December 31 – January 6

DECEMBER 31

1781 – BANK OF NORTH AMERICA CHARTERED BY US GOVERNMENT

This was the nation’s first private commercial bank. The Articles of Confederation was the nation’s constitution at that time. Article 9 of the Articles gave Congress the power to “emit bills of credit” — to create money. By a single vote, Congress voted to willingly transfer their authority to issue money to The Bank of North America when it chartered the bank on December 31. Thus, the Bank served as a quasi-national central bank. Why did Congress willingly give up their money power? The public argument was that the business of finance could not be ably conducted by a public body (Congress) — only by a small number of private financiers. The first head of the Bank was Robert Morris, the richest merchant in America. This same argument against public issuance of money is made today – a public body can’t be trusted to create and distribute our nation’s money supply. The result is the creation and distribution of our nation’s money supply by banking corporations. 

1935 – “MONOPOLY” BOARD GAME PATENTED BY U.S. GOVERNMENT

“The Bank never ‘goes broke.’ If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much more as needed by writing on any ordinary paper.” – Monopoly board game rule book 

This is how it works in real life too, thanks to the US government having handed over to banking corporations the license to issue money when they make loans. This creates money as debt, which must be repaid with interest. The alternative is the US government creating the money it needs interest-free and debt-free as stipulated in the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.

1980 – DEATH OF MARSHALL MCLUHAN, CANADIAN PHILOSOPHER OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

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

This certainly applies to money creation. Most people are unwilling to believe that the vast majority of money created and circulated in our society is done privately by financial interests. 

JANUARY 1

1817 – SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF THE US OPENS
This was the third quasi national bank of the former British colonies — following the Bank of North America (1781-1785, chartered by the Continental Congress) and Bank of the United States (1791-1811, chartered by the US Congress). While called a “national” bank, it was not public but actually a commercial/corporate bank with the power to issue money directly (just like its two predecessors). It issued initially 20 times more money than it had in its reserves as loans. This led to financial speculation and large corporate profits. A year later, it stopped issuing loans, resulting in a severe contraction of the money supply — which led to massive bankruptcies and the Panic of 1819. President Andrew Jackson believed the bank was a threat to the nation. He vetoed a bill in 1832 renewing the bank’s charter (license).

1879 – DATE TO REDEEM GREENBACKS FOR GOLD

Forces in opposition to public money passed the Resumption Act in 1875. It established January 1, 1879 as the date anyone could redeem federal Greenbacks for gold. Greenbacks were debt free money created by the Lincoln administration in his effort to avoid borrowing money from banks and having to pay interest. Why not simply create the money as stipulated in the Constitution (Art 1, Sec 8 giving the government the authority to coin money)? Bankers hoped most Greenbacks would be turned in – so that they could once more exclusively control the issuance and circulation of paper money – at enormous profit. Doomsayers predicted as Greenbacks were redeemed for gold, the nation would go bankrupt. Neither occurred. Only $135,000 in Greenbacks was exchanged for gold – nationwide. Meanwhile, $400,000 gold was exchanged for Greenbacks. The New York Daily Tribune called the day, “the grandest page in the history of the United States.”

1895 – PUBLICATION OF “THE LITTLE STATESMAN,” – MONEY IS A SOVEREIGN RIGHT AND SHOULD BE GUARDED BY A SOVEREIGN PEOPLE.

Excerpt from Foreword of The Little Statesman by Francis J. Schulte

“Money is the public credit, stamped or imprinted upon, or represented by metal, paper, or any other convenient substance recognized by law or usage, and employed as a medium of exchange and a measure of value. Money is money only so long and in so far as it represents the public credit. Moses, as well as the early fathers of the Christian Church, undoubtedly adopted this view of money when they denounced usury, which is the device whereby the drones in humanity’s beehive, monopolizing the public credit, have in all ages exacted tribute from the workers. The right to issue money is a sovereign right and should be jealously guarded by a sovereign people.”

1911 – US POSTAL SAVINGS SYSTEM OPENS
The Postal Savings System was established to provide basic banking services to the common working person. Often located in places that had no commercial banks, postal banks offered basic savings accounts to depositors, but no loans. When banks failed after the Great Depression, many people shifted their remaining funds. With post officers serving as bank branches, the Postal Savings System held upwards of 20% of the nation’s savings in the mid 1940’s with over 4 million depositors. Commercial/corporate banks lobbied against their expansion and for their elimination — which occurred in 1967.

JANUARY 2

1909 – BIRTH OF BARRY GOLDWATER, FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

“The Trilateralist Commission is international…(and)…is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the U.S. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power-political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical.”

JANUARY 3

1928 – UNITED STATES SHIPPING BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET CORPORATION v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. [275 U.S. 415]

The U.S. Supreme Court stated the following in this decision regarding federal reserve banks: “Instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest.”

1977 – DEATH OF CARROLL QUIGLEY, PROFESSOR AND HISTORIAN
“The influence of financial capitalism and of the international bankers who created it was exercised both on business and on governments, but could have done neither if it had not been able to persuade both these to accept two ‘axioms’ of its own ideology…by basing the value of money on gold and by allowing bankers to control the supply of money. To do this it was necessary to conceal, or even mislead, both governments and people about the nature of money and its methods of operation.” (From his book, Tragedy and Hope)

JANUARY 4

1643 – BIRTH OF SIR. ISAAC NEWTON, ENGLISH PHYSICIST AND MATHEMATICIAN – FORMULATED UNIVERSAL LAW OF GRAVITATION

Governments have transferred their authority to create money to private financial institutions (including central banks) that have used this power to create money out of thin air as debt when they issue loans. Debt is like financial gravity in weighing down governments (which must repay the principle plus interest), citizens (who must pay more in taxes to cover interest payments) and the economy in general (via transfers of money from investing in producing real goods and services to the financial sector that produces nothing). The larger or heavier the debt, the less ability ultimately of governments, citizens and the economy to move and act freely.

