Tag Archives: Riegel

Your Money Power

Posted on July 29, 2024 | 1 comment

Worth repeating, from my August 2012 Newsletter

Your Money Power

The vast majority of people remain unaware of it, but the fact is, we have in our own hands, right now, the power to create or completely transcend money. As I’ve been preaching for many years, money is nothing more than credit, i.e., the willingness to trust that the value we provide as sellers of goods and services will be reciprocated when we become buyers. But, as we are now becoming so painfully aware, our trust in conventional political currencies and banks has been misplaced; we have been betrayed. It’s not only a matter of fraud and malfeasance, bad as that is, rather, the entire system was designed from the very start to enable the few to exploit the many.

There are two parasitic elements that are built into the central banking, debt-money system—interest and inflation. Every national currency is supported by the collective credit of the people. It is our own credit that we entrust to the bankers, then beg them to lend it back to us, and pay interest for the privilege. Besides that, the national government gets first priority in the allocation of credit. Banks like to lend to governments instead of to producers, because government securities are relatively risk-free and provide a guaranteed profit. When our collective savings prove insufficient to satisfy government’s spending demands, the banks will create enough new money to enable deficit spending, which is the essence of inflation. It is a hidden tax that eventually shows up as higher prices in the markets.

All of that will continue until the people are able to take back the reins of government, but that cannot happen until the people take back control of their economy, and that requires that we adopt new ways of mediating the exchange of goods and services that puts control in the hands of the people. E. C. Riegel eloquently expressed that prospect:

“To trade goods and services is a natural right of all people. To issue the money necessary to make these exchanges is also the natural right of all people who are intelligent enough to do so. We need not beg for money. We do not need to be money slaves: we can be money masters. When we have become money masters we shall master all our economic and political problems.

Dig up this treasure, your money power, that has been lying dormant in your consciousness and express it for wealth, health, peace and happiness by associating with others who are similarly awakened.”

The way to express our “money power,” and to achieve true democracy is to organize businesses and individuals into credit clearing associations and networks for the direct allocation of credit and payment without the use of political money. My writings, and those of E. C. Riegel, provide directions on how to do that.

I am currently in the process of publishing a major rewrite of my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009). The first nine chapters are already available for free download on this website here, and the works of E. C. Riegel are available on this website in the Library.

2012 was a very busy year for me, which included a five-week tour of Europe and the UK during which I gave a total of 15 presentations and workshops to various groups, in addition to consultations, discussions, and meet-ups with many kindred spirits and colleagues working in the realm of societal transformation. If you’re interested, you can read my report about it in my November 2012 Newsletter.

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Posted in Banking, credit, Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design

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Private Currency Vouchers: an Answer to the Money Problem

Posted on January 16, 2023 | 8 comments

Unlike, government and central bank fiat currencies which promise nothing but their acceptance as tax payments, private currency vouchers promise to be redeemed for real valuable goods and services. If the issuer is trustworthy and can be counted on to honor their pledge of redemption, their currency vouchers can provide traders with an exchange and payment medium that is superior to government and central bank fiat monies. Such honest currencies are neither novel nor odd, but have a long history and are an absolute necessity for the decentralization of economic and political power and the emergence of a peaceful and equitable social order.  

So what sorts of entities can be trusted to keep their promises, how do they put their currencies into circulation, are such currencies legal, have such currencies ever been issued before? In brief, a currency voucher is spent into circulation when the issuer offers it as payment to a supplier, employee or a creditