Started a new blog primarily dedicated to monetary reforms. Been working on it since about November of 2008.
Please check it out and let me know what you think.
Jere
Friday, June 12, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
WHAT MUST WE DO TO FIX OUR ECONOMIC CRISIS?
Jere L Hough
2008-01-18
The first thing we must do to fix the economic crisis is to correctly perceive the nature and gravity of the problem. This might seem obvious at first blush, yet it is not widely or generally known exactly what has caused the financial meltdown. The few of us who actually understand the causes of the problem are dismayed and disheartened at the lack of comprehension that is nearly universally displayed, even by the supposedly best economic thinkers of our world, including Nobel Prize winners, and the Heads of Economics Departments at the best universities in the world.
Financial Bailouts and economic stimulus packages will not work, except as a most short-term band-aid. Such short-sighted proposals only highlight the failure to comprehend the true nature of the problem.
Only a few of the hundreds or thousands of prominent books and articles proposed as solutions even come close to apprehending the real underlying cause of the world's financial and monetary disease, and for the most part the ones that are revealing the truth are unpopular, banned or blacklisted by mainstream media and publishers, widely debunked and ridiculed.
What is this widely scorned truth of the basic cause of our money and financial problems?
It is that no less than the entire worldwide system of money creation and distribution itself is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Moreover, the flawed system was deliberately advanced and maintained over the centuries and even millenniums past and into the present day by a small group of very wicked and designing persons for the purposes of exercising financial power and control over others, even over the entire world.
It is at this revelation that the vast majority of minds rebel, and the onslaught of denial, ridicule and accusations begins. This truth is so shocking and laden with negative implications that it is rejected out of hand, and without further examination. Nothing approaching serious consideration or debate is ever reached. Derision and ridicule are so much easier than serious thought.
It's just another “conspiracy theory” and the author is a “conspiracy theorist”. “Tinfoil Hat” stuff, and so on, go the chants.
And so our disastrous financial and monetary problems continue, as they surely must until serious thinking, discussion and debate replace ridicule as our way of dealing with (or of avoiding dealing with) this most serious of all the problems humanity has ever faced. It could lead to our destruction as a civilization or even of our extinction as a species.
The problems underlying our financial system are that severe. Moreover, the consequences of decades and centuries of abuse of monetary policy are imminent. We will either solve the problem or reap the harvest of our failure to solve it. That harvest will not be a pleasing one, for us and for generations to follow.
So... what needs to be done?
We have to completely overhaul and transform our dying financial system into one that is vital and sustainable. This means a monetary system that serves the public good, instead of the good of the few who now monopolize the monetary system for their own benefit.
“Qui bono” is always the key question to get to the root of all social, political and economic problems. “Who benefits?” The flip side of the coin is “who suffers”, or “who pays?” Another key is to “follow the money”. That is especially true when talking about money problems, or those of monetary policy within a society or a government.
The essence of the problem is that most people go from birth to death without understanding money, or its role in a society or an economy. The extent of most people's concerns about money is how to get more of it, with as little effort as possible, Everyone understands that money “buys things”, or that one exchanges money for goods and services one desires. Yet that is about all they understand. Few people have any real understanding of where money comes from, or how it is created, or enters the economy, and where it goes from there, or who benefits the most or the least from the way things work now, or who benefits the least.
We all know the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer”, but do we all understand how and why? I submit that few people really do, or how a few fundamental shifts in consciousness (paradigm shifts) could level the playing field considerably, saving millions and even billions from poverty and deprivation, even death.
Now I will attempt to state the problem another way, so that hopefully, it is easier to understand. I intend to be blunt.
For thousands of years, kings, priests, priest-kings and rulers of all stripes and colors have built and maintained their power and control though a few closely guarded secrets about money, land titles, wealth, natural resources, labor and the relationships between them. These “secrets” are maintained today, and are kept obscured, buried, under mountains of superficial data, statistics, mathematical formulas, and outright mumbo-jumbo that passes for “economics” in all of the major schools of modern economic thought. The biggest secret has been the deliberate deceptions about money – it's nature, origin, purpose, and destiny.
Here it the core of that secret: money is not gold, silver, platinum, metals, gems, paper, ink, or anything else of tangible value. These are all forms of wealth, not money. They are not the same thing. Wealth and money are two different things entirely. The deception is, was and will always be, that they are the same thing. In particular, gold and silver have been sold to us as “real money”. By whom? Those who own or control much of the gold and silver, and always have – the bankers and financiers.
[Jesus well understood this simple fact when his righteous indignation at the prostitution of the Temple at Jerusalem by the “moneychangers” (bankers) rose to the sole forceful action on record. He drove the “moneychangers” from His Father's Temple.]
