Category Archives: The Political Money System

Will we ever see a world without money?

If you doubt it, think about these famous words from experts of the past–t.h.g.

“The bomb will never go off. I speak  as an expert in explosives.” – – Admiral William Leahy , US Atomic Bomb Project

“There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” — Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“But what is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981

This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible” — A  Yale  University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper” — Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible” — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this” – – Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy” — Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” – – Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics,  Yale University , 1929.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole  Superieure de Guerre ,  France .

“Everything that can be invented has been invented” — Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

“The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required.” — Professor of Electrical Engineering,  New York  University

“I don’t know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn’t be a feasible business by itself.” — the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,” — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen  Victoria 1873.

And last but not least…

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”  — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”  — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

Greek economy running backwards, a WSJ video report

The Greek economy has been crippled by the austerity demanded by international financial institutions. This Wall Street Journal video report shows how some Greeks are coping by going back to the land.

Every country is caught in the usury trap that is inherent in the global debt-money system, and all will follow the same course in turn. Those who happen to have land to go back to are the lucky ones.–t.h.g.

The New York Times discovers Bernard von NotHaus and the Liberty Dollar

Here below is a recent article that appeared in the New York Times. It provides background and an update on one of the most bizarre trials to be held in the United States since the Scopes “monkey trial.”–t.h.g.

Prison May Be the Next Stop on a Gold Currency Journey
By
Published: October 24, 2012

MALIBU, Calif. — High above the cliff tops and the beach bars, up a winding mountain road, in a borrowed house on someone else’s ranch, an unusual criminal is waiting for his fate.

His name is Bernard von NotHaus, and he is a professed “monetary architect” and a maker of custom coins found guilty last spring of counterfeiting charges for minting and distributing a form of private money called the Liberty Dollar.

Described by some as “the Rosa Parks of the constitutional currency movement,” Mr. von NotHaus managed over the last decade to get more than 60 million real dollars’ worth of his precious metal-backed currency into circulation across the country — so much, and with such deep penetration, that the prosecutor overseeing his case accused him of “domestic terrorism” for using them to undermine the government.

Of course, if you ask him what caused him to be living here in exile, waiting with the rabbits for his sentence to be rendered, he will give a different account of what occurred. …more…

Realpolitik 201, by Richard K. Moore

Realpolitik 201 by Richard K. Moore

The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. —President Abraham Lincoln, before his assassination by Rothschilds’ agents

The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes. —Felix Frankfurter, United States Supreme Court Justice, 1952

Of course there is a class war, but it’s my class, the rich class, that is waging the war, and we’re winning. —Warren Buffet

There is something behind the throne greater than the King. —William Pitt, 1770

What is not already obvious here? —A Plebeian

Greetings,

In Course 101, we examined the work of some thorough and reliable researchers, giving us a basic picture of who is guiding world events, how they exercise their power, and what their basic agenda is. In 201, we will be looking at how to make use of this basic information, and we’ll look at some examples, re/ interpreting ongoing events.

But first, let’s summarize a few key points about the bankster elite, using a few quotations from our sources.

—-

…the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrive at infrequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements [BIS] in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.

In the years before and during WW1, the Secret Elite took control of virtually the entire banking, industrial and armaments might of the British Empire and the United States… Namely, J. P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Jacob Schiff and Paul Warburg in the US, and Lord Nathaniel Rothschild in England

They controlled the press, the politicians and more importantly perhaps, they controlled the Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England. Professor Quigley clearly explains and details their ‘triple front penetration’ of politics, the press and education. Virtually every major geopolitical event over the last century stems from this tiny, all-powerful clique.

—-

The first thing one needs to do, to make use of this kind of information, is to contemplate a bit on what it implies, and on how it relates to what’s going on in the world today. One observation that emerges from such a contemplation is that we seem now to be in the endgame of the installation of the ‘feudalist’ system envisioned by the banksters, back in their early planning days…

By acting in concert and in secret, in alliance with associated financial institutions, the central banksters orchestrated the banking system collapse of 2008. By their control of politicians, they then achieved a transfer of insolvency from banks to national treasuries (the bailouts), creating an economic regime of unrepayable sovereign debt, a trap that will soon also ensnare the USA, Germany, and the rest. The banksters are then using this debt-enslavement to impose an austerity regime that is reducing Western populations to the level of feudal serfs, disempowered both economically and politically.

The feudal model applies quite closely to what is happening. As nations are forced to sell off all their assets (universal privatization), in a hopeless attempt to escape from insolvency, a situation is created where all land and resources will be owned by corporations, and ultimately controlled by the banksters, just as in feudal days all was owned by the lords of manors, and ultimately controlled by the crown.

The main difference seems to be that the bankster regime will be more centralized than the feudal system was. With modern communications and technology, there is no need for subsidiary lords and nobles, with their own semi-automous realms, to provide a stable political platform for the royal realm. In the bankster regime, it is more like all estates will be owned directly by the crown, with centrally-appointed estate-manager technocrats enforcing central directives locally. Exactly as we see unfolding now, most clearly in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Ireland, where Goldman Sachs, co-orchestrator of the collapse, is providing some of the estate-manager staff.

It seems that we have a very good fit, between design and outcomes – the bankster clique is evidently still very much in charge, on course, and in the endgame of installing their long-sought neo-feudal world order.

I emphasized that paragraph, because it is the central thing to keep always in mind when seeking to interpret the meaning of unfolding events. In particular, it is important to contemplate on what it means to be in an endgame scenario.

When you begin making your bold endgame moves, pushing toward a forced checkmate, you must have a combination worked out, so that you prevail against all available lines of defense. Otherwise your bold moves may open you up to a decisive counter-attack and rout. And quite clearly, the bankster clique has demonstrated over the years its proficiency, and thoroughness, as regards chess-like great games. If we are in the endgame, then we can be sure they have preparations in place to deal with all aspects of the transition to the new regime, taking into account alternatives available to other players in the game.

One of those players is us 99%, who might be expected to rebel, in one way or another, as we see our society being destroyed, and as the perpetrators become more and more visible, as they reveal their endgame moves. Their preparations to deal with us are very clear: the ‘anti-terrorist’ no-civil-rights legal regime, militarized and federalized police forces, and crowd-control protocols based on suppression by any means necessary. All of this facilitated by false-flag events that created the excuse. Ducks carefully arranged in a row, prior to endgame moves.

Russia and China are the players, at the geopolitical level, who have alternatives available that can effect the nature of the endgame. They are also players with an impressive centuries-long track record with chess-like engagements. They know very well the nature of the endgame they find themselves in, and they want desperately to force a multi-polar draw, and prevent a unipolar checkmate.

The bankster elite, however, have demonstrated over the years singleness of purpose, and a total unwillingness to accept anything as an outcome other than complete, unchallenged, unshared power. A multi-polar outcome is not on the table for consideration, in their endgame plans. If Russia and China will not capitulate, the regime will be forced upon their territory by whatever means necessary, based on the preparations that have been made.

Among those preparations is a first-strike nuclear capability, with US bases and missle-defense systems surrounding Russia and China, with tactical nuclear weapons widely deployed, under the control of local commanders, and with electronic satellite-based systems that can critically disable the communication and defense systems of adversaries.

In order to interpret unfolding events, one needs to be aware, at a visceral level, that we are in the midst of a dynamic transition process, involving the rapid demolition of an old order, and the rapid creation of a new order, all being carried out according to a carefully designed game plan. With this awareness, the mainstream media can be very helpful in tracking the ongoing moves of the endgame. For the mainstream media has a very predictable way of covering key moves in the game, key shifts in the board positions.

For a start, such moves are always given front page attention, as leading news items. Always with these moves some old-system taboo is being violated, and some new-system principle is being put in place as a justification. The function of the media is to dismiss the taboo as out-of-date thinking, and embrace the necessity and wisdom of the new principle, despite unfortunate side-effects that cannot, unfortunately be avoided.

Thus torture becomes acceptable, along with unprovoked invasions, drone strikes on the civilians of allies, targeted killings of your own citizens, supplying arms to active Al Qaeda terrorists, and the list goes on. By following the headlines associated with dramatic incidents, and reading the propaganda copy, you can track the step-by-step demolition of the old order, and the systematic construction of the new system architecture.

This applies to all aspects of society, not just to geopolitical events. Wherever you see dramatic precedents being set, in leading news stories, you are probably seeing signs of what is being abandoned, and what is being planned for the future. The example that comes most quickly to mind is the celebrated swine flu ‘pandemic’, which was carried on mainstream media for many months, and which led to the setting of several important precedents.

Not only was the definition of pandemic given a nonsense redefinition, but a regime was set up where the bankster-controlled WHO can decree a pandemic on the flimsiest of excuses, and can designate which vaccines must be used in treating it, with no accountability as regards testing, and with no liability being assumed for any ‘side effects’. In addition there was an intense and ongoing worldwide propaganda campaign about the value and necessity of getting vaccinated.

And there were clearly steps being taken toward creating a forced-vaccination regime, beginning with health workers all over the world as a test population. If total control over the global population is the goal, then the ability to inject arbitrary substances at any time into the bodies of any segment of the population is certainly a very powerful tool to have in your toolkit, whether it be to narcotize, hype-up, temporarily disable, or eliminate altogether.

And this ends Course 201, of the Realpolitik series. If some of you want to try your hand at interpretation, by delving into some dramatic media story line, we can perhaps continue with a seminar series. Your analysis is just as important as your conclusions, as regards any seminar contribution. What we’re after is an understanding of why a given precedent is relevant to the new regime, and what that indicates about the nature of the new regime.

rkm

Richard K. Moore is a political analyst and author of Escaping the Matrix

Why Congress Will Not Prevent the Crash

As economists go, Robert Reich is one of the more rational and humane, but he suffers under the same delusion as the others.  In a recent blog post, he describes why he thinks that “January’s Fiscal Cliff Turns into a Gentle Hill by February (or March).

What Robert Reich, and most economists fail to understand is that the federal budget cannot possibly be balanced so long as we have a debt-money system in which banks create money based on interest-bearing debt. This system contains a debt-growth imperative. As time goes on total debt must continually increase to keep the money supply pumped up. When the private sector is all “loaned-up,” government becomes the “borrower of last resort.” Failing in that role, we have a contraction of the money supply, defaults, unemployment and recession. If government assumes that role, we have inflation. So take your choice: recession or inflation, or some of each.

No amount of “Quantitative easing,” or tax cutting, or spending reductions will get us out of this dilemma. Politicians may be able to delay it a bit longer, but no amount of policy tweaking can prevent the inevitable crisis. The problem is systemic and only a complete restructuring of money and banking will solve it. -t.h.g.

 

Money Malfunction, and What We Can Do About It

We have in Professor Jem Bendell a very competent spokesman for monetary transformation. This video hits all the right points, provides all the right answers, and gives viewers some direction for positive action.

October Newsletter and Fall tour itinerary: Europe & UK

In this edition

Fall Tour Itinerary – Europe and the UK

The Wealth of the Commons now in print.

Recent posts

  • QE3
  • Riegel essays:
    • Right-wing Socialists
    • Breaking the English Tradition

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Fall Tour

My fall tour agenda has filled out nicely and includes an exciting assortment of presentations, workshops, and consultations.

On October 1, I will begin a five week tour that will take me to Switzerland, Greece, and the UK.

Here is a chronological list of events. If you wish to participate in any of them, please go to the indicated website or get in touch with appropriate contact person.

3-6 October. Geneva. Presentations and conferences with Community Forge. “CommunityForge is a non-profit association that designs, develops and provides complementary currency systems and tools.” (Use the “Contact” button on the website to connect with Tim Anderson). This stop will probably include a presentation at the UN Palais des Nations, Human Rights Social Forum, on October 3. My topic will be “Strategies for community empowerment and the creation of economic democracy.”

7-14 October. Crete, Greece.

On October 10 and 11, I will be a presenter at the International Sustainability Summit, to be held at the European Sustainability Academy (Sharon Jackson, Director ).

The segment on Strategic shifts in prevailing systems includes a 2 day workshop that will focus specifically upon Community Exchange Systems and Alternative currency systems for Sustainable Communities. On October 10, I will give a presentation on The Emerging Butterfly Society: Making the shift to a steady-state economy and a world that works for all. Details and registration materials can be found at: http://www.eurosustainability.org/en/esa_summit4.htm

15 October to approximately 21 October. Mainland Greece

During this time period, I will be traveling to Thessaloniki, Volos, and Athens. Specifics are still developing.

25 October. York, UK

I will be speaking at the York LETS Conference on the topic, “Why local exchanges and currencies fail to thrive, and what is required to take alternative exchange to scale.” Booking at, http://yorkaltcurrencies-efbevent.eventbrite.co.uk/ . Info at Facebook.

October 27-28. London. Events on Money and Alternative Currencies are being planned by Mary Fee of LETSlinkUK, http://www.letslinkuk.net/. Details will be posted here when available.

30 October. Ambleside (Lake District). Cumbria University, Presentation, Beyond Money, Banks, and the Left-Right Divide.

31 October. I will be delivering a free public lecture, A New Approach to Community Economic Development at Cumbria University in Lancaster, UK.

1 November. I will conduct a workshop titled, Complementary Exchange Systems: Design, Organization, and Implementation, at The University of Cumbria in Lancaster( Room AXB003) from 2pm to 5pm.

Details of both events at: http://www.localwealth.co.uk/tom-greco/

Register for either at http://www.localwealth.co.uk/booking-for-tom-greco-events-in-lancaster/ .

I will return to the U.S. from London on November 5.

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The Wealth of the Commons

Following my participation in the Commons Conference in Berlin two years ago, I was asked to contribute a chapter to an anthology titled, The Wealth of the Commons: A world beyond market & state. This book is a “new collection of 73 essays that describe the enormous potential of the commons in conceptualizing and building a better future.” At long last, the English edition has now been published and can be ordered from Leveller’s Press,

I think the chapter I wrote for this book is one of the most succinct and information-rich essays I’ve ever written, so I’ve posted it here on this site at Reclaiming the Credit Commons.

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QE ad infinitum (QE3)

“Quantitative Easing,” commonly referred to as “QE,” is a euphemistic expression for currency inflation, i.e., the creation of money on the basis of junk securities and empty promises. On September 14, Ben Bernanke announced that the FED would continue to inflate the dollar on an ongoing basis for “as long as it takes.” A week earlier, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi announced a similar plan to save the Euro by buying the bonds of euro-zone governments, notably Spain and Italy. “There will be no “ex ante limits on the size” of the purchases, said Draghi.” He sugar-coated the bitter pill by saying, “governments that want the ECB to buy its bonds must agree to a program of reforms and oversight by the bailout funds and possibly the International Monetary Fund.” We know what that means for the ordinary person. Two of my recent posts address these announcements (https://beyondmoney.net/2012/09/20/qe-ad-infinatum/, and https://beyondmoney.net/2012/09/21/et-tu-ecb-inflating-the-euro/).

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Recent posts

In recent weeks, I’ve been re-reading some of E. C. Riegel’s essays. I’ll be posting the more important ones from time to time. Here is one that, although written more than 60 years ago, seems especially timely: The Right-wing Socialists.

Another important Riegel essay is, Breaking the English Tradition, which years ago I embedded, with my comments in a post to my other website Reinventingmoney.com. That post titled, The Politics of Money, can be download at here.

Hoping to see some of you along the way,

Thomas

Et tu ECB? Inflating the Euro

Te European Central Bank is following the lead of the Federal Reserve in planning to buy up the debts of euro-zone governments. By making that move, the ECB is overstepping its legal bounds, but, hey, whatever it takes to maintain the global plutocracy.

Here’s an excerpt from The Washington Post

The European Central Bank moved decisively Thursday in announcing that it would buy the bonds of struggling governments without limit, an initiative that could save the euro zone and blunt one of the main threats menacing the global economy.

The unprecedented step, meant to reassure fearful investors that euro-zone governments would not default, sparked a rally on world stock markets. U.S. stock indices posted their largest gains in weeks, with the S&P 500 soaring 2 percent and closing at a four-year high.

….

By agreeing to buy government bonds when investors balk, the ECB is moving much closer to becoming a “lender of last resort,” a role traditionally played by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks. The ECB was created with a narrower mandate than the Fed or Bank of England, say, and is barred by European treaties from financing individual governments.

Draghi said the new program won near-unanimous support on the ECB board, with only a single dissenting vote. Jens Weidmann, head of Germany’s central bank, has been adamantly opposed to the idea, saying in a recent interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel that the bond-buying initiative would violate the ECB’s legal mandate and was “too close to state financing via the money press for me.”

More..

 

QE ad infinitum

Last week, Ben Bernanke announced that the FED would continue to inflate the dollar on an ongoing basis for “as long as it takes.”

As I’ve said before, purchases of securities by the FED amounts to the injection of counterfeit money into the economy under color of law. It’s bad enough when FED purchases are limited to federal government securities. In that case, it is federal budget deficits that are enabled. Now, the FED is buying, at inflated prices, “junk” (securities of little worth) from banks, financial institutions, and speculators, enriching those who caused the bubble in the first place, and enabling more of the same.

