Forum Post: We are being defrauded and robbed by the banking/monetary system, as explained by a 12 year old!
Posted 11 years ago on May 10, 2012, 2:24 p.m. EST by jph
(2652)
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12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada, and most of the world, is in debt. April 27, 2012 at the Public Banking in America Conference, Philadelphia, PA. For more information see http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org
That is a five minuet video on YouTube. Well worth the time, as this is a simple truth most people blow off as just to outlandish to be real,. only it is how the system works!! Currently our money system is one of the biggest problems we face. It must be reformed or replaced.
The jist of what the little girl was talking about was articulated in ex-congressman Dennis Kucinich's NEED act, which never made it out of the house finance committee.
the 'representative' system is not democracy,. we need to move forward and take the power back from the few,. .
This is something I've been pondering lately. She points out that Jesus took on the bankers of his day. He did it very publically and I believe he knew what the consequences of his actions would be. That's why OWS is getting so much attention: instead of one person taking on the system it appears to be a group of individuals taking on that same system.
I think she said it all. How many of us will listen. The truth is there to see. Action is needed world wide. The people in Iceland have already shown the world what neeeds to be done. See link below
http://truedemocracyparty.net/2012/04/iceland-is-free-iceland-kicks-out-the-bankers-how-iceland-defeated-the-bankers-this-is-how-true-democracy-works/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkWf9M3rUw&feature=related
Carlin was awesome,. that is one of the best bits in his last couple of HBO specials,. both of those are highly recommended, yes he is crude, and hilarious, but the most interesting thing is he was a brilliant philosopher.
"Its called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."
Great video - it is an indictment against the system, that we know so little about our money. ALL of it originates as a bank loan, except for coins (which are less than one thousandth of one percent).
Only one state, North Dakota, has a budget surplus and it is more than $1.5 billion. What makes North Dakota different is that they have a state-owned bank. The advantage of a state-owned bank is to return profits to the public and/or minimize borrowing costs for the state and whatever portion of the public the state chooses as borrowers (North Dakota provides credit at the lowest costs for student loans and to farmers, for example).
Banks legally create credit out of nothing as a fraction of their assets (to simplify). Any state could record state assets (state receipts, buildings, land, etc.) on their accounting books and create credit from their value. Although different from most peoples’ misunderstanding, banks do not lend what depositors have put in the bank. Therefore, states are not “risking” assets through loans; they are legally entitled to create credit out of thin air. This is verified by the Federal Reserve’s Publication, “Modern Money Mechanics” and explained in its crucial details in my brief. Excerpts:
“The purpose of this booklet is to describe the basic process of money creation in a ‘fractional reserve’ banking system…The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.”
“[Banks] do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes in exchange for credits to the borrower’ transaction accounts. Loans (assets) and deposits (liabilities) both rise by [the amount of the "loan"]."
What does this mean? It means that intelligent state legislators can immediately authorize their own bank, issue credit to themselves at 0% interest to purchase their outstanding debt, and immediately save themselves borrowing costs.
http://www.WebOfDebt.com
yes, so true. Why oh why, do we find ourselves in a system that borrows money from private for-profit corporate banks, where we-the-people are made to pay back, in addition to the borrowed amount, an endlessly compounded interest?! ? This private banking pyramid scam that has run rampant over the entire planet, is this system of usury, of endless debt, and wage slavery, that has created the largest concentration of wealth and 'claims' on assets the world has ever known. And still, the cheerleaders for corporatism, continue to scream and cry for more public infrastructural and resources to be sold off and privatized for the benefit of the few instead of the many. Massive privatization has made a huge mess,. so we need more? how do they sell this sht? We need to take back public resources and manage them for the public good,. re-invest in local communities, and start rebuilding the badly damaged ecological infrastructure that the wave of private greed has decimated.
People have already begun we just need to help and push in the directions we would like to see change happen. Permaculture, slowmoney, degrowth, relocalize, etc. for a start, I like this plan; http://www.globalsafe.org
Both the Dems and the Repugs serve the "Money Power." They talk a different talk but their actions move our nation along the same path.
The money issuing power should never be alienated from democratically elected government and placed ambiguously into private hands as it is in America in the Federal Reserve System today.
http://www.Monetary.org
http://www.TheMoneyMasters.com
So even a 12 year old can recognize the garbage pile of a financial system we are under. I wonder how long it will take for this system to collapse.
