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