This is just another move by the banking and financial elite to take ownership of the entire world.

A recent article in ZNet by Jack Rasmus concludes,

The significance of the Fed’s QE3 move therefore is there will continue to be free money in unlimited amounts to banks and investors to hoard or to speculate and play with, while it’s cuts in spending and disposable income for the rest of us. But ‘QEs for them’ and ‘Austerity for the rest of us’ will mean continued economic slowdown and recession, accelerating in Europe, more slowly coming in the US, and increasingly on the horizon for even Asia.

That continued economic slowdown—in the US and globally—will make the private banking system in turn even more unstable, regardless of how many FED QEs are introduced.  So why do governments continue with ‘austerity’ policies on the fiscal side that ultimately negate QE policies on the monetary side?  Because QEs are more profitable to bankers and investors. And those bankers and investors believe if they can just hold out in the short run—with the government and central bank making up for their short term losses with trillions of ‘free money’ injections, in the longer run the capitalist system will self-correct itself on its own. But that proposition—i.e. bail out investors and bankers and let the markets do the rest—is economic ‘ideology’ and not economic fact or science.

As governments, bankers, and financial elites continue to abuse the currency, the economy, and our political institutions, it becomes ever more urgent that people cooperate in organizing new structures of exchange and finance that empower them sufficiently to meet their basic needs and build “the Butterfly Society” to save the planet and provide a dignified life for everyone. — t.h.g.

Beware of the Right-Wing Socialists

Here below is another insightful gem from E. C. Riegel. In this essay, Riegel (1) highlights the predominant fallacy which holds that money is based on political authority and should be controlled by the State, and (2) explains why true free enterprise can only exist when private enterprisers control not only the means of production, and the means of distribution, but also the means of exchange.

The present global system of money is far from that. It is the product of collusion between politicians and bankers that has established a dysfunctional, exploitative, and violent despotism. –t.h.g.

The Right-Wing Socialists

THERE ARE three classes of socialists: the left-wing, or Marxist, group, who believe that the government should own and control everything; the middle-of-the ­road socialists, who believe the government should own and operate public utilities; and the right-wing social­ists, who believe that the government should control only the monetary system.

The right-wing socialists are by far the most danger­ous, because they are not known as socialists and call themselves capitalists, individualists, private enterprisers, etc. They even believe themselves to be anti-socialist and profess full faith in private enterprise. They are not only numerically the largest group of socialists but are also individually the most influential. Among them are the leading industrialists and mercantilists and bankers and statesmen.

The right wing socialists believe that with produc­tion and distribution facilities in the ownership and operation of private interests, and with monetary facilities in the hands of government, we can have free enterprise. They might as well believe that if a man owns an auto­mobile, he need not worry about who or what controls the gas.

Private enterprise means the right among men to come to voluntary agreement on the exchange of their goods and services. These agreements, some written, some oral, some implicit, some explicit, run into the millions, and upon their fidelity rests the entire social structure. In a money economy, all these contracts are expressed in terms of the monetary unit, which is itself based upon a contract-the basic contract which is the foundation of the entire pyramid of contracts.

What is the money contract that makes possible or impossible the faithful performance of every other con­tract? Ask any businessman, banker, lawyer, economist or statesman, and you will find that his idea is not only vague, but that it involves legislation. In other words, he believes that money is a political product.

In contrast with this universal belief, the truth is that the state is incompetent to legislate money and power­less to issue it. The substance of money is supplied en­tirely by private enterprise. The state’s intervention in money is at best an impediment to private enterprise, and with the assertion of the issue power, it becomes the active agent of socialization. Thus those who believe in or accept political money power – and their number is legion – are the most dangerous, though innocent, socialists.

While the great mass of people have no ideology, those who think on the issue between private enterprise and socialism are virtually all socialists of the three classes named. This is a startling fact that we must recognize before the final battle lines are formed. The would-be friends of private enterprise must be made real friends, instead of innocent fellow travelers with those who would destroy our liberties.

Private enterprise, to survive, must control its three facilities, namely, the means of exchange, the means of production, and the means of distribution. To control the means of exchange, we must have separation of money and state.

#     #     #

This essay is contained in the republished version of Riegel’s, New Approach to Freedom. That book, and Riegel’s other major works can be found at http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info/.–t.h.g.