If you believe in God you should oppose interest and the banking system. The Bible and The Quran are clear about this issue:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/scriptureusury.html
The following example demonstrates this and also that interest on money is unsustainable and leads to crisis:
If someone brought a 1/10 oz gold coin to the bank in the year 1 AD, and the money remained there until the year 2000 AD, collecting a yearly interest of 4%, the amount of gold in the account would have been 3.6 * 10^31 kilogrammes of gold weighing 6,000,000 times the complete mass of the Earth.
If interest is charged on a limited scale or over a short timeframe then those problems do not surface. Interest is an insidious process. Over time it is unescapable that it reduces large numbers of people to a state of servitude to the money lenders. This is a long term development that transcends the life span of a human. Interest is the main reason why a number of civilisations have failed and why Western civilisation is about to fail. Therefore all interest is usury and the current financial system is a usury financial system.
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
I read the Natural Money page you linked to. It was interesting, but I didn't quite get how outlawing usury leads to full employment. I will give it another try, but I think everyone should give it a look. Thanks.
It is the combination of a holding tax and outlawing interest (usury) that will do the job. Maybe this will explanation will help:
Try to imagine that the economy is a system, just like the human body. All parts of the system need each other to operate properly. Try to imagine that money flowing in the economy is like blood flowing in the body. In this case it would not make sense that a kidney is saying to the liver: This is my blood you may borrow it at interest. It also does not make sense for parts of the body to hoard blood because there might be no blood flowing in the future. Strangely enough, economists think this makes sense.
Systems theory conflicts with economics. Charging interest makes sense to economists but interest presses the weakest spots in the economy the hardest. This is because the weakest borrowers have to pay the highest interest rates. Therefore according to systems theory the economy could be far more efficient when the weakest spots are not pressed, capital would only be built and not be destroyed, recessions and depressions did not exist and full employment is a constant state of the economy.
All parts of the economy need money for the supply of energy like all parts of the body need blood for the same reason. If the blood circulation is hampered then the body will not perform well. Likewise if the flow of money in the economy is hampered then the economy will not perform well. The holding tax on money will improve the circulation of money and therefore the efficiency of the economic system. This is the reason why the Natural Economy is more efficient than the usury economy and why the Natural Economy will eliminate the usury economy in competition.
I can't imagine that the human body is very much like the economy, so your metaphor is unconvincing to me. Here is one of the passages I am confused about: "Natural Money should lead to full employment. Because money is circulating in the economy constantly, everybody who is able and willing to work, will get a job. If there is unemployment, it is not because of a recession or a depression. Therefore the price of labour would fall until full employment has been reached again. This is much easier to do because expectations about future business and employment are far more constant, so less employers and employees will have to change their expectations." Why would constantly circulating money in and of itself create full employment? Also, if the price of labor falls, couldn't it fall below a living wage?
If it doesn't convince you that is Ok with me. It has been tried out, so you can check for yourself:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/example.html
Blood distributes energy in the body and money does more or less the same in the economy.
So if it is distributed unequally (wealth inequality) or does not circulate (hoarding) then the economy does not perform well.
The US are facing a Capitalist endgame envisioned by Karl Marx: a few rich versus impoverished masses.
And I know there is many arguments against my views. They are models of reality, incomplete, and other viewpoints are also valid.
However only viewpoints that bring solutions are of real value. The rest is just talk.
I also have a problem with the idea of saving as hoarding. Actually putting money in a savings bank is kind of like lending money to the bank at interest. What is the alternative? How would you accumulate money for a big purchase other than saving up for it, even if you had to keep it under your mattress?
The most interesting example on the natural money site is how Hitler brought Germany out of the depression by printing up money and spending it on development projects, but I don't understand the comment about unsustainable budget deficits. If you are printing up the money, how can you run a deficit?
Is there a post on this forum specifically about natural money? I would like to follow up on this topic.
The difference between hoarding and putting money on a bank is blurred nowadays. But hoarding is: keeping money in bank notes or in a current account.
