MONEY & BANKS
.
THE HIDDEN TRUTH BEHIND GLOBAL DEBT .
1) What is money... how is it created and who creates it?
2) Why is almost everyone up to their eyeballs in debt... individuals, businesses and
whole nations?
3) Why cant we provide for our daily needs - homes, furnishings cars etc. without
borrowing?
4) How much could prices fall and wages increase if businesses did not have to pay huge
sums in interest payments which have to be added to the cost of goods and services they
supply...?
5) How much could taxes be reduced and spending on public services such as health and
education be increased if governments created money themselves instead of borrowing it at
interest from private banks
?
"If you want to be the slaves of banks and pay the cost of your own slavery,
then let the banks create money
" Josiah Stamp, Governor of the Bank of
England 1920.
WHAT IS MONEY....?
It is simply the medium we use to exchange goods and services.
- Without it, buying and selling would be impossible except by direct exchange.
- Notes and coins are virtually worthless in their own right. They take on value as money
because we all accept them when we buy and sell.
- To keep trade and economic activity going, there has to be enough of this medium of
exchange called money in existence to allow it all to take place.
- When there is plenty, the economy booms. When there is a shortage, there is a slump.
- In the Great Depression, people wanted to work, they wanted goods and services, all the
raw materials for industry were available etc. yet national economies collapsed because
there was far too little money in existence.
- The only difference between boom and bust, growth and recession is money supply.
- Someone has to be responsible for making sure that there is enough money in existence to
cover all the buying and selling that people want to engage in.
- Each nation has a Central Bank to do this - in Britain, it is the Bank of England, in
the United States, the Federal Reserve.
- Central Banks act as banker for commercial banks and the government - just as
individuals and businesses in Britain keep accounts at commercial banks, so commercial
banks and government keep accounts at the Bank of England.
TODAYS "MONEY"... CREATED BY PRIVATE
INTERESTS FOR PRIVATE PROFIT.
"Let me issue and control a nations money, and I care not who writes
its laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (Banker) 1790
- Central banks are controlled not by elected governments but largely by PRIVATE
INTERESTS from the world of commercial banking.
- In Britain today, notes and coins now account for only 3% of our total money supply,
down from 50% in 1948.
- The remaining 97% is supplied and regulated as credit - personal and business
loans, mortgages, overdrafts etc. provided by commercial banks and financial
institutions - on which INTEREST is payable. This pattern is repeated across
the globe.
- Banks are businesses out to make profits from the interest on the loans they make. Since
they alone decide to whom they will lend, they effectively decide what is produced,
where it is produced and who produces it, all on the basis of profitability to the bank,
rather than what is beneficial to the community.
- With bank created credit now at 97% of money supply, entire economies are run for the
profit of financial institutions. This is the real power, rarely recognised or
acknowledged, to which all of us including governments the world over are subject.
- Our money, instead of being supplied interest free as a means of exchange, now comes as
a debt owed to bankers providing them with vast profits, power and control, as the rest of
us struggle with an increasing burden of debt....
- By supplying credit to those of whom they approve and denying it to those of whom they
disapprove international bankers can create boom or bust and support or undermine
governments.
- There is much less risk to making loans than investing in a business. Interest is
payable regardless of the success of the venture. If it fails or cannot meet the interest
payments, the bank seizes the borrowers property.
- Borrowing is extremely costly to borrowers who may end up paying back 2 or 3 times the
sum lent.
- The money loaned by banks is created by them out of nothing the concept that all
a bank does is to lend out money deposited by other people is very misleading.
MONEY CREATED AS A DEBT
We dont distinguish between the £25 billion in circulation as notes and coins
(issued by the government) and £680 billion in the form of loan accounts, overdrafts etc.
(created by banks etc,).
£100 cash in your wallet is treated no differently from £100 in your current account,
or an overdraft facility allowing you to spend £100. You can still buy goods with it.
In 1948 we had £1.1 billion of notes and coins and £1.2 billion of loans etc. created
by banks by 1963 it was £3 billion in cash and £14 billion bank created loans
etc.