2010 – INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE

Four-minute presentation by Stephen Zarenga, Director

2011 – “RECENT FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY” video

Presentation by Steve Meyer, Senior Adviser, Federal Reserve Board of Governors. January 14, 2011 From the Federal Reserve

The official video from the Federal Reserve on how it creates money. It uses the phrase “newly created electronic funds” rather than “out of thin air,” but it’s the same thing.

JANUARY 5

1066 – DEATH OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
Calling usury (interest) the root of evil, the English King declared all those who charged usury outlaws and banished them from the country.

2015 – INTERVIEW OF RICHARD FISHER, FORMER PRESIDENT & CEO OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS

“The Federal Reserve is a giant weapon that has no ammunition left…

“You have to be careful here and frank about what drove the markets…. It was, the Fed, the Fed, the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Japanese Central bank … all quantitatively driven by central bank activity. That’s not the way markets should be working…. They were juiced up by central banks, including the Federal Reserve…. So, I think you have to acknowledge reality.”

JANUARY 6

2014 – JANET YELLEN CONFIRMED AS FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The U.S. Senate confirmed Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve, the private central bank of the U.S. The vote was 56-26. She replaced Ben Bernanke.

“Central bank independence in conducting monetary policy is considered a best practice for central banks around the world,” she said. “Academic studies, I think, establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that independent central banks perform better.”

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/233616-yellen-i-strongly-oppose-bill-to-audit-the-fed

[Note: Yellen presents a picture that the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, is independent, which it is not. She’s been chosen by President-Elect Joe Biden to be the next Treasury Secretary.]

2016 – POSTED ARTICLE, “MONEY CREATION AND INEQUALITY – AN UNDEREXPOSED TOPIC FOR MONETARY REFORMERS”

“Even though the current money systems effect on rising inequality is neglected in public debate so far, it can hardly be questioned that banks power to create deposit money has a huge impact on the distribution of power and wealth and amplifies inequality through various direct and indirect mechanisms. In comparison, a sovereign money reform could mend many of these negative distributive effects and would provide the chance to redistribute much more fairly.”

Money creation and inequality – an underexposed topic for monetary reformers

2016 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, “IS THE WHOLE THEORY OF SECULAR STAGNATION A HOAX?”

“Money and debt contracts are social conventions. They can be torn up, or reinvented. When we go into the next global downturn – perhaps in 2017 – we may have to resort to an entirely different form of QE. The next step is to print money to fund state spending directly, and probably behind capital constraints in a less “globalized” world.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12083682/Is-the-whole-theory-of-secular-stagnation-a-hoax.html

[Note: Actually, an entirely different option is available not when the next global economic downturn occurs – perhaps in 2021. Instead of borrowing money created by central banks in the form of “Quantitative Easing” (QE), nation-states can create their own debt-free money. In the US, that’s authorized by Article I, Sec 8 of the U.S. Constitution.]

2018 – “MONEY CREATION AND INEQUALITY – AN UNDEREXPOSED TOPIC FOR MONETARY REFORMERS” posted article by Lino Zeddies

“It is beyond doubt that the current money system has a huge impact on the distribution of power and wealth and heavily contributing to systemically worsening inequality. Even though there is growing public awareness and debate about the problem of inequality, so far the focus has been on the distribution of existing money and wealth, while the distributive effect of how and for what purpose money is created in the first place, seems to be a complete blind spot.

“To raise awareness for these neglected dynamics, this article provides in the following an overview of the several direct and indirect channels through which the current money system worsens inequality and how a sovereign money reform could improve matters.”

Money creation and inequality – an underexposed topic for monetary reformers

December 24 – 30

DECEMBER 24

1294 – PAPACY OF POPE BONIFACE VIII BEGINS

Benedetto Gaetani became Pope of the Catholic Church on Christmas Eve, 1294. He instituted the first Christian “Jubilee” in 1300. Jubilee has both Jewish and Christian roots. According to Wikipedia, “The concept of the Jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the Biblical Book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.” It was also common for land to be returned.  Pope Boniface VIII conditioned the forgiving of sins and debt on personal confessions and pilgrimages to sacred sites (i.e. basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome) at least once a day for a specified time.

DECEMBER 25

2023 YEARS AGO – CELEBRATED BIRTH DATE OF JESUS

In his book, Money and its True Function, author FR Burch said, “As long as Christ confined his teachings to the realm of morality and righteousness, He was undisturbed; it was not till He assailed the established economic system and ‘cast out’ the profiteers and ‘overthrew the tables of the money changers,’ that He was doomed. The following day He was questioned, betrayed on the second tried on the third and on the fourth crucified.”

1833 – BIRTH OF MARK “BRICK” POMEROY, NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER, CURRENCY REFORMER AND ORGANIZER OF “GREENBACK CLUBS”

At the national Greenback Party convention in 1876, Pomeroy was named chairman of a committee to coordinate the activities of local Greenback clubs across the country. The clubs served as forums for monetary education and mobilization on behalf of the Greenback Party. During his leadership, Pomeroy claimed almost 6000 clubs had been chartered: the most in Missouri, followed by Illinois. Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas and New York.

