Welcome to the new 2024 edition of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

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 and timely today as it was when first published the printed book has been out of print for several years, although the digital Kindle edition is still available from Amazon.com, and there is an active market for used copies.

Having recently had the rights reverted to me by my publisher, I have decided to begin publishing a revised, updated, and expanded edition of the book. It will first be published in serial form, as freely downloadable chapters on my website, Medium, and elsewhere, as I complete them. The text of each section will be accompanied by an audio narration by Ken Richings.

Upon completion of the series, I plan to compile the various chapters and sections into both a print edition and an e-book edition. For the new edition, every chapter will be edited, some rewritten, others may be dropped, and new ones added to cover the changing financial, economic, and political circumstances, and to address more recent developments, including the emergence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, blockchain technology, and smart contracts. That particular chapter will elaborate and expand upon what I’ve already written and published in my articles, Bitcoin, Blockchain, and the end of money as we’ve known it (2022), and Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology, and Crypto-Currency (2016).

The serial publication may not be on a regular schedule, but I’ve made it a priority to complete the series by the end of 2024. If you wish to be alerted as new sections of the book are posted you can follow me at my website, https://beyondmoney.net/, and subscribe to my occasional newsletter at MailChimp.

You can find the links to each subsequent chapter by clicking on the menu item The End of Money above. 
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Chapter 1 My Purpose and My Journey

Chapter 1  My Purpose and My Journey—Audio narration 
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The betrayal of the Ukrainian people; you’re next!

I feel sorry for the Ukrainian people, not only have they been conscripted to fight a proxy war for the US against the Russians, a war in which despite massive financial and military support they are being slaughtered; they have now been selected to be a demonstration project for a US-created information system that gives the Kiev government all the information it needs to control every aspect of their people’s lives. Little by little, place by place, Big Brother is enslaving the masses.   

I asked Bing Chat to give me a summary of the history, development and capabilities of the Diia phone app which is the heart of the system now being deployed. Here is what it gave me:

Generated by Bing Chat, Monday, October 2, 2023

The Diia app is a mobile application, web portal, and brand of e-governance in Ukraine that was launched in 2020 by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine . The app allows Ukrainian citizens to use digital documents on their smartphones instead of physical ones for identification and sharing purposes. The Diia portal allows access to over 50 government services, and the government plans to make all kinds of state-person interactions available through Diia.

The name “Diia” is an acronym for “State and Me” in Ukrainian. The app was built in partnership with the USA and is poised to be shared with other countries. In fact, at the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos, USAID Administrator Samantha Power said that the US hopes to replicate the success of Diia in other countries.

Diia was first presented on September 27, 2019, by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine as a brand of the State in a Smartphone project. Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov announced the creation of a mobile app and a web portal that would unite in a single place all the services provided by the state to citizens and businesses. On February 6, 2020, the mobile app Diia was officially launched.

In April 2020, the Ukrainian government approved a resolution for experimental usage of digital ID-cards and passports which would be issued to all Ukrainians via Diia. On October 5, 2020, during the Diia Summit, the government presented a first major update of the app and web portal branded “Diia 2.0”. By the end of 2020, the app had more than 6 million users, while the portal had 50 available services.

Please note that while I have tried my best to provide accurate information based on my sources, some details may be outdated or incomplete.

According to an article in 9to5mac.com,

Ukraine has been at the forefront of government digitalization. The country became the first one in the world to allow a digital ID on a smartphone to be universally accepted as an alternative to a paper one. The Diia app can serve as a legally-recognized document for:

  • ID card
  • Foreign passport
  • Student card
  • Driving licence
  • Vehicle registration document
  • Vehicle insurance certificate
  • Tax identity
  • Birth certificate
  • IdP certificate (identity-management system)

The Diia app also provides access to over 70 government services, allowing citizens to do things like register as self-employed within the app in just 15 minutes.

Image from Behance.net

Further, according to one source, the government has already announced that the payment of benefits will be conditional on the presence of a Covid-19 vaccination certificate. While the use of the app is for the moment voluntary, do not for one moment think that it will remain so, or that similar systems won’t be imposed in other countries around the world as US officials have already stated their intention to do so. It’s a giant step forward in the agenda toward greater centralization of power and wealth and the elimination of democratic government. Any astute observer can see that right and left politics have been integrated into a global despotic “uniparty” under elite control. As Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum has clearly stated, they have trained and placed in positions of power in countries around the world, people, like Justin Trudeau (PM of Canada) and Emmanuel Macron (President of France) who will promote their agenda.  He has also told us, “You will own nothing…” Neither will you be allowed to do anything without the permission of Big Brother.

