October 29 – November 4

OCTOBER 29

1897 – DEATH OF HENRY GEORGE, AUTHOR OF “POVERTY AND PROGRESS,” POLITICIAN AND ECONOMIST

“On the other hand it is the business of government to issue money. This is 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 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. The legitimate business of banking – the safekeeping and loaning of money, and the making and exchange of credits, is properly left to individuals and associations; but by leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and guarantees, the issuance of money, the people of the United States suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and sensible increase the influences which exert a corrupting effect upon their government.”

1929 – US STOCK MARKET CRASH

Known as “Black Tuesday,” October 29 was the worst day in stock market history. Since everyone was selling and no one was buying, stock prices collapsed. The crash was due to policies of the Federal Reserve, which had made money cheap to borrow. Too much money was concentrated in too few hands. Cheap money resulted in wild speculation (booms or bubbles) in financial instruments, the stock market and office buildings rather than useful and necessary goods and services. Speculation was rampant. Understanding what was happening, but not admitting it to the public, the Fed significantly contracted the US money supply by raising interest rates to borrow money. Not enough money was available to meet economic needs. The speculative bubbles burst; triggering what became the Great Depression. 

2014 – FEDERAL RESERVE ENDS ITS QUANTITATIVE EASING PROGRAM

Quantitative Easing (QE) was the Fed program, which created and injected roughly $4 trillion into the economy to assist in its recovery. Much of the money went to banks — to invest in further speculations — not to assist non-wealthy consumers. Funds also ended up in the stock market — artificially inflated prices. The Fed ended the program by citing the economy’s “underlying strength.”

2022 – SHARING OUR JUST MONEY STORIES – STEVE NORRIS AND SAM HUMMEL

“After participating in a Storyform Science workshop hosted by AFJM, four members decided to share their short Just Money stories at the Annual Membership Meeting.

Norris, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53impviFX4

Hummel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFMkpLbYsgc

Alliance For Just Money (AFJM): www.monetaryalliance.org

OCTOBER 30

1735 – BIRTH OF JOHN ADAMS, 2^nd PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.  One is by the sword, the other is by debt.”

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from the defects of the Constitution or confederation, not from the want of honor or virtues, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nation, of coin, credit and circulation.”

1840 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY AND MONETARY THEORIST

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

2019 – PROPOSAL FOR A POLITICAL PROGRAM AROUND MONETARY REFORM

“Introduction by the Editor. 

“In the crucial and readable study Debt as Power the authors Tim Di Muzio and Richard Robbins not only give a historical overview of how debt in the modern capitalist society originated and became a tool of power, but also propose a political platform they argue is feasible to counter and even reform the current system. It is clear that they recognize that we operate under the credit creation mechanism of money and banking, i.e. private banks create our money as deposits when originating loans.

“They embrace a version of the 1930s Chicago Plan which would transfer that privilege of money creation to a government agency. The now proverbial 1% is the main beneficiary of our debt-money regime. In response, the authors propose a platform for a hypothetical party, the Party of the 99%.

“At the Alliance For Just Money, we prioritize full monetary reform in order to have stable prices, full employment and for the government to spend debt-free money into circulation on projects democratically decided by congress. Given that last prerogative we would do well to think about possibilities and debate the ones proposed by the Party of the 99%, not only for the USA but also on a global scale.

“The following text is an excerpt from the chapter “Solutions: A Party of the 99% and the Power of Debt” from their book Debt as Power.”

Proposal for a Political Program around Monetary Reform

OCTOBER 31

1874 – PUBLICATION OF OCTOBER ISSUE OF INDUSTRIAL AGE MAGAZINE

“The religious press has almost without exception been the allies of the bondholders and bankers in their endless schemes to fleece the public, and the mouthpiece of the monopolists and the defender of the soulless corporations that fill their pockets by robbing the toiling people.”

NOVEMBER 1

1972 – DEATH OF EZRA POUND, US POET AND CRITIC

Some of his poetry deals with the destructive moral and social effects of usury.

“The usurers act through fraud, falsification, superstitions, habits and, when these methods do not function, they let loose a war. Everything hinges on monopoly, and the particular monopolies hinge around the great illusionistic monetary monopoly.”  

1991 – LAUNCH THIS MONTH OF “ITHACA HOURS” LOCAL PAPER CURRENCY SCRIPT SYSTEM

Ithaca Hour is paper scrip that reads on the back: “This is money. This note entitles the bearer to receive one hour of labor or its negotiated value in goods and services…. Ithaca Hours are backed by real capital: our skills, our muscles, our tools, forests, fields and rivers.”

2016 – “HOW ECONOMIC GOBBLEDYGOOK DIVIDES US,” PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

“When you’ve just invented something,” a banker once told me, “you need a name that’s not obvious, because the longer it’s a proprietary technique, the more money you make…

“It would be a disaster for democracy if this divide were to become permanently entrenched. Democracy depends on an informed electorate; it depends on argument, and that in turn depends on having enough in common to be able to argue. Bankers and the financial elite can’t just talk to each other as if nothing has changed; as if the little people are just going to accept that they can’t follow the big words, so the rich should just keep running things in their own interest. The experts need to set terms for the debate that everyone can understand. So yes, when it comes to economics, language matters.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/how-economic-gobbledygook-divides-us.html?_r=0

2020 – LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE RASHIDA TLAIB FROM THE ALLIANCE FOR JUST MONEY REGARDING THE “BOOST ACT”

“Dear Representative Tlaib,

“The Alliance For Just Money thanks you for sponsoring the very creative HR 6553, the Automatic BOOST to Communities Act. It seems clear that an intention of the bill is to help real people survive the serious economic effects of the pandemic, a much-needed step at this time. We are eager to discuss the bill’s potential and its problems with you, especially the important Constitutional principle it contains, that government can and should create money in significant amounts without incurring debt…

“One way to do that would be to reintroduce a bill, or the essential elements of a bill, that was introduced in 2011, during the last economic downturn, called at that time the National Emergency Employment Defense Act (HR 2990). It would have transferred all national money creation from the private banks to the government.

“Short of or before that, Congress could establish a National Commission of Inquiry into the monetary system, to look into the way our existing system of money creation contributes to the inability of government to respond adequately to the acute needs we face.”

Entire letter at

Letter to Representative Rashida Tlaib Regarding the BOOST Act

2021 – INTERVIEW OF JEFF ELDER ON MONETARY REFORM

Jeff Eder from Progressive Money Canada on The American Council for Truth in Journalism discussing the finer points of the monetary reform that The Resistance Company will be fighting for live in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY with RT this coming Friday, 5pm EST.

https://bit.ly/3CEwpTN

2022 – “WHY GRASSROOTS ACTIVISTS ARE TURNING TO THE WONKY WORLD OF MONETARY POLICY OT FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE” PUBLISHED ARTICLE BY PAMELA HAINES

“Why grassroots activists are turning to the wonky world of monetary policy to fight for economic justice…

“Determined to challenge the all-encompassing threat of private banks, a small group in Ohio is leading a campaign to put monetary reform on the national agenda…

“To learn how, we’ll need to explore a different “plumbing system” for handling our money supply. In a groundbreaking move in this direction, a League of Women Voters group has been doing exactly that, calling us to consider how something we take for granted — the money supply — can be reinvented in a way that promotes democracy, justice and the planet. In the process, these women learned it’s not as wonky as they may have feared…

Why grassroots activists are turning to the wonky world of monetary policy to fight for economic justice

NOVEMBER 2

1832 – RE-ELECTION OF ANDREW JACKSON, 7^TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

This was the first presidential election focused on the issue of money creation. Jackson was opposed to re-chartering the private Second National Bank of the United States (misnamed to give the impression it was public by calling it “National” in much the same way the current largely private Federal Reserve System is misnamed). A few Jackson quotes:

“The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government … are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” “If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.” “I have no hesitation to say if they can re-charter the bank, with this hydra of corruption, they will rule the nation and its charter will be perpetual and its corrupting influence destroy the liberty of our country.”

2019 – “CHALLENGING THE ECONOMICS PROFESSION” BY NICK EGNATZ ARTICLE PUBLISHED

“If you believe that our society should be based on ethics, justice, law and being able to deliver a decent successful life for all our citizens, the present debt-money system may be extremely difficult to grasp. Do not let this deter you.  It is the duty of the economics profession to provide us with a money system that the public can understand or work to change the present system so that it is understandable. It is also the duty of the economics profession to provide us with a money system that is ethical, moral, Constitutional and “promotes the general Welfare” of society. If the present system is unable to do so, the economics profession has a duty to fight for change.

“This paper is being written to specifically beseech the economics profession to explain to the American people how the present debt-money system actually functions in understandable language and then fight for change when the rottenness of the present system is exposed. Non academics are urged to proceed forward and not be intimidated by the inability of the apologists for the debt-money system to explain their dysfunctional system to us.”

Challenging the Economics Profession

NOVEMBER 3

1940 – DEATH OF CHARLES MACUNE, HEAD OF SOUTHERN FARMERS’ ALLIANCE AND ORIGINATOR OF THE POPULIST “SUB-TREASURY PLAN”

The “Sub-Treasury Plan,” developed by the southern Populist Macune, was an ingenious proposal to circumvent banking corporations, merchants and landlords by farmers to avoid debt at high interest, which often resulted in the loss of their farms. The proposal called for farmers to store their harvest in federal warehouses when prices for their commodities were low. Farmers would leverage those commodities for loans (up to 80% of the market value in federal notes) to support themselves until prices rose. The proposal was especially useful to southern farmers with non-perishable crops (i.e. cotton). The farmer had one year to sell the crop and then pay back the note and 1% interest.

1948 – BIRTH OF EARL OF CAITHNESS (MALCOLM IAN SINCLAIR), MEMBER OF THE UK HOUSE OF LORDS

“The next government must grasp the nettle, accept their responsibility for controlling the money supply and change from our debt-based monetary system.  My Lords, will they?  If they do not, our monetary system will break us and the sorry legacy we are already leaving our children will be a disaster.” (March 1977)

2017 – PUBLICATION OF “SOVEREIGN OF THE MARKET: THE MONEY QUESTION IN EARLY AMERICA” BY JEFFREY SKLANSKY

The book is highly relevant to the current struggles involving poverty, rural depopulation, class warfare, business hegemony (previously known as “mercantilism”) as well as our collective confusion about money and banking. The introduction touches on all of these, plus the invention of “political economy”, fractional reserve lending, public-private partnership (paper money and hard metallic standard being the “twin offspring of the union of bank and state”), etc.

The term “The Money Question” is a very useful term for the general public (better than “monetary reform” in my opinion). The fact that “The Money Question” was an accepted and known topic of civic discourse (not to mention violence) in “early America” suggests a good way to introduce the whole complicated topic to U.S. voters. It should be a more common subject on streetcorners and barbershops, not to mention city council and school board meetings, etc.

Sklansky’s own description of his book:: “This book builds on recent work that considers money as a creature of law and culture as much as commerce, but it highlights more basically the ways in which the monetary order was the outcome of protracted class conflict.”

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo26773932.html

Introduction and beginning of Chapter 1

NOVEMBER 4

1650 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM III, KING OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND (1689-1702)

A weakened monarchy due, in part, to the economic aftereffects of war, William III agreed to give up his sovereign money power to a new corporation, the Bank of England, which was chartered in 1694. Wars have resulted throughout history in debt and dependency on lenders, which in modern times are banking corporations.

1948 – BIRTH OF JOSEPH HUBER, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY AT MARTIN LUTER UNIVERSITY IN GERMANY

Huber is one of the leading academicians in the world in calling for the creation of “sovereign money” – debt-free money issued democratically by governments.

“We definitely know through quite a number of channels that our critical monetary system analysis has gained decisive influence across Europe in revising outdated doctrines on the monetary system. There are official publications by the Bank of England and the German Bundesbank in fact explaining that our analyses are correct and most of the present textbook wisdom on money and credit creation is wrong. In the last one to two years, a number of our people, including myself, have been invited as speakers to conferences and workshops of central banks and other financial institutions. This, of course, does not mean they are changing sides on a broad front, but it certainly indicates that a growing in-group in central banking and finance has begun listening to what we have to say, including our monetary reform perspectives.”

A Celebration of the Life and Work of Stephen Zarlenga

2013 – “PRINCES OF THE YEN” | DOCUMENTARY FILM ONLINE POSTING

“Michael Oswald’s film “Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of the Economy,” reveals how Japanese society was transformed to suit the agenda and desire of powerful interest groups, and how citizens were kept entirely in the dark about this. Based on the book of the same title by Professor Richard Werner, a visiting researcher at the Bank of Japan during the 90s crash, during which the stock market dropped by 80% and house prices by up to 84%. The film uncovers the real cause of this extraordinary period in recent Japanese history.”

