWARD ZINN, AUTHOR, PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

In response to the announcement that the Obama administration was going to give billions of tax dollars to the financial industry, he said:

“They’re really dedicated to keeping the financial system, which doesn’t mean us, doesn’t mean the people; it means the bankers, the banking industry, the lenders, the insurance companies keeping them afloat by giving them hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. Now, it’s amusing to me to see that suddenly, in the past week or so, there’s been this flurry of anger about the fact that some of these companies that have been given hundreds of billions of dollars are giving out several hundred millions in bonuses. And Obama has I think very cleverly joined the indignation against the bonuses. But, after all, these hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses come out of the hundreds of billions that have been given to these financial institutions. So instead of pointing to that, to this huge bailout, Obama and other people and this goes for the press too, the media — the media have seized upon it, television, newspapers all indignant and congressmen all indignant about the hundreds of millions of bonuses. Well, what about the hundreds of billions, leading up to trillions, really, given to the banks?”

1973 – BIRTH OF DAVE CHAPELLE, STAND UP COMEDIAN, ACTOR, WRITER AND PRODUCER

“Our money looks like baseball cards with slave owners on it.”

AUGUST 25

1787 – LETTER FROM JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from the defects of the Constitution or confederation, not from the want of honour or virtues, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nation, of coin, credit and circulation.” Letter to Thomas Jefferson, The Works of John Adams

2011 – OPENING OF “ECONOMIC SYMPOSIUM” SPONSORED BY FEDERAL RESERVE

“Each year since 1978, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has sponsored a symposium on an important economic issue facing the U.S. and world economies. Symposium participants include prominent central bankers, finance ministers, academics, and financial market participants from around the world. The participants convene to discuss the economic issues, implications, and policy options pertaining to the symposium topic. The symposium proceedings include papers, commentary, and discussion.”

The theme of the 2011 event was “Achieving Maximum Long-Run Growth.” And how is “maximum long-run growth” possible when the current monetary/economic system is based on creating money by banking corporations out of thin air as debt and the only way to repay the debt (plus the interest which wasn’t created — only the principle) is to maximize the plundering of finite resources to produce ever more products?

2021 – “CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T IGNORE THE BIG ISSUES AT JACKSON HOLE” online posting

 “The irony of King’s concerns about independence from government is that central banks are by no means independent from private financial interests, which is the real area of concern if central banks are to make decisions in the public interest. In the globally interconnected and privatised financial system, monetary and financial policy outcomes are significantly shaped by the influences and actions of private financial institutions, as well as other central banks in the system. Not only is there a well frequented revolving door between senior central banking positions and private financial institutions, successful implementation of their policies depends entirely on financial markets dominated by profit-maximizing institutions that don’t have the public’s best interests at heart.”

Central banks can’t ignore the big issues at Jackson Hole

AUGUST 26

1818 – PRIVATE BANKING CORPORATIONS BANNED IN ILLINOIS CONSTITUTION

Illinois’ original constitution was adopted on this day. Private banking corporations were banned. Article VIII, Section 21 states: “had there shall be no other banks or moneyed institutions in this state than those already provided by law; except a state bank and its branches, which may be established and regulated by the general assembly of the state as they may think proper.”

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illinois Constitution_of_1818

2014 – ARTICLE,  “OBAMA AND HOLDER’S WEAK CALL FOR JUSTICE” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA AND NICK EGNATZ

“The claims of President Obama and Attorney General Holder that they seek justice in the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, have a hollow ring. They would be almost laughable, if the consequences, of who they, while in office, have actually chosen to prosecute and who they have not prosecuted, were not so destructive to true justice…

“Continuing their disregard for justice, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have refused to prosecute the thousands of Wall Street bankers whose financial crimes were directly responsible for working class Americans losing trillions of dollars and over 9,000,000 homes foreclosed or in foreclosure!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zarlenga/obama-and-holders-weak-ca_b_5702895.html

2020 – COVID-19 CAPITALISM, NEOLIBERAL DEBT & THE NEED FOR SOVEREIGN MONEY

“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

2021 – “RETHINKING MONEY AS A FORCE FOR EQUITY” posted article

“Some, like Greco or Ibarra, don’t put any stock in state-backed money creation as a path forward. Baradaran maintains that history has shown state-backed money is the only kind of money that has ever had any lasting and substantial reach and impact. The time has come instead, she says, to reclaim democratic power over the people’s money. In her vision, the creation of money should more closely if not very closely approximate the wishes of voters—from racial justice to environmental justice.”