The truth about money is that it is not a commodity or other form of wealth, goods, or services. Money is not something that can be found in nature, or the natural, tangible world.
Money is a concept. It is an abstraction. It is a social creation that can and should be used by societies and economies for the highest and greatest good of its people. Please reread and ponder this all-important concept. It is not a new idea. Aristotle wrote about it, as did other in antiquity.
Do you realize the vast difference between this concept of money as a social tool for the exchanging of goods and services and the common definitions in use today? More importantly, the creation and distribution, as well as the regulation of the value of money, is almost completely a private enterprise rather than a government (social) activity. Additionally, the creation of money is a very profitable monopoly granted to bankers by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. This money-monopoly essentially loans money into existence at usurious interest rates, usurping the money-creation powers granted to congress by our US Constitution: Article 1, Section 8.
Stated another way, money should be thought of as no more than a simple debit or credit in a bank account, or debit or credit card account, except that it should bear absolutely no burden of interest, much less compound interest that can add up to far more than the original amount.
Yet banks charge interest on “loans” of money which are created out of nothing but the promissory note itself. This act of money creation is so outrageous that it “repels the mind” as renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith on observed. Banks are not now lending money that is theirs, or their depositors. They are lending money because it is created through the bookkeeping entry of making the loan.
There are many excellent resources one can study to better understand the ways money now comes into being, and who benefits and who pays. They will be listed at the end of this article and I highly recommend reading or viewing the books or videos.
For now it is important to understand that we now have an unsustainable system of private money creation for an enormous profit to the elite few, where we should have a non-profit system of money creation that is run for and by the people, or the people's duly elected representative governments.
This means we must reform our banking system from top to bottom, and redefine money as a social tool that, properly used rather then misused, can move our society and civilization forward toward new heights of achievement for all. Only reforms shifting money-creation from the private for-profit sector to the non-profit public sector can save our world from the convulsions of economic disaster and doom that are looming on our horizons, and all of the ripple-effects an economic collapse would cause.
A oppressive and destructive totalitarian government awaits our failure to act swiftly and properly.
I pray to our creator that we can find the wisdom and courage to do the right and necessary things to avert our current course. The hope of humanity hangs in the balance.
Recommended reading or viewing:
Books: 1. Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown; 2. The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga; 3. Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley; 4. The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin; 5. How the World Really Works, by Alan B Jones; 6. When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten; The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.
Videos and Websites: Webofdebt.com; Monetary.org; chrismartenson.com; moneyasdebt.net; themoneymasters.com; The Monopoly Men: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7065177340464808778
Jere L Hough
2008-01-18
The first thing we must do to fix the economic crisis is to correctly perceive the nature and gravity of the problem. This might seem obvious at first blush, yet it is not widely or generally known exactly what has caused the financial meltdown. The few of us who actually understand the causes of the problem are dismayed and disheartened at the lack of comprehension that is nearly universally displayed, even by the supposedly best economic thinkers of our world, including Nobel Prize winners, and the Heads of Economics Departments at the best universities in the world.
Financial Bailouts and economic stimulus packages will not work, except as a most short-term band-aid. Such short-sighted proposals only highlight the failure to comprehend the true nature of the problem.
Only a few of the hundreds or thousands of prominent books and articles proposed as solutions even come close to apprehending the real underlying cause of the world's financial and monetary disease, and for the most part the ones that are revealing the truth are unpopular, banned or blacklisted by mainstream media and publishers, widely debunked and ridiculed.
What is this widely scorned truth of the basic cause of our money and financial problems?
It is that no less than the entire worldwide system of money creation and distribution itself is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Moreover, the flawed system was deliberately advanced and maintained over the centuries and even millenniums past and into the present day by a small group of very wicked and designing persons for the purposes of exercising financial power and control over others, even over the entire world.
It is at this revelation that the vast majority of minds rebel, and the onslaught of denial, ridicule and accusations begins. This truth is so shocking and laden with negative implications that it is rejected out of hand, and without further examination. Nothing approaching serious consideration or debate is ever reached. Derision and ridicule are so much easier than serious thought.
It's just another “conspiracy theory” and the author is a “conspiracy theorist”. “Tinfoil Hat” stuff, and so on, go the chants.
And so our disastrous financial and monetary problems continue, as they surely must until serious thinking, discussion and debate replace ridicule as our way of dealing with (or of avoiding dealing with) this most serious of all the problems humanity has ever faced. It could lead to our destruction as a civilization or even of our extinction as a species.
