The global banking farce is becoming ever more hilarious (if you can ignore the tragic consequences of this monumental fraud). Germany is seeking to repatriate its gold that is supposedly held by the US Federal Reserve, but the Fed says, “Nein, you cannot even examine it.”
Posted in Banking, Geo-politics, The Political Money System
Tagged Fed, Federal Reserve, Germany, gold
The past several decades have seen the emergence of diverse movements that seek to address specific problems and provide general improvements to society. Environmentalists have been trying to stop pollution, climate change and resource depletion; civil libertarians seek to stop the abuse of basic human rights and the erosion of democratic institutions; humanitarians are trying to end hunger, disease, and degrading treatment like human trafficking, genital mutilation and genocide, to name a few. And yet, the juggernaut rolls on, destroying more forests, polluting more water, concentrating more power and wealth in fewer hands. The need for change is obviously becoming more urgent, but why isn’t it happening?
This latest post by Tom Atlee helps to frame both the fundamental problem and broad approaches to transformation. Please give it your careful attention– then take appropriate action.
This is an excellent video–clear, concise and accurate. If you want to understand why we have recurrent financial crises, dire want amidst plenty, and why debts keep growing faster than ability to pay them, this is a great place to start.–t.h.g.
“The new film ‘A Flaw in the Monetary System?’ depicts in 7 ½ minutes consequences of interest and compound interest in the financial world in descriptive graphics. It illustrates the systematic redistribution of money from the majority to the wealthy.”
See it here: https://vimeo.com/71074210
I’m a subscriber to Quora.com and receive a weekly digest by email listing things that I’ve expressed an interest in. One item this week consisted of answers to the question: “What are some of the most profound jokes ever?” I found this one below to be especially profound and timely.
Anonymous
5725 votes by Matthew Baldwin, Massimiliano Marangon, Vallabh Anwikar
A manager at Goldman Sachs has this to tell.
Once upon a time in a village, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs 10. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at Rs 10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.
He further announced that he would now buy at Rs 20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rs 25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs 50!
However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs 35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs 50.”
The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
Welcome to ‘Goldman Sachs’!
Hmm, sound familiar?
More profound jokes here.
Posted in Banking, Finance and Economics, Humor, The Political Money System
Tagged Goldman Sachs
Scott Baker has provided a comprehensive summary of a very important recent event that featured some visionary thinkers in economics, money and finance. His description begins…
The team of panelists from last year’s Pace University Left Forum panel – reviewed in the March/April, 2012 issue of GroundSwell – reconvened this year on June 8, 2013, minus Kucinich adviser Dave Kelley who was sidelined due to a back injury. The remaining panelists were Dr. Michael Hudson, Dr. Cay Hehner, and Chair Andy Mazzone. The title of this year’s panel was “Wall Street’s War to Impose Austerity.”
Baker follows with his “Abstract” summary…
Wall Street had a record year in profits last year. Bonuses were up and stock prices zoomed. Meanwhile, the productive classes continued to see their wages stagnate as they have for 40 years, while under-reported inflation figures and regressive tax schemes took more of their paychecks, if they could find work. But now Austerity threatens to siphon whatever is left from the bottom to the banking elites. Faux progressive organizations like Third Way in the U.S. are attempting to privatize Social Security to pour billions into Wall Street for further gambling. From Cyprus’ confiscation of up to 70% of bank deposits to Greek pro-recession budget slashing, the road to neo-feudalism continues. Based on Professor Dr. Michael Hudson’s book “Finance Capitalism and its Discontents” and “The Bubble and Beyond”, panelists Dr. Michael Hudson, Dr. Cay Hehner, Dave Kelley, and Chair Andy Mazzone will discuss specific austerity measures that are designed to confiscate, impoverish, and destroy the middle class, while widening the already historic wage gap even further. Learn how the expansive forces of industrial capitalism have been subverted by today’s predatory finance capitalism aided by junk economics and failure to collect the economic rent. What is the rentier class and how does it collect 1/3 of GDP? Is government regulation always wrong? What is the best tax policy? Why the 1% versus the 99%?