2022 – “NOMINATING THE 2022 NOBEL ECONOMICS COMMITTEE FOR THE 2023 IG NOBLE ECONOMICS PRIZE” PUBLISHED ARICLE BY GOVERT SCHULLER

“For reasons to be shared here, this award is also an unexpected gift to the international monetary reform movement…because the award is given for research which is based on the outdated, refuted, incorrect, mistaken ‘intermediation theory of money and banking’ based on the idea that banks are the intermediaries between savers and borrowers.

“Meanwhile the truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that loans create deposits…The commercial bank just credited his or her account and received in exchange the signed loan contract of the same value. This theory is named the credit creation theory, because a credit is created out of nothing, which then can be spend into the economy where it is received as good as money, no questions asked…

“The irony is that researchers…of the Riksbank of Sweden know where money comes from…

“Furthermore, this committee of the Swedish academy and Swedish central bank should be nominated for next years Ig Noble Prize for improbable research…because they gave it to research based on an imaginary, outmoded understanding of banking.”

Nominating the 2022 Nobel Economics Committee for the 2023 Ig Noble Economics Prize

October 22 – 28

OCTOBER 22

2014 – RELEASE OF THE VIDEO, “THE MONEY FIX: A DOCUMENTARY FOR MONETARY REFORM”

The video provides a good analysis of the problem. Its major solution, however, is limited to organizing community currencies – not addressing macro real monetary reform (e.g. changing laws).

http://www.neverontv.com/the-money-fix-a-documentary-for-monetary-reform/

OCTOBER 23

2008 – TESTIMONY OF ALAN GREENSPAN, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN, BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM (NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE)

Question to Greenspan: “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”
Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.” “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”

2009 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE, “PRICELESS: HOW THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOUGHT THE ECONOMICS PROFESSION” PUBLISHED BY RYAN GRIM

“The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found. This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed’s thrall, the economists missed it, too.

‘The Fed has a lock on the economics world,’ says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. ‘There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong.’”   

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html

OCTOBER 24

2008 – PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION PURCHASES NATIONAL CITY CORPORATION

Using bank bailout funds under the federal TARP program, PNC, headquartered in Pittsburgh, purchases National City Corporation, a major Cleveland based bank. The transaction created the 5^th largest U.S. banking corporation. TARP funds were intended to assist struggling banks. The funds ended up in many cases, like PNC, enlarging “too-big-to-fail” banking corporations.

2019 — “AND THE NOT-THE-NOBEL-PRIZE IN ECONOMICS GOES TO…” POSTED ARTICLE

“Alfred Nobel never created a prize for economists. He was seventy-three years in his grave when the Central Bank of Sweden got the idea that they could elevate the prestige of economists by awarding a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Today, the Nobel Foundation admits that the prize is not a Nobel Prize, but it still gives it status equal to the real prizes. Even Alfred Nobel’s descendants want it scrapped. Call it the Riksbank Prize, they said, but not the Nobel Prize, with the luminary status this implies.

“The prize has three big problems…”

And the Not-the-Nobel-Prize in Economics Goes to…

OCTOBER 25

2010 – SPEECH BY SIR MERVYN KING, FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND

“Of all the many ways of organizing banking, the worst is the one we have today.

“Change is, I believe, inevitable. The question is only whether we can think our way through to a better outcome before the next generation is damaged by a future and bigger crisis. This crisis has already left a legacy of debt to the next generation. We must not leave them the legacy of a fragile banking system too.”

From speech, “Banking: From Bagehot to Basel, and Back Again” To read a summary and analysis of the talk, go to http://positivemoney.org/2010/10/mervyn-king-of-all-the-many-ways-of-organising-banking-the-worst-is-the-one-we-have-today/

2016 – FINLAND: PARLIAMENT EVENT ON MONETARY REFORM PAVES WAY FOR CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE

“A successful event on monetary reform was held in the Finnish Parliament, featuring valuable expert analysis of sovereign money and two endorsements from Finnish politicians for the QE4People initiative. After pushing the debate in the political scene, the Finnish movement wants to launch a citizens’ initiative.”

http://internationalmoneyreform.org/blog/2016/10/monetary-reform-finnish-parliament/

OCTOBER 26

899 – REIGN OF KING ALFRED OF ENGLAND ENDS

Alfred the Great implemented a law that moneylenders who accepted usury would forfeit all their possessions to the King

2017 – “THE NEW ABOLITIONISM — MONETARY REFORM AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE” BY REV. DELMAN COATES

“What is desperately needed in the social justice and civil rights communities is a theory of change that addresses the foundational mechanisms of our monetary system that cause social and economic injustice…

“This paper advances an alternative theory of change for ending poverty, unemployment, mass incarceration, violence, income inequality and wealth concentration, providing universal healthcare, investing in the environment, improving public education, etc. Rather than the almost exclusive focus on fiscal policy among progressives, this paper is based upon the following foundational claim: “all of our social and economic ills in society are a function of the nation’s debt-based monetary system. Therefore, if we hope to address today’s social and economic ills, we must bring an end to the debt-based monetary system.” Attempts to address the issues raised above that leave the debt-based money system in place may be well-intentioned, but will ultimately fail to eradicate society of these social and economic ills. We must, therefore, fix the root cause of the problem if we want to have a more just and equitable society. This leads us to the following fundamental principle for justice seeking people; “in order to have a just society, we must have a just money system.”

“The New Abolitionism” – Monetary Reform and the Future of Social Justice

OCTOBER 27

1945 – BIRTH OF LULA DE SILVA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL (2003-2010)

“The Third World War has already started. The war is tearing down Brazil, Latin America, and practically all the Third World. Instead of soldiers dying, there are children. It is a war over the Third World debt, one which has as its main weapon, interest, a weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than a laser beam.”

OCTOBER 28

1704 – DEATH OF JOHN LOCKE, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER

“Observe well these rules: It is a very common mistake to say that money is a commodity…Bullion is valued by its weight…money is valued by its stamp.”

2020 – VIDEO, ALLIANCE FOR JUST MONEY PANEL ON MONETARY REFORM

Panel hosted by the Carolina Meadows retirement community. AFJM Board members, Paul Lebow, Howard Switzer, John Howell present. Ellen Jones attended and lead a later discussion

2022 – DEATH OF HERMAN DALY, ECOLOGICAL ECONOMIST, AUTHOR OF “STEADY STATE ECONOMICS”

He was ignored because his ideas threatened those benefitting from our unjust monetary system. “Nationalize the money, not the banks.”

An Economist That Future Economists — and Societies — Will Dare Not Ignore

October 15 – 21

OCTOBER 15

1908 – BIRTH OF JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, U.S. ECONOMIST

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. With something so important, a deeper mystery seems only decent.”