The problems underlying our financial system are that severe. Moreover, the consequences of decades and centuries of abuse of monetary policy are imminent. We will either solve the problem or reap the harvest of our failure to solve it. That harvest will not be a pleasing one, for us and for generations to follow.
So... what needs to be done?
We have to completely overhaul and transform our dying financial system into one that is vital and sustainable. This means a monetary system that serves the public good, instead of the good of the few who now monopolize the monetary system for their own benefit.
“Qui bono” is always the key question to get to the root of all social, political and economic problems. “Who benefits?” The flip side of the coin is “who suffers”, or “who pays?” Another key is to “follow the money”. That is especially true when talking about money problems, or those of monetary policy within a society or a government.
The essence of the problem is that most people go from birth to death without understanding money, or its role in a society or an economy. The extent of most people's concerns about money is how to get more of it, with as little effort as possible, Everyone understands that money “buys things”, or that one exchanges money for goods and services one desires. Yet that is about all they understand. Few people have any real understanding of where money comes from, or how it is created, or enters the economy, and where it goes from there, or who benefits the most or the least from the way things work now, or who benefits the least.
We all know the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer”, but do we all understand how and why? I submit that few people really do, or how a few fundamental shifts in consciousness (paradigm shifts) could level the playing field considerably, saving millions and even billions from poverty and deprivation, even death.
Now I will attempt to state the problem another way, so that hopefully, it is easier to understand. I intend to be blunt.
For thousands of years, kings, priests, priest-kings and rulers of all stripes and colors have built and maintained their power and control though a few closely guarded secrets about money, land titles, wealth, natural resources, labor and the relationships between them. These “secrets” are maintained today, and are kept obscured, buried, under mountains of superficial data, statistics, mathematical formulas, and outright mumbo-jumbo that passes for “economics” in all of the major schools of modern economic thought. The biggest secret has been the deliberate deceptions about money – it's nature, origin, purpose, and destiny.
Here it the core of that secret: money is not gold, silver, platinum, metals, gems, paper, ink, or anything else of tangible value. These are all forms of wealth, not money. They are not the same thing. Wealth and money are two different things entirely. The deception is, was and will always be, that they are the same thing. In particular, gold and silver have been sold to us as “real money”. By whom? Those who own or control much of the gold and silver, and always have – the bankers and financiers.
[Jesus well understood this simple fact when his righteous indignation at the prostitution of the Temple at Jerusalem by the “moneychangers” (bankers) rose to the sole forceful action on record. He drove the “moneychangers” from His Father's Temple.]
The truth about money is that it is not a commodity or other form of wealth, goods, or services. Money is not something that can be found in nature, or the natural, tangible world.
Money is a concept. It is an abstraction. It is a social creation that can and should be used by societies and economies for the highest and greatest good of its people. Please reread and ponder this all-important concept. It is not a new idea. Aristotle wrote about it, as did other in antiquity.
Do you realize the vast difference between this concept of money as a social tool for the exchanging of goods and services and the common definitions in use today? More importantly, the creation and distribution, as well as the regulation of the value of money, is almost completely a private enterprise rather than a government (social) activity. Additionally, the creation of money is a very profitable monopoly granted to bankers by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. This money-monopoly essentially loans money into existence at usurious interest rates, usurping the money-creation powers granted to congress by our US Constitution: Article 1, Section 8.
Stated another way, money should be thought of as no more than a simple debit or credit in a bank account, or debit or credit card account, except that it should bear absolutely no burden of interest, much less compound interest that can add up to far more than the original amount.
Yet banks charge interest on “loans” of money which are created out of nothing but the promissory note itself. This act of money creation is so outrageous that it “repels the mind” as renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith on observed. Banks are not now lending money that is theirs, or their depositors. They are lending money because it is created through the bookkeeping entry of making the loan.
There are many excellent resources one can study to better understand the ways money now comes into being, and who benefits and who pays. They will be listed at the end of this article and I highly recommend reading or viewing the books or videos.
For now it is important to understand that we now have an unsustainable system of private money creation for an enormous profit to the elite few, where we should have a non-profit system of money creation that is run for and by the people, or the people's duly elected representative governments.
This means we must reform our banking system from top to bottom, and redefine money as a social tool that, properly used rather then misused, can move our society and civilization forward toward new heights of achievement for all. Only reforms shifting money-creation from the private for-profit sector to the non-profit public sector can save our world from the convulsions of economic disaster and doom that are looming on our horizons, and all of the ripple-effects an economic collapse would cause.
A oppressive and destructive totalitarian government awaits our failure to act swiftly and properly.
I pray to our creator that we can find the wisdom and courage to do the right and necessary things to avert our current course. The hope of humanity hangs in the balance.