The government has simply issued more notes and coins over the years to cover inflation,
but todays £680 billion of bank created loans etc. represents an enormous increase,
even allowing for inflation.
This new "money" in the form of loans etc, which ranks equally with notes and
coins how has it come into existence?
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is
repelled." Professor. J. K. Galbraith
This is how its done
. a simplified example...
Lets take a small hypothetical bank. It has ten depositors/savers who have just
deposited £500 each.
The bank owes them £5000 and it has £5000 to pay out what it owes. (It will keep that
£5000 in an account at the Bank of England what it has in this account are called
its liquid assets).
Sid, an entrepreneur, now approaches the bank for a £5000 loan to help him to set up a
business.
This is granted on the basis of repayment in 12 months - plus 10% interest more
on that later.
A new account is opened in Sids name. It has nothing in it, nevertheless the bank
allows Sid to withdraw and spend £5000.
The depositors are not consulted about the loan. They are not told that their money is
no longer available to them The amounts shown in their accounts are not
reduced and transferred to Sids account.
In granting this loan, the bank has increased its obligations to £10,000. Sid is
entitled to £5000, but the depositors can still claim their £5000.
If the bank now has obligations of £10,000, then isnt it insolvent, because it
only had £5000 of deposits in the first place? Not exactly..
The bank treats the loan to Sid as an ASSET, not a liability, on the basis
that Sid now owes the bank £5000.
The banks balance sheet will show that it owes its depositors £5000, and
it is now owed £5000 by Sid. It has created for itself a new asset of
£5000 in the form of a debt owed by Sid where nothing existed before - this on top of any
of the original deposits still in its account at the Bank of England. - it is solvent - at
least for accounting purposes!
(At this stage the bank is gambling that as Sid is spending his loan, the depositors
wont all want to withdraw their deposits!)
The bank had a completely free hand in the creation of this £5000 loan
which, as we shall see, represents new "money", where nothing existed before. It
was done at the stroke of a pen or the pressing of a computer key.
The idea that banks create something out of nothing and then charge interest on it for
private profit might seem pretty repellent. Anyone else doing it would be guilty of fraud
or counterfeiting!
New "money" into the economy...
Sids loan effectively becomes new "money" as it is spent by him to pay
for equipment, rent and wages etc. in connection with his new business.
This new "money" is thus distributed to other people, who will in turn use it
to pay for goods and services - soon it will be circulating throughout the economy.
As it circulates, it inevitably ends up in other peoples bank accounts.
When it is paid into someones account which is not overdrawn, it is a further
deposit - Sid pays his secretary £100 and she opens an account at our hypothetical bank
it now has £5100 of deposits.
- If we assume for a moment that the remaining £4900 ends up in the accounts of the
original depositors of our hypothetical bank, it now has another £4900 in deposits -
£10000 in total if the depositors have not touched their original deposits. In practice
much of it would end up in depositors accounts at other banks, but either way there is now
£5000 of new "money" in circulation.
- Thus in reality, all deposits with banks and elsewhere actually come from
"money" originally created as loans (except where the deposits
are made in cash more on cash very shortly).
- If you have £500 in your bank account, the fact is someone else like Sid went into debt
to provide it.
The key to the whole thing is the fact that :-
- Cash withdrawals account for only a tiny percentage of a banks business.
- Bank customers today make almost all payments between themselves by cheque, switch,
direct debit or electronic transfer etc. Their individual accounts are adjusted
accordingly by changing a few figures in computer databases just book keeping
entries. No actual money/cash changes hands. The whole thing is basically an
accounting process that takes place within the banking system.
THE ROLE OF CASH
The state is responsible for the production of cash in the form of notes and coins.
These are then issued by the Bank of England to the high street banks - the banks buy
them at face value from the government to meet their customers demands for cash.
The banks must pay for this cash and they do so out of what they have in the accounts
which they hold at the Bank of England their liquid assets. Their accounts are
debited accordingly.
