APRIL 7
1858 – BIRTH OF DAVIS RICH DEWEY, AMERICAN ECONOMIST AND STATISTICIAN
“The underlying idea in the greenback philosophy…is that the issue of currency is a function of government, a sovereign right which ought not to be delegated to corporations.”
APRIL 8
1838 – SLAVES USED AS COLLATERAL ON LOAN APPLICATIONS
“George Guion wrote to the Thibodeauxville Branch of Union Bank of Louisiana asking for a loan of 5,000 in addition to a 10,000 mortgage he already had from the bank on his plantation and slaves….As security for the additional loan he offered to the bank his plantation and sixteen slaves whose ages ranged from sixteen months to fifty years. It is unknown if the bank granted his loan…
“Although collateralized transactions usually accounted for a small number of credit transactions, slaves were the most popular form of collateral for those short-term and long-term loans that required collateral. For example, slaves accounted for 80 percent of the securities offered in recorded mortgages in antebellum East Feliciana Parish in Louisiana. Slaves could also be used as collateral for purchasing shares in Louisiana’s investment banks.
“In the South, slaves were property-they could be bought, sold and transported to any location that allowed slavery. As property, their owners could use slaves when they needed loans.”
https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/2288
2009 – “AMERICA’S DEBT CRISIS AND THE NEED FOR MONETARY REFORM” PRESENTATION BY JOE BONGIOVANNI, DIRECTOR OF THE KETTLE POND INSTITUTE FOR DEBT FREE MONEY
Part 1: Introduction
Joe promotes public, debt-free money creation by the US Treasury, as opposed to private money creation as debt by the Fed, as the solution to the debt crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AamPaXA_a0M
Part 2 Early History
Joe describes colonial and revolutionary monetary history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w0vyB9sq1Y
Part 3- Lincoln’s Greenbacks:
Lincoln and his experiment with debt-free money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzf3h-63sjk
Part 4 Post Civil War
The Greenback Party after the Civil War, Vermonter Bradley Barlow, the Crash of 1907. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsWJK8pQ_uQ
Part 5 Federal Reserve Act: US monetary history from the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 through the Crash of 1929. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Q7IcTAgcQ
Part 6 Chicago Plan of 1933
FDR came to power in 1933, more than three years after the 1929 Crash. The national banking system was on the verge of total collapse, despite the Federal Reserve banking system being 20 years old. Fortunately, after the Crash, many economists saw the need for an alternative to the private Fed and it’s boom-and-bust prone fractional reserve banking system. These economists developed a proposal for complete monetary reform that would negate the Fed’s boom-bust cycle and impart soundness to the banking system. The Chicago Plan for Monetary Reform was sidelined in favor of Glass-Steagall and the FDIC. It’s time again for the Chicago Plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_wp8N-Q_O4
Part 7: Robert Hemphill quote
Joe discusses the following quote from Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta GA
“If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation.
“This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is.
“It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TTVoNIpBjE
Part 8: Milton Friedman
Joe highlights Milton Friedman’s opposition of money creation by private banks by highlighting the following quote:
“A reform of the monetary and banking system to eliminate both the private creation and destruction of money and discretionary control of the quantity of money by the central bank authority. The private creation of money can perhaps best be eliminated by adopting the 100% reserve proposal, thereby separating the depository from the lending function of the banking system
“These modifications would leave as the chief monetary functions of the banking system the provision of depositary facilities, the facilitation of check clearance, and the like; and as the chief function of the monetary authorities, the creation of money to meet government deficits or the retirement of money when the government has a surplus.”
From A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability in The American Economic Review, June 1948, p.247. Available on the web at : http://www.jstor.org/stable/1810624
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tSXnXE1slk
Part 9: The Solution
Joe recommends the American Monetary Act (http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf), a draft of legislation being compiled by the American Monetary Institute as the most workable solution to the current financial crisis, and also the transparency legislation proposed by Dennis Kucinich. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lyGoTEJb6g
2018 – “JEKYLL ISLAND, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FEDERAL RESERVE” ONLINE POSTED VIDEO
Excellent explanation of the 2013 video describing the creation and impact of the Federal Reserve by Bill Still
APRIL 9
1626 – DEATH OF SIR FRANCIS BACON, PHILOSOPHER, BRITISH LORD CHANCELLOR
“If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”
APRIL 10
1816 – CHARTER APPROVED FOR INCORPORATING THE SECOND NATIONAL BANK OF THE UNITED STATES
As with the earlier Bank of the United States, the Second National Bank of the United States was private with many of the largest investors foreigners and those representing great wealth. Congress chartered (licensed) the bank for 20 years. It’s worth remembering that corporate charters are democratic tools once used by sovereign people (that would be We the People) to control and define corporate actions. As a result of bank practices geared to serving the interests of banks/bankers, (including limiting the issuance of money into the economy – which triggered economic stagnation), President Jackson pledged that the bank would not be issued a new charter after its 20-year charter ended. Without a charter – which provides those forming corporations certain legal protections (then and now) – corporations cannot exist.