Recommended reading or viewing:
Books: 1. Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown; 2. The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga; 3. Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley; 4. The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin; 5. How the World Really Works, by Alan B Jones; 6. When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten; The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.
Videos and Websites: Webofdebt.com; Monetary.org; chrismartenson.com; moneyasdebt.net; themoneymasters.com; The Monopoly Men: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7065177340464808778
Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama
by Jere L Hough
2009-01-06
Dear Barack Obama:
Congratulations. Your election brings the “audacity of hope” for real and meaningful change in these dark economic times. I have always wondered if you fully comprehend the nature and gravity of the economic problems facing our nation, and the world, and if, indeed, whether any human being is capable of offering the leadership and inspiration to effect the depth and breadth of the needed changes in our critically ill economy and financial system. There are a few people – very few indeed – who really understand what is wrong with our banking and financial system, and how to actually fix the problems at the level of causation.
I have agonized over how to best get this message out to those who can influence policy and bring about needed fundamental and substantive, rather than cosmetic, change.
Let me digress for a moment. After growing up in the last “Great Depression”and WW II, I became aware during my military service and my college years that the great sounding slogans of the Post-WW I era, the League of Nations, the FDR New Deal, the wars “to make the world safe for democracy” and the post WW II promise of world peace brought by the United Nations, were all just so much empty rhetoric, canned for public consumption.
Nothing of any real consequence changed. All of the human problems of poverty, hunger, disease, warfare, genocides, and man's brutality and exploitation of his fellow human brothers and sisters has continued to grow, even as some enjoyed unprecedented wealth, technology, and luxury. Surface levels of prosperity for the privileged few hid most of these problems from public view in America.
The gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” of the world is increasing exponentially, but why? This is the eternal question for which there are thousands of answers, all of which make little sense and will not work to actually address the problems at the fundamental levels. About 50 years ago I resolved to figure out the answers to that great and seemingly unsolvable question. The answers are not to be easily found in the halls of formal education, although a broad understanding of the Liberal Arts, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and most especially, History are indispensable in laying the foundations for working though the “maze of deception” and misinformation that obscure the most important truths of our current social economic and cultural era, and how it is really controlled.
My journey of discovery resulted in a long string of “epiphanies”, each built upon the former. What I finally discovered, or came to realize, was shocking, disturbing, unnerving, and yet strangely hopeful. I found that there is one root problem and a key solution for it that has not yet been tried, or even seriously considered, much less widely discussed or debated. “The Powers That Be” want it that way, and so the real root problems and their solutions are inimical to the interests of TPTB.
I want to emphasize the “hopeful” aspect, because the solution to our greatest problem, the root cause of most other large-scale human problems, is unbelievably simple, easily achievable, and can be accomplished almost overnight, IF, and this is the big IF, the political and economic will to do so can be mustered, and the special interests that reap enormous unearned wealth from the current system can be overcome. And this will take massive education, informed leadership, elimination of centuries of conceptual error, and the adoption of an entirely new paradigm in our ways of thinking about one of the most basic institutions that shape our modern world: money.
The failure to understand the truest and highest concepts and definitions of money, and what is is, or should be, is leading to the series of unprecedented economic upheavals that have begun, and will continue to escalate in a downward economic spiral that can only end in total despotism or economic slavery for most of the world for untold generations to come.
This statement is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. It simply is a recognition of the universal laws that govern such things, and was a part of my learning process. I hope I can make it a part of yours, and with enough awakening, real change just might be possible in time to avert the worst of the cause-effect consequences that are now manifesting.
Money, or the love of it, is the root of all evil. As true as that proverb is, there is more to the story that that. The greater evil is the misunderstanding of money, what it is, where it comes from, and who controls it, or should control it. How is should be controlled is also crucial, as to volume and regulation of value. How money enters into circulation, or is withdrawn from circulation is also a major issue.
But the greatest of all issues is “who benefits?” What groups or individuals profit the most from the current monetary system? How and why do they profit? Why did renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith say that the process of money creation is so simple that it “repels the mind”? Is it the simplicity that “repels the mind” or the deception surrounding it? I think it is both, but mainly the latter.
Since the average person's eyes glaze over after a paragraph or so of modern Econospeak (or what I sometimes used to call “Greenspeak”) most people never get to that point where their minds can be “repelled”. The issue, they think, is simply beyond their comprehension. Either that or they entertain pleasing illusions and fairy tales about money, like ,“only gold or silver is real money”.
Almost no one actually understands what money really is. This is why Meyer Amschel Rothschild, who might be called the “father” of modern international central banking, said that so few people had the time or inclination to delve into the intricacies of the central banking system that they had little to worry about from them, and the few that could really understand the “system” were its major beneficiaries, so they had little opposition from that quarter. In other words, almost no one outside of those who benefited from it could understand the system of money creation. He was correct 300 years ago, and is still largely correct today.