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Gloom and Doom, But There’s a New Dawn Arising

Photo by Josh Sorenson. Pexels.com

Give me the power to create the money and make it legal tender and I can become owner of the entire world. — T. H. Greco, Jr.

In 2009, while in the process of making the final edits to my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, my editor took issue with my assertion that the declining value of the US dollar would continue indefinitely. He cited the increase in “value” of the dollar in the foreign exchange markets that was occurring at that time as evidence of my “error.”

I responded that the “value” of the dollar compared to other political currencies did not reflect its true value in relation to the real economy, i.e., what a dollar could buy, because all national currencies suffer from the same defects (improper and excessive issuance and the “growth imperative”), and virtually all of them are losing “purchasing power” because of it. The fluctuations in their market values relative to one another result from political and monetary policy decisions taken in their respective countries, not from any increase in their real value.

I argued that what the world has been experiencing in recent years is unprecedented. Never before in recorded human history has there been such a unitary system of money, banking and finance upon which the economies and peoples of virtually every nation of the world have come to depend.

The long-term trends were, and remain, clearly evident and even worse than shown in the above graph.  I referred my editor, among other things, to this Max Keiser video to drive home that point and to show that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is being manipulated to make the decline in purchasing power look less bad than it actually is. Fortunately, that video is still available on YouTube. The mountain of evidence that has been accumulated during the years since the publication of my book has made it patently clear that my assertions were correct. The cost of living due to the debasement of the US dollar has not only continued to increase but has accelerated with the extreme measures that were taken during the pandemic years. Thus, the real value of the dollar, i.e., its purchasing power, has continued to decline even more rapidly than before, as indicated by the recent upturn in the CPI shown in the graph below.

If a strong dollar is in the interests of maintaining confidence and perpetuating the global system, the central banks of the western alliance will rally to support it. If currency inflation is causing prices to rise too rapidly in one place, the effects will be shifted to another place. In efforts to limit inflation overall, the productive sectors of the economy will be starved for credit, causing sound businesses to fail and more jobs to be sacrificed. People who have lost their livelihood are in no position to demand higher wages. Indeed, they will fight with one another to get whatever they can garner from a weakened economy. I argued at the time, and still maintain that the businesses that survive will be the huge corporations that enjoy favored treatment in receiving government bailouts and credit from banks and that those corporations will continue to grow ever larger through acquisitions, consolidations, and market dominance.

Cancer and the Debt Growth Imperative

One of humanity’s most dreaded diseases is cancer, which is tissue growth that has become uncontrolled and purposeless. It is growth of the wrong sort and in the wrong places which eventually kills itself as it kills the body of its host. Such has also been the nature of much of the economic growth that the world economy has experienced over the past many decades.

The debt-growth, economic-growth imperative that I have written so much about and summarized in The Usury Conjecture, can be visualized by thinking of the financial economy as a balloon that is attached to an air tank that is relentlessly filling the balloon with air. If you squeeze the balloon at one point to try to stop its expansion, it will simply bulge out somewhere else. In this analogy the air is debt, and the pressure in the air tank is generated by the interest that is applied to the “loans” that banks make to create fiat debt-money. The ever-growing debt must show up either in the private sector or in the public sector.

Those few who control the interest-based, debt-money regime have historically been given everything they’ve asked for to keep this flawed and destructive system alive. They have amassed enormous financial, economic and political power and are intent on owning and controlling everything. Nothing is sacrosanct; all will be sacrificed on the altar of Mammon because of this Faustian bargain between the money powers and the political powers that was struck centuries ago.

But despite the powerful tools at their disposal, they cannot forever avoid the inevitable. As the long-term negative trends continue and the symptoms become ever more severe, the people, communities, and independent producers who are adversely affected will get serious about rediscovering and inventing ways to escape. They will deploy their own honest and effective means of exchange and finance that will ultimately displace the old dysfunctional and destructive political system of money and finance. 

Fortunately, the honest and effective systems of exchange and finance that I’ve long been describing in my books, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, and Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, are already available and are being employed at the margins of the economy. While their scale of operation is still relatively modest, it is inevitable that as improvements are made and their necessity becomes ever more evident, efforts to decouple from the dominant monetary and financial regime will continue to intensify, money banking and finance will be reinvented, and the chaos that now reigns will give way to a better world for all.

