Category Archives: Global Economy

Pertinent to global economic issues and events.

The Final Chapter for Dollar Dominance and the Unipolar World Order

The US dollar is rapidly losing its status as the global “reserve currency.” One after another, nations outside of the western coalition are waking up to the fact that dollars are needed only to pay for imports that come from the United States. In trades with other countries they are choosing to begin paying one another by using their own currencies, as reported in videos like this. They are recognizing that the real resources that they own are much more valuable than the empty promises that are embodied in inflated US dollars or other political currencies. The exploitation of weaker nations by the western powers that has been ongoing for centuries is coming to an end and the emergence of a multi-polar world order is now unstoppable.

The Bretton Woods agreement that established the post-war world financial order in 1944 was based on the promise that US dollars would be redeemed for gold at $35 an ounce. But the continuous debasement of the dollar over the years made that completely unrealistic, and ultimately its impossibility was formally recognized when President Nixon in 1971 “closed the gold window” and announced that the US government was reneging on that commitment. It would no longer give gold for dollars except at the prevailing market price. From that point on the fate of the dollar was sealed; it was just a matter of time. Despite the imposition of a series of extreme financial, economic, political, and military measures by the US and its western allies, time has run out on dollar dominance and the unipolar world order.

The main questions now are, 1) to what further extremes will the western empire resort in its desperate effort to forestall the inevitable political reordering, and 2) what sorts of new monetary and financial arrangements will be established to supplant the old Bretton Woods arrangement?

Regarding the first of these, the past several decades have seen a succession of both covert and overt interferences designed to weaken or neutralize monetary dissidents and potential political and economic rivals. Notable among the former have been Saddam Hussein, who in 2000 began selling Iraqi oil for Euros instead of dollars, and Muammar Gaddafi the Libyan leader who had plans to launch a pan-African currency called the Gold Dinar to free Africa from American domination. As a consequence, both men were murdered and their countries destroyed. Following the NATO invasion of Libya, and the murder of Gaddafi, then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, disgustingly and arrogantly boasted, “We came, we saw, he died!”  

But nuclear armed Russia and China are not so easy to push around and brought to heel. When their Russian puppet Boris Yeltsin chose Vladimir Putin to succeed him as prime minister, the globalist western oligarchs thought they could continue to rape Russia and exploit its vast resources for their own purposes. But Putin surprised them with his loyalty to “Mother Russia” and his unwillingness to betray the Russian people to the globalists. Whatever we in the west might think about the man, his stance has clearly endeared him to the Russian people.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the western powers promised not to move NATO farther to the east, but they have reneged on that promise, and one by one have brought the former Soviet republics into the western fold. [Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has elaborated on this point in his recent speech and highlighted the importance of respect for Russia’s legitimate security concerns if ever there is to be peace]. Then, in 2014 the CIA engineered the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and replaced it with their own puppet government to further pressure the Russian government to play ball. The perceived existential threat of NATO weapons, even nuclear ones, on their very doorstep, was too much for Russia’s leadership to bear. It should have come as no surprise to anyone that the Russians reacted as they did to counter that threat by launching their “special military operation.” Putin had stated repeatedly that he hoped to negotiate a deal that would respect Russia’s national security interests but the US government has chosen to perpetuate the war in order to weaken Russia and force it to submit. Former nuclear weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, with his military experience and vast knowledge of the region provides a much more nuanced picture of that siltation than the biased sound bites one typically gets from the mainstream media.

Farther to the east, China a major economic, political and military power, has also balked at submitting to a New World Order in which the Western Empire calls all the shots. So now the globalist oligarchs who control the US government see China as a major obstacle to their plan for establishing a trans-human, technocratic utopia under the control of the elite Super Class. Hence, we see continual saber rattling, military and political provocations, and endless prating about the “Chinese threat.”