Even major economist and economics professors are so locked in to the current economic and monetary paradigms that few of them can see the real truth about money.
The simple truth about money is that it is, or should be in its highest form, an abstraction, a social construction, and an accounting system of debits and credits that grease the machines of commerce and trade. Money, whether it is coin, paper currency, or debits and credits in monetary accounts, is just a way of keeping track of wealth, production, and labor within a given economy and between different economies. Money should be created by sovereign governments and be spent into circulation, or lent out at very low interest rates – far lower than they are today. Fractional reserve banking should be illegal. The entire privately owned and operated Federal Reserve System should be made “Federal”, as its name deceptively implies. Yes, that implies “nationalization”, and that is not a popular word, mainly because the entire subject is so universally misunderstood.
It it not within the scope of this letter to explain all the details of an “ideal” money system, (or at least a better one) such as how the volume and velocity of money should be determined or regulated. It should be firmly established that these are social functions and should be subject to social checks and balances through democratic or republican forms of elected governments, “of, by and for the people”.
Perhaps the most important statement I could make is that our current system of money creation is a privately owned federal government money monopoly. Even more than a money monopoly, it is an unsustainable “Ponzi Scheme” on a scale larger and grander than anything Bernie Madoff could ever imagine – and his scheme was reportedly worth 50 billion or more. Here we are talking about hundreds of trillions of dollars in national, public and private debts on money that was literally “created out of thin air” in exchange for promissory notes. More schemes like Madoffs will be uncovered.
In any other field of business lending or selling something that one does not own or possess is a crime. It should be a crime in this case as well. It is the largest criminal enterprise of all time.
What, exactly, is that criminal enterprise? Our current system of money creation, or money monopoly is that “criminal enterprise”. That “system” is a syndicate or cartel of international central banks and bankers that include, but are not limited to, all of the US Federal Reserve System banks, the Bank of England, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and most other National Central banks, especially of the G-8 or G-22 nations. All are basically Ponzi Schemes that owe their continued appearances of fiscal health to the “Ponzi Scheme” effect of new money creation to satisfy the need for infinite growth.
Any system based on a need for infinite expansion in a limited and finite arena is essentially unsustainable, and that which is unsustainable must eventually crash, or collapse. All well-conceived Ponzi Schemes are so large and complex that they can seldom be detected until a depositor or investor wants to withdraw more money than can be obtained. That is what happened in the Bernie Madoff Scheme and in virtually every other Ponzi type Pyramid Scheme ever exposed.
Ponzi Schemes are all based on expansion and growth. New money at the bottom must be brought in to pay off the former investors or depositors. When the new money dries up, the scheme collapses, and is exposed. Even the most sophisticated investors cannot usually detect most Ponzi Schemes until they reach their limits of growth and collapse. The reason for this is that we, as a culture, have gotten away from the basic economic principles and the correct definitions of wealth and money upon which all sound economics must be based.
An economic system with an unsound concept or definition of money is doomed to suffer much disaster at some point, and we of the Western World are now at that point where we must borrow, plunder, or steal in order to maintain the appearances of economic growth and health.
Appearances can only be maintained for so long without substance, and there is no substance to our current economic system. We have two broad and general options. We can tinker with rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic, or we can actually repair the ship and pump out all the unwanted water. In other words, cosmetic changes are not going to save us. Only the real work and effort of repairing the economic system and ridding it of excess and unearned profits for the few at the expense of the many will save us.
How do we repair the economic system? That is easy in theory but more difficult in practice. We simply have our government take back our constitutionally mandated authority to create and regulate our money, in all its forms. The central bankers tricked congress into giving them this ultimate sovereign power of money creation and regulation in 1913, with their authoring of, and lobbying for, the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. It should be called the Money Monopoly and Usury Legalization Act. All of the most serious disasters of our modern world began at that point, WW I in 1914, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression it triggered in 1930-1940, WW II in 1938-45 and so on. In the 20th Century more human lives were lost to wars, revolutions, genocides, and man's inhumanity to man than in all previous human history combined. And unless we fix the root cause – money - the worst is still to come.
Sound money should be stable, almost universally accepted, and legally binding tender for the satisfaction of debts and taxes (within that economic system). Sound money can be issued and used locally, spent on infrastructure, roads, public schools, media centers, bridges, etc. The right to issue and regulate money is the supreme right and highest creative opportunity of governments of, by, and for the people. This was what Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, the best and brightest of our Founding Fathers intended for the United States of America, and hopefully, eventually for the world.