Source: ‘Money: Whence it came, where it went’ (1975)

Also:

“The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it’s a failure of a knowledge of history. Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths. There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present. Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, economists get busy on the proof. Their conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”

1982 – U.S. CONGRESS PASSES GARN – ST. GERMAIN DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS ACT

The act deregulated savings and loan associations and allowed banks to provide adjustable rate mortgage loans. Many believe it contributed to the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.

2007 – PUBLICATION OF “LYCURGUS: LAWGIVER OF SPARTA” BY LLOYD DULHAIME

Lycurgus was a monetary reformer and leader of the military city-state of Sparta around 700 BC. He banned gold or silver money, replacing it, instead, with money made of iron dipped in vinegar to make it brittle and useless as iron. Lycurgus understood the nature of money — not as a source of wealth (which can be gold, silver, land, diamonds, etc.) but rather anything affirmed by the government as currency to exchange for goods and services of a society. Its value was not as a commodity.    

http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-189/700-BC–Lycurgus-Lawgiver-of-Sparta.aspx

2015 – PUBLIC HEARING ON MONETARY REFORM IN HOLLAND

The Dutch lower house’s permanent commission on financial affairs of the (Tweede Kamer) conducts a public hearing on the money system.

The hearing is a result of a citizen’s initiative that gathered about 100,000 signatures, much more than the required 40,000 to mandate the public action.

The initiative and hearing triggered a debate in Parliament in 2016 that ended up with a majority in the Dutch parliament voting in favor of further investigation, to be carried out by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR).

On January 17, 2019, those efforts finally bore fruit, with the publication of the WRR’s report entitled “Money and debt: the public role of banks”. According to the WRR, a financial system should fulfill 4 core values: service, stability, justice and legitimacy.

2020 – “DEMONSTRATION AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK” POSTED ARTICLE BY HARRISON “TESOURA” SCHULTZ

“Our latest grassroots demonstration at the Federal Reserve Building of New York to raise awareness for how the NEED Act can fund a Green New Deal for the 99% on the nine-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a smashing success!…

“My ultimate goal is to inspire more and more of my fellow occupiers to use their grassroots direct action, street theater and social media skills to help me to gradually organize a new occupation, a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week monetary reform teach-in, and to lead a nation-wide call-a-thon of millions of phone calls to Congress with demands to pass the NEED Act into law, from the Federal Reserve Building of New York.”

Demonstration at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

OCTOBER 16

1815 – THOMAS JEFFERSON ON POWER OF BANKERS

Excerpt from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson, then out of office, to his former Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin: “The treasury, lacking confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers pretending to have money, whom it could have crushed at any moment…These jugglers were at the feet of government. For it was not any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the lack of all other money, which induced…the people to take their paper…We are now without any common measure of value of property, and private fortunes are up or down at the will of the worst of our citizens…As little seems to be known of the principles of political economy as if nothing had ever been written or practiced on the subject.”

1962 – BIRTH OF MICHAEL KUMHOF, GERMAN ECONOMIST AND CO-AUTHOR OF “THE CHICAGO PLAN REVISITED,”

From the paper:

“At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving Fisher (1936) claimed the following advantages for this plan: (1) Much better control of a major source of business cycle fluctuations, sudden increases and contractions of bank credit and of the supply of bank-created money. (2) Complete elimination of bank runs. (3) Dramatic reduction of the (net) public debt. (4) Dramatic reduction of private debt, as money creation no longer requires simultaneous debt creation. We study these claims by embedding a comprehensive and carefully calibrated model of the banking system in a DSGE model of the U.S. economy. We find support for all four of Fisher’s claims. Furthermore, output gains approach 10 percent, and steady state inflation can drop to zero without posing problems for the conduct of monetary policy.”

Click to access wp12202.pdf

2018 – VIDEO, MARTIN WOLF (FINANCIAL TIMES WRITER) ON RADICAL REFORMS FOR FINANCIAL SECTOR

Keynote speech by Martin Wolf, economic commentator of the Financial Times, about the state of the financial sector.

Wolf concludes that radical reforms are needed in which money creation comes into public hands.

OCTOBER 17

1785 – FIRST GATHERING OF DELEGATES OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

Private bank notes are barred from circulation following the passage of a law by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was unlawful “for any person to offer in payment a private bank bill or note for money.”

1991 – ITHACA HOURS FOUNDED BY PAUL GLOVER

Ithaca HOURS was a community paper money system. The currency was backed by the skills and time of local people. The system was based on time – one HOUR of labor could be based on any combination of HOUR notes, time or Federal Reserve notes. One HOUR was valued at $10. By 1998, over 65 systems existed across the U.S. as a means of democratizing and localizing money creation and distribution.

2014 – MARTIN WOLF ON RADICAL REFORM FOR THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM – VIDEO

“Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, joins R. Glenn Hubbard, dean and professor at Columbia’s University’s Graduate School of Business, to discuss the state of the world economy following the financial crisis. Wolf comments on the causes of the global financial crisis, radical solutions for reform, and the still-unstable financial system.”

2017 – WHERE DID MONEY REALLY COME FROM? – video posting

“Professor David Graeber, anthropologist and author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” discussing the history of money and credit. The economics profession tends to teach that money arose from barter. However, anthropologists have been searching for 200 years and found absolutely no evidence for this.

“Instead, it seems that early human societies had reciprocal gift exchange, whereby one person would gift something to their neighbor, and that person would be tacitly indebted for something of similar quality.

“Barter has only been observed between groups that didn’t frequently come into contact, and sometimes between outright enemies, or among people that are already used to money but for some reason have no access to it. “

2019 – “WHY SUPERVISE BANKS? THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE AMERICAN MONETARY SETTLEMENT” LAW REVIEW ARTICLE BY LEV MENARD

“Banks do not simply lend; when they lend, they create money. Indeed, government-chartered banks create most of the money in the economy…

“Banks create deposits by crediting accounts (using the ‘bookkeeper’s pen’) when they originate loans. In other words, banks lend to account holders by plussing up their balances.”

“For example, when a borrower comes to a bank to finance a new venture, the bank is not constrained by the amount of cash that already exists. The bank can empower the borrower to requisition the necessary social resources by creating new money instruments out of thin air.”

74 Vanderbilt Law Review 951

https://ssrn.com/abstract=3421232 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3421232   

OCTOBER 18

1790 – BIRTH OF EDWARD KELLOGG, BUSINESSMAN AND ECONOMIST. HIS IDEAS INFLUENCED THE POLICIES OF THE POPULIST AND GREENBACK PARTIES

“Legal value belongs to anything which represents actual value, or capital. Its existence depends upon actual value. The worth of things of legal value depends upon their capability to be exchanged for things of actual value.” Since money is our monetary system is created as debt, the “legal value” of money includes both the principal debt and interest — which exceeds the “actual value” of a nation’s real wealth or claims on collateral at any point in time. The only means to close this gap and cover interest payments is to create additional collateral (goods and services) via economic growth. Of course, this additional debt-based money used to pay the previous interest has its own interest. Thus the downward debt cycle never ends until it collapses.”