Regarding a new system of exchange and finance, I expect that we may soon see the emergence of a multilateral system for clearing credits among nations, one that will be more along the lines of the Bancor plan that John Maynard Keynes proposed at Bretton Woods in 1944. Not that Keynes should be the last word on the matter, but he at least proposed a way of preventing trade deficits from becoming perpetual as they are now, by imposing a levy (interest) on positive balances, as well as negative balances, that would seem to eliminate the debt trap. Professor Perry Mehrling provides a brief description of the Bancor plan in this video

I expect eventually to see the complete depoliticisation of money and the broader application of credit clearing directly among buyers and sellers at the level of individual traders, as they have been doing for decades through the scores of commercial trade exchanges that have been operating around the world. Money is, after all, merely an information system about credits and debits that enables goods and services that are sold to pay for other goods and services that are bought. Further, the settlement of accounts will be done not only through reciprocal exchange, but also through cooperative support and forgiveness of debts, which will bring with it greater fairness and finally a peaceful world. Indeed, there may someday be a world government, but it will not be imposed by force, nor will it be the product of greed and materialistic human minds.

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Addendum: In this excellent article, America Has Just Destroyed a Great Empire, Prof. Michael Hudson offers a history lesson that underlines the points I’ve made in my article.  

Here is a small excerpt:

Having endowed the region’s cosmopolitan Temple of Delphi with substantial silver and gold, Croesus asked its Oracle whether he would be successful in the conquest that he had planned. The Pythia priestess answered: “If you go to war against Persia, you will destroy a great empire.”

Croesus therefore set out to attack Persia c. 547 BC. Marching eastward, he attacked Persia’s vassal-state Phrygia. Cyrus mounted a Special Military Operation to drive Croesus back, defeating Croesus’s army, capturing him and taking the opportunity to seize Lydia’s gold to introduce his own Persian gold coinage. So Croesus did indeed destroy a great empire, but it was his own.

Fast-forward to today’s drive by the Biden administration to extend American military power against Russia and, behind it, China. The president asked for advice from today’s analogue to antiquity’s Delphi oracle: the CIA and its allied think tanks. Instead of warning against hubris, they encouraged the neocon dream that attacking Russia and China would consolidate U.S. control of the world economy, achieving the End of History.

But that’s not the way it’s working out. Please read the full article.

2022 September Newsletter – Economic Prospects and Exchange Innovations

In this issue:

  • The Legacy and Vision of Dee Hock
  • My Upcoming Presentation: Private and complementary currency systems
  • My Latest Article
  • There once was a river …an allegorical tale of money and credit
  • Will 2023 Be the Year from Hell?
  • Central Bank Digital Currency, a the Totalitarian Nightmare

The Legacy and Vision of Dee Hock (b. March 21, 1929 – d. July 16, 2022)

I had occasion to meet Dee Hock in September of 1995 when we were both invited to participate in the first of a series of symposia titled Peace Building for the 21st Century, a semi-annual gathering that was jointly organized by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the World Business Academy, and Pathways to Peace and convened at the Fetzer Institute in Michigan. When prior to the meeting I read that Hock was CEO of VISA International, a rather lofty position in the world of conventional banking, I wondered how his beliefs and objectives about money and exchange could possibly find any agreement with my own. I soon discovered that my pre-judgments about him could not have been more wrong. During the symposium he impressed me as being a man of integrity and vision, and more a “monkish” philosopher than a banker.

That impression was strongly reinforced when in 1999 I read Hock’s newly published book, Birth of the Chaordic Age (later republished as One From Many), which told his personal story along with the story of how the VISA organization came into being and became “the largest commercial enterprise on earth.” To give you a sense of what captivated me I will share just a few quotes from the book. In the prolog, Hock said, “We are experiencing and epidemic of institutional failure that knows no bounds,” and, “The organization of the future will be the embodiment of community based on shared purpose calling to the higher aspirations of the people.” Such an observation and expectation were quite remarkable and unexpected but consistent with my own observations and aspirations. Then, on the back of the dust cover I read, “We are at that very point in time when a 400-year- old age is dying and another is struggling to be born–a shifting of culture, science, society and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence, such as the world has always dreamed.”