The state (through the Treasury) also keeps an account at the Bank of England which is
credited with the face value of the notes and coins as they are paid for by the banks.
(This is now money in the public purse available for spending on public services etc.)
This is how all banks acquire their stocks of notes and coins, but the cash a bank
can buy is limited to the amount it holds in its account at the Bank of England its
liquid assets.
As this cash is withdrawn by banks customers, it enters circulation in the
economy.
- Unlike bank created loans etc, cash is interest free and can circulate indefinitely.
NON CASH PAYMENTS - Book keeping entries
With so little cash being withdrawn, and from experience knowing that large amounts of
deposits remain untouched by depositors for reasonable periods of time, banks just hope
that their liquid assets will be sufficient to enable them to buy up the cash necessary to
meet the relatively very small amounts of cash that are normally withdrawn.
- A bank has serious problems if demands for cash withdrawals by depositors, and indeed
borrowers who want to draw some of their loans in cash, exceed what the bank holds in its
account at the Bank of England.
- In practice it would probably try to get a loan itself from the Bank of England or
another bank, to tide itself over. Failing that it would have to call in some loans and
seize the property of borrowers unable to pay.
DEPOSITORS CLAIMS AGAINST BANKS
Once you have made a deposit at the bank (in cash or by cheque), all you then have is a claim
against the bank for the amount in your account. You are simply an unsecured creditor.
Your bank statement is a record of how much the bank owes you. (If you are overdrawn, it
is a record of what you owe the bank). It will pay you what it owes you by allowing you to
withdraw cash, provided it has sufficient cash to do so.
If customers are trying to withdraw too much cash, this is a run on the bank, which will
soon refuse further withdrawals. So its first come first served!
Should you want to make a payment by cheque, this is less likely to be a problem
you are simply transferring part of your claim against the bank to someone else the
person to whom your cheque is payable - just a book keeping entry.
If the person to whom your cheque is payable has an account at the same bank as you do,
the deposit stays with that bank overall the bank is in exactly the same position
as it was before.
I give you a cheque for £50 we both have accounts in credit at Barclays
what Barclays owes me is reduced by £50, what Barclays owes you increases by £50
but nothing has left Barclays the total deposits or claims against Barclays remain
the same
..
BANKS CLAIMS AGAINST EACH OTHER
.BUT if you keep your account at Lloyds, deposits at Barclays are
reduced by £50, whilst deposits at Lloyds increase by £50.
Millions of transactions like this take place every day between customers of the various
banks, using switch cards, direct debits, electronic transfers as well as cheques
deposits are therefore constantly moving between the banks.
All these cheques and electronic transfers pass through a central clearing house (which
is why we refer to a cheque being "cleared").
The transactions are set off against one another, but at the end of each day, a
relatively small balance will always be owed by one bank to another.
A bank must always be ready to settle such debts.
To do this, it makes a payment from its account at the Bank of England to the creditor
banks account at the Bank of England.
Thus a bank faces claims from two sources (which it meets out of its
liquid assets) its customers wanting cash, and other banks when it has a clearing
house debt to settle.
Unless all the banks are faced with big demands for cash at the same time, the banking
system as a whole is safe, although an individual bank is vulnerable, should
a large number of depositors for some reason withdraw their deposits in cash or transfer
their deposits to other banks.
- We now see how today the whole system is basically a book keeping exercise where
millions of claims pass between the banks and their borrowers and depositors every day
with relatively very little real money or cash changing hands backed by tiny
reserves of liquid assets.
- The system is known as FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKNG and banks are sometimes
accurately referred to as dealers in debts.
- Barclays Banks 1999 accounts illustrate the whole thing very well - it had loans
owing to it of £217 billion, it owed £191 billion to its depositors backed by
just £2.2 billion in liquid assets!
- A banks level of lending is geared to the amount of cash it has or can buy up
its liquid assets - rather than the amount of its customers deposits.