1983 – DEATH OF ROBERT H. HEMPHILL, CREDIT MANAGER, ATLANTA FEDERAL RESERVE BANK

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

2014 – “LINKING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO MONETARY REFORM” BY NICK EGNATZ ARTICLE POSTED

“Social Justice is the struggle to make society work for the vast majority of people. The comprehensive monetary reform of the NEED Act is the necessary first step on the path to realization of this struggle. The following ten points are the major social issues in which I will try to link social justice with monetary reform.”

http://www.alpheus.org/linking-social-justice-to-monetary-reform/

DECEMBER 26

2023 – “BOXING DAY”

An annual holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth nations. Traditionally, it was when servants or employees would receive gifts from their bosses or employers in “Christmas boxes.” Granting business corporations the power to create and distribute money has been the ultimate financial gift that keeps on giving every time banks create a loan “out of thin air” as debt. The lack of awareness in mainstream society of this current monetary reality and alternatives proposals to democratize money creation boxes, or limits, us as self-governing people to use the authority granted to our government to create our own money to distribute funds where we, not banks, believe are most needed.

DECEMBER 27

1945 – IMF AND WORLD BANK “ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT” ENTERED INFO FORCE

The original International Monetary Fund Articles of Agreement were adopted at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, NH on July 22, 1944. They were entered into force on this date. Both institutions have used their “money power” of loan making to dictate financial and economic conditions on governments around the world.

DECEMBER 28

1856 – BIRTH OF WOODROW WILSON, 28^TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES

“The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.”

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm

1947 – BIRTH OF SPENCER BACHUS, CONGRESSPERSON, ALABAMA, REPUBLICAN CHAIR OF THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

2013 — DEATH OF MARGRIT KENNEDY, AUTHOR OF OCCUPY MONEY

“At present, we’re stuck in the near vertical part of the exponential growth curve of money assets and debt. In nature the organism harboring this diseased growth would be on the verge of death. Can we even grasp that we’ve lost control — that we don’t rule this system, but it rules us? We need a transition process in which the creative power of money issuance is transferred to new institution that will use this power to benefit society, thereby ending the continuation of our compulsive, boundless expansion of money and debt. Only via a transition of this sort can we initiate a peaceful, evolutionary process that will lead us out of the crisis.”

“If I were to take to heart the collective suffering that the money system inflicts upon the world, I believe I would drop dead on the spot because it is that horrific.”

DECEMBER 29

1809 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM GLADSTONE, CHIEF BRITISH FINANCE MINISTER AND FOUR-TIME BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

“From the time I took office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I began to learn that the State held, in the face of the Bank and the City, an essentially false position as to finance. The Government itself was not to be a substantive power, but was to leave the Money Power supreme and unquestioned.” 

[Note: the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the equivalent to the role of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the Treasury in other nations.]

DECEMBER 30

2008 – FEDERAL RESERVE ANNOUNCES BAILOUT PLAN

The Federal Reserve Board announces that it expects to begin to purchase up to $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Fannie Mae received $116 billion, Freddie Mac $71 billion

2020 – LETTER TO REP. RAHIDA TLAIB REGARDING THE BOOST ACT posted letter

“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…

“Because the proposed coins cannot be used in commerce, but will only be deposited at the Fed, some reject the proposal as a gimmick. Ultimately what is needed is for the government to create money in the forms used in commerce, namely coins, bills, and account money. Currently about 95% of our money is account money created by banks as they make loans. This gives private banks first use of new money and all its seigniorage. According to the St. Louis Fed, $3.7 trillion of new money was created over the past year, an extraordinary amount. The first use of all new money—whether coin, bill, or money on account—should go to meeting public needs and then filter into general circulation.

“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.”https://www.monetaryalliance.org/letter-to-representative-rashida-tlaib-regarding-the-boost-act/?fbclid=IwAR3ULGMB74swiElfgak-AXKKUWBRXWQsSutyx1c78ZN3dHdIwOIYzmGGfOc

December 17 – 23

DECEMBER 17

1874 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING, 10^TH PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA (1935-1948)

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”

2010 – NATIONAL EMERGENCY EMPLOYMENT DEFENSE (NEED) ACT, HR 6550, IS INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS

Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) introduced a dramatic new proposal to establish fiscal integrity, reassert Congressional sovereignty and regain control of monetary policy from private banks.  The NEED Act would allow the federal government to directly fund badly-needed infrastructure repairs and fund education systems nationwide by spending money into circulation without increasing the national debt.  The bill would end the current practice of fractional reserve lending, whereby the economy depends upon private financial institutions to lend money into circulation.

Congressman Kucinich stated, “The staggeringly bad employment and economic numbers represent a massive problem which cries out for bold action.  Rather than crossing our fingers and hoping that banks will finally lend some of the billions of public dollars they haven’t thus far seen fit to lend, we can take action. My bill would replace the Federal Reserve System’s dependence on private banks to create credit.  In its place, a Monetary Authority under the Treasury Department would directly inject liquidity into the economy by purchasing much-needed public infrastructure repair. Today, we have idle capital, millions of able-bodied but unemployed workers, unused equipment, and record low interest rates. These conditions are the best possible time to make a long-term investment in our nation’s infrastructure. My bill would do exactly that.”

The bill was reintroduced in 2011, (HR 2990)

2010 — BEGINNING OF “ARAB SPRING”(AS GOOD OF A TIME AS ANY TO SHED LIGHT ON ISLAMIC VIEWS ON USURY AND BANKING)

From the Koran (Sura II: 275)

“Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the evil one by his touch hath driven to madness.  That is because they say: ‘Trade is like usury…but God hath permitted trade and forbidden usury.”

Some features of Islamic banking principles (from the Associated Press, 1/2/97):

“Interest on deposits: Islamic banks pay no interest on deposits. Unlike fixed return promised by most Western banks, Islamic banks operate on principle of shared risk. Depositors can choose an account that guarantees their money but pays no dividend, or one that acts like an investment fund. Depositors in investment accounts share in the bank’s profits, but risk losing money if its investments perform poorly.