But perhaps the most important aspect of sound money is that it be publicly controlled with the same checks and balances of any of the branches of government, and that it be free of usury or interest in all but the most speculative cases. All money that increases productive capacity and general wealth and welfare should be interest-free, or nearly so.
Let us summarize. Societies have a right and obligation to create and regulate the volume and value of their money. Money is nothing more or less than an accounting tool to facilitate the transfer of the wealth and value created by labor and natural resources. The concepts of gold, silver, and other valuable resources or goods “backing” money is false, and has been used by those who have monopoly controls on such resources in order to gain, maintain and extend their power and control over the peoples of the world, and their governments. The current worldwide monetary structure is essentially a Ponzi Scheme, and like all such schemes based on endless exponential rates of growth, it must and will fail, and is now in the process of doing so. It is already insolvent, essentially bankrupt, except that there is no authority powerful enough to declare it so. Various stimulus schemes and taxpayer bailouts can keep the dying patient on life support a while longer, but the end is inevitable and imminent – a decade or two at best. Hyperinflation, reorganization and depression are all inevitable without a massive, brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed overhauling of our entire economic and banking systems from top to bottom. How likely is that, even under the wisest and most altruistically motivated new administrations?
Change is coming, not so much because you (President Elect Obama) have called for it, or because the election mandated it, but because of immutable, inevitable laws of cause and effect. Uncontrolled, unmitigated human avarice and greed in the highest seats of world power have brought us to this abyss. The insane philosophy of “laissez-faire” or “hand-off”, unregulated, unsupervised markets has allowed the criminals and inmates to run the asylum, and the result is what any sane person would expect – chaos, disorder, and massive theft on a scale never before imagined. The international central bankers now literally run the world, and all governments dance to their tunes rather than the people's greater good.
The laws of nature and God assure that “balance” and sanity will someday be restored to our planet. How long or how painful that process will be is largely up to us. It is time to begin the real discussions and debates on these substantive issues of monetary reform that may significantly impact the next 1000 years on this planet. Until this point that impact has been largely negative. We can change that.
Yes we can. The remaining question, is “will we?”
For further reading and study on these gravely important issues I would suggest the following:
Books: 1. Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown; 2. The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga; 3. Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley; 4. The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin; 5. How the World Really Works, by Alan B Jones; 6. When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten; The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.
Videos and Websites: Webofdebt.com; Monetary.org; chrismartenson.com; moneyasdebt.net; themoneymasters.com;
by Jere L Hough
2009-01-06
Dear Barack Obama:
Congratulations. Your election brings the “audacity of hope” for real and meaningful change in these dark economic times. I have always wondered if you fully comprehend the nature and gravity of the economic problems facing our nation, and the world, and if, indeed, whether any human being is capable of offering the leadership and inspiration to effect the depth and breadth of the needed changes in our critically ill economy and financial system. There are a few people – very few indeed – who really understand what is wrong with our banking and financial system, and how to actually fix the problems at the level of causation.
I have agonized over how to best get this message out to those who can influence policy and bring about needed fundamental and substantive, rather than cosmetic, change.
Let me digress for a moment. After growing up in the last “Great Depression”and WW II, I became aware during my military service and my college years that the great sounding slogans of the Post-WW I era, the League of Nations, the FDR New Deal, the wars “to make the world safe for democracy” and the post WW II promise of world peace brought by the United Nations, were all just so much empty rhetoric, canned for public consumption.
Nothing of any real consequence changed. All of the human problems of poverty, hunger, disease, warfare, genocides, and man's brutality and exploitation of his fellow human brothers and sisters has continued to grow, even as some enjoyed unprecedented wealth, technology, and luxury. Surface levels of prosperity for the privileged few hid most of these problems from public view in America.
The gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” of the world is increasing exponentially, but why? This is the eternal question for which there are thousands of answers, all of which make little sense and will not work to actually address the problems at the fundamental levels. About 50 years ago I resolved to figure out the answers to that great and seemingly unsolvable question. The answers are not to be easily found in the halls of formal education, although a broad understanding of the Liberal Arts, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and most especially, History are indispensable in laying the foundations for working though the “maze of deception” and misinformation that obscure the most important truths of our current social economic and cultural era, and how it is really controlled.
My journey of discovery resulted in a long string of “epiphanies”, each built upon the former. What I finally discovered, or came to realize, was shocking, disturbing, unnerving, and yet strangely hopeful. I found that there is one root problem and a key solution for it that has not yet been tried, or even seriously considered, much less widely discussed or debated. “The Powers That Be” want it that way, and so the real root problems and their solutions are inimical to the interests of TPTB.