Rethinking Money as a Force for Equity

2021 – “CENTRAL BANKS HELPING FUNNEL TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO FOSSIL FUELS DESPITE CLIMATE PLEDGES, RESEARCH FINDS,” PUBLISHED ARTICLE

“Central banks are continuing to help channel trillions of dollars into fossil fuels through policy decisions and direct financing, with overall sums rising in recent years, a new report has found.

“None of the twelve banks examined are on track to meet the Paris Agreement targets despite many of them recently pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the US-based environmental organisation Oil Change International (OCI) said.”

Central Banks Helping Funnel Trillions of Dollars into Fossil Fuels Despite Climate Pledges, Research Finds

August 13 – 19

AUGUST 13

1946 – BIRTH OF JANET YELLEN, FORMER CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

• (2005, speech in San Francisco) – Yellen argued against deflating the housing bubble because – “arguments against trying to deflate a bubble outweigh those in favor of it” and predicted that the housing bubble “could be large enough to feel like a good-sized bump in the road, but the economy would likely be able to absorb the shock”.

• (2010, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing) “For my own part, I did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.’s — I didn’t see any of that coming until it happened.”

So, what is Ms. Yellen and her colleagues at the Fed today not seeing and won’t “until it happens?”

AUGUST 14

1989 – DEATH OF ROBERT B. ANDERSON, SECRETARY OF TREASURY UNDER PRESIDENT EISENHOWER

“When a bank makes a loan it simply adds to the borrowers’ deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan.  The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposit; it was not previously paid into the bank by anyone.  It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.”

2017 – VIDEO POSTING “MONEY, SCHOOLING AND EDUCATORS: CREATING A CRITICALLY-INFORMED MOVEMENT FOR MONETARY REFORM AND ECOJUSTICE” BY LUCILLE ECKRICH AND STEVEN WALSH

Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MN.

2017 – VIDEO POSTING, “CLIMATE CHANGE AND MONEY: HACKING AT THE ROOT” BY HOWARD SWITZER

Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MN

2019 – “AMERICAN CAPITALISM IS BRUTAL. YOU CAN TRACE THAT TO THE PLANTATION” POSTED ARTICLE

“Financialization is not just as a modern problem. In the NY Times series on Slavery this bubble was financed by the banks:

“The American South rashly overproduced cotton thanks to an abundance of cheap land, labor and credit, consumer demand couldn’t keep up with supply, and prices fell. The value of cotton started to drop as early as 1834 before plunging like a bird winged in midflight, setting off the Panic of 1837. Investors and creditors called in their debts, but plantation owners were underwater. Mississippi planters owed the banks in New Orleans $33 million in a year their crops yielded only $10 million in revenue. They couldn’t simply liquidate their assets to raise the money. When the price of cotton tumbled, it pulled down the value of enslaved workers and land along with it. People bought for $2,000 were now selling for $60. Today, we would say the planters’ debt was “toxic.”  … Even academic historians, who from their very first graduate course are taught to shun presentism and accept history on its own terms, haven’t been able to resist drawing parallels between the Panic of 1837 and the 2008 financial crisis.”

AUGUST 15

1971 – PRESIDENT NIXON CLOSES “GOLD WINDOW”

Richard Nixon issues Executive Order 11615 freezing wages and prices. Foreign-held paper dollars are no longer converted for gold, thereby nullifying in an important aspect the Bretton Woods Agreement

AUGUST 16

2009 – PUBLICATION OF “WHY STATES GOING INTO THE BANKING BUSINESS WOULD BE A DISTRACTION, NOT A SOLUTION TO THEIR FISCAL PROBLEMS”, BY JAMIE WALTON

“You don’t solve a problem with more of the problem.

“This scheme for states to go into the banking business would only ‘serve to protect’ the status quo.  The ‘proposal’ completely fails to confront the main problem identified by all serious monetary reforms: ‘fractional reserve’ banking.  Instead, it actually endorses and sanctions this vicious and destructive process, by suggesting that State governments engage in it…”

https://www.monetary.org/american-money-scene/89-american-money-scene-5-august-16-2009

2010 – DENNIS KUCINICH 5 MINUTES ON MONEY ON HOUSE FLOOR

“Dennis Kucinich speaks on the poor state our monetary system is in and outlines how to fix it with three simple steps of the American Monetary Act: incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury, end the fractional reserve system, then, once we have won back the money power, spend new money into circulation.”