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2023 August Newsletter — Monetary Tyranny, the End of Dollar Dominance, and a World in Crisis

In this issue:

  • The Tyranny that is the Global Money System
  • The Final Chapter for Dollar Dominance
  • From Wall Street to Main Street
  • Col. Douglas Mac Gregor
  • In case you missed it…

The Tyranny that is the Global Money System
My new video has emerged out of the power point slide presentations I gave earlier this summer. It is a greatly improved description of the tyrannical nature of the global political money regime, how it has evolved, how it operates, and how we can free ourselves from its grip. Based on my more than 40 years of research, experience, and innovation in the realm of value exchange and finance, it succinctly reveals the truth about the money power, and more importantly, outlines tried-and-true exchange mechanisms by which people, businesses, and communities everywhere can transcend their dependence upon political money and bank borrowing by taking control of their own credit and using it in ways that can bring about a world of peace, justice, and freedom in which everyone can thrive.  

Read the entire newsletter  here or here, and you can Subscribe to receive my future occasional newsletters.

What can AI do?

To satisfy my curiosity about AI, and ChatGPT in particular, I’ve been posing certain questions to it and been pleasantly surprised by the results. ChatGPT uses information that was publicly available online up to September 2021, so the responses that it generates will not include recent changes.

Here is one of my requests which, while much shorter, pretty well summarizes what I myself have written about the matter. I present it here for your information and your comments.

THG: Summarize the unique features of the work of Thomas H. Greco, Jr. on money and economics.

ChatGPT:

5/5 Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is known for his groundbreaking work on money and economics, focusing on alternative monetary systems and local economies. Some of the unique features of his work include:

  1. Decentralized Monetary Systems: Greco advocates for the development of decentralized and community-based monetary systems that empower individuals and local communities to create their own means of exchange. He emphasizes the importance of currencies that are not controlled by centralized authorities like governments or banks.
  2. Complementary Currencies: Greco promotes the idea of complementary currencies, which are designed to work alongside national currencies to facilitate local transactions and trade. These currencies are often tailored to specific communities or regions and can help stimulate local economies.
  3. Democratization of Money Creation: He challenges the conventional model of money creation by banks and governments. Greco believes in the democratization of money issuance, allowing communities to create their own money based on real value and resources.
  4. Mutual Credit Systems: Greco’s work includes the concept of mutual credit systems, where participants can extend credit to one another within a network. This can foster cooperation and exchange without the need for traditional banking intermediaries.
  5. Localized Economies: He emphasizes the importance of localized economies that prioritize community resilience and sustainability. Greco’s work encourages communities to rely more on local production and resources to reduce dependency on distant supply chains.
  6. Interest-Free Economics: Greco criticizes the conventional practice of charging interest on loans and believes that interest-free systems could lead to more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.
  7. Advocacy for Change: Through his writings and lectures, Greco advocates for individuals, communities, and governments to explore and implement alternative economic and monetary systems. He believes that a shift away from the current monetary paradigm could lead to more just and sustainable economies.

In summary, Thomas H. Greco, Jr.’s work revolves around reimagining money and economics by proposing alternative monetary systems, promoting decentralized currencies, advocating for interest-free economies, and encouraging the development of localized, community-based economic structures. His ideas challenge conventional economic thinking and aim to create more resilient, equitable, and sustainable societies.

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Update: Monday, August 28, 2023
This iteration is a bit more complete:

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is known for his unique contributions to the fields of money and economics, particularly in the realm of alternative currencies and monetary systems. Some of the key features of his work include:

  1. Local and Complementary Currencies: Greco emphasizes the importance of local and complementary currencies as tools for promoting economic resilience and community development. He advocates for the creation of currencies that are tailored to specific communities or regions, helping to stimulate local economic activity and reduce dependence on centralized national currencies.
  2. Decentralization of Money Creation: A central theme in Greco’s work is the decentralization of money creation. He believes that allowing communities to create their own currencies empowers them to meet their specific needs, bypassing the traditional centralized banking system and enabling greater control over their economic destiny.
  3. Credit Clearing Systems: Greco explores the concept of credit clearing systems, which facilitate transactions without the need for traditional currency. These systems work by enabling participants to exchange goods and services directly based on mutual credit agreements, reducing the reliance on scarce official currency.
  4. Integral Theory and Economics: Greco integrates principles of integral theory into his economic thinking, considering not only economic factors but also social, ecological, and cultural dimensions. He emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to economics that takes into account the interconnectedness of various aspects of human life.
  5. Monetary Reform Advocacy: Greco is an advocate for monetary reform, particularly in response to issues such as inflation, financial instability, and wealth inequality. He proposes alternative monetary systems that prioritize stability, fairness, and sustainability.
  6. Educational Efforts: Beyond his academic work, Greco is involved in educational efforts to raise awareness about alternative currencies and monetary systems. He has authored books and conducted workshops to help individuals and communities better understand and implement these concepts.
  7. Focus on Empowerment: One of the overarching themes of Greco’s work is empowering individuals and communities to have a greater say in their economic affairs. He believes that by rethinking the way money is created and circulated, people can gain more control over their economic lives and reduce their vulnerability to systemic financial crises.
  8. Sustainability and Resilience: Greco’s work aligns with the principles of sustainability and resilience. By promoting local economies and alternative currencies, he aims to create systems that are more environmentally friendly and less susceptible to the boom-and-bust cycles of traditional monetary systems.