I want to emphasize the “hopeful” aspect, because the solution to our greatest problem, the root cause of most other large-scale human problems, is unbelievably simple, easily achievable, and can be accomplished almost overnight, IF, and this is the big IF, the political and economic will to do so can be mustered, and the special interests that reap enormous unearned wealth from the current system can be overcome. And this will take massive education, informed leadership, elimination of centuries of conceptual error, and the adoption of an entirely new paradigm in our ways of thinking about one of the most basic institutions that shape our modern world: money.
The failure to understand the truest and highest concepts and definitions of money, and what is is, or should be, is leading to the series of unprecedented economic upheavals that have begun, and will continue to escalate in a downward economic spiral that can only end in total despotism or economic slavery for most of the world for untold generations to come.
This statement is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. It simply is a recognition of the universal laws that govern such things, and was a part of my learning process. I hope I can make it a part of yours, and with enough awakening, real change just might be possible in time to avert the worst of the cause-effect consequences that are now manifesting.
Money, or the love of it, is the root of all evil. As true as that proverb is, there is more to the story that that. The greater evil is the misunderstanding of money, what it is, where it comes from, and who controls it, or should control it. How is should be controlled is also crucial, as to volume and regulation of value. How money enters into circulation, or is withdrawn from circulation is also a major issue.
But the greatest of all issues is “who benefits?” What groups or individuals profit the most from the current monetary system? How and why do they profit? Why did renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith say that the process of money creation is so simple that it “repels the mind”? Is it the simplicity that “repels the mind” or the deception surrounding it? I think it is both, but mainly the latter.
Since the average person's eyes glaze over after a paragraph or so of modern Econospeak (or what I sometimes used to call “Greenspeak”) most people never get to that point where their minds can be “repelled”. The issue, they think, is simply beyond their comprehension. Either that or they entertain pleasing illusions and fairy tales about money, like ,“only gold or silver is real money”.
Almost no one actually understands what money really is. This is why Meyer Amschel Rothschild, who might be called the “father” of modern international central banking, said that so few people had the time or inclination to delve into the intricacies of the central banking system that they had little to worry about from them, and the few that could really understand the “system” were its major beneficiaries, so they had little opposition from that quarter. In other words, almost no one outside of those who benefited from it could understand the system of money creation. He was correct 300 years ago, and is still largely correct today.
Even major economist and economics professors are so locked in to the current economic and monetary paradigms that few of them can see the real truth about money.
The simple truth about money is that it is, or should be in its highest form, an abstraction, a social construction, and an accounting system of debits and credits that grease the machines of commerce and trade. Money, whether it is coin, paper currency, or debits and credits in monetary accounts, is just a way of keeping track of wealth, production, and labor within a given economy and between different economies. Money should be created by sovereign governments and be spent into circulation, or lent out at very low interest rates – far lower than they are today. Fractional reserve banking should be illegal. The entire privately owned and operated Federal Reserve System should be made “Federal”, as its name deceptively implies. Yes, that implies “nationalization”, and that is not a popular word, mainly because the entire subject is so universally misunderstood.
It it not within the scope of this letter to explain all the details of an “ideal” money system, (or at least a better one) such as how the volume and velocity of money should be determined or regulated. It should be firmly established that these are social functions and should be subject to social checks and balances through democratic or republican forms of elected governments, “of, by and for the people”.
Perhaps the most important statement I could make is that our current system of money creation is a privately owned federal government money monopoly. Even more than a money monopoly, it is an unsustainable “Ponzi Scheme” on a scale larger and grander than anything Bernie Madoff could ever imagine – and his scheme was reportedly worth 50 billion or more. Here we are talking about hundreds of trillions of dollars in national, public and private debts on money that was literally “created out of thin air” in exchange for promissory notes. More schemes like Madoffs will be uncovered.
In any other field of business lending or selling something that one does not own or possess is a crime. It should be a crime in this case as well. It is the largest criminal enterprise of all time.
What, exactly, is that criminal enterprise? Our current system of money creation, or money monopoly is that “criminal enterprise”. That “system” is a syndicate or cartel of international central banks and bankers that include, but are not limited to, all of the US Federal Reserve System banks, the Bank of England, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and most other National Central banks, especially of the G-8 or G-22 nations. All are basically Ponzi Schemes that owe their continued appearances of fiscal health to the “Ponzi Scheme” effect of new money creation to satisfy the need for infinite growth.
Any system based on a need for infinite expansion in a limited and finite arena is essentially unsustainable, and that which is unsustainable must eventually crash, or collapse. All well-conceived Ponzi Schemes are so large and complex that they can seldom be detected until a depositor or investor wants to withdraw more money than can be obtained. That is what happened in the Bernie Madoff Scheme and in virtually every other Ponzi type Pyramid Scheme ever exposed.
