Tag Archives: money

What can AI do?

Posted on August 27, 2023 | 3 comments

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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Posted in Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, My activities, Prescriptions

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My archives, and new additions to the Beyond Money Library

Posted on April 3, 2023 | 3 comments

Over the past few weeks I’ve begun the process of cataloging the books, pamphlets and other print materials in my unique and rather sizeable collection. The process has been greatly facilitated by using an app named CLZ Books which is able to find citations from the online database by reading the bar codes that are usually printed on the back cover or dust jacket of a book, or by manually entering the ISBN, or title, or author.

Many of the works in my collection are old enough to lack bar codes and many lack even ISBN numbers, but these can often be found in the database by manually entering the title or author. So far I’ve managed to catalog almost 200 titles. The remaining items are pamphlets and photocopies which will require more intensive effort.

In going through this process, I’m selecting a few works to add to the digital Library on my website Beyondmoney.net. I first do a search to see if digital versions already exist somewhere on the Web. If they do, I’ll provide a link, or download them to my computer and place them on my own website. If no digital version is found, I may choose to transcribe the work, either in whole or in part, by speaking it into a voice recognition app that is able to convert it to text.  An example of the former is Inflation is Coming and What to Do About It, by Ralph Borsodi, one of the people who have inspired my work. It was written in 1945, but the copy I have in my library is the 1948 version which is essentially the same. I did retrieve a PDF file of the book from the website of Cooperative Individualism, and you can read it here.

The financial and economic collapse did not happen as soon as Borsodi thought it might, nor did it quite follow the mechanism that he expected. He seems not to have anticipated the globalization of the economy, the shift of the US from the world’s greatest creditor nation to its greatest debtor, or the extent to which the US dollar would become the global reserve currency, and the enormous appetite of other countries for holding and accumulating ever greater pools of dollars. Neither did he foresee the long succession of stop-gap measures that have been rolled out by the political and monetary authorities over the subsequent decades to prop up the flawed system, such as corporate and bank bail-outs, corporate consolidations, quantitative easing, and bail-ins, and the ever greater centralization of financial, economic and political control. But Borsodi was not wrong. We can now see looming on the horizon either (1) the collapse the dollar and the global financial system, which will take the economy with it, or (2) the imposition of an ever more totalitarian government that will micro-manage every aspect of society and individual behavior.

The first of these will probably be inadvertent and unanticipated. The second has long been planned, is in the works, and is rapidly unfolding. The global power elite seem to believe that they can engineer a controlled demolition of the existing financial mechanisms and replace it with a new system that will further increase their power and wealth. Recent developments are signaling the elimination of cash money, the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), as well as onerous demands on people in the name of public health, climate change, and other “emergencies.” We should expect to see the United States and other countries to roll out their own versions of China’s social credit system which will determine what each individual will be allowed or not allowed to do, along with some system of positive personal identification (PPI), most likely using a mandatory chip implant.

My physical book library also contains a rare copy of, A Study of the Money Question, by Hugo Bilgram. This slim volume,

published in 1894, provides some valuable insights into the essential nature of money, the necessary functions of an effective system of exchange, a critique of the banking system as it existed at the time, and Bilgram’s description of a “rational money system.” I did not expect to find it on the web so I spent a considerable amount of time transcribing it and adding my commentary, which you can read here. A subsequent search did locate a PDF file of the book on Internet Archive, which I have downloaded and added to my online Library.

I believe that both of these will be of value to serious students, researchers and innovators working in the field of money, banking, and exchange.

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Posted in Finance and Economics

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One of my most popular posts–There once was a river …an allegorical tale of money and credit

Posted on August 27, 2022 | 2 comments

One of my most popular posts has been, There once was a river …an allegorical tale of money and credit, in which I’ve tried to show how we have all become slaves to money and those who control money. Using water in this little fable to represent money, I’ve also tried to show that we the people can free ourselves by thinking outside the box to overcome our fixation on the sort of money that has been provided for us and over which we have lost all control.

Every metaphor of course is limited and what I am hoping that readers/listeners will come to understand is that there are alternatives to conventional money that we can use to reduce, and eventually eliminate our dependence upon conventional political money. It is credit that 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).
Or listen here.

You are welcome to post comments.

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, General interest, The Political Money System

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

Posted on January 20, 2022 | 4 comments

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.