In summary, Thomas H. Greco, Jr.’s work on money and economics revolves around the development of local and complementary currencies, decentralization of money creation, credit clearing systems, integral theory integration, monetary reform advocacy, educational initiatives, empowerment, and a focus on sustainability and resilience. His ideas challenge conventional economic thinking and offer potential solutions for creating more equitable and community-driven economic systems.

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The Tyranny That is the Global Political Money Regime: How it has evolved, how it operates, and how we can free ourselves from its grip.

Based on more than 40 years of monetary and financial research, experience, and innovation, Thomas H. Greco, Jr. succinctly reveals the truth about the money power, and describes the tried-and-true mechanisms by which people, businesses, and communities everywhere can transcend their dependence on it by taking control of their own credit and using it to bring about a world of peace, justice, and freedom in which everyone can thrive.

A most evil weapon; a most heinous crime

Bomblets from a cluster bomb
Bomblets from a cluster bomb

A heinous war crime is about to be committed by a country that purports to be the champion of democracy and human rights. Yes, the United States is preparing to send cluster bombs to the Ukraine for use in the war against Russia. Do you know the kinds of injuries these weapons cause, that they often fail to explode until much later when innocent civilians happen to accidentally set them off, and that these weapons have been banned by the Geneva Convention signed by 123 countries, but NOT by the United States.

Reading the story below from my friend and long-time correspondent Mike Boddington made me weep. It is a graphic description of the many tragedies that civilians suffer from unexploded weapons like the cluster bombs that President Biden now wants to send to Ukraine. Mike, who is British, made it his mission many years ago to go to Southeast Asia to do what he could to help people who have been maimed by unexploded ordinance (UXOs) that was scattered throughout that region by the US and during the Vietnam War.

Mike Boddingtin and Thomas Greco In Vientiane Laos
Mike Boddingtin and Thomas Greco In Vientiane, Laos

I was introduced to Mike by a mutual friend, and in 2009 I visited him at his home in Vientiane, Laos where, in 1995, Mike had set up the office of COPE (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise), the NGO that he founded to warn people of the danger and to provide aid to the estimated 50,000 victims of encounters with UXOs, particularly those who have lost limbs. One of COPEs primary programs is providing prosthetic arms and legs.   

Prosthetics provided by COPE to Laotian victims of UXOs

Mike has given me permission to publish his story here; we, in turn, invite and encourage you to distribute it widely in hopes of averting many more such tragedies. –THG

Laos Leaves June-July 2023: Issue 6.5 by Mike Boddington

This is an interim edition:  a bonus, if you will.  It is brought about as a result of hearing the news that the USA is to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, in order to continue the support of NATO and the west for that country in its battle against Russia.  If this happens it will be the most evil and heinous crime.  It will be the act of people who have no care or concern for the lives and welfare of others.  By way of response, I am reproducing here and article that I wrote in 2021 entitled ‘An Experience in Your Life’ and which has had limited circulation, but has not aired in this medium.  It offers a scenario of a regular, everyday person in SE Asia encountering an unexploded device – here referred to as a cluster sub-munition or bombie. 

I came to Laos by way of Cambodia. Getting involved in the rehabilitation of unexploded ordnance (UXO) survivors in that country was harrowing – as it has proved in any country where I have met with the victims of those devices personally. What follows is from my experience in post-conflict countries – not in countries that are involved in active warfare.  There has been war.  It is over.  Now we are in conflict-recovery mode.  But the wounding and killing goes on – not amongst the combatants, the armed forces, but almost entirely amongst the civilian population.  Not just the civilian population but very often the civilian population that was not even born at the time that the conflict was active.  Those people had lost their limbs as a result of an encounter with an unexploded device of some sort.  Here is a scenario for you, dear reader.  This is about you – your experience.

Video: Alternative Currencies and Solar Dollars

Alternative Currencies and Solar Dollars, recording now available.

The recorded conversation of Thomas H. Greco, Jr. with Michael Ben-Eli, founder of The Sustainability Laboratory, is now available for viewing. Titled, Alternative Currencies and Solar Dollars,” this virtual event took place on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, as part of the Lab’s series, “Exploring the Sustainability Challenge.”