2011 – “FIAT EMPIRE – WHY THE FEDERAL RESERVE VIOLATES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION” POSTED VIDEO

 “Some feel the ‘Fed’ is a ‘bunch of organized crooks’ (as John Adams put it) and others feel some of its practices ‘are in violation of the U.S. Constitution.’ Discover why experts agree the Fed is a banking cartel that benefits mainly bankers and their clients in need of ‘easy money’ and bailouts.”

 AUGUST 17

1932 – BIRTH OF GABRIEL KOLKO, HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF THE “TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM: A REINTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN HISTORY”

“To precisely what was [Woodrow] Wilson committed? I am for big business and against the trusts,’ but he could not define the major difference between the two, and he never gave the matter serious thought.”

NOTE: Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, establishing the Federal Reserve System, the largely private/corporate central banking system in the US.

AUGUST 18

1850 – DEATH OF HONORE DE BALZAC, FRENCH NOVELIST AND PLAYWRIGHT

“The final battle for Christianity will be over the money problem, and until that is solved there can be no universal application of Christianity.”

2020 – ONLINE POSTING OF “MY JOURNEY” BY RICHARD COOK

“My study of U.S. financial history showed me that the paradigm had kicked into high gear when the Money Power took over the U.S. through the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It was then that a collection of evil forces gained control of the U.S. as they already had in Great Britain through the Bank of England. Soon came World War I, a conflict among nation-states and ideologies that has been continuous through today.

“The Money Power aims at one thing: to rule the world and kill anyone who stands in their way. Of course Jesus foresaw all this when he threw the money changers out of the Temple and called the powerful of his day hypocrites and murderers. I think we can fairly call the ruling class of the U.S. today the same. Jesus also spoke of, “Your father the devil.” These words are also applicable.”

My Journey

AUGUST 19

2003 – DEATH OF DONALD WINN, ASSISTANT TO THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

“The Federal Reserve system pays the U.S. Treasury 020.60 per thousand notes –a little over 2 cents each– without regard to the face value of the note. Federal Reserve Notes, incidentally, are the only type of currency now produced for circulation. They are printed exclusively by the Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the $20.60 per thousand price reflects the Bureau’s full cost of production. Federal Reserve Notes are printed in 01, 02, 05, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar denominations only; notes of 500, 1000, 5000, and 10,000 denominations were last printed in 1945.”

August 6 – 12

AUGUST 6

1893 – BIRTH OF WRIGHT PATMAN, DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN OF US HOUSE COMMITTEE ON BANKING & CURRENCY (1965-75)

“I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money. I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiot system to continue.”

“The Constitution of the U.S. says that Congress shall coin money and regulate its value.  That does not mean that the Congress of the U.S., composed of the duly elected representatives of the people, have a right to farm out the great privilege to the banking system, until today a few powerful bankers control the issuance & distribution of money — something that the Constitution of the U.S. says Congress shall do.”

AUGUST 7

1946 – FIRST COIN IN THE U.S. AUTHORIZED BEARING THE PORTRAIT OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN

The coin was the Booker T. Washington Silver Half Dollar Commemorative Coin. Commemorative Coins, designed to honor special people, places, events and institutions, aren’t usually minted for circulation even though they are legal tender. The coin was designed by Isaac Scott Hathaway, the first African American man to design a U.S. coin with a African American face on it. He later designed the George Washington Carver coin.

2015 – SECOND NIGHT OF THE OPENING OF “HAMILTON” ON BROADWAY

The rap musical opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Inspired by the 2004 biography “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow, the musical won 11 Tony Awards in 2016, including best musical and book of a musical.  It lauds the contributions of one of the nation’s “founding fathers,” and first Treasury Secretary.

There was another side to Hamilton that the rap musical didn’t glorify  – his effort to privatize money creation in the new country from We the People to financiers through the establishment of the First Bank of the United States, an entity Thomas Jefferson called “one of the most deadly hostile against the principles of our Constitution,” which, “in a critical moment might overthrow the government.”

The timing of the musical release took place ironically when awareness was growing of the modern dangers to private banks controlling the printing and distribution as debt of our nation’s money and calls by some to replace Hamilton on the $10 bill. 