1931 – DEATH OF THOMAS EDISON, U.S. INVENTOR

 “If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good… If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency… instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people’s credit in interest-bearing bonds?” 

[NOTE: This is one of the clearest statements on the ease and legitimacy of the government creating its own money.]

2019 – OCCUPY THE NEED ACT MEETING IN NYC

“This is a meeting of #OccupyTheNeedAct at Famiglia Pizza 83 Maiden Lane, NYC that then moved outside to Louise Nevelson Plaza a Private/Public Park across the street from the New York Federal Reserve Building. This meeting was led by Harrison Tesoura Schultz with Sue Peters from Alliance For Just Money Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/99328… and http://www.greensformonetaryreform.org. Mark Apolloa videoed the meeting making comments.

“#TheNeedAct Nationalizes The Federal Reserve, Ends the ability of the Commercial Banks to create our money and Spends money into the economy for the thing we the people decide we want like Universal Health Care, Universal Education, Universal Housing, Universal Transportation, GuaranteedAnnualincome, Renewable Energy.

“The #NeedAct ends…the ability of bankers to create money for their friends and puts that ability back into Congress where the Constitution put it before Hamilton and Washington got that power given to their friends who became our first bankers. These men capitalized The First Bank Of The United States with money they got by defrauding the workmen, merchants and farmers of the colonies. #Bankers have no better qualities, they are 100% liars and some of them know it. The Officers of The Big Wall Street Banks know what they are in fact doing.”

2022 – “WITH MONETARY REFORM INTEREST RATES ARE NO LONGER A MONETARY ISSUE,” ARTICLE BY JOHN HOWELL

“Under monetary reform regulating the money supply will no longer be based on lending. The money supply will be the result of a balance between the rate of money creation by government and the rate at which money is withdrawn from circulation by taxation. Monetary policy should only regulate the money supply. With lending no longer being a tool of monetary policy, interest rates are no longer a matter of monetary policy.:

With monetary reform interest rates are no longer a monetary issue

OCTOBER 19

1841 – BIRTH OF NELSON A. DUNNING, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR FOR THE NATIONAL FARMERS ALLIANCE

His book The Philosophy of Price and Its Relation to Domestic Currency, published in 1887, was one of several recommended for inclusion in the circulating libraries of local National Farmer Alliance’s sub-alliances. Here is an excerpt:

“The truth is, the most enormous power known to man, or that can ever be his, lies in money – in the increase and decrease of its quantity. It is the tide of human affairs upon which all things must rise or sink. It is inevitable and cannot be resisted. This power has been obtained through the carelessness of the people, who have been and are now held in ignorance for that very purpose. So early as 1577 we find the keen and piercing intellect of Bodin saying the following: ‘For men have so well obscured the facts about money that the great part of the people do not see them at all. The money era do as the doctors do, who talk Latin before women, and use Greek characters, Arab words, and Latin abbreviations, fearing that if people understood their receipts they would not have much opinion of them.’”

1987 – U.S. STOCK MARKET CRASH

Known as Black Monday, stock markets around the world crashed. The Dow Jones average dropped by 508 points. It was the largest one-day percentage decline in Dow Jones history.

2004 – QUOTE BY ALAN GREENSPAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

His comments on subprime lending…

“Improvements in lending practices driven by information technology have enabled lenders to reach out to households with previously unrecognized borrowing capacities.”

Lenders began lending to those who they knew would be unable to pay back mortgages. They engaged in riskier and riskier loans. The entire system eventually collapsed. US taxpayers bailed these lending financial corporations out. Homeowners who were duped into signing contracts with hidden fees and adjustable rate mortgage loans received little federal assistance.

2019 – US FEDERAL RESERVE STARTS “QUANTITATIVE EASING FOREVER”

“Together with the Fed’s decisions to twice cut interest rates, with the prospect of another cut at the end of this month, these moves make clear that, in conditions characterised by the International Monetary Fund as a ‘synchronised’ global slowdown, any efforts to “normalize” monetary policy are well and truly over.

“The European Central Bank has reversed its plan to end financial asset purchases and lowered its base interest rate further into negative territory, while the Bank of Japan continues to be the virtual sole purchaser of government debt and a major buyer of corporate shares.

In other words, the policy of the world’s major central banks, acting on behalf of a global financial oligarchy, is quantitative easing ad infinitum.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/19/pers-o19.html?fbclid=IwAR2q0AGJSfeXpDQKVgBbZTMxZzgSRYxgsdzf7ip1ibLxJkRRsxw_KMASr18

OCTOBER 20

2005 – QUOTE OF BEN BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN OF THE US FEDERAL RESERVE

“House prices have risen by nearly 25% over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

Less than 3 years later, the housing market collapsed.

OCTOBER 21

1808 – BIRTH OF SAMUEL FRANCES SMITH, MINISTER, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

Smith was also a songwriter. He is best known for writing the lyrics to “My Country Tis of Thee,” which he entitled “America.” Using the same tune, Greenbackers (those who advocated issuing and circulating debt-free US public money) in the 1880’s came up with their own rendition:                                                                                                         

Thou, Greenback, ‘tis of thee,

Fair money of the free,

Of thee we sing.

And through all coming time

Great bards in every clime

Will sing with joyful rhyme,

Gold is not king.

Then smash old Shylock’s bonds,

With all his gold coupons,

The banks and rings.

Monopolies must fail,

Rich paupers work in jail,

The ring will then prevail,

Not money kings.

October 8 – 14

OCTOBER 8

1946 – BIRTH OF DENNIS KUCINICH, FORMER CONGRESSMAN, OHIO

Author of the National Emergency Employment Defense [NEED] Act, introduced in 2010 and 2011. Among the bill’s provisions are:  (a) make the Federal Reserve System more accountable by placing the Fed under the US Department of Treasury, (b) create government issued money to hire people to repair the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, and (c) eliminate fractional reserve lending – the practice that permits banks to lend many times more funds that they actually possess.

2008 – QUOTE BY ALAN GREENSPAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Here’s what he said just after the Glass Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 (just before the market crashed), of the rapid growth of money center banks… “I believe the general growth in large [financial] institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically — I should say, fully — hedged” -NYtimes.com, October 8, 2008

OCTOBER 9

1899 – BIRTH OF HENRY SIMONS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

“The mistake lies in fearing money and trusting debt.”