Such ideas could not have resonated more closely with my own, and as I delved further into the book I was delighted to find a great deal more of that sort of visionary, humane, and wise thinking and expression. I took some time to ponder all of that as I went about my own work trying to move forward toward the development and implementation of innovative systems of exchange and finance that would embody the values and aspirations that Hock and I seemed to share. Then, in January of 2001, I wrote to Hock and was pleased when he responded a couple weeks later.  Rather than try to excerpt the essence of each letter, I think it appropriate to present each in its entirety (I don’t think Dee would mind).

Dear Dee,

I’ve been meaning to write you ever since I finished reading your book almost a year ago. I guess my procrastination is due to the fact that I was not, until now, clear about what I wanted to say to you, or how to say it so you would take it seriously.

Certainly, praise is due. The Birth of the Chaordic Age is a masterful story, but, of course, it is more than a story, it is a philosophical treatise – and a work of art, studded with gems of wisdom. (In that, your monkish, contemplative bent is evident). I’m most grateful to you for seeking out these gems and fetching them back for us to admire and use. I especially like your four ways of looking at things – how they were, how they are, how they might become, and how they ought to be. It serves me well in the research I’ve been doing, and serves to remind me of why I’m doing it.

 I am in full agreement with the testimony of your vision which appears on the back of the dust cover. I believe that, in the present era, the thing that is “trying to happen” (as Willis used to put it) is a fundamental shift from elite rule (command and control) to a more participatory, democratic, inclusive, just, equitable, and sustainable order. This means that, in addition to our own spiritual and interpersonal work, there is a need for thoroughgoing restructuring of our institutions and the emergence of networks and communities which will supplant limited liability corporations and much of the government bureaucracy.

As I approach my 65th birthday, I have a sense that my most important work is yet to be done. Despite your great accomplishments, I have a sense that that may be the case for you as well. Of particular relevance for me is the area of money, banking, and finance. This is where I think I can make a major contribution, and this is what I want you to know.

You have the distinction of having been the leader who guided the development of the world’s first global payment system. Yet, you express dissatisfaction with the outcome. It doesn’t satisfy me either. You say (on page 193),


“I could think of no way to fully realize the concept by including merchants and cardholders as owner-members. The slightest hint in that direction raised a storm of opposition. We should have included them. Perhaps, with more time, tenacity, and ingenuity we could have.”

Well, storms of opposition should be expected when those in control are asked to share power. The bankers have been a privileged class for a long time. Why should they give up such a powerful and lucrative position? There is only ever one compelling reason – because they can see that it is in their best interests to do so, and they have the courage to let go. Are you ready to show them the economic “magna carta?”

For the good of the people and the planet, the monetary system must be changed and economic power must be more widely dispersed. The key lies in the payment system. There is plenty of ingenuity being applied to the “money problem” within the current grassroots transformational movement, within the commercial “barter” business, and within the realm of emerging internet commerce. Proper leadership can draw out sufficient tenacity. And, time? Well, “carpe diem.” “The future is not about logic or reason. It’s about imagination, hope, and belief.” (p. 152).

Can you envision a federation of credit-clearing circles which include everyone who wants to be a member? Which is democratically organized and operated? Which allows each person the power to monetize some of their own resources and productive potential without having to pay interest to anyone?

It is my hope to assist in launching such a system. I believe that it is possible to assemble, right now, sufficient talent, resources, and commitment to get the job done. This could be your prototype socio-economic chaord which would demonstrate to everyone the kind of model needed for 21st century organizing.

I have no illusions about the willingness of bankers’ to accept such systems right now, but I must do what I can to harmonize how things might become, with how they ought to be. If we can create the seed crystal, the rest will take care of itself.

What do you say?

Tom Greco

About two weeks later I received this reply:

Dear Tom:

Thank you for your most kind, thoughtful letter. Indeed, people in position of privilege and power cannot be expected to surrender it to others, especially when no better alternative has emerged which the public trusts and demands, which captures the imagination of the powerful and privileged, ameliorates their fears, and which is allows them to make an orderly, safe transition. Power is never given, it is always taken. How to take it without destructive confrontation and brute force is the perpetual problem. In my view, that can only be done by creating new concepts which do not attack and destroy the old, but transcend and enfold them.