1858 – DEATH OF THOMAS BENTON, US SENATOR FROM MISSOURI
“I object to the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, because I look upon the bank as an institution too great and powerful to be tolerated in a government of free and equal laws. Its power is that of the purse, a power more potent than that of the sword; and this power it possesses to a degree and extent that will enable this bank to draw to itself too much of the political power of this Union and too much of the individual property of the citizens of these States. The money power of the bank is both direct and indirect.” http://yamaguchy.com/library/benton/benton_187.html
2012 – “EXPONENTIAL ECONOMIST MEETS FINITE PHYSICIST” BLOG POSTING
“Some while back, I found myself sitting next to an accomplished economics professor at a dinner event. Shortly after pleasantries, I said to him, ‘economic growth cannot continue indefinitely,’ just to see where things would go. It was a lively and informative conversation. I was somewhat alarmed by the disconnect between economic theory and physical constraints—not for the first time, but here it was up-close and personal. Though my memory is not keen enough to recount our conversation verbatim, I thought I would at least try to capture the key points and convey the essence of the tennis match—with some entertainment value thrown in…
“The evening’s after-dinner keynote speech began, so we had to shelve the conversation. Reflecting on it, I kept thinking, ‘This should not have happened. A prominent economist should not have to walk back statements about the fundamental nature of growth when talking to a scientist with no formal economics training.’ But as the evening progressed, the original space in which the economist roamed got painted smaller and smaller.”
APRIL 11
1932 – PECORA COMMISSION HEARINGS BEGIN – INVESTIGATE CAUSE OF US DEPRESSION
The investigation was launched by a majority-Republican Senate, under the Banking Committee’s chairman, Senator Peter Norbeck. Hearings began on April 11, 1932, but were criticized by Democratic Party members and their supporters as being little more than an attempt by the Republicans to appease the growing demands of an angry American public suffering through the Great Depression. Two chief counsels were fired for ineffectiveness, and a third resigned after the committee refused to give him broad subpoena power. Ferdinand Pecora, an assistant district attorney for New York County was hired to write the final report in January 1933. Discovering that the investigation was incomplete, Pecora requested permission to hold an additional month of hearings. His exposé of the National City Bank (now Citibank) made banner headlines and caused the bank’s president to resign. Democrats had won the majority in the Senate, and the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged the new Democratic chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, to let Pecora continue the probe. So actively did Pecora pursue the investigation that his name became publicly identified with it, rather than the committee’s chairman. Pecora not only documented a litany of abuses, but also paved the way for remedial legislation. The Securities Act of 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 — all addressed abuses exposed by Pecora. It was only poetic justice when Roosevelt tapped him as a commissioner of the newborn Securities and Exchange Commission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission
APRIL 12
1866 – CONGRESS PASSES THE CONTRACTION ACT
The Act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to begin retiring Greenbacks (public debt-free money first issued by the Lincoln Administration) in circulation and to contract the money supply. By 1876, two-thirds of the nation’s money had been called in by the bankers. A contraction of the money supply when demand is high causes depressions, which is what happened from 1873-79.
1910 – DEATH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY, MONETARY THEORIST
“For as the currency question is of first importance and we cannot solve it or escape it by ignoring it. We have got to face it and the best way to begin is not by wrangling about speculative opinions as to untried schemes but to go back to history and try to get hold of some firmly established principles.”
1945 – DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson … The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United States – – only on a far bigger and broader basis.”
APRIL 13
1743 – BIRTH OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
“This institution (the Bank of England) is one of the most deadly hostility against the principles of our Constitution…suppose an emergency should occur…an institution like this…in a critical moment might overthrow the government.”
“And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
“Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.”
2015 – DEATH OF EDUARDO GALEANO, URUGUAYAN JOURNALIST, WRITER AND NOVELIST
Great quote for monetary reformers: “The system steals with one hand what it lends with the other.”
[Note: This is never more true than the present time. The $450 billion corporate slush fund bailout given to the Treasury Department in the recent economic “stimulus” bill was handed over the Federal Reserve, which in turn handed it over to several major banking corporations to distribute to “needy” mega corporations. These banks will profit from the administration of the funds.]
2021 – “HOW MONETARY REFORM SOLVES CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION” BY MARK PASH
How Monetary Reform Solves Climate Change and Environmental Contamination
“Now we have the biggest global crisis in World history that of Climate Change and Environmental degradation. And the current money-banking system in 2020 lent over a trillion dollars to fossil fuel companies. This is going in the opposite direction for adequate climate control. We have most of the technical solutions. Then, what is missing? It is mainly money! Therefore, we have to “Go Back to the Greenbacks” and eliminate the unsustainable, extremely skewered, private money system…
“The following is a list of specific operations solving climate change that we can implement to save our planet and how they can be funded from the new money system of “Back to the Greenbacks”…
“Solar Alternatives…
“Electric Automobiles & Trucks…
“Land…
“Refrigeration…
“Aircraft…
“Water & Agriculture…
“Research & Development…
“Manufacturing…
“Environmental Firms & Trees…”
Monetary History Calendar 