1936 – BIRTH OF THOMAS GRECO, MONETARY REFORMER, AUTHOR OF “THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION”

“The money problem can be summarized thusly: the way in which money is created by the banking system today causes a debt imperative which drives a growth imperative — this forces destructive competition for the available supply of money, which is never sufficient to enable all debtors to pay what they owe….

“The evils that have been spawned by the collusion between political power and financial power are far worse even than those that arose from the collusion between political power and religious power…

“When the realization of the inherent money power in all of us comes to man he will…push down the walls of his prison. Finance which is the creature of the unholy wedlock between banker and state cannot be solved by either power dominating the other. The only solution lies in the people denying the power of both over industry and their assertion of their own money power…

2002 – LOW POINT OF THE DOT.COM CRASH

The explosive rise of the Internet resulted in the explosive rise of speculative financial investments in Internet corporations (the “dot.com” industry). A huge bubble ensued when the financial industry seeking quick and massive profits blindly invested in these dot-com start-ups without carefully reviewing their business plans. The euphoria turned to depression when many of these start-ups failed to make a profit. When they collapsed, the market collapsed. The full mania mode of the financial industry imploded The NASDAQ Composite lost 78% of its value as it fell from 5046.86 to 1114.11 on October 9, 2002.

2014 – “MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING” PUBLICATION BY THE NATIONAL BANK OF DENMARK

“While banknotes and coins are issued by Danmarks Nationalbank, the remainder of the money stock is the result of transactions between actors in the private sector. For example, when a household or firm raises a bank loan, this transaction will often, in the first instance, lead to higher bank deposits and thus an increase in the money stock.”

https://www.nationalbanken.dk/en/news-and-knowledge/publications-and-speeches/archive-publications/2014/money-credit-and-banking

OCTOBER 10

1895 – DEATH OF SARAH E.V. EMERY, AUTHOR OF “SEVEN FINANCIAL CONSPIRACIES, WHICH HAVE ENSLAVED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”

Published in 1888, it was a devastating indictment of the “money power” addressed to the farmer and laborer. It reportedly sold 400,000 copies through the Farmers’ Alliance circles, significantly contributing to monetary literacy nationwide. Its impact was so threatening that former U.S. Secretary of Treasury John Sherman (of Ohio) responded to it via a letter in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Emery also lectured nationally on monetary issues and the People’s Party

OCTOBER 11

2013 – “SEQUESTERS, SHUTDOWNS AND DEFAULTS” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA PUBLISHED

“What citizens should know is that our country can pay off its debt as it comes due; can put millions of people back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; can provide debt-free federal support for cash-strapped State governments, and end the so called great recession by putting cash in the hands of all our citizens through a citizens dividend. This gives small businesses what they need most – customers with cash to spend on their goods and services. All these things are made possible by the HR 2990 bill introduced by Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsored by John Conyers.

“The bill accomplishes this by adjusting our money system from one of “debt money created by banks” when they make loans, to one of “money by law” created as money, not as debt, by our government. That power is already vested in Congress by the Constitution; ‘The Congress shall have the Power To… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…’” (Article 1, Section 8).

OCTOBER 12

1977 – PASSAGE OF THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT

Advocated by a movement of neighborhood activists across the nation, Congress passed the Act that outlawed “redlining” or ”blackballing,” the common practice by banking corporations to discriminate by race and income in loans to individuals and small businesses.

2016 –  “THE NEW ABOLITIONISM: MONEY REFORM AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS,” TALK BY REVEREND DELMAN COATES

Talk at the American Monetary Institute annual conference

“Coates delivers a very powerful speech on the need to break free from the modern form of slavery: debt slavery, at the 12th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference, University Center, Downtown Chicago, Saturday October 1, 2016. Reverend Coates is Senior Pastor at Mt. Ennon Baptist Church, Leader of the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality, Board member of the Parents Television Council and the National Action Network, member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Morehouse College Board of Preachers (home of the alumnus Dr. Martin Luther King’s International Chapel), and the NAACP. His talk is entitled “The New Abolitionism: Money Reform and the Struggle for Civil Rights.”

2018 – VIDEO, “CONVERSATION WITH PROF. RICHARD WERNER”

“This is an extraordinarily clear exposition of Werner’s thinking on banking and central banks by Werner himself.

“Banking and money theories, empirical research, bank money creation, asset bubbles, banking crises, regulations, central bank policies, credit guidance, local banking, and much more are clearly laid out.

“But then at 1:12 it gets highly intriguing when he analyzes what he thinks is the central banks’ Plan B to deal with a now better informed public about money creation. He thinks that the proposal of digital money and people having their own account at a central bank is a huge power grab by the central banking community and thinks some monetary reformers have been captured by that idea.

“His argument is a bit of a straw man argument because he thinks that monetary reformers not only want to abolish bank money creation, but want to abolish banks altogether”

OCTOBER 13

1879 – DEATH OF HENRY CAREY, CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Carey was the major proponent in the Lincoln Administration of issuing debt-free US money, Greenbacks. In referencing the US economy under the Greenback system, he said, …”for the first time, too, in the history of the world, there has been presented a community in which nearly all business was done for cash, and in which debt has scarcely an existence…there has been a large and general diminution of the rate of interest…traders have therefore become more independent of the capitalist, while the country at large has become more independent of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of Europe.”

2009 – POSTED VIDEO, “DENNIS KUCINICH ADDRESSES AMI CONFERENCE PARTICPANTS”

Leading monetary reformer Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Ohio 10th District) describes his commitment to monetary reform at the American Monetary Institute’s Fifth Annual Conference at Roosevelt University in Chicago, September 27, 2009.

2010 – VIDEO, “STEPHEN ZARLENGA – AMI’S PURPOSE, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY”

Stephen Zarlenga, Director of the American Monetary Institute, at the 2010 AMI Monetary Reform Conference. 

2021 – “WALL STREET’S TAKEOVER OF NATURE ADVANCES WITH LAUNCH OF NEW ASSET CLASS” POSTED ARTICLE

“A project of the multilateral development banking system, the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Stock Exchange recently created a new asset class that will put, not just the natural world, but the processes underpinning all life, up for sale under the guise of promoting “sustainability”…

“The ultimate goal of NACs is not sustainability or conservation – it is the financialization of nature, i.e. turning nature into a commodity that can be used to keep the current, corrupt Wall Street economy booming under the guise of protecting the environment and preventing its further degradation.”