There is no doubt in my mind that more than enough intelligence, communication capacity and experimentation has already emerged to allow such new concepts to be devised and implemented. However, to transcend and enfold a system that is already global, ubiquitous, deeply entrenched in all societies and organizations and embedded in the consciousness of the whole world is not something that can be done by any one person, or even a narrow segment of them. Nor do I have any illusions about the desperate need for better means of exchanging value among all people. We have had much contact over the years with many people in emerging systems of barter, local currency, internet commerce and alternate currencies – Bernard Lietaer, Hazel Henderson, James Fierro and a host of others.

One of the concepts we think will take shape within the Terra Civitas movement is something we call, for want of a better term, the “resource commons,” a coming together of people with financial expertise of all kinds, new and old, to reconceive and bring into being new concepts of organizations and instruments that “result in more equitable distribution of power and wealth, improved health and greater compatibility with the human spirit and biosphere.” That is, I think, precisely what you refer to, albeit in other terms.

We are simply overwhelmed with response to chaordic concepts. Opportunities to create such organizations in various fields already exceeds our present resources and capacity. This is not something we can, at the moment, call into being. The initial interest and impetus would have to emerge elsewhere. We might act as a catalyst, a “strange attractor,” to put in terms of complexity theory and would gladly lend what legitimacy and expertise we could.

I have no doubt that with sufficient commitment from a design team of the right thirty or forty people and a hundred or two others to critique the work and reasonable resources, a “chaordic, fractaled organization” for the purposes you envision could be conceived, perhaps even implemented, before the end of 2002.

Again, many thanks for your thoughtful letter and kind comments about the book. With all best wishes,

Dee

Of course, 2002 came and went and twenty years later we are still seeking allies, supporters and resources, and wondering what else it will take to make this grand vision a reality, but surely its time will eventually come. That is not to say that progress has not been made. Promising innovations and improvements in exchange processes and moneyless payments have been made in both the grassroots and commercial “barter” realms, and I continue to work with several of those groups and individuals.  

Numerous Dee Hock obituaries have been published online including the VISA website and Market Watch, and you can glean much more of his wisdom from Dee Hock’s webpage which is still accessible.

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My upcoming presentation

I’ve been invited to be a keynote speaker at the 6th Biennial RAMICS International Congress in Bulgaria, October 27 to 29. RAMICS is the Research Association on Monetary Innovation and Community and Complementary Currency Systems which includes both academics and practitioners.

My illustrated presentation titled, Private and complementary currency systems: purposes, principles, practices, and performance, is slated for Thursday, October 27. It will summarize what I have learned over more than forty years of research and experimentation in this field, and describe what must be done to realize the full potential of decentralized private and community exchange mechanisms. You can see the full abstract here. For various reasons, I am planning to deliver my presentation remotely from Arizona. This congress promises to be exciting and productive, and if you wish to participate you can find program details here and register at https://ramics2022sofia.sciencesconf.org/registration.
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My Latest Article
My latest article, The Money Economy Is Not the Real Economy: “The Global Banking and Financial System is Fatally Flawed,” was published last week by Global Research, and recently republished on Medium.
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There once was a river …an allegorical tale of money and credit
One of my most popular posts has been, There once was a river …an allegorical tale of money and credit. If you missed it when I first published it, you may want to check it out. I’ve used metaphor to try to show how we have all become slaves to money and those who control money. Using water to represent money, I’ve also tried to show that we the people can free ourselves and take back control by thinking outside the box to end our fixation on political fiat money, and deploy better ways of enabling the exchange of real value that our own labor and creativity produce.

Every metaphor, of course, is limited but I am hoping that readers/listeners will come to understand that there are alternatives to conventional money that we can use to reduce, and eventually eliminate our dependence upon conventional political fiat money. Credit is the foundation of an honest system of exchange and we have the power to give credit to each other in accordance with our own values and objectives, outside of conventional banks and without charging interest. You can access the story on my website (audio with transcript) or on YouTube (audio only).  