Interest on loans: Islamic banks charge no interest on loans. Instead of lending money to commercial borrowers at fixed rate of return, Islamic bankers become partners, sharing in venture’s profits and losses. Some Islamic banks also make mortgage loans, charging flat fees payable in monthly installments, with costs similar to traditional mortgages. But loans have no compound interest or late-payment charges, and borrowers are spared uncertainty of variable interest rates common in Western nations.”

2020 – ALIGNING MONEY AND LOVE” ARTICLE BY HOWARD SWITZER

 “I think we all see that “what the world needs now is love, sweet love.” And we all see how money dominates every aspect of our world today making these questions particularly important. What does it take to heal the wound of money on a personal and systemic level? What does it take to align money with love?…

“Look at it this way. Love and fear are the emotional poles of life from which all the other emotions flow. Money can be fear-based or love-based. The one our world operates under today, as one might guess, is a fear-based system.”

https://howardswitzer.medium.com/aligning-money-with-love-5645d64a54e7

DECEMBER 18

1977 – DEATH OF MARRINER S. ECCLES, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND GOVERNOR OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

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

2020 – “TACKLING THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS: THE ‘AMERICAN SYSTEM’ SOLUTION” POSTED ARTICLE BY ELLEN BROWN

“We have relied for too long on private, often global, capital, while the Chinese run circles around us building infrastructure with credit simply created on the books of their government-owned banks.

“Earlier publicly-owned U.S. national banks and U.S. Treasuries pulled off similar feats, using what Sen. Henry Clay, U.S. statesman from 1806 to 1852, named the “American System” – funding national production simply with “sovereign” money and credit. They included the First (1791-1811) and Second (1816-1836) Banks of the United States, President Lincoln’s federal treasury and banking system, and President Franklin Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) (1932-1957).”

Tackling the Infrastructure and Unemployment Crises: The “American System” Solution

DECEMBER 19

2019 – WORLD BANK: “GLOBAL WAVE OF DEBT IS LARGEST, FASTEST IN 50 YEARS”

“Debt in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) climbed to a record US$55 trillion in 2018, marking an eight-year surge that has been the largest, fastest, and most broad-based in nearly five decades, according to a new World Bank Group study that urges policymakers to act promptly to strengthen their economic policies and make them less vulnerable to financial shocks.”

[NOTE: This was before the worldwide pandemic, which has exploded the debt even further – underlining the point that the global economy was not sustainable, nor just, prior to 2020. A debt- and interest-free sovereign or just money system is the answer, as outline by The Alliance for Just Money (https://www.monetaryalliance.org/) and the American Monetary Institute (https://www.monetary.org/)

DECEMBER 20

1666 – FREE COINAGE LAW PASSED, ENGLAND

Charles II placed control of the nation’s money supply in private (bankers) hands following passage of this act. Up until that time, the Sovereign (King, Queen, etc.) had exclusive power over the issuance of money creation.

2019 – “MONEY CREATION IN FIAT AND DIGITAL CURRENCY SYSTEMS” BY MARCO GROSS AND CHRISTOPH SIEBENBRUNNER, INTERNATIONAL MONEY FUND (IMF) WORKING PAPER

“banks’ debt issuance means money creation, while centralized nonbank financial institutions’ and decentralized bond market intermediary lending does not”…

“banks create deposits and hence money ‘out of nothing’ upon the creation of loans”…

“banks’ lending implies money creation, and hence is more elastic and bound only by regulatory requirements and demand”

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/12/20/Money-Creation-in-Fiat-and-Digital-Currency-Systems-48843

DECEMBER 21

2012 – END OF THE MAYAN CALENDAR

The Mayans did not believe the end of their 5125-year calendar marked the end of the world, but rather the end of an old order. In its place would be people with a higher degree of awareness and consciousness. 

Part of any such awareness and consciousness will surely include enlightenment and eventual replacement of unsustainable national monetary schemes of privatized/corporatized money creation with ones that are public and serves the interest people, places and the planet, not simply the super wealthy or financial interests. 

2014 – HOW DOES THE MONEY SYSTEM AFFECT INEQUALITY, HOUSING & ENVIRONMENT? posted video

Talk by Positive Money’s Executive Director, Fran Boait

“Many of the big social and economic problems that we’re facing today are due to the way that money is created. Most of us learn that only the government can create money but in reality more than 97% of money is created by private banks. This has led to inequality, indebtedness, unaffordable housing and high unemployment.’

2023 – WINTER SOLSTICE

The darkest day of the year. For the next 6 months, the days (light) become longer.

This is a fine time to dedicate oneself to shedding greater light on monetary policy. A truly dark and invisible issue, monetary policy as this Calendar has tried to demonstrate this entire year is essential to understanding and promoting justice, peace and democracy.

We’ve allowed private (corporate) interests to usurp our power to issue our own money to meet our needs and serve the common good. We’ve ignored monetary policy — believing it too complicated to understand, not connected to the issues we care about, and/or promoted by wild and unstable individuals. We focus, thus, instead on budget policies or tax policies as our only available public tools. We’ve also ignored history — those people and groups in our nation and around the world in the past and present who’ve seen the light, become aware and tried to act against the Money Power (which today are banking corporations and central banks, and those they influence in government, academia and the media) to (re)assert real authority over creating and circulating money.

Money is the ultimate paradox — so involved in almost every aspect of our lives yet virtually completely unknown on how and for whom it’s created and circulated.

It’s time to shed light on money.

DECEMBER 22

1864 –IRON CITY BANK OF PITTSBURGH IS RECHARTED TO BECOME IRON CITY NATIONAL BANK

The bank was rechartered under the new 1864 federal banking law.

Corporations possess no inherent inalienable “right” to exist in the US. They exist because the public via government (state and federal) grants “charters” or licenses to exist under terms established by the government. At one time, charters were democratic tools that rigidly defined the extent of their actions, issued for a limited duration.