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Posted in Banking, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Finance and Economics, Freedom, Global Economy, Government, money, Politics, Prescriptions

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Newsletter May 2021. Upcoming podcast series on “Our Money System,” and other news

Posted on May 18, 2021 | Leave a comment

In this issue:

  • Upcoming podcast series
  • Conversation with Tim Jenkin, Edgar Cahn, et al
  • Latest post–How, Then, Shall We Live? — What we might learn from the Amish
  • Markets and finances in today’s world
  • U.S. foreign policy, the primary threat to peace
  • Travel plans

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Upcoming webinar series

I will be conducting a free three part webinar series for the Henry George School of Social Science. Here is the description and registration link:

Our Money System – What’s Wrong with it and How to Fix it
A critical look at money & credit, their political and economic implications, and innovations that are making conventional money obsolete.

About this event

HGS_WebinarIn this webinar series, renowned monetary reformer Thomas Greco Jr., will present our system of money and banking, how it has evolved, why it is problematic, and where it is trending. The series will also look into past, present, and future exchange and payment alternatives, like Depression-era script, local and private currencies, commercial trade exchanges and LETS systems that apply the “credit clearing” process, and the more recent emergence of crypto-currencies and blockchain ledgers and their potential role. It will include discussion of how these have evolved, their advantages, limitations and future potential and what needs to be done to take them to scale.

The speaker, Thomas H. Greco, Jr., is the author of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. For more than 40 years Mr. Greco has been studying, writing and lecturing and advising on the subjects of money, exchange, and political economy. His distinctive insights into these subjects and his innovative approaches to a more equitable and sustainable economy have made him a sought after speaker and advisor worldwide. His full bio can be viewed here.

Topics

  • WHAT is money?
  • WHY do we need money?
  • WHAT is wrong with our money system?
  • Can we live without money?
  • How can business be conducted without money?
  • What are the economic, social and political implications of monetary policies and systems?
  • What is the likely impact of present day monetary innovations?

May 21 – Session 1 will provide an overview of the present system of money and banking, how it has evolved, how and why it is problematic, and where it is trending. Mr. Greco will talk about the interest-based debt-money system, how it causes the growth imperative and the politicization of finance and exchange, and the political and economic consequences of its continuation. He will outline the fundamental concepts of exchange and finance and the principles upon which sound and sustainable systems are being developed. Participants will be asked to read or listen to some specific materials in preparation of the subsequent sessions.

June 4 – Session 2 will be a more interactive webinar that will provide ample opportunity to discuss whatever questions have been evoked by the previous session and the assignments. These might include topics like inflation, depressions, asset bubbles and busts, the savings and investment functions, and government responses to shocks like the 2008 financial crisis and the more recent pandemic. This will lead into a discussion about possible solutions to the problems that the present system causes, and the role of local currencies and other alternatives for the exchange of value.

June 18 – Session 3 will concentrate upon past, present, and future exchange and payment alternatives, like Depression-era scrip, local and private currencies, commercial trade exchanges and LETS systems that apply the “credit clearing” process, and the more recent emergence of crypto-currencies and blockchain ledgers and their potential role. It will include discussion of how these have evolved, their advantages, limitations and future potential and what needs to be done to take them to scale.
Please note that each session will start at 6 PM Eastern Time (3 PM Pacific and Arizona time), and end at 7:30 PM (4:30 PM).

Register Now!

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Conversation with Edgar Cahn, Tim Jenkin, et al

I was recently the featured guest on Taking Back Our Economy, a podcast series hosted by the Community ExchangeEdgar-Cahn-photo-600x599 Alliance. In this episode I discuss principles of exchange, the various kinds of systems that have been tried, and what needs to be done to realize their full potential, with Tim Jenkin, founder of the Community Exchange System, Edgar Cahn, founder of Time Banking, Anitha Beberg, Christine Gray, and Martin Simon.

You can tune in to the discussion on YouTube at https://youtu.be/BtIG9YLySD4.

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My latest post: How, Then, Shall We Live? — What we might learn from the Amish

While most of us have been caught up in the high-tech, consumerist, debt-ridden rat-race, there are certain groups that have been thriving on low-tech, low-consumption, earth-friendly, cooperative approaches to living. Notable randy-fath-Amish-Cramong these are the Amish communities which are characterized by their strong social bonds and mutual support. In the present chaotic times as we struggle to reinvent civilization there may be something important to be learned from the Amish. Read about it here.

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Markets and finances in today’s world

The biggest players in money and markets today are central banks and central governments. Their market interference is massive and largely overrides the effects of other market player’s actions. If you have not already done so, please read my article, Money and Finance Have Now Been Completely Collectivized.