- But
if a bank can attract customers deposits from other banks, it will add to
its liquid assets, as other banks settle the resulting clearing house debts in its favour
hence there is tremendous competition between banks to attract deposits.
Interest
. Big Profits for the bank...
Lets now return to Sid he has to pay our bank 10% interest on his loan -
£500. These interest payments are money coming into the bank, they are profits and they
end up in its account at the Bank of England - additional liquid assets for
the bank.
It now has an extra £500 to meet its depositors withdrawals. If Sid
manages to repay the original loan as well, it will have an extra £5500.
Our bank created for itself out of nothing an asset of £5000 in the form of a loan to
Sid. It is no longer owed anything by Sid, but in repaying his loan with interest, Sid
turned a mere debt into £5500 of liquid assets for the bank a tidy profit for the
bank
. and the basis on which more loans can be made.
Banks today risk creating loans 100 times or more in excess of their
liquid assets as Barclays Banks 1999 accounts show (see above).
Thus our bank will soon be making many more loans. Thus, the deposits it receives back
will increase and so will interest payments and therefore profits.
With more loans and more deposits, there will be a greater demand to withdraw cash
but increasing profits means more cash can bought by the bank. (This is how the
amount of cash in circulation has been increasing to reach £25 billion by 1997.)
- It is a myth to think that when you borrow money from a bank, you are borrowing money
that other people have deposited you are not you are borrowing the
banks money which it created and made available to you in the form of
a loan.
More debt for the rest of us....
Sids interest payments and any repayment of the loan itself to the bank means
however that this "money" is no longer circulating in the economy.
Any payment into an overdrawn account reduces that overdraft. It operates as a repayment
to the bank and the "money" is lost to the economy.
More money must be lent out to keep the economy going. If people dont borrow or
banks dont lend, there will be a fall in the amount of money circulating, resulting
in a reduction in buying and selling - a recession, slump or total collapse will follow
depending on how severe the shortage is.
The increase in bank created loans over the years is additional conclusive proof that
banks do create "money" out of nothing - £1.2 billion in 1948 up to £14
billion by 1963 up to £680 billion by 1997.
Todays supply of notes and coins after taking inflation into account, has similar
buying power to the supply in 1948 (£1.1 billion) but since then, there has been a ten
fold plus increase in real terms in money supply made up of credit created by banks.
This has enabled the economy to expand enormously, and as a result living standards for
many people have improved substantially.... but it has been done on borrowed money! What
is credit to the bank is debt to the rest of us.
The banks are acquiring an ever increasing stake in our land, housing and other assets
through the indebtedness of individuals, industry, agriculture, services and government -
to the extent that Britain and the world are today effectively owned by them.
THE REPERCUSSIONS OF OUR DEBT BASED MONEY SYSTEM...
1) Goods and services are much more expensive...
The cost of borrowing by producers, manufacturers, transporters, retailers etc. all has
to be added to the price of the final product.
2) Consumers have much less money to spend...
They are burdened by the cost of mortgages, overdrafts, credit cards, personal loans
etc. As a result of 1) and 2)
there is...
3) A surplus of goods and services...
...because the population overall cant afford to buy up all the goods and
services being produced. This in turn creates.....
4) Cut throat competition...
Businesses try to cut prices and costs to grab a share of this limited purchasing power
in the economy, as illustrated by:
(i) Wages being held down as much as possible.
(ii) Shedding of jobs.
(These both reduce peoples spending power
even more.)
(iii) Retailers importing cheap products from
abroad where wages are much lower.
(iv) Production of cheaper goods that dont last
as long.
(v) Protection of the environment a low priority.
(vi) Mergers and take-overs - corporations get
bigger and bigger, driven to search out new
markets.
(vii) Big companies shifting production to
poorer countries which have cheap non-
unionised labour and the least stringent
safety and environmental laws or....
(viii) Demanding large government subsidies and
tax free incentives as the price for setting up
new production or not relocating abroad.
5) Ever increasing indebtedness
.
- When a bank creates money by making a loan, it does not create the money needed to pay
the interest on that loan.