Wall Street’s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class

OCTOBER 14

1644 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM PENN, EARLY QUAKER, FOUNDER OF THE PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA – THE ENGLISH NORTH AMERICAN COLONY (FUTURE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA)

Penn’s colony becomes one of the first to issue its own currency in 1723 as a means to become more economically independent from the British crown. The money backed by peoples’ land assets, not by gold or silver. Benjamin Franklin, who in 1731 secured the contract to print Pennsylvania’s money, noted that after the colonial legislature first issued paper money, economic conditions in the colony improved – as measured by internal trade, employment, new construction and number of inhabitants.

2008 – US TAXPAYERS BAILS OUT NINE US BANKS

The U.S. injects $250 billion of $700 billion available in public money from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into the US banking system. The US takes an equity position in banks that choose to participate in the program in exchange for certain restrictions such as executive compensation. Nine banks agreed to participate in the program: 1) Bank of America, 2) JPMorgan Chase, 3) Wells Fargo, 4) Citigroup, 5) Merrill Lynch, 6) Goldman Sachs, 7) Morgan Stanley, 8) Bank of New York Mellon and 9) State Street.

2010 – VIDEO, “THE CASE FOR MONETARY REFORM”

Presentation by Robert Poteat, American Monetary Institute Senior Advisor, at the 2010 AMI Conference

2014 – “STOP BANKS FROM CREATING MONEY,” POSTED VIDEO OF MARTIN WOLF

Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator of Financial Times speaks at the event “Does Money Grow on Trees?” at the hall of the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England.

OCTOBER 1 – 7

OCTOBER 1

1525 – FIRST WESTERNER, PORTUGUESE EXPLORER DIOGA DE ROCHA, ARRIVES IN YAP

The people on the island of Yap in the Carolina Islands have for centuries used large, solid stone wheels as currency. The modern “civilized” world used in a similar way gold or silver mined from the ground. The Yap money supply is the most stable in the world. It is controlled by the people and not by banking corporations.

1936 – DEATH OF LOUIS MCFADDEN (R- PA), CHAIRMAN OF THE US 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 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.”

2009 – RELEASE OF THE FILM, “THE SECRET OF OZ”

“What’s going on with the world’s economy? Foreclosures are everywhere, unemployment is skyrocketing – and this may only be the beginning. Could it be that solutions to the world’s economic problems could have been embedded in the most beloved children’s story of all time, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”? The yellow brick road (the gold standard), the emerald city of Oz (greenback money), even Dorothy’s silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers for the movie version) were powerful symbols of author L. Frank Baum’s belief that the people – not the big banks — should control the quantity of a nation’s money.” Written by Bill Still.

2014 –  “WHY OUR MONETARY SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND HOW IT CAN BE FIXED” online video posted

Ben Dyson from the organization Positive Money speaks (UK) at the Economy, People and Planet conference 2014 arranged by the Danish organization Omstilling Nu (Transition Now), held at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS)

2022 – “BY TAKING BACK CONTROL OF THE MONEY WE CAN BEGIN REGAINING CONTROL OF OUR WORLD, VIDEO BY NEIL OLIVER

“Now is the time to take back control of money – Its creation, its value and its flow. By so doing, we can begin the task of regaining control of our world.

2023 – NATIONAL DAY IN CHINA

The day commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. The first paper money appeared in China about 806 AD.

OCTOBER 2

1869 – BIRTH OF MOHANDAS GANDHI

‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

One of his “7 Deadly Sins” was “wealth without work.”

He also said “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”

2008 – US REPRESENTATIVE BRAD SHERMAN ON HOUSE FLOOR CONCERNING BANK BAILOUT LEGISLATION

“But why are we bailing out the Bank of China? Why are we bailing out the Saudi royal family?… The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and by sustaining a panic atmosphere… A few Members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted “no.”

2014 – MORTGAGE REFINANCE APPLICATION OF FORMER FEDERAL CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE IS DENIED

More money injected into the banking sector by the Federal Reserve was to make more money available for loans — especially to moderate-income people. Yet, banks were hesitant to increase the pool of housing loans — funneling funds to Wall Streets and speculative investments rather than to homeowners…including to former Fed honcho Ben Bernanke!

2020 – “POLITICS AND MONETARY REFORM,” ARTICLE BY MARK PASH

“Stephen Zarlenga stated “Communicating Monetary Reform (MR) is the most difficult thing to do in Monetary Reform!” I agree. Stephen spent years working the Halls of Congress. He met with many Congressmen and their staff. He had only one success: US Representative from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich. Starting well before Stephen, I have contacted many Congressmen and candidates resulting in total failure. But, I am still trying…Howard and others have managed to get MR on the platform of the Green Party. This is great but we have had no transferring over to the main parties. MR is the most important macroeconomic factor in a modern economy, by far! It is surprising to me that we have not received more attention from our leaders. Recently the MMT and the Public Banking movement have received far more attention than real MR.”

Politics and Monetary Reform

OCTOBER 3

2008 – US CONGRESS APPROVES $700 BILLION BAILOUT FOR BANKS

Congress passes and President Bush signs into law the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-343), which establishes the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). US taxpayers bailed out the largest US banks since they were considered “too big to fail.” Main Street businesses and side street homeowners facing foreclosures (due in large part to the speculative practices of major financial institutions) received no such support. Many of these major banks were major political campaign contributors/investors in the 2008 political campaign. The final bailout legislation was a revised and slightly better version of an original bill proposed by Sec. of Treasury Hank Paulson that was literally only a few pages in length. Massive public anger resulted in a flood of calls, emails and visits to congressional offices. Congress defeated the original proposal.

OCTOBER 4

1923 – BIRTH OF CHARLTON HESTON, ACTOR

“You shall not charge interest to your countrymen…” A quote from Moses from the Bible, [Deuteronomy 23: 19-20]. Moses was born sometime in 1527 BC. Since the exact date is unknown, why not use the birth date of the guy who played him in films!

OCTOBER 5

1941 – DEATH OF LOUIS BRANDEIS, US SUPREME COURT JUSTICE (1916-1939)

“The development of our financial oligarchy followed, in this respect, lines with which the history of political despotism has familiarized us: usurpation, proceeding by gradual encroachment rather than by violent acts; subtle and often long-concealed concentration of distinct functions, which are beneficent when separately administered, and dangerous only when combined in the same persons. It was by processes such as these that Cæsar Augustus became master of Rome. The makers of our own Constitution had in mind like dangers to our political liberty when they provided so carefully for the separation of governmental powers. . . .