One complicating factor that market analysts and investment advisors universally fail to mention, and probably do not even recognize, is the withdrawal of large segments of the population from the work force, and from the “old civilization.” In my view, a new civilization has been emerging for decades from the bottom upward and that process is now accelerating as people lose faith in the dominant centralized financial, economic, and political systems and structures. The new civilization is being built on relationships of trust that already exist among family members and friendship groups and within local business and political circles. As corruption, malfeasance, and errors in the dominant centralized structures become more egregious and apparent, this process is bound to accelerate further until the old systems become irrelevant. My “Walking Away…” series of articles (Part I, Part II, Part III) articulates in more detail my thoughts about that.

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U.S. foreign policy, the primary threat to peace

Two or three years ago in my efforts to gain a deeper understanding of the political dynamics of the Middle East I came across Graham E. Fuller, a Middle-east analyst and former CIA operations officer. Reading his book, Turkey and the Arab Spring, gave me an appreciation for the pivotal role the Turkey plays in the region and in the Muslim world generally. Since then I’ve been following Fuller on his website and on Facebook.

In his recent editorial, US primacy is a self-fulfilling threat generator, Fuller provides an excellent overview of US government foreign policy and the US role in the world. In it, Fuller states:

I have no wish to launch into a litany of American sins, failures, or mistakes by omission, or more often commission, that have by almost any measure been disastrous for so many foreign countries “visited” by U.S. military operations. The list is long and well known — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, indirectly in Yemen in most recent times. He then nicely summarizes the essence of US foreign policy, saying, “…it’s hard to get off that enemy list when you actively assert your independence from Washington.”

The editorial is brief and well worth reading. You can find it on Fuller’s website.

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Travel Plans

As spring passes and summer begins, we wonder about the possibilities for travel and tourism to return to anything like normal. Will “vaccine passports,” testing, and/or masking be required to travel? If so, what form will those passports take, paper certificates, digital apps, chips embedded under the skin? Will governments impose quarantine requirements for people entering their country, as many have been doing for more than a year? If one does travel abroad, what are the chances of being stuck there and not allowed to leave?

Considering all that, it seems unlikely that I’ll be doing much traveling this year.

Stay alert, keep learning, and seek your inner peace,

Thomas

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Developing Alternatives, Exchange Design, Geo-politics, My activities, Prescriptions, The Political Money System

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Disruptive Technologies are Making Money Obsolete

Posted on December 18, 2017 | 12 comments

Broadly speaking, technology is the organization of knowledge, people, and things to accomplish specific practical objectives. It includes processes, practices, techniques and systems as well as things. So what are the disruptive technologies in money and finance? Or is that even the right question to be asking? Is it Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other so-called crypto-currencies? Is it the blockchain, “smart contracts,” “big data,” algorithms?

To find out, watch this 15 minute video, which was extracted and adapted from a longer recording of the presentation, I  made to the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on October 10, 2016. It describes how communities and businesses can escape the debt trap and become more resilient and self-reliant? New independent approaches to payment and reciprocal exchange are being deployed which are making conventional money obsolete.

Links to this video:
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/ty7APADAa8g
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/245661935

Many thanks to Ken Richings for doing the hard work of editing and preparing the video for publication.

The full Malaysia presentation titled, A World Without Money and Interest: A pathway toward social justice and economic equity, can be found here.

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Finance and Economics, My activities, Prescriptions

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Money & Debt: John Green’s Crash Course

Posted on September 11, 2016 | 1 comment

In this engaging fast-paced video, John Green explores important questions like: What is money? What is it for? How and why did it evolve? What is the relationship between money, nation states and slavery? And perhaps, most importantly, where do trust and credit enter the picture, and what role do they play in today’s world?

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Finance and Economics, General interest

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Final Workshop Announcement—Innovative Finance and Exchange

Posted on June 13, 2016 | 1 comment

Society is Exchange! – Frederic Bastiat.

All the perplexities, confusions and distresses in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, as much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
– President John Adams, from a letter to Thomas Jefferson (1787-08-25), in The Works of John Adams

As the time grows near I want to remind everyone that my workshop on innovative finance and exchange is set to begin in about 10 days time at Kalikalos Holistic Summer School in Greece (http://www.kalikalos.org/exchange-finance). It will start on the evening of 24 June and conclude on the morning of 1 July.

While it is described as a “course,” the format will be that of a workshop/colloquium in which everyone plays an active role in an intensive process of inquiry, discovery, sharing and collaboration aimed at:
1. achieving a deeper understanding of sound principles of credit, finance, and the exchange process, and,
2 developing action plans for the design and implementation of robust systems that can be widely proliferated and quickly scaled up to global dimensions.
3. assembling a knowledge base that can provide guidance to others on the same path toward achieving more equitable and sustainable economic structures.