- The bank lent Sid £5000, but it demands £5500 back. Sid has to go out into the
business world and compete and sell to get that extra £500 from his customers. It can
only come from money already circulating in the economy - made up of loans other people
have taken out so soon someone will be left short of money and have to borrow more.
- Thus the only way for interest payments to be kept up is for more loans to be taken out.
- Although a few individuals and businesses may pay off their debts or get by without
additional borrowing, OVERALL people and industry must keep borrowing MORE
AND MORE to provide the money in the economy needed to keep up interest payments
on the overall volume of debt.
- The present level of debt at £680 billion means we are borrowing about £60 billion of
new "money" into existence each year to pay the interest on it.
- But people and industry cant go on borrowing indefinitely - they will no longer be
able to afford to, and will gradually stop borrowing more money into existence. When this
happens, the economy will go into decline. The system thus contains the seeds of its own
destruction.
- When loan repayments and interest payments are made to banks, this is money taken out of
circulation. If it went on indefinitely, in an economy where the money supply is largely
made up of loans etc. created by banks, there would eventually be almost no
"money" left in circulation and with it no economy.
- Under the present system, if the economy is to be kept going, money must be constantly
lent out again. It would be possible simply re-circulate the existing money supply without
creating new money were it not for the fact that extra money is needed to cover interest
payments and also to enable the economy to grow.
6) Inflation....
is guaranteed because producers constantly have to borrow more, and must
add the cost of that increased borrowing to the price of the goods produced.
- Why is it that when the moneylenders hike their prices (i.e. put up interest rates) this
is supposed to reduce inflation?
- It doesnt....
- Its just that there is a delay in industry putting up prices.
- Initially industry is forced to hold or even reduce its prices with profits down, or
even sustaining losses in a desperate bid to sell its products in an economy where money
available for spending is reduced because of higher interest payments being made to the
banks.
- Inflation may be held in check or even reduced temporarily, but eventually industry must
put its prices up in order to recover these higher costs.
- This most readily happens when interest rates come down, more people borrow, and money
supply and consumer spending increases. Inflation then races ahead.
- The fact that levels of borrowing/money creation have to keep on rising as already
explained, adding to the overall burden of interest payments, guarantees that inflation
will be present as long as we have an economy based on an increasing burden of debt.
EFFECTS ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Surplus goods in the national economy have to be disposed of somehow. The obvious way to
do this is to try to export them!
The absurdity is that every nation is trying to do this, because of the same fundamental
problem at home.
This creates frenzied competition in world markets and masses of near identical goods
madly criss-crossing the globe in search of an outlet.
Instead of international trade being based on reciprocal mutually beneficial
arrangements where nations supply each others genuine needs and wants, the whole
thing becomes a cut-throat competition to grab market share in order to stay solvent in a
debt based economy.
Big corporations demand unrestricted access to every nations market so
called "free" trade.
The European Union "single market", the North American Free Trade Agreement
and the World Trade Organisation are the best examples of the drive to open up all
national markets.
Exporting is good for a nations economy...
because when exported goods are paid for, this brings money into the exporting
nations economy free of debt.
- The money to pay for them was borrowed from banks in the importing nation.
- That money is lost to the importing nations economy, but the debt that created
that money still has to be repaid by the importer out of the remaining money in the
importing nations economy.
- If a nation can become a big net exporter, for a time its economy will boom with
all the interest free money coming in - a trade surplus will exist.
Importing is not so good for a nations economy...
- If some nations are building up trade surpluses in this way, others must be net
importers and building up trade deficits.
- Ultimately, those with big deficits can no longer afford to import, since so much money
is sucked out of their economies leaving a proportionally increasing burden of debt
behind.
THIRD WORLD DEBT AND THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)
The IMF was set up to provide an international reserve of money supposedly to help
nations with big deficits.
In practice it makes matters worse.
A nation with a big deficit has to seek a bail out from the IMF.
BUT this comes in the form of a loan, repayable with interest.