Current president of the Henry George School, Andy Mazzone, gave the opening, and after introducing himself as an ex-CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and a trained economist in Marxism, said he now classifies himself as a neo-Georgist — defined as “someone who believes all forms of monopoly should be taxed” while untaxing all forms of earned income — wages, sales, capital. (In previous discussions with Mr. Mazzone, I have challenged this tax-all-monopolies philosophy a bit, relying on my experience in the fast-changing world of Information Technology where I was a Manager of Information Systems for over 2 decades, and where monopolies may last no longer than the next business cycle. I think we get into questionable territory in advocating taxing patentable innovations (though I would agree that patents are too easily granted nowadays). The land monopoly is different, of course, because land, unlike capital, cannot be created by people, is finite, and generally appreciates, while capital goods depreciate and are replaced by newer “improvements,” just as Henry George said over a hundred years ago when improvements came along at a much slower rate.)
Mazzone went on to say that Michael Hudson’s book, “Super Imperialism” basically forecast the current crisis and the financialization of everything, and the subsequent collapse from de-industrialization.
The full report goes on for six pages and includes a number of arguments relating to social justice and economic fairness as well as some essential historical perspective. You can read the rest of it here.
The right-wing politicians want to privatize everything, including our common birthright and your pension funds. They also want to cut Social Security to help balance the federal budget that is bloated by bank bailouts, wasteful spending to support favored constituencies, and imperial overreach. Social Security pays for itself; it does not add to the budget deficit. Watch this recent report from MSNBC.
Once again, the Democrats and Republicans in Washington are facing off in a battle over the budget. The Republicans, who control the House, are demanding huge cuts that would pull the teeth from regulatory agencies, like the EPA, Fish and Wildlife, and the IRS, decimate social programs in health and education, including Medicare. Some of the details are provided in this New York Times article.
The elite agenda has long been apparent– to further concentrate power and wealth in their hands, to reduce the middle-class to serfdom, and to change the nature of our government to something more akin to imperial Rome or the fascist states of the 20th century. That agenda, since the start of the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980’s, has been advancing under both Republican and Democratic administrations with only moderate variations in its pace.
Here are the questions that come to my mind as we approach what appears to be a critical juncture:
1. Are the Democrats in Congress really making a sincere attempt to oppose the elite agenda and protect the general interests of all the people, or is their vocal opposition just for show?
2. How far will the American people allow themselves to be pushed before they will stand up for themselves and for the common good?
3. And when they do stand up, what form will their actions take, and will it be in time to avoid an ugly and destructive confrontation?
I have often thought that Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism in the 1930s by instituting a wide range of programs under the “New Deal” that curbed abuses of power by Wall Street and corporate leaders and provided for a more equitable distribution of the economic pie. There were a few hard liners who disagreed with that and actually tried to engineer a coup d’état to depose him. Fortunately, that attempt failed when Major General Smedley Butler refused to go along with it.
So, here we are again in the midst of an economic depression, but this time the redistribution of wealth is going in the opposite direction, which can only worsen our predicament. And, no, there will not be a new “New Deal.”
Many things have changed drastically over the past 80 years. Some of these like surveillance technologies and advanced weaponry have favored the presently dominant force of centralized control, while others like microcomputers, the internet, and cheap global person to person communications have favored the emergent force of decentralized power and global community. Society is being rebuilt from the bottom upward, community by community. Those efforts will need to be rapidly ramped up in the face of increasingly dysfunctional national governments.
As David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, said to state and local political and business leaders a couple years ago, “Washington will become a fountain of harm as you struggle with our own problems.” And so it, not just in Washington, but in Athens, London, Rome, and capitals around the world.
