MAY 12
1863 – “LOST PROPERTY” VIRGINIA NEWSPAPER ADS OF REWARD FOR RETURN OF RUNAWAY SLAVES
“In the back of the Staunton Spectator, May 12, 1863, there appeared a section for Advertisements and Lost Property. Directly under and advertisement of ten pigs for sale, there is the section of lost property, for which rewards are offered. There are six articles that report lost animals or slaves. 50 is offered for a stolen black horse, as well as 50 for a dark bay mare. Intermixed with these ads for horses, are rewards for runaway slaves, ranging from 50 to 300 per slave. Descriptions of color, markings, age, and last known location are given for slave and animal alike. The only difference in description between the two categories of lost property is that the horses are reported stolen, while the slaves are reported as runaway; logically showing that the horses could not have let themselves out of their gates.
“This underscores the status of people, slaves at the time, were property.”
https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/2534
1933 – THOMAS AMENDMENT BECOMES LAW – GIVES FDR POWER TO CREATE MONEY
Attached as Title III to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 12, 1933, the Thomas Amendment, drafted by Oklahoma Senator Elmer Thomas, provided New Deal relief to farmers suffering from low prices due to the Great Depression. The solution was to expand the currency.
“The amendment granted the president broad discretionary powers over monetary policy. It stated that whenever the president desired currency expansion, he first must authorize the open market committee of the Federal Reserve to purchase up to $3 billion of federal obligations. Should open market operations prove insufficient, the president had several options. He could have the U.S. Treasury issue up to $3 billion in greenbacks, reduce the gold content of the dollar by as much as 50 percent, or accept $100 million dollars in silver at a price not to exceed fifty cents per ounce in payment of World War I debts owed by European nations.”
http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=TH007
1948 – THE FORMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL IS PROCLAIMED
Solomon, the son of David, was an early King of Israel from 970-931 BC. He was also the author of the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. From Proverbs 22:74: “The borrower is servant to the lender.” What was true nearly 3000 years ago is still true today for individuals and organizations — including governments.
2009 – BLOOMBERG ARTICLE: “NY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK CLAIMS IT IS A PRIVATE INSTITUTION”
“The New York Fed is one of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks and the one charged with monitoring capital markets. It is also managing $1.7 trillion of emergency lending programs. While the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors is a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other government rules, the New York Fed and other regional banks maintain they are separate institutions, owned by their member banks, and not subject to federal restrictions.”
MAY 13
2001 – HENRY GEORGE’S CONCEPT OF MONEY, ARTICLE BY STEPEN ZARLENGA
“On the other hand it is the business of government to issue money. This is perceived as soon as the great labor saving invention of money supplants barter. To leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government. When in the progress of society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government function become still stronger.”
2013 – “WHAT IS MONEY” VIDEO – (3 MINUTES)
“We all use money, we all rely on money. But do we know how money works? Where does money come from? How is money created?”
[NOTE: The reality described in the UK system is exactly the same reality in the U.S.)
2015 – THE CENTRAL PROBLEM WITH CENTAL BANKS: THEY BECOME THE GREATER FOOLS/BAG-HOLDERS” ARTICLE BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH
The central problem with central banks is their mandate now includes propping up all asset markets globally….Central banks have inflated the markets to such high valuations that no central bank can possibly buy enough to keep the bubble intact…But having succeeded in blowing another unprecedented global bubble in assets, central banks have backed themselves into a corner of direct asset purchases to prop up markets. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay15/no-bid5-15.html
MAY 14
2013 – ARTICLE, “MONEY HAS BEEN PRIVATIZED BY STEALTH” BY BEN DYSON
“It’s common knowledge that printing your own £10 notes at home is frowned upon by Her Majesty’s police. Yet there’s a small collection of companies that are authorized to create – and spend – more new money than the counterfeiters have ever been able to print. In industry jargon, these companies are called “monetary and financial institutions”, but you probably know them by their street name: “banks”.
The money that they create, effectively out of nothing, isn’t the paper money that bears the logo of the government-owned Bank of England. It’s the electronic money that flashes up on the screen when you check your balance at an ATM. This electronic money currently represents over 97% of all the money in the economy. Only 3% of money is still in that old-fashioned form of real cash that can be touched.”
MAY 15
1915 – BIRTH OF PAUL SAMUELSON, ECONOMIST (FIRST AMERICAN TO WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS)
“Few understand that all our money arises out of debt and IOU operations. The banking system as a whole can do what each small bank cannot do: it can expand its loans and investments many times the new reserves of cash created for it, even though each small bank is lending out only a fraction of its deposits.” Economics, An Introductory Analysis by Professor Paul A. Samuelson. (Best selling college economics textbook of all time, c 1948.)
1931 – “QUADRAGESSIMO ANNO” LETTER ISSUED BY POPE PIUS XI
The Pope discusses the ethical implications of economic and social order in this letter, warning of the dangers of unrestrained capitalism.
“Economic dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by the few who hold the money and completely control it, control credit and the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul of economics that no one can breathe against their will.”
MAY 16
1876 – SECOND GREENBACK NATIONAL CONVENTION OPENS IN INDIANAPOLIS
May 16–18, 1876 — Academy of Music, Indianapolis, Indiana. There were 239 delegates present from 17 states. Peter Cooper was nominated for President of the Greenback Party (calling for the creation of debt-free national money) with 352 votes to 119 for three other contenders.