Like loans from a commercial bank, IMF loans are money created out of nothing, based
on a cash reserve pool, which is provided by western nations who go into debt to provide
it (see National Debt).
The nation with the deficit goes even more heavily into debt.
It will however be able to carry on trading and importing goods from the
wealthier nations.
As a result, much of this borrowed IMF loan money flows into the economies of wealthier
western nations.
However, the repayment obligation including the interest payments remains with the
debtor nation.
This is the true horror of third world debt - the poorest nations borrow money to
bolster the money supply of the richer nations.
In order to secure income to pay the interest, and redress the trade balance, these
poorest nations must export whatever they can produce. Thus they exploit every possible
resource - stripping forests for timber, mining, giving over their best agricultural land
to providing luxury foodstuffs for the west, rather than providing for local needs.
Today, for nations in Africa, Central and South America and elsewhere, the revenue from
their exports does not even meet the interest payments on these IMF loans (and other loans
from western banks).
The sums paid in interest over the years far exceed the amounts of the original loans
themselves.
The result is a desperate shortage of money in their economies - resulting in cutbacks
in basic health and education programmes etc.
Grinding poverty exists in nations with great wealth in terms of natural resources.
Structural Adjustment Programmes - these are now attached to IMF loans and include
conditions that recipient countries will reduce or remove tariff barriers and "open
up their markets to foreign competition" - in other words take surplus goods off
another country that cant be sold at home.
NATIONAL DEBT
British national debt now stands at £400 billion - the annual interest on that debt is
around £25 -30 billion. The government can only pay it by taxing the population as a
whole, so we pay! National debt is up from £26 billion in 1960 and £90 billion in 1980.
- Successive governments have borrowed this money into existence over the years.
- Instead of creating it themselves and spending it into the economy on public services
and projects boosting the economy and providing jobs, they get banks to create it for them
and then borrow it at interest.
- It all started in 1694 when King William needed money to fight a war against France.
- He borrowed £1.2 million from a group of London bankers and goldsmiths.
- In return for the loan, they were incorporated by royal charter as the Bank of England
which became the governments banker.
- Interest at 8% was payable on the loan and immediately taxes were imposed on a whole
range of goods to pay the interest.
- This marked the birth of national debt.
- Ever since then the world over, governments have borrowed money from private banking
interests and taxed the population as a whole to pay the interest.
How the Government Borrows Money
When governments borrow money, in return they issue to the lender, exchequer or treasury
bonds - otherwise known as government stocks or securities.
These are basically IOUs - promises by government to repay the loan
by a particular date, and to pay interest in the meantime.
They are taken up chiefly by banks, but also by individuals with money to spare
including very wealthy ones in the banking fraternity and, in more recent years, pension
and other investment funds.
When government securities are taken up by banks, this is money creation at the stroke
of a pen by the banks out of nothing.
Banks are creating money as loans out of nothing by lending it into existence to the
government in very much the same way as they do to individuals and companies.
The government now has new money in the form of loans to spend on public services etc.
If this money was not borrowed into existence in this way, there would be that much less
economic activity as a result.
Under this system NATIONAL DEBT IS CREDIT ISSUED TO THE GOVERNMENT AND AS SUCH HAS
BECOME A VITAL PART OF THE TOTAL MONEY SUPPLY OF ANY MODERN NATION.
The government constantly tells us that there isnt enough money for this that and
the other, because it knows that the cost of borrowing any money it needs has to be passed
on to the taxpayer.
Instead, it sells off state assets and now gets the private sector to fund public
services instead.
War
...
enormous increases in national debt...
enormous profits for the banks...
- Massive government borrowing and money creation by banks is required to fund a war
effort.
- The same international bankers have covertly funded both sides in both world wars and
many other conflicts before and since.
- Having profited from war leaving nations with massive debts and more beholden than ever
to them, the banks then fund reconstruction.
- Bankers have even helped bring wars about. The calling in of loans to the German Weimar
republic largely created the conditions for the rise of Hitler.