Currently banks can use current account money for loans via fractional reserve banking but this is also one of the problems of the current system. With natural money there is a strict difference between savings accounts and current accounts. With natural money only money in savings accounts can be used for loans. There is no money creation with natural money.
If you hoard money then you reduce the volume of money in circulation, which can damage the economy. If you spend it, invest it, or place it in a savings account, it can be used in the economy. So saving is not hoarding.
Savings accounts with Natural Money give 0% at best, but mostly you have to pay the bank an intermediation fee. But by saving money you do not have to pay the holding tax of 1% per month, so it is attractive. Because the money supply does not grow, economic growth will produce lower prices and a higher value of money and consequently the 0% is a positive real return. In the current system savings have a negative real return. It is explained in more detail here:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/introduction.html
With regard to nazi-Germany, the deficit was filled with money printing. At some point this becomes unsustainable and it will lead to inflation. I guess Adolf Hitler knew this but he already was planning for a war so it did not matter to him.
There is no forum for natural money because moderation takes time. Until now I am alone on the project. I have worked 3.5 years on it and since April I am trying to interest people for it because I think it is the only solution that will work.
I could set up a thread in a moderated forum, but I already did that here. On the Naturalmoney.org website itself, at the bottom of every page, is a [leave a message] link so people find the email address. I have to do it like this because otherwise I will get large amounts of spam.
I have a startup plan that will work because it already has proven to work in the past (it was banned like the Wörgl experiment because it also was a success):
http://occupywallst.org/forum/natural-money-bomb-the-way-to-finish-off-the-usury/
If you are interested, you can leave a message via the natural money website.
Maybe I am just too dumb to get this, but I think there is plenty of money circulating in the economy right now; it's just circulating in the wrong channels. It's not going to put people to work so necessary things can be done. So a lot of people don't have money to buy what they need and everybody is lacking what we all need in common. Also a lot of money is used for things that aren't good for anyone. I think the problem is the direction of the money flow not the amount or speed of it.
And I am not convinced that printing money causes inflation. We don't know what would have happened if Hitler had not decided to go to war.
I think that usury should be regulated and enough money should be printed to cover the interest. Otherwise debt spirals out of control. If enough money is not generated this way to do things that are necessary but do not turn a quick profit for some individual or corporation, then a progressive tax on the wealthy financial speculators should make up the difference. Also tariffs to balance the trade deficit and franchise taxes to discourage or offset harmful enterprise can be a part of this.
There are two problems:
For analytical purposes you have to make this distinction otherwise you do not get a solution. It will be difficult to make a nation gather around these two ideas for many reasons, but I have a solution for that. It is the Natural Money Bomb.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/natural-money-bomb-the-way-to-finish-off-the-usury/
It will finish off the current banks and the centralised government as they both depend on the current financial system. If this happens this generates the needed attention for the proposals. The point of no return is when one experiment succeeds. Then we have them by their balls.
In general printing money does lead to inflation but the link is not always there. If Adolf Hitler kept on printing money then I am sure that this would have resulted in inflation, unless the deficit was small which it wasn't.
In the end usury is to blame for financial instability, economic crisis and wealth inequality. Interest causes wealth to concentrate as the poor pay interest to the rich. Interest can therefore be seen as a tax on poverty to the benefit of the rich. The following example demonstrates this and also that interest on money is unsustainable and leads to crisis:
If someone brought a 1/10 oz gold coin to the bank in the year 1 AD, and the money remained there until the year 2000 AD, collecting a yearly interest of 4%, the amount of gold in the account would have been 3.6 * 10^31 kilogrammes of gold weighing 6,000,000 times the complete mass of the Earth.
On the opposite side an ever increasing amount of debt is needed that pays for the interest on the money in the bank account. If interest is charged on a limited scale or over a short timeframe then those problems do not surface. Interest is an insidious process. Over time it is unescapable that it reduces large numbers of people to a state of servitude to the money lenders. This is a long term development that transcends the life span of a human. Interest is the main reason why a number of civilisations have failed and why Western civilisation is about to fail. Therefore all interest is usury and the current financial system is a usury financial system.
See: http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
ps. I notice a natural money topic posted now on the occupy forum. Should we go there with this conversation?
We could go on here, because I hope this idea will get some attention:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/natural-money-bomb-the-way-to-finish-off-the-usury/
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