Banks were, for obvious reasons, THE most rigidly defined and closely controlled type of corporation with precise limitations placed on capital, interest rates, and residency requirements for directors and transparency of their financial books. And, of course, banking corporations, like all corporations, were prohibited from involvement in political or electoral matters as a means to protect the democratic “body politic.”

When banking corporations violated the terms of their charters and acting “ultra vires” (beyond their authority) the public response was routinely to dissolve their charter and either turn over the company to new owners with a new charter or distribute the banks’ assets to those who were victims of the banks’ actions.

Charters remain democratic tools. Corporations remain creations of the state and federal government. However, our history books nowhere contain this example of this expression of self-governance and, thus, our imaginations of how to control corporate actions are limited to corporate fines and legal actions against executives. Bank fines and even imprisonment of bank officials were and still are no substitute responses to profoundly unlawful banking practices compared to what was at one time a common strategy by our forebears: dissolving corporate charters.

2017 – “HE DIED FOR OUR DEBTS, NOT OUR SINS” posted online article

“As we turn towards our faiths this Christmas and Hanukkah in an attempt to make sense of the year that was, economist Professor Michael Hudson says we have been interpreting the bible incorrectly.

“And he has written an entire book about it.

“Rather than sex and sin, both Christianity and Judaism is preoccupied with debt. As it turns out, Jesus was a socialist activist who paid the ultimate price fighting for the reinstatement of regular debt jubilees. In fact, the rulers of classical antiquity who cancelled their subjects’ debts were overthrown with disturbing frequency and tended not to live that long…

https://renegadeinc.com/he-died-for-our-debts-not-our-sins/?fbclid=IwAR3t_QClPzwZ3oeqCnf82sBbr3LwUMg3bWZgh-RAM-Oq6uzWbJOxYTFFFKA

2021 – “LUCILLE ECKRICH: JUST ALTERNATIVE TO ESCALATING DEBT” online post

“Raising the “debt ceiling” is a recurring charade, necessary but only because Congress ignores that it has the Constitutional authority to take back the power to create our money from the commercial banks to which Congress ceded this most fundamental sovereign power when it passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. In this time of escalating public and private debt, inequity, infrastructure needs, resource depletion, climate change, societal divisions and violence, Congress has the responsibility now more than ever to take back this power…

“Constitutionally, our federal government does have a choice. It could pass monetary reform legislation and issue all US money debt-free in amounts limited only by the productive labor and resources available in our economy to support the circulation of goods and services at stable prices over time…

“We in the Alliance For Just Money call all U.S. citizens and local and state lawmakers to learn about monetary critique and reform and to demand that Congress supersede the Federal Reserve Act through updating and passing the 2011-2012 National Emergency Employment Defense (the NEED Act, H.R. 2990) in order to create a stable, publicly accountable, sovereign just money system.”

https://pantagraph.com/opinion/columnists/lucille-eckrich-just-alternative-to-escalating-debt/article_7eb4f1c0-023d-509d-a053-bda1068f4d54.html

DECEMBER 23

1913 – FEDERAL RESERVE ACT PASSES CONGRESS – CREATING FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

The Act created a largely corporate controlled national banking and currency system, passed in the House by 298-60 and in the Senate by 43-25 and signed by President Wilson on this day. It was a major coup banking corporations through the establishment of a private central bank authorized to “monetize” government debt (i.e. to print their own money and exchange it for government securities or I.O.U.’s). The central banking system was composed of 12 regional private/corporate banks owned by participating commercial banks. All national banks were required to join the system. Banking corporations now controlled the issuance and circulation of our national currency. By controlling our national money faucet, they could create inflation and deflation. This corporate monopolization of our currency allowed for public regulation, but not control. It was now banking corporations, not the US government, that controlled the national currency. The Constitutional power for public creation of our power was handed over to private banking corporations. It’s the ultimate form of “privatization”  – more accurately “corporatization” – of what should be a public function or service.

December 10 – 16

DECEMBER 10

1690 – PAPER MONEY ISSUED BY MASSACHUSETTS

Faced with a pressing need to fund military action against Canada during King William’s War, the Massachusetts colonial government authorized the issuing of £7,000 in public paper currency. This was the first public paper money issued in the colonies. The paper money possessed no intrinsic value. Its only value was that it was backed by the colony, accepted for tax payments. The notes could be redeemed for hard currency if such currency was available.

http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCurrency/CurrencyText/MA-1690-1750.html

1896 – DEATH OF ALFRED NOBEL, INVENTOR AND BENEFACTOR OF THE NOBEL PRIZES

Annual international awards are bestowed on this day to honor great scientific and cultural advances in humanity in chemistry, literature, peace, physics and physiology or medicine, but not in economics. There has never been a Nobel Prize in economics. An annual Economic Science award is presented by Sweden’s Central Bank “in memory of Alfred Nobel” against the wishes of the Nobel family.

“The Economics Prize has nestled itself in and is awarded as if it were a Nobel Prize. But it’s a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation,” Nobel’s great, great nephew Peter Nobel stated in 2005. “It’s most often warded to stock market speculators…There is nothing to indicate that [Alfred Nobel] would have wanted such a prize.”

http://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-economics

2019 – “CHRISTOPHER SHAW AND THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE TO MAKE BANKING MORE DEMOCRATIC,” POSTED ONLINE INTERVIEW

“Your book tracks the ebb and flow of these voices challenging the banking institutions. When was the height of the call for public control over financial institutions?…

“’There are two moments. The most intense was in the early portion of the Great Depression. The banks were failing and crashing. The entire economy was in meltdown mode. Thousands of banks were suspended during that time. The banks were making the depression much worse than it was. Unemployment was at least 25 percent. That was probably the most intense.’