1912 – PUJO COMMITTEE HEARINGS BEGIN
A special subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency Committee began hearings under its Chairman, Arsene P. Pujo. Its purpose was to investigate the powers of the nation’s “money trust.” Its final report, issued in 1913, concluded that the power over the nation’s money and credit was concentrated in a small group of Wall Street bankers. The report created a climate for reform. Unfortunately one of the reforms advocated for was the misnamed Federal Reserve Act, which provided the appearance that finances would become a public function.
2018 – “BIBLIOGRAPHY MONETARY THEORY AND REFORM” WEBSITE POSTING
A tremendous site containing listings organized in the following categories:
A. Proposed Legislations and Organizational Endorsements
B. Academic Studies on Sovereign Monetary Theory and Reform
C. Studies Critical of Sovereign Monetary Theory and Reform (including MMT section)
D. Non-academic Advocacy Pamphlets, Reports, Briefings and Books
E. Supporting Studies Addressing Monetary Issues
F. Journalistic Articles Addressing Monetary Reform
G. Educational and Promotional Videos
H. Other Relevant Background Studies
Check it out…
MAY 17
1901 – FINANCIAL PANIC
The Financial Panic of 1901 was the first stock market crash. This was caused in part by several powerful investors trying to gain control of the Northern Pacific Railway. During the afternoon of May 17, 1901 the market started to decline sharply. Investors on the floor of the New York stock Exchange began to panic. An overwhelming yell of “Sell, sell, sell” could be heard; only fueling the panic. This cornering of stock caused a panic among many small investors resulting in the ruin of thousands of small investors.
1930 – BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS ESTABLISHED
This is the central bank of all central banks, established as an international financial institution to “foster international monetary and financial cooperation.” Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS serves to strengthen the international private banking system, not national economies. The BIS advocates the establishment of a global currency, building on the International Monetary Fund “Special Drawing Rights” – a quasi currency, which has a value, based on a basket of 4 major currencies (the dollar, euro, pound and yen).
2002 – TALK BY WILLIAM HUMMEL, AUTHOR, MONETARY RESEARCHER
“Banks are not ordinary intermediaries, like non-banks, they also borrow, but they do not lend the deposits they acquire. They lend by crediting the borrowers account with a new deposit… The accounts of other depositors remain intact and their deposits fully available for withdrawal. Thus a bank loan increases the total of bank deposits, which means an increase in the money supply.”
MAY 18
1846 – STATE OF IOWA CONSTITUTION ADOPTED
Article VIII of the original constitution states:
“Municipal corporations. Section 4. No political or municipal corporation shall become a stockholder in any banking corporation, directly or indirectly.
Banking associations. Section 5. No Act of the General Assembly, authorizing or creating corporations or associations with banking powers, nor amendments thereto shall take effect, or in any manner be in force, until the same shall have been submitted separately, to the people, at a general or special election, as provided by law, to be held not less than three months after the passage of the Act, and shall have been approved by a majority of all the electors voting for and against it at such election.”
1914 – FORMAL SIGNING OF THE ORGANIZATION CERTIFICATE ESTABLISHING THE CHICAGO FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
“The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. Banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments…This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered several centuries ago. At one time, bankers were merely middlemen. They made a profit by accepting gold and coins for safekeeping and lending them to borrowers. But they soon found that the receipts (bank notes or IOUs) they issued were being used as if they were a means of payment. These receipts were acceptable as if they were money since whoever held them could go to the banker and exchange them for metallic money. Then bankers discovered…that they could make loans merely by giving borrowers their promises to pay (bank notes). In this way banks began to create money…More notes (IOUs) could be issued than the gold and coin on hand because only a portion of the notes outstanding would be presented for payment at any one time…Demand deposits (checks) are the modern counterpart of bank notes. It was a small step from printing notes to making book entries to the credit of borrowers which the borrowers in turn, could ‘spend’ by writing checks.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Nichols, Dorothy M (1961). Modern Money Mechanics; a workbook on deposits, currency and bank reserves. OCLC 510802. The 1992 revision of this booklet is available on wikisource
1920 – SECRET MEETING BY BANKERS TO REDUCE THE MONEY SUPPLY, WHICH RESULTED IN 5 MILLION UNEMPLOYED
Testimony in 1938 before the House Committee on Banking and Currency by Senator Robert Owen, a co-sponsor of the Federal Reserve Act:
“I wrote into the bill which was introduced by me in the Senate on June 26, 1913, a provision that the powers of the System should be employed to promote a stable price level, which meant a dollar of stable purchasing, debt-paying power. It was stricken out. The powerful money interests got control of the Federal Reserve Board through Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Albert Strauss, and Mr. Adolph C. Miller and they were able to have that secret meeting of May 18, 1920, and bring about a contraction of credit so violent it threw five million people out of employment.
In 1920 that Reserve Board deliberately caused the Panic of 1921. The same people, unrestrained in the stock market, expanding credit to a great excess between 1926 and 1929, raised the price of stocks to a fantastic point where they could not possibly earn dividends, and when the people realized this, they tried to get out, resulting in the Crash of October 24, 1929.”
Monetary History Calendar 