- The pattern was well established by the mid 19th. century - by then
international banker and speculator Nathan Rothschild could boast a personal fortune of
£50 million.
The Constant Increase in National Debt
In the same way that under the present system, industry and individuals must keep
borrowing more and more to enable interest payments to be kept up on their existing loans,
so government must constantly borrow more and more to keep up interest payments on its
existing loans.
Furthermore, when a particular government stock is due for repayment, the government
simply borrows more by issuing new government stocks.
Phasing out of National Debt.
"If the government can issue a dollar bond, it can just as easily issue a
dollar bill." Thomas Edison.
Government could stop borrowing money at interest, and start creating it itself by
spending it into the economy on public projects and services, at the same time creating
jobs and stimulating the economy.
It already does this to a very limited extent the amount it receives from the
banks when it sells cash to them is added to the public purse and is available for
spending on public services and projects.
FINAL REMARKS...
Seeking to redistribute what money there is by taxing the rich to pay for services for
the less well off does nothing to solve the problem of the overall shortage
of money in the economy caused by interest payments on a debt based money supply - a
problem which most socialists have yet to recognise.
The worlds economies are our economies. We create the
real wealth through our ingenuity, enterprise and hard work. The current banking system
operates as a massive drain on that wealth as well as concentrating power and control in
the hands of a tiny minority.
Money is the means of facilitating the exchange of goods and services . There is
nothing wrong with creating it out of nothing, because this is the only way to provide the
means of exchange. The amount that is printed or created simply needs to be matched to the
amount of economic activity that is taking place. What is wrong is that the right to do
this has been allowed to pass to private interests who create it as loans for private
profit.
U. S. President Abraham Lincoln considered it a primary duty of the government to
provide a nation with the medium of exchange to enable the economy to function.
TO CONCLUDE....
Can we not ultimately incorporate the humanitarian principles of a fair distribution of
wealth that underlies socialism with the dynamic benefits of a free enterprise economy
that lies at the heart of capitalism?
For so long as the power to create money is in the hands of private interests who do it
for profit and control, we can never say that we live in a democracy.
POST SCRIPT...
The European Union single currency gives the power to regulate the money supply of all
those states that join up, to the European Central Bank. The Maastricht Treaty (article
107) forbids national governments and all other EU institutions to seek to influence the
bankers who make up the ECB. For the first time this puts the creators of money totally
beyond any form of democratic control or accountability.
ALTERNATIVES see below
____________________________________________________________
THIS HAS BEEN A VERY BRIEF INTRODUCTION
.
I go into
more detail with fuller explanations including how creating money as a debt produces the
cycles of growth and recession and how banks profit from both. Also housing and mortgages
and a little bit of history showing how the present system developed. All contained in a
20 page A4 sized resume available for 10 second class stamps from my address below. I
also have a 4 page introduction to the alternatives available for 3 second class stamps
(this includes state owned banks lending money interest free, a national credit office,
local currencies operating alongside national currencies, a citizens dividend etc.) Both
available for 11 second class stamps.
Book:
"The Grip of Death" - a
study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics.. by Michael
Rowbotham - 326 pages £15 Jon Carpenter ISBN 1-897766-40-8. Highly recommended for the
most detailed examination of the problem and how the current system could be phased out
over a period of time.
News sheet:
"Prosperity" - Freedom from
Debt Slavery - monthly from 268 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JR.
Contacts:
The British Association for Monetary Reform, 27
Imberhorne Lane, Felbridge, West Sussex, RH19 1QX..
E-mail: BAMR@bamr.fsnet.co.uk
Campaign for Interest Free Money, Global Cafe, 15 Golden Square, London W1R 3AG.
Tel. 020 7328 3701.
E-mail: courtj@globalnet.co.uk
Richard Greaves - member of the Bromsgrove Group
of monetary reformers and contributor to "Prosperity" "The Old Stables", Cusop, Herefordshire, HR3 5RQ. E-mail: rgreaves@supanet.com Tel: 01497 821406. Revised
- September 2001.
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