“’But also during the progressive era – from the Panic of 1907 up until the start of World War I –  there was a lot of civic engagement with these questions. Banking reform was on the table.’”…

“Your book ends during the Obama administration. Do you see a rise in banking politics since?

“’Yes. It has come out of the blue. It’s not what it was. But people are talking about it again. You are seeing it with the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for President. You saw it with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Some in the Republican Party are complaining about too big to fail banks. Banking is being discussed again in a way that it really hasn’t been for decades.’”

Christopher Shaw on the American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic

2019 – PUBLICATION OF THE ALLIANCE FOR JUST MONEY PAMPHLET

“The US Constitution gives the power to create money to the Congress, for reasons stated in the Preamble.

“The money creation power was purposely not given to a private, profit driven banking system such as we have today.

“New Threats to our habitat and our republic challenge us to bring the money system back under public control now.

It doesn’t have to be this way…

“The Alliance For Just Money is working to change the system so money can be created debt-free….

“THREE CRITICAL REFORMS

“Achieving Just Money requires three reforms of our money and banking system to be implemented together.

“1. Require Congress to a) exercise its Constitutional responsibility to be the sole creator of all U.S. money, issued debt-free, b) to establish a transparent and independent, public monetary authority to determine the amount of new money Congress should create to maintain purchasing power.

“2. End the privilege of commercial banks to create and issue what we use as money.

“3. Transfer ownership of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, and all remaining operations of the Federal Reserve System, to the U.S. Treasury.

“Legislation is written already, introduced to Congress in 2011 as HR 2990. It creates a Public Money System in which anything physically possible, ecologically wise, and socially desirable is financially feasible.”

AFJM Pamphlet

DECEMBER 11

2009 — “SWEEPING BANK REFORM BILL CLEARS HOUSE” ARTICLE ON CNN MONEY 

“The House passed legislation Friday aimed at preventing the next big financial crisis, ushering in the most sweeping set of changes to the banking regulatory system since the New Deal…

“‘The bailouts of AIG and Bear Stearns would be not possible — made illegal — under this bill,’ [Barney] Frank said. ‘If a company fails, it’ll be put to death.’”

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/11/news/economy/financial_regulatory_reform/

The final legislation, The Dodd-Frank banking “reform” bill, did not break up the too-big-to-fail big banks, make it easier to prosecute fraudulent banksters responsible for causing massive predatory lending that led to mortgage foreclosures, or eliminate many highly risky banking practices (namely continued investments in derivatives).

DECEMBER 12

1791 – FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF THE US OPENS FOR BUSINESS IN PHILADELPHIA

A 20-year charter had been issued by the federal government in 1791 (very unusual at the time since most corporate charters, or licenses, were issued by states) to create the nation’s first private bank. This was the first private institution empowered by the U.S. federal government to create paper money — with all the power and profit that goes along with it. The bank’s paper money was accepted for taxes. Eighty percent of its shares were privately owned. It was modeled on the Bank of England. Within 2 months of its creation, it flooded the market with loans and banknotes and then sharply shifted course and called in many of its loans. The result was the first US securities market crash — what became known as the “Panic of 1792” – the first of many panics, recessions and depressions due to the private/corporate control of our money system. On January 24, 1811, Congress voting to not renew the bank’s charter, thus dissolving the bank. During the first 50 years of the US, legislatures and courts, almost exclusively at the state and federal levels, routinely revoked corporate charters, which were considered democratic instruments and used to control the actions of corporations.

1999 – DEATH OF JOSEPH HELLER, AUTHOR OF “CATCH-22”

“At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, ‘Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.’”

Story by John Bogle, founder of Vangard investments

[Note: The addiction of endless more of material possessions has been fueled by debt, which is economically, ecologically and morally destructive.]

2014 – REMARKS OF STANLEY FISCHER, VICE CHAIR OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD

“I thought that when Dodd-Frank [proposed bank reform legislation] started, that the banks would not succeed in influencing it, having lost all the prestige they lost…Boy, was I wrong.” Remarks at Peterson Institute for International Economics gathering.

DECEMBER 13

1942 – BIRTH OF DAVIS RICH DEWEY, AMERICAN ECONOMIST AND STATISTICIAN

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

1953 – BIRTH OF BEN BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN OF THE US FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

The Federal Reserve is a largely private system, despite the word “Federal” in its title. The 12 Regional Federal Reserve banks are private (e.g. Fed banks appear in the business not government pages of phone books and its employees are not on the government payrolls).

Bernanke said on May 17, 2007:

“All that said, given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.  The vast majority of mortgages, including even subprime mortgages, continue to perform well.  Past gains in house prices have left most homeowners with significant amounts of home equity, and growth in jobs and incomes should help keep the financial obligations of most households manageable.”

Less than 1 year later, the housing market collapsed.

On October 31, 2007 he stated:  “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

Turned out the Fed provided $1.2 trillion in secret loans to many of the nation’s biggest banks from 2007-9, which allowed them to grow even bigger. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

This bail out of Wall Street by the Fed was not accompanied by any bail out of Main Street (small businesses) or the side streets (homeowners). The Fed served its constituents – banks. 

DECEMBER 14

1799 – DEATH OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, FIRST US PRESIDENT

The First Bank of the United States (the 2nd central bank, privately owned) was chartered for 20 years by Congress and signed into law by George Washington, the first President of the United States under the US Constitution. At the end of the 20 years, Congress determined the bank did not serve the public interest and, therefore, did not renew its charter.

2010 – “FIND FREEDOM FROM FLEECED BY A LIE!” SONG/VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

A fine 2 ½ minute, catchy piece on the Greenbacks – U.S. created money during the Lincoln administration.