AUGUST 8

1916 – BIRTH OF HERBERT STEIN, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS

Stein’s law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

[Sounds like our current debt-based money system – an unsustainable system which can only continue if more debt is issued, which happens when banking corporations issue loans and purchase treasury bonds, bills and notes]

2016 — “THE FINANCE FRANCHISE” PUBLISHED ARTICLE (REVISED AUG 9, 2017)

“The bank simply credits a checkable borrower account (either newly opened or pre-existing), then books this transaction as an asset and a liability of its own, on the one hand, and an asset and a liability of the borrower, on the other hand”

102 Cornell L. Rev. 1143 | Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 16-29

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2820176

2019 – “IT’S THE BANKS, STUPID” VIDEO POSTING

“Banks sit at the heart of our economy but right now, with spiraling inequality, unaffordable homes and a climate crisis, they are a big part of the problems we face. The city is booming while the rest of our country is struggling.”

AUGUST 9

1836 – BIRTH OF ALEXANDER DEL MAR, AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMIST, HISTORIAN, NUMISMATIST, AUTHOR, DIRECTOR US BUREAU OF STATISTICS

“As a rule political economists…don’t take the trouble to study the history of money; it is much easier to imagine it and to deduce the principles of this imaginary knowledge.”

“[T]he State alone had the right to issue money and to decide what substances its symbols should be made, whether of gold, silver, brass or paper. Whatever the State declared to be money was money.”

“Lexington and Concord were trivial acts of resistance, which chiefly concerned those who took part in them and which might have been forgiven; but the creation and circulation of bills of credit by revolutionary assemblies in Massachusetts and Philadelphia were the acts of a whole people, and coming, as they did, upon the heels of the strenuous efforts made by the Crown to suppress paper money in America, they constituted acts of defiance so contemptuous and insulting to the Crown, that forgiveness was thereafter impossible…Thus the bills of credit of this era, which ignorance and prejudice have attempted to belittle into the mere instruments of a reckless financial policy, were really the standard of the Revolution. They were more than this: they were the Revolution itself.”

1944 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM ENGDAHL,  AUTHOR OF “GODS OF MONEY”

“Since 1945, American hegemony, or more accurately an American imperium, has rested on two firm pillars of support! The 1st pillar has been the role of the dollar as an unchallenged world reserve currency in which New York’s Wall St. is the center of global finance, the ‘banker to the world’. The 2nd has been the role of the Pentagon and the unchallenged dominance of American military power….

“As President Barack Obama made clear, he was every bit as much beholden to the powers of Wall St. and the big banks as was Woodrow Wilson and most every President, with the possible exception of John Kennedy, since the Civil War.”

1989 – FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS REFORM RECOVERY AND ENFORCEMENT ACT (FIRREA) ENACTED

The law passed in response to the 1980’s savings and loan crisis – in which. FIRREA created the Resolution Trust Corporation, which bailed out failed institutions primarily through taxation. It also shifted regulatory authority from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to the Office of Thrift Supervision within the Department of the Treasury.

It should be noted that more than more than a thousand felony convictions followed the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s. There have been virtually no investigations, let alone convictions, of those responsible for the 2007-2008 global financial meltdown triggered by US financial institutions.

2019 – “A PARABLE: ON MONEY – ON COUNTING MONEY – ON MONEY ACCOUNTING – ON CAPITALISM”  BY JOE BONGIOVANNI

“We can end the essence of Capitalism’s complete control of all ‘commerce’ on this Mother Earth simply by changing to the system of Public Money issuance used in Sparta a while back, and thus adopting a ‘new kind of money’ system of issuance and use, and in adopting concurrent modern accounting norms that do not destroy our money, money which will be and must be persevered as circulating ‘financial capital’ when borrowers make principal repayments on their loans.

“Yes! It’s the accounting system, stupid!

“Governmental control and benefit from money issuance is an actual ‘state right’ that must be reserved and restored to its historic Athenian and Spartan wisdom. Public Money. Period.”

A Parable: On Money – On Counting Money – On Money Accounting – On Capitalism

AUGUST 10

1863 – BIRTH OF ALFRED OWEN CROZIER, PROMINENT OHIO ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR

Crozier wrote widely against the power and influence held by Wall Street Bankers. Crozier wrote eight books, including The Magnet and U.S. Money vs. Corporation Currency, which served to warn the country of the replacement of the country’s currency by notes printed by private banking corporations. A wonderful display of political cartoons from his book, US Money vs. Corporations Currency is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qQ59w4ML4

1868 – BIRTH OF PAUL WARBURG, US BANKER

Warburg guided the operations of the National Citizens League, an organization formed in 1911 with $5 million in contributions from the big New York banks (including those owned by Rockefeller and J.P Morgan) to establish an “educational fund.”  The fund financed respected university professors to endorse the concept of creating a private central bank, which became the Federal Reserve Bank, created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act.