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Will 2023 Be the Year from Hell?
Noted economic forecaster, Martin Armstrong, says it will and makes a very convincing case in this interview on Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog podcast; and it is very instructive to see the remarkable story of Armstrong and his work in the documentary movie, “The Forecaster,” if you can get hold of it. Amazon.com says “This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location,” but you can watch the trailer on IMDb and buy the DVD here. The movie includes the story about the persecution he suffered at the hands of the US government, being imprisoned for 7 years without a trial, and eventually forced to plead guilty to regain his freedom.  

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Central Bank Digital Currency, a the Totalitarian Nightmare

If that isn’t enough to get your attention and stir you to action, this article, Just Say No to CBDCs, by N.S. Lyons clearly describes the nightmare world the technocratic oligarchy has prepared for us and will very shortly pressure us to accept. Some difficult choices are in prospect.

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Despite the gloom and doom that these present circumstances portend, I believe humanity has never been in a better position to create a world of peace, freedom, and conviviality. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”

Thomas

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Permission to reprint contents from this newsletter in whole or in part is granted on the condition that full credit is given and a link to the original source is provided. – t.h.g.
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June 2022 Newsletter–Reconnecting the Monetary Economy to the Real Economy

I’m a little late in posting this here, but if you didn’t see it when I first sent it out, I think you will find it interesting and useful.

2022 June Newsletter ― Reconnecting the Monetary Economy to the Real Economy

In this issue:

Reconnecting the Monetary Economy to the Real Economy
The Banker’s Last Gasp and the Great Monetary Reset
The Usury Conjecture on the centralized, interest-based, debt-money system
What about China?
Is this a clear picture of the New World Order?
Take responsibility
Food security
Friendly, kind, and generous

If you want keep tabs on what I’m been thinking, feeling, and doing, you can follow me on twitter (tomazgreco), or Facebook (thomas.h.greco), or follow my blog at https://beyondmoney.net/. _____________

Reconnecting the Monetary Economy to the Real Economy

Money is the “hole” that is defined by the “doughnut” of real goods and services; it is the nothing that serves only to account for that which is available in the real economy. When pseudo-money can be created by fiat, apart from anything of real value, confusion and madness ensue. — T. H. Greco, Jr.

I’ve been arguing for more than 40 years that the global system of money, banking, and finance is fatally flawed, and now its condition has become acute. Since 2008 it has been on life support. The connections between the monetary economy and the real economy have long been tenuous, but in recent years have been severed to the point of non-existence. When banks and governments can create quasi-money out of nothing without any real value basis and allocate it selectively to advance political agendas, you know the end is near. The last vestiges of budgetary restraint on federal government spending have been eliminated along with any concern about what people really need and want. The results have been the ever-increasing centralization of power at the federal level, central planning of the economy, worsening price inflation, declining purchasing power of fiat money, increasing corporate ownership of real assets, especially residential real estate, zero or negative returns on people’s savings, and increasing disparities of income and wealth. The only way this system can be perpetuated is by the complete elimination of any semblance of democratic government. As E. C. Riegel observed almost 80 years ago:
“Society is in the twilight of a passing day. The state now undertakes to finance the
economy, and, since a free economy is manifestly impossible where the state assumes the responsibility of supplying the money circulation, the politician is compelled to choose between fascism and communism.”
Private Enterprise Money

— Read the entire newsletter <here>.

The debt crisis spreading around the world

A recent news post blames pandemic spending, a rising dollar and poor leadership for the debt crises in Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Ghana, El Salvador, Zambia, and Pakistan, but while those may be the proximate causes of the crises, there is a more fundamental underlying cause.

The real cause of debt crises in those countries, as well as worsening crises even in “developed” countries, is the flawed, dysfunctional, and destructive global interest-based, debt-money system, which is designed to extract wealth and accumulate it into the hands of a small global power elite. The system has been doing that for a very long time but now the adverse effects are becoming acute and spilling over beyond the financial and economic realms and into the political and social realms as well.