Ponzi Schemes are all based on expansion and growth. New money at the bottom must be brought in to pay off the former investors or depositors. When the new money dries up, the scheme collapses, and is exposed. Even the most sophisticated investors cannot usually detect most Ponzi Schemes until they reach their limits of growth and collapse. The reason for this is that we, as a culture, have gotten away from the basic economic principles and the correct definitions of wealth and money upon which all sound economics must be based.
An economic system with an unsound concept or definition of money is doomed to suffer much disaster at some point, and we of the Western World are now at that point where we must borrow, plunder, or steal in order to maintain the appearances of economic growth and health.
Appearances can only be maintained for so long without substance, and there is no substance to our current economic system. We have two broad and general options. We can tinker with rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic, or we can actually repair the ship and pump out all the unwanted water. In other words, cosmetic changes are not going to save us. Only the real work and effort of repairing the economic system and ridding it of excess and unearned profits for the few at the expense of the many will save us.
How do we repair the economic system? That is easy in theory but more difficult in practice. We simply have our government take back our constitutionally mandated authority to create and regulate our money, in all its forms. The central bankers tricked congress into giving them this ultimate sovereign power of money creation and regulation in 1913, with their authoring of, and lobbying for, the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. It should be called the Money Monopoly and Usury Legalization Act. All of the most serious disasters of our modern world began at that point, WW I in 1914, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression it triggered in 1930-1940, WW II in 1938-45 and so on. In the 20th Century more human lives were lost to wars, revolutions, genocides, and man's inhumanity to man than in all previous human history combined. And unless we fix the root cause – money - the worst is still to come.
Sound money should be stable, almost universally accepted, and legally binding tender for the satisfaction of debts and taxes (within that economic system). Sound money can be issued and used locally, spent on infrastructure, roads, public schools, media centers, bridges, etc. The right to issue and regulate money is the supreme right and highest creative opportunity of governments of, by, and for the people. This was what Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, the best and brightest of our Founding Fathers intended for the United States of America, and hopefully, eventually for the world.
But perhaps the most important aspect of sound money is that it be publicly controlled with the same checks and balances of any of the branches of government, and that it be free of usury or interest in all but the most speculative cases. All money that increases productive capacity and general wealth and welfare should be interest-free, or nearly so.
Let us summarize. Societies have a right and obligation to create and regulate the volume and value of their money. Money is nothing more or less than an accounting tool to facilitate the transfer of the wealth and value created by labor and natural resources. The concepts of gold, silver, and other valuable resources or goods “backing” money is false, and has been used by those who have monopoly controls on such resources in order to gain, maintain and extend their power and control over the peoples of the world, and their governments. The current worldwide monetary structure is essentially a Ponzi Scheme, and like all such schemes based on endless exponential rates of growth, it must and will fail, and is now in the process of doing so. It is already insolvent, essentially bankrupt, except that there is no authority powerful enough to declare it so. Various stimulus schemes and taxpayer bailouts can keep the dying patient on life support a while longer, but the end is inevitable and imminent – a decade or two at best. Hyperinflation, reorganization and depression are all inevitable without a massive, brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed overhauling of our entire economic and banking systems from top to bottom. How likely is that, even under the wisest and most altruistically motivated new administrations?
Change is coming, not so much because you (President Elect Obama) have called for it, or because the election mandated it, but because of immutable, inevitable laws of cause and effect. Uncontrolled, unmitigated human avarice and greed in the highest seats of world power have brought us to this abyss. The insane philosophy of “laissez-faire” or “hand-off”, unregulated, unsupervised markets has allowed the criminals and inmates to run the asylum, and the result is what any sane person would expect – chaos, disorder, and massive theft on a scale never before imagined. The international central bankers now literally run the world, and all governments dance to their tunes rather than the people's greater good.
The laws of nature and God assure that “balance” and sanity will someday be restored to our planet. How long or how painful that process will be is largely up to us. It is time to begin the real discussions and debates on these substantive issues of monetary reform that may significantly impact the next 1000 years on this planet. Until this point that impact has been largely negative. We can change that.
Yes we can. The remaining question, is “will we?”
For further reading and study on these gravely important issues I would suggest the following:
Books: 1. Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown; 2. The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga; 3. Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley; 4. The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin; 5. How the World Really Works, by Alan B Jones; 6. When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten; The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.
Videos and Websites: Webofdebt.com; Monetary.org; chrismartenson.com; moneyasdebt.net; themoneymasters.com;
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