1929 – THE FEDERAL RESERVE BEGINS TO TIGHTEN THE MONEY SUPPLY – LEADS TO GREAT DEPRESSION

The Federal Reserve sharply raises the interest rate it charges local banks to borrow money (called the “discount rate”). At the same time, it begins to sell its government securities (remember, the Fed is not part of the federal government, despite its name, but rather a largely private entity controlled by 12 reserve banks which are controlled by banks). These actions were the seeds, which led to the Great Depression – as limited money in circulation prevents business and commercial transactions from occurring.

1930- BIRTH OF GEORGE GOODMAN, AUTHOR, “THE MONEY GAME”

“[T]hose who live by numbers can also perish by them, and it is a terrifying thing to have an adding machine write an epitaph, either way.”

2017 – Video posting, “THE NEW ABOLITIONISM: MONETARY REFORM, DEMOCRACY AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS” BY REV. DELMAN COATES

Presentation at the 2017 Democracy Convention, Minneapolis, MN

AUGUST 11

1943 – BIRTH OF NICOLAUS TIDEMAN, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, VIRGINIA TECH AND FORMER SENIOR ECONOMIST FOR THE PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS

“Money is what people make sure they have when they want to buy things.  Something works as money when people expect others to accept it as payment.  Sometimes money is a valuable commodity, such as gold, wampum, or packs of cigarettes.  More often, especially these days, money consists of pieces of paper.

“The pieces of paper that serve as money have sometimes been issued by governments and sometimes by banks…What gives paper money its value to the general public is the expectation that a party with whom many will have occasion to trade will accept the paper as the basis for crediting the person who presents it. The crediting can take the form of payment of taxes, payment of loans, payment of religious obligations, or, as with paper money issued by banks and some paper money issued by governments, the crediting can take the form of obliging the issuer to exchange the paper for some specified thing of value…

“In those cases in which the crediting takes the form of obliging the issuer to exchange the paper for a specified thing of value, the paper money can be described as the record of a promise to pay a debt on demand, and if that is the only form of money, then an expansion of the money supply requires an expansion of debt.  But other forms of paper money are not debt.  In particular, a paper money that consists of fiat currency issued by a government, good for the payment of taxes but not otherwise guaranteed to be convertible, is not debt.”

2011 – PUBLISHED BLOG POSTING: CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH’S BRIEFING TO SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS

“Congressman Dennis Kucinich hosted Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi (Berkeley & Doshisha universities) for a Monetary Briefing to present to members of Congress the real solution to the real problem. The problem is that the monetary system itself is broken. It is controlled not by our government but by corrupt financial interests. The solution is genuine monetary reform!…

“This money system requires government and private debt to grow exponentially and indefinitely. Dr. Yamaguchi finds that it inevitably leads to either a Financial Meltdown, a Debt Default, or Hyper-Inflation…

“The real surprise comes when he examines what would happen with a government money system, where the government creates the money as money, not debt, and spends it into circulation for things the country (i.e. the people) really need, like infrastructure.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zarlenga/congressman-dennis-kucini_b_924004.html

AUGUST 12

1933 – PUBLISHED REPORT, “CLOSED BANKS AND BANKING REFORM” BY CQ RESEARCHER

“The many bank failures occurred in widespread concern as to the fundamental soundness of the dual banking system and of American banking methods in general. Provision for certain radical changes in banking practice was made by the Glass-Steagall act, passed at the close of the special session of the 73rd Congress. It was generally felt, however, that a more thoroughgoing reform of the whole system was needed. In this connection, the movement toward unification of the state and federal banking systems, with possible federalization of all banks, appears to have been gaining headway. While the views of the administration on the question have not been made known, it is thought likely that the President will recommend enactment of new banking legislation by Congress at the regular session in January, 1934.”

[NOTE: A reform not made was one that was suggested by hundreds of economists of the day — to democratize money creation via what was called “The Chicago Plan,” specifically for the government to create money as an asset (not as debt which is what banks do) and 100% reserve requirement of banks (i.e. banks could only lend money that they actually possessed). 

2021 — “MONETARY REFORM: SIMPLE SPIEL” BY GOVERT SCHULLER POSTED ARTICLE

“What monetary reform is all about is to promote a bill that has already been drafted in various formulations here in the USA. One in the 1930s and one from 2012. And it concerns a radical change in the current monetary system.”

Monetary Reform: Simple Spiel