There is still space available for those who feel moved to participate.
Details about the course, fees, and booking are at http://www.kalikalos.org/exchange-finance.
Some of the areas that we will explore include:

  • The essence, function, and forms of money
  • The concepts of currency, credit, credit clearing, liquidity, monetization, and basis of issue
  • Various models of private currencies and moneyless exchange
  • Value measurement and units of account
  • Exchange networks and inter-trading

Don’t let finances stop you as will be able to offer a limited amount of bursaries. Please write an application for that to our team at rachaeldavson@gmail.com.

We offer Greek participants who take part in the week-long workshop a discount of 30%.
The weekend Saturday, 25 and Sunday 26 is being offered to Greeks on a Gift Economy basis which means that you offer what you are able to give. If you want to participate on these terms please send a mail to: rachaeldavson@gmail.com.

I look forward to working with you.  –Thomas

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Implementation Strategies, My activities

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Money and Society: Free university-level online course being offered

Posted on January 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

A free online course (MOOC) in Money and Society is being offered by Professor Jem Bendell, PhD (IFLAS) and Matthew Slater, under the aegis of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability of Cumbria University. The four lessons of the course, intended to” explode myths about the history, nature, present and future of money,” will commence 16 February 2015 and conclude 18 March 2015. For details and registration go to http://iflas.blogspot.com/2014/12/money-and-society-mooc.html.

This event has concluded but recordings of the four sessions can be found at https://matslats.net/money-society-mooc

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Posted in Basic Concepts, Education, Emerging paradigm, Finance and Economics, The Political Money System

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Do Banks Create Money out of Nothing?

Posted on April 22, 2013 | 19 comments

One of my correspondents recently referred me to an article and asked for my opinion about it. The article is Creating Money out of Nothing: The History of an Idea, by Mike King, dated April 2012 .

I read the abstract, the conclusions, and part of the body text, but could not bring myself to make a detailed read. “The history of an idea” is not relevant to my interests nor to the debt crisis that plagues civilization. Verbose and tedious, it seems to be an academic exercise that I doubt  will be of interest even to historians.

On the positive side, it did prompt me to write a few words of clarification on the question, words that I think are both pertinent and helpful to those who truly wish to understand the nature of money and the role of banks in today’s world.

The accusation that banks create money out of nothing has, according to King, been made by many famous economists, including Schumpeter, von Mises, and Keynes. I too must admit to having once or twice used that statement as a sort of shorthand criticism of the global money and banking system.

It is surely true that saying that banks make “money out of nothing” is an exaggeration that can be misleading to the uninitiated.

Bank actually create money out of something. The question is, what is that something, and what is wrong with it?

The short answer is that banks create money on the basis of the promises of their borrowers to repay.

Mr. King would have us believe that banks simply take in money from savers and lend it out to borrowers. That is clearly wrong. Even the Federal Reserve, in its own publications, says that,

The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.(1) As noted earlier, checkable liabilities of banks are money. These liabilities are customers’ accounts. They increase when customers deposit currency and checks and when the proceeds of loans made by the banks are credited to borrowers’ accounts.

In the absence of legal reserve requirements, banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments so long as they keep enough currency on hand to redeem whatever amounts the holders of deposits want to convert into currency. This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered many centuries ago.–Modern Money Mechanics

As I’ve pointed out in all of my books, banks serve two primary functions. They act as both depositories, reallocating funds from savers to borrowers, and banks of issue that monetize the promises of their borrowers. I’ve explained that in detail in Chapter 1 of my book, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, and in Chapter 9 of my latest book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

But not all promises provide a proper basis for creating money. As Edward Popp, describes it, banks create both bona-fide and non-bona-fide money. (See Money, Bona Fide or Non-Bona Fide at http://www.reinventingmoney.com/documents/bonafidePopp.pdf).

The vast majority of the non-bona-fide money that banks create, is created on the basis of loans made to national governments (when banks buy government bonds). Further large amounts of non-bona-fide money are created when banks make loans to finance purchases of consumer goods and real estate (see my books for details). This is a violation of the principle that money should be created on the basis of goods and services on the market or soon to arrive there, which includes promises of established producers who are ready, willing and able to sell for money the things they ordinarily offer.

The bottom line remains: the present global, interest-based, debt-money system, is dysfunctional and destructive.

The creation of money on the basis of interest-bearing loans is the cause of the growth imperative, and the creation of non-bona-fide money is the cause of inflation.

If we are to achieve a sustainable society and assure the survival of civilization, we must transcend the present money and banking paradigm and reinvent the exchange process.  – t.h.g.

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Posted in Banking, Basic Concepts, Finance and Economics, Inflation, The Debt Imperative, The Political Money System

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