Click here to view it on YouTube

You might also be interested in joining Thomas on July 21, 2023, at Anarchy 2023, where he will be remotely making a presentation and answering questions related to his topic, The tyranny of the global money system and how we can free ourselves from it. To join Thomas’ mailing list, please email Thomas at: thgreco@mindspring.com.

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.

How to Solve the Money Problem, in a Nutshell:

What You Need to Know About Money. Currency, Credit, and Exchange

Abstract: There remains today, even among economists and “experts,” a general lack of understanding about the essential nature of money, currency and credit, and sound principles of their creation and management. This article provides a point-by-point summary of fundamental concepts and basic principles of exchange, it outlines the systemic defects and destructive nature of the dominant political, central banking, interest-based, debt-money system, and describes the ways in which honest and effective exchange media can be created on a decentralized basis outside of the banking system and in lieu of political money. A wider understanding of these points will lead to the widespread creation of honest exchange mechanisms and the devolution of financial, economic and political power that can change the course of civilization from self-destruction toward peace, justice, freedom and harmonious relationships.

Keywords: credit, currency, honest money, liquidity, monetary myths, monetization, reciprocal exchange, sound principles.

Basic Concepts

The essential nature of money/currency
A currency is a credit instrument, i.e., a promise to deliver valuable goods and/or services.

Basis of Issue
A currency must therefore be issued into circulation on the basis of some value foundation, i.e., goods and/or services that the issuer is ready, willing, and able to sell immediately or in the near future.

Purpose of a currency
The sole purpose of a currency is to facilitate the reciprocal exchange of value in the market. It is not a measure of value, nor is it a savings medium.

Reciprocal Exchange
Reciprocal exchange is the voluntary exchange of one sort of value for another in the market.

Issuance
A currency enters into circulation when a provider of value offers it to another seller who accepts it as payment for their own goods or services, i.e., it is spent into circulation, not sold for fiat political money.

Circulation
If it is to serve as a currency, a credit instrument must circulate freely and can change hands many times before eventually returning to the issuer for redemption, not for political money, but for the goods or services that are the issuer’s stock in trade.

Redemption and Extinction
A currency is redeemed and extinguished when the reciprocity circuit has been closed, i.e., when the issuer accepts it back as payment for the goods and/or services that they are prepared to deliver immediately or in the near term.

Liquidity
Liquidity is quite simply the ability to pay, i.e., having a payment medium that is widely accepted.

Monetization
Monetization is the process of converting the value of an illiquid asset into a liquid form, i.e., a form that can be used as a payment medium (money/currency).

Who is qualified to issue a currency?
Since a currency is a promise to deliver value, only producers and providers of real value are qualified to issue a currency.

Fallacious myths about money

  • The belief that money must be issued and controlled by governments and/or central banks.
  • The belief that banks collectively should have a monopoly on the allocation of credit.
  • The belief that interest is a necessary element in money creation and finance.
    How is conventional political money issued, and who issues it?
  • Virtually all political fiat monies are created by banks when they grant loans.

What are the flaws in political money system, and what are their impacts?

  • Most bank loans are made on an improper, or inadequate, basis or foundation.
  • Government and central bank currencies are no longer defined in terms of any real concrete value unit.
  • Thus, most political money is illegitimate and dishonest.
  • The interest that banks charge on loans far exceeds the cost of providing the service of monetizing the value of the collateral assets. This causes debts in the aggregate to grow exponentially over time making it impossible for all borrowers to repay what they owe, and making it certain that some must fail.
  • The concentration of money power in the hands of ever larger banks, in collusion with central governments, concentrates financial, economic and political power in the hands of an elite “super class” and undermines democratic government.

Assertions and Prescriptions

  • To preserve any semblance of social justice, economic equity, individual freedom, and democratic government, power must devolve to people in their various communities.
    The only feasible way of achieving that is through the creation of independent and honest mechanisms for exchanging value.
  • Such honest mechanisms include private currencies issued by providers of real value, and credit clearing associations that allocate credit on a sound basis to producers of real value, and enable them to exchange value without reliance on bank borrowing or the use of political money.
  • Such systems are not new; they have long existed and need only to be optimized, standardized,  and networked together to provide means of exchange that are locally controlled yet globally useful.
  • The future will see the proliferation of entities that organize and enable the allocation of interest-free exchange credit to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are the backbone of resilient and sustainable community economies.
  • Standard procedures and protocols for credit allocation and management will emerge that will allow the effective networking of those entities into a global “internet of exchange” using credit that is locally controlled but globally useful.