Total Global Debt as percentage of GDP

These problems will not be solved by ever greater amounts of poisonous debt. Any real cure must include massive amounts of debt forgiveness and the deployment of new systems of money, credit and exchange that are decentralized and interest-free. Such systems are described in my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

February 2022 Newsletter: The State of the Economy: What’s going on, what to expect, and how to prepare.

Photo by Daniel Sessler, unsplash

These are the topics covered in this newsletter edition:

  • The State of the Economy
  • What’s going on and how to prepare?
  • Social Collapse Best Practices
  • Prospects and Prescriptions from Ernst Wolff     
  • My Recent presentations and interview
  • The End of Money
  • Personal News

Rather than post the entire contents here, I’ve decided to simply provide the link to it on my MailChimp site:
http://mailchi.mp/acd12f7f51ba/the-state-of-the-economy-whats-going-on-what-to-expect-and-how-to-prepare   
If you want to be on my list to receive my occasional newsletters directly by email, you can subscribe there.

Comments are welcome and can be left here.

My latest interview on It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown

I was the featured guest on Ellen Brown’s podcast of December 30, 2021. I consider this to be one of my best interviews in which I covered a wide range of the most important questions related to rebuilding our system of money and finance. My interview is comprised of the first 38 minutes of the program.

This audio together with a transcript can also be found here.

The Relentless Rise of Corporate Power

big-umbrella

Did you know that after winning independence from the British Empire “…our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society. 

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused)…

  • Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
  • Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
  • Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
  • Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
  • Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
  • Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

Read the whole story, Our Hidden History of Corporations in the U.S.

You might also wish to consult David Korten’s excellent book, When Corporations Rule the World, and Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights.

To be entertained while being informed and inspired watch the movie, They Live.
TheyLive1
Obey, Consume, Stay asleep, Watch TV, Submit, Conform

There is a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to put an end to corporate personhood and re-impose reasonable limits on corporate powers.
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.”    — Move to Amend

I consider huge transnational corporations to be the malevolent aliens among us. The small elite class of humans who control them are using these corporations to shape a global neo-feudal dystopia in which they will be absolute masters over the rest of humanity, the Earth, and all of its resources. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people remain complacent and blind to this reality, but it cannot exist without our complicity. You don’t need special glasses to see the truth, just open your eyes, don’t be afraid to inquire, trust your own senses, and think for yourself. The way toward a better future for ourselves, our children, and our posterity lies in reducing our dependence upon all of the social, economic, political and subsidiary systems and structures that have been utterly corrupted, and working together to empower ourselves and our communities to be more self-reliant and masters of our own destiny.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
            — William Ernest Henley.

Alternative History — What If?

This Power Point slide show presentation was delivered virtually to the Alternative History Festival in Poland in September 2020. It highlights several historical turns as modern civilization has evolved that led to our present predicament and then asks how things might have been different and how they ought to be.

You can download it here.

James Corbett addresses the topic of alternative currencies

In his presentation that was part of The Greater Reset, James Corbett (of the Corbett Report) provided an overview of alternative means of exchange. In it he mentioned community currencies, LETS, trade exchanges, and my book, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, as well as this website.

You can view his excellent presentation here. Scroll down to find James Corbett: Why We Need a Survival Currency

The New Reformation?

Luther-Nailing-ninety-five-theses
The election of Donald Trump was just a symptom of a major shift of civilization. In this essay, Mike Krauss (http://thekrausscommentary.com/) compares it to the Reformation of the sixteenth century.  It seems an apt analogy.

From Martin Luther to Donald Trump: Reading the Signs of the Times


Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Thesis in 1517. Some histories record that he nailed them to the door of the chapel of the Wittenberg Castle. His challenge to the monolithic authority of the Catholic Church in Western Europe  set off an upheaval among the governing class and peoples of the European continent that was not only religious, but was also political, cultural and intellectual.
 
That upheaval did not follow immediately on Luther’s bold action, but erupted about four years later as the Church banned citizens of all the nations from espousing, defending or disseminating Luther’s ideas, and hardened the division into what would become the Reformation and Counter Reformation, decades of strife and bloody conflict within and between the peoples and nations of the continent. Lives were unspeakably brutalized. Property was confiscated and families destroyed. Mobs desecrated or destroyed churches and pulled down or defaced their statues and relics. Justice was whatever princes and popes said it was.
 