2010 – POSITIVE MONEY STUDENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATION – video

Professor Mary Mellor speaks at the Positive Money Student Conference on Monetary Reform and Fractional Reserve Banking.

2018 – FIRST DAY OF “MONEY AS A DEMOCRATIC MEDIUM”

The two day conference was held at Harvard Law School

Videos at https://justmoney.org/conf-archive-mdm-2018-page/#overview

DECEMBER 15

1793 – BIRTH OF HENRY CAREY, PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR

Carey advised Lincoln on creating public money, Greenbacks, rather than take loans from private banks. He helped prevent the destruction of Greenbacks by the National Banking Act and its subsequent modifications (which were presented as monetary “reforms”) by banks but with the intent of eliminating Greenbacks.

2008 – PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION ACQUIRES NATIONAL CITY BANKING CORPORATION

The Federal Reserve Board announced that it has approved the application of PNC Financial Services to acquire National City Corporation. PNC was a major recipient of federal bailout funds. Rather than use the funds to help distressed underwater homeowners, the Pittsburgh based banking corporation used the funds to acquire Cleveland-based National City Bank, and thus, contributing to a further consolidation and concentration of the “too-big-to-fail” banking industry in the United States.

DECEMBER 16

1863 – BIRTH OF GEORGE SANTAYANA, PHILOSOPHER

“Those you cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

[Note: Providing financial institutions the power to create and distribute money has in the past been economically, if not politically, harmful to the vast majority of individuals. It remains so in the present.]

2014 – PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS FEDERAL SPENDING BILL WITH A BANK BAILOUT PROVISION

The $1.1 trillion spending bill contained a “rider,” or separate provision, that bails out banking corporations if their speculative derivative investments tank. The rider was essentially identical language contained in an earlier bill, HR 992, which was largely written by lobbyists of Citigroup Corporation, according to emails obtained by the New York Times. The rider weakened the already weak Dodd-Frank bank “reform” legislation.

2016 – “HOW THE MONEY SYSTEM WORKS” video

Prof Joseph Huber speaks at the American Monetary Institute Fall Conference

December 3 – 9

DECEMBER 3

2010 – QUOTE OF BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR

“I wish I’d been omniscient and seen the crisis coming.” [The crisis was the financial implosion of 2007-2008, triggered by unscrupulous financial shenanigans of banking corporations and other lenders, which led to a massive housing debt that the Federal Reserve did nothing to address]. 

DECEMBER 4

1975 – DEATH OF GRAHAM TOWERS, GOVERNOR, BANK OF CANADA, 1934-54

“Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created – new deposits – brand new money.”

2003 – THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY – A SOLUTION TO THE STATES’ FISCAL CRISES Speech by Stephen Zarlenga, Director of the American Monetary Institute, at the U.S. Treasury

“The supreme importance of the concept of money now becomes evident: For if money is primarily a commodity, convenient for making trades, which obtains its value out of ‘intrinsic’ qualities, then it could be viewed more as a creature of merchants and bankers than of governments.

“But if the true nature of money is an abstract social institution embodied in law – obtaining its value largely through legal sanctions, then its more a creature of governments, and the Constitution had better deal with it adequately. Describing how a uniform currency is to be provided, controlled and kept reasonably stable, in a just manner. It was on this crucial question that the Constitutional Convention faltered.”

https://www.monetary.org/research-articles/59-stephen-zarlenga-s-speech-at-the-u-s-treasury-dec-4-2003

2013 – INTERVIEW OF RODNEY SHAKESPEARE, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS

Q: Do you share this optimism about Iceland’s financial recovery?

Rodney Shakespeare: “Iceland is quite right to make an upright challenge to the global financial system. Unless you say that you are going to throw it out the window, they will always succeed in creating money out of nothing, lending to you with administration cost and interest, lending it for anything except the real economy. Lending it for anything except the spreading of the real economy and putting you into debt. And the debt becomes repayable.

You must rely on your own national bank for your own uses, for your own real economy and for the spreading of it. And if you don’t do that, you’ll be trapped in debt in the same way that…. well, you’ve got Greece, you’ve got Iceland, you’ve got every country in the world trapped in increasing debt and all that happens is that they increase the levels of the debt and smash the populations down.”

2019 – PUBLISHED “STATEMENT BY THE ALLIANCE FOR JUST MONEY ON THE OPEN LETTER ‘RETHINKING THE ROLE OF BANKS IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION’”

“In February 2019 economics students at the University in Maastricht in the Netherlands penned an open letter in which they challenged their economics professors and their textbooks on the money and banking theories they teach…

“At the Alliance For Just Money, we agree with these students’ assessment and support their initiative. We encourage students to challenge their teachers and examine their textbooks and curricula for outdated theories of banking. We would also point out that some textbooks might be actually correct (for example, McConnel & Brue’s Macroeconomics which addresses “Money-Creating Transactions of a Commercial Bank”) but may lack any discussion of the systemic adverse impacts of such money-creating transactions on such things as the formation of asset bubbles, resulting financial crises and economic inequality. We encourage students to press for such assessments and explore possible alternative solutions…

“And we would encourage these economics students not just to get their theories right, but also to look at existing proposals to fundamentally reform the current monetary system. We think banks should be intermediaries, like most people, including economists and politicians, incorrectly assume them to be. To that effect here in the USA the Alliance For Just Money (AFJM) and the American Monetary Institute (AMI) pursue identical policy objectives.”

Statement by the Alliance For Just Money on the Open Letter “Rethinking the Role of Banks in Economics Education”

DECEMBER 5

1782 – BIRTH OF MARTIN VAN BUREN, 8^TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“The MONEY POWER…when firmly established, was destined to become the only kind of an Aristocracy that could exist in our political system.” (Note: Van Buren always capitalized “MONEY POWER” when using the term.)