“The goose that lays golden eggs has been considered a most valuable possession. But even more profitable is the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else’s goose. The investment bankers and their associates now enjoy that privilege. They control the people through the people’s own money.”

1998 – “OUR MONEY” by James Robertson online posting

“Should the creation of new money – ‘credit creation’ – continue to be delegated by governments to banks? This allows banks to profit from issuing money as debt in the form of interest-bearing loans to their customers, and requires governments themselves to pay interest on public borrowing. Why can’t governments themselves issue new money directly, as payments for public spending programmes or as part of a Citizen’s Income?”

https://newint.org/features/1998/10/05/alternatives/

2020 – “’WHAT’S WRONG WITH MODERN MONEY THEORY?: A SUMMARY” by Govert Schuller posted online

A review of:  Epstein, Gerald A. 2019. What’s Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave.

“This last point brings me to the idea that MMT might have a not so hidden agenda which leaves regular and shadow banks, hedge funds and the rich off the hook as they do not have to be regulated, reformed or taxed per MMT. They can continue their financialization schemes, reaping huge profits, creating financial crises and then getting bailed out. A fair question might be to ponder if this was the business plan of Warren Mosler–the originator and generous promoter of MMT–from the beginning so he could imagine himself to be a progressive without having to limit or regulate his financial schemes as a hedge fund manager. Epstein put the lie to that and provided the MR community with a sophisticated analysis of MMT, both its good policy goals, mixed bag of analyses and counter-productive means, and also moving the discussion into an international dimension.”

“What’s Wrong with Modern Money Theory?”: A Summary

OCTOBER 6

1979 – HISTORIC ANTI-INFLATION MEASURES ANNOUNCED BY FED CHAIR PAUL VOLKER

The Fed made “a short-term change in the method used to conduct monetary policy, from making adjustments in the federal funds rate to …controlling the amount of reserves provided to the banking system.” Alan Greenspan, who would follow Volker as Fed chair, called the decision, “A defining moment may shape the direction of an institution for decades to come. In the modern history of the Federal Reserve, the action it took on October 6, 1979, stands out as such a milestone and arguably as a turning point in our nation’s economic history.” The Fed has since shifted back to focusing on federal funds rates (the rate banks charge each other). Volcker’s decision would he hoped rein in inflation. The goal today by the Fed (and most of the other private central banks) is to increase inflation to 2% via money printing. That was the purpose of the Fed’s multiple Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/reflections-on-monetary-policy-25-years-after-october-1979

2005 – PRESS RELEASE BY AMERICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE, “MONETARY REFORM PLAN WOULD SAVE $ BILLIONS IN KATRINA CLEANUP”

Money Reform Plan Would Save Taxpayers $ Billions Per Year in Katrina Cleanup
“An alteration in the way money is introduced into our economy would save at least $10 billion dollars per year in the cleanup and rebuilding aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. If the clean-up loans last the normal 30 years, the savings will be over $250 billion,” says Stephen Zarlenga, Director of the Institute. 

http://www.monetary.org/american-money-scene-3-january-2006/2006/01

2020 – AS 98,000 BUSINESSES PERMANENTLY CLOSED, THE FED AND TREASURY SAT ON $340 BILLION OF UNTAPPED MONEY FROM THE CARES ACT” posted online

“When both parties in Congress came together in March to pass the CARES Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on March 27, the clear intention of the legislation was for the U.S. Treasury to hand over $454 billion of taxpayers’ money to the Federal Reserve. The Fed, in turn, was to leverage the money by 10 times to approximately $4.54 trillion to deploy to keep the economy moving, credit flowing, workers employed and businesses alive until the pandemic had been brought under control…

“But according to the latest H.4.1 release from the Federal Reserve (and backed up by recent Senate Testimony), six months after the CARES Act was signed into law, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has handed only $114 billion of the $454 billion over to the Fed. That leaves $340 billion allocated by Congress unaccounted for. “

As 98,000 Businesses Permanently Closed, the Fed and Treasury Have Sat on $340 Billion of Untapped Money from the CARES Act

2021 – “TOKEN OF ALL TOKENS: COULD A $1T COIN FIX THE DEBT LIMIT” POSTED ARTICLE

 “But despite all the jokes about who should go on the face of the coin — Chuck E. Cheese? Donald Trump, to tempt or taunt the GOP? — there’s scholarship behind it, too. However improbable, it is conceivable the government could turn $1 trillion into a coin of the realm without lawmakers having a say…

“The Treasury can’t introduce new currency into circulation, only the Fed can do that. In theory, the coin would be minted and deposited with the Fed and its value would make its way into Treasury’s general account and used to pay a whole lot of bills.”

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-congress-85d495defe92b42915c19f3fc2d0176d

2021 – “THE MONEY MATRIX, PART 1: THE PRIVATE MONEY SYSTEM” BY SUE PETERS POSTED ARTICLE

“U.S. history can be viewed as a power struggle between public control and private control of money (1). Beginning with the signing into law of the U.S. Constitution, Congress used its constitutional power to issue money, but, at the same time, states chartered private commercial banks to issue bank credit (‘bankmoney’). Congress created the money for public needs. Banks created bankmoney for private profit and power…

 “Say this 15,000 times: “The bank makes a loan and CREATES the deposit in the borrower’s account…

“If you have the power to create what everyone uses as money, you will eventually own the world…and the 1% is almost there (3). Obscene economic inequality. Starving of the real economy where we all live, and shamelessly inflating the speculative financial markets.”

The Money Matrix, Part 1: The Private Money System

OCTOBER 7

1849 – DEATH OF EDGAR ALLEN POE, US WRITER, POET AND CRITIC, AUTHOR OF “THE GOLD BUG”

“But what makes ‘The Gold Bug’ highly valuable (a literary work of art), rather than merely entertaining (a humbug) is the fact that encrypted within it is a very sophisticated set of meditations on the subject of money. Specifically, ‘The Gold Bug’ concerns the transition from gold coins to paper money (the piece of parchment). In America, which was the first country to make widespread use of paper money, these very controversial developments took place in the 1830s and ’40s, that is, precisely when Poe was alive and writing all the works for which he would become famous, if not extravagantly wealthy….And so, everything that might be said about the power of paper money can also be said about coined money: both of them produce dissociative, illogical and unnatural effects. What’s so special about gold? As King Midas learned so tragically, you can’t eat it. Provided that they are inscribed with the right words, images and symbols, even bullets can be used as legal tender. Though the advent of paper money made visible a certain crisis, that crisis didn’t begin or wasn’t caused by paper money; it began or was caused by the advent of money itself, thousands of years ago.” http://www.notbored.org/gold-bug.html