It is a pity the system cannot have a national vote of the people for
such as this.
D.
*How we should be dealing with money
<http://www.monetary.org/stephen-zarlengas-address-to-occupy-together/2011/10>
*
/From a talk delivered at a number of Occupy sites/
*Steve Zarlenga, American Monetary Institute <http://www.monetary.org/>-
*A battle has raged for centuries to control the money system -- to
dominate society through the money power.
Over time whoever controls the money system controls the nation. They
can use that power to grab great wealth, but even more importantly it
gives them power over the direction of society- what gets funded and
what gets neglected. Will the power be used to repair bridges and levees
protecting our cities and providing needed employment; or be channeled
into destructive speculation -- real estate and Wall Street bubbles and
warfare as the banks have usually done?
The money system is society's greatest dispenser of justice or
injustice. A good one supports the creation of values for life. A bad
one gives privileges to the few and disadvantages to everyone else. It
obscenely concentrates wealth, causing social strife, warfare and a
constellation of bad outcomes, including most of the social ills you
intend to reform.
Because great power is exercised through the money system, power-hungry
elements since ancient times pursued the political ambition to dominate
through the money power. Societies must periodically cleanse and reform
corrupted systems like ours. The main weapon in this battle is
manipulation of language and thought- definitions are heavy artillery.
Those benefiting from the corruption fund university economics
departments to finance "professionals" (we call them economists) to
promote their interests through obscure theories. That's how this
corrupt system has continued for so long, despite its repeated miserable
results!
In a word, our money system has been privatized. It promotes its
controllers, not the society. Monetary reform, not mere regulation, is
urgently needed now. Financial abuses are pervasive and self-evident.
Dominant companies focus on usury, not production. Most of our citizens
are being ripped off.
Reform is based on an understanding that the nature of money is not a
commodity; that money and credit are two very different things. That
money is a national issue. Define money as a commodity -- as wealth --
then the wealthy will control not only their assets, but the money
system itself. Define money as credit, as our present system does, then
the bankers will control the system, and just look at the horrible and
deadly results. Define money properly as an abstract legal power, as our
Constitution does, and control over money can be brought under our
system of checks and balances.
In 2005 Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio began working on [the
issue]. A month ago, he and Congressman John Conyers of Michigan
introduced [a bill that has] all the monetary reforms of our American
Monetary Act:
First, it dismantles the Federal Reserve System and incorporates it into
the US Treasury, where people think it is now.
Second, it removes the accounting privilege banks now have to loan their
interest bearing debt into circulation by decisively ending the
fractional reserve system. The banks no longer create what we use for money.
Third, Congress creates and spends money into circulation for
infrastructure, health care and education, starting with the $2.2
trillion the civil engineers tell us we need over the next 5 years.
Inflation is avoided because infrastructure and real goods and services
come into existence.
Over 7 million new jobs are created.
Additionally, the act will:
Limit interest rates to 8% including all fees.
End compound interest.
Pay off the National debt as it comes due.
Let the 50 states decide where one fourth of the new money goes each
year through per capita federal grants.
Pay a tax-free dividend to every citizen. Now, imagine if, instead of
giving $3 trillion to the banks, they had given it to our people --
that's $10,000 for every American man, woman and child. The recession
would be over.
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