# # #
Posted in Economics, Government, The state of democracy
Tagged budget, government shutdown, major general smedley butler
I was recently a panelist at a seminar on the island of Gotland, Sweden along with Par Larshans who happens to be the chief sustainability officer for Max Burgers, Sweden’s No. 1 burger chain. Par sent me a link to an article that appeared about a year ago in Time magazine. The article,Why Going Green Can Mean Big Money for Fast-Food Chains, describes the phenomenal business success that Max achieved as it took measures to reduce it’s carbon footprint and provide healthier choices for its customers. Read it here. — t.h.g.
Posted in Business
Tagged carbon footprint, fast food chains, going green, gotland sweden, Max Burgers, sustainability, Sweden
In an unbelievably heavy handed move, the Government of Kenya last week arrested an American aid worker and five local micro-entrepreneurs for operating a complementary exchange system in a poor suburb of Mombasa.
The recently launched Bangla-Pesa voucher system is intended to provide additional liquidity that makes it possible for unmet needs of local residents to be satisfied out of their own excess productive capacity. In just two weeks of operation, the amount of goods and services traded among the members of the Bangla-Pesa network increased substantially. Now, the program is shut down and six people are facing seven years in prison. Why? Is this simply a case of ignorance on the part of government officials, or an attempt to keep poor people poor and dependent upon inadequate or even exploitative systems that are controlled by bankers and politicians ? The answer to that will become clear as this case develops. Your help is needed to get this matter resolved in favor of freedom, justice, and rationality. Here is the official appeal from American aid worker Will Ruddick.
Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,
End Africa’s dependence on Aid through Complementary Currencies. Eradicate poverty and keep six people from seven years in prison.
Click here to support this program and watch our videos.
Bangla-Pesa, a complementary currency program in one of Kenya’s poorest slums, needs your help. This innovative program gave participants the ability to create their own means of exchange so micro-business owners could trade what they have for what they need. In two weeks, the program already showed great success. But the Central Bank of Kenya has deemed the program illegal and is pursuing a legal battle against its organizers, despite enthusiastic community support.
These six people face charges that could put them in prison for as much as seven years:
· Alfred Sigo a youth activist.
· Emma Onyango a grandmother and community business owner.
· Rose Oloo a grandmother and community business owner.
· Paul Mwololo a grandfather and community business owner.
· Caroline Dama a mother and volunteer.
· Will Ruddick a new father and program founder.
We need help raising funds for legal fees and to bring this program back to life so it can help people throughout Africa in expanded form via mobile phones.
Our goal is to raise 47,000 Euros over the next 47 days.
Click here to read more and donate:
http://igg.me/p/bangla-pesa/x/31801
Spread the word!
Sincerely,
Will Ruddick, Bangla-Pesa Program Founder
Thirteen year old Victoria Grant speaks truth to power in calling for a massive change in the way we do money and banking. Brilliant!
Corrupción Extrema, la causa de la Extrema Pobreza. subtítulos en español
Posted in Banking, Geo-politics, The Debt Imperative
Tagged central banking, Victoria Grant
The first edition of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, was published by Chelsea Green Publishing in 2009. While it remains
as relevant today as it was when first published the printed book has been out of print for several years. But, having had the rights reverted to me by my publisher, I am making the entire book available for free in PDF format. You can read it or download it HERE. If you would like a hard copy of the first edition used copies can still be found on Amazon.com, Abe books, Thrift books and elsewhere.
Better still, you can avail yourself of the new revised and expanded 2024 edition which I have been working on for almost two years and is almost complete. Eighteen chapters have already been posted and can be freely read or download HERE.
My previous books, as published, may be freely accessed in digital format by clicking the title below.
Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001)
New Money For Healthy Communities (1994)
Money and Debt: a Solution to the Global Crisis (1980)
Collectors may find used and some new print copies of my books as published, on amazon.com and elsewhere online. Start by clicking on the title below:
Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001)
Beyond Money
Beyond Money 