Van Buren was Vice President when President Jackson refused to support the re-chartering of the private, misnamed “Second Bank of the United States” – the nation’s central bank at the time (equivalent in some ways to the Federal Reserve Bank of today). The Bank had originally been chartered for 20 years in 1816. A corporate charter was considered then a democratic tool, a means for the public to define the actions of a corporation to ensure it remained subordinate to meeting public needs (something We the People have forgotten today). After the Bank charter was dissolved (which meant the Bank could no longer create money as debt), Jackson and Van Buren sought to replace the money system with coinage or bank notes convertible to gold/silver. But this was an insufficient amount of currency needed to supply the growing the US economy. Currency contracted. The nation experienced the worst depression up to that time beginning in 1837.

2019 — “AGAINST ECONOMICS” PUBLISHED ARTICLE BY DAVID GRAEBER

“There is a growing feeling, among those who have the responsibility of managing large economies, that the discipline of economics is no longer fit for purpose. It is beginning to look like a science designed to solve problems that no longer exist.

“A good example is the obsession with inflation…

“We now live in a different economic universe than we did before the crash. Falling unemployment no longer drives up wages. Printing money does not cause inflation. Yet the language of public debate, and the wisdom conveyed in economic textbooks, remain almost entirely unchanged.”

Against Economics

DECEMBER 6

1921 – THOMAS EDISON QUOTE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

“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?” 

DECEMBER 7

2010 –  “CHINA FALLS INTO THE SAME TRAP” BLOG POST BY POSITIVE MONEY

“This won’t be a surprise for anyone familiar with the mechanisms of fractional reserve banking. As soon as we allow commercial banks to take control of the creation of money, all we have to look forward to is unaffordable housing, significant inflation, excessive debt, and shortly after, a wave of bank collapses, which are in turn followed by taxpayer-funded bailouts, austerity measures, and potentially an IMF bailout of the government. It seems that China is falling into the same trap that has caught the US, UK, Ireland, Spain and many other Western countries.” http://positivemoney.org/2010/12/china-falls-into-the-same-trap/

2012 – “THE BIRTH OF THE DOLLAR BILL” AIRING ON NPR “PLANET MONEY” PROGRAM

“Before the Civil War, there were 8,000 different kinds of money in the United States.

“Banks printed their own paper money. And, unlike today, a $1 bill wasn’t always worth $1. Sometimes people took the bills at face value. Sometimes they accepted them at a discount (a $1 bill might only be worth 90 cents, say.) Sometimes people rejected certain bills altogether.

“On today’s show, we figure out how this world worked. And explain how the Civil War — and the Union’s need for money — changed everything.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/12/07/166747693/episode-421-the-birth-of-the-dollar-bill

DECEMBER 8

1931 – PRESIDENT HOOVER CALLS FOR BANKING REFORM IN MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

“Our people have a right to a banking system in which their deposits shall be safeguarded and the flow of credit less subject to storms.”

“Congress should investigate the need for separation between different kinds of banking, an enlargement of branch banking under proper restrictions, and the methods by which enlarged membership in the Federal Reserve System may be brought about.” 

[Note: While Hoover was correct in pointing out that reforms were needed to the banking system to safeguard deposits and to separate different types of banking, he and FDR who followed him in the Oval Office failed to truly understand the root of the monetary problem – the authority of banks to create our money as debt and to issue such debt money multiple times in excess of their actual deposits (called “fractional reserve” lending). Yes, FDIC insurance to protect bank deposits and the Glass-Steagall Act to separate commercial and investment banks were fine banking reforms. Neither, however, were monetary reforms – changes to the basic structure of our monetary system that empowers economically and politically banking corporations in the creation and distribution of

money.

2022 – “WHY THE BIBLE’S TEACHING ON LENDING MATTERS TO CLIMATE JUSTICE” POSTED ARTICLE BY ADAM RUSSELL TAYLOR

“A couple of weeks ago, the U.N. climate summit in Egypt, COP27, ended with a breakthrough deal to create a “loss and damage” fund that would help developing nations recover from climate disasters — financed by wealthier nations responsible for most of the emissions that are driving climate change.

“Though most wealthy nations have not yet offered cash pledges to the fund, it’s a significant step forward…This will require transforming how large entities like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund loan money to low- and middle-income nations.

“I know talking about international lending policies makes most people want to yawn, but the Bible takes debt — and the people who profit from it — seriously. In his opening Nazareth sermon (Luke 4), Jesus cites the prophet Isaiah to proclaim ‘the year of the Lord’s favor,’ a passage that evokes the ancient instructions for debt forgiveness, such as those found in Deuteronomy 15 (‘Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts’). While biblical scholars can’t confirm that these Jubilee injunctions were fully lived out, these instructions were understood to be a regular course corrective to extreme inequality and injustice. Other parts of the Bible flat-out forbid charging interest when the person seeking the loan is poor (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:37).”

https://sojo.net/articles/why-bibles-teaching-lending-matters-climate-justice?

DECEMBER 9

1946 – BIRTH OF SONIA GANDHI, PRESIDENT, HEAD OF CONGRESS PARTY, INDIA

“Let me take you back to Indira Gandhi’s bank nationalization of 40 years ago. Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision. Public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown.”

2021 – “YOUR DEBT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S ASSET” YOUTUBE VIDEO BY THE INTERCEPT

“Student loans, medical bills, credit cards — Americans are drowning in a record-breaking $15 trillion in debt.

“Covering thousands of years in just under seven minutes, “Your Debt Is Someone Else’s Asset” ends with a rousing vision of the future: a world after a jubilee, an ancient term for the abolition of debts and rebalancing of power between the rich and the poor.”