In the end, Europe was changed and the course of western civilization altered, as more democratic norms of government gradually displaced centralized royal and ecclesiastical power and the rule of law grew stronger.
 
It is tempting at this remove to compare Donald Trump’s 2015 ride down the escalator in his cathedral to capitalism, Trump Tower, to Luther’s arrival on the scene. But with Trump, the reaction of the monolithic governing class was immediate, as they recognized the power of Trump’s challenge to their authority and mounted a fierce counter attack. It has become as brutal as that of the 16th century, as the Counter Reformers now seek to politically, socially and economically excommunicate, exorcise, punish and destroy utterly Trump and any vestige of his American Reformation.
 
Now as then, the opposing sides in the contest use the same language of centuries of a shared “faith” to claim the moral high ground, with this difference: Trump’s reformers just want to be left alone by controlling, centralized authority to live their lives as they think best, while the statist counter reformers demand conformity to their “civic virtues,” and take no prisoners in an all out war to regain and retain power.
 
Where is this leading? In the short term, to fascism and repression. The counter reformers have seized both the government and the means of communication of an entire nation. This contrasts with the Protestant Reformation; in that, as the printing press came into wider use at that time, the ideas of Luther and other reformers were more widely circulated than had ever before been possible. New technology aided the Reformation. Now in the United States, new means of communication serve the Counter Reformation and the governing class. For the foreseeable future there will be only the “party line” heard in the United States. 
 
But even the dullest of ears will by now have picked up the incessant, preening moralizing of the counter reformers. Completely self sanctified and utterly un-self aware, these elites are likely to drive the Biden administration. Biden is not strong enough to resist.  He may not want to.
 
 “Joe Biden, Savior of the Republic” may be the story Biden has going in his head. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to establish a domestic surveillance agency with authority to define any reforming thought, speech or action which challenges the governing class as “domestic terror,” the modern equivalent of heresy.
 
There is one element to this conflict today that was not present in that of 16th century Europe and is entirely modern and American: race. The resentments of some whites on the right and some blacks on the left are equally poisonous and capable of overcoming any hope of reason and accommodation among the warring parties.
 
American liberalism, the former church of the secular left is dead, having collapsed under its own failures. The two greatest failures have been the decades long reduction of the mostly white middle class, its wealth redistributed to a permanent governing class of corporate overlords and their political retainers; and the simultaneous creation of a mostly black, permanent underclass, consigned to the apartheid landscape of American cities which liberal policy created, islands of white prosperity in a sea of mostly black poverty.
 
Until these twin failures of the governing class are remedied a time of conflict and turmoil in America is inevitable,.
 
Trump simply called out the reality of the decadence of the American governing class, as Luther called out that of the Medieval Church.  Leading up to Luther’s challenge, Pope Sixtus IV began the practice of selling Indulgences to wealthy sinners  –  ecclesiastical get-out-of-purgatory- free cards  – the way Congress sells legislation to lobbyists. Pope Alexander VI enforced celibacy on the priesthood but was the father of seven  (!) children, operating with the same hubris on display daily in the American governing class today: “rules for thee, but not for me.”
 
Hubris invites nemesis: then Luther, now Trump.
 
In the weeks ahead there may be a period of relative calm, as the people wait and watch. But it won’t last long. As the government of the American Counter Reformation becomes steadily more repressive, authoritarian and fascist, it will run up against something Luther did not have to help fuel his Reformation: a people with the experience of centuries of democratic government, the protection of individual liberties and the rule of law.
 
This conflict will not be resolved any time soon.

And this assessment, That’s All Folks, from former Congressman Ron Paul, provides another take on the matter. And his latest essay, When Fascism Comes, It Will Be Wearing a Mask, spotlights actions by the Biden administration that look a lot like a counter-reformation.

Let’s see if we can find ways to enjoy the ride and take advantage of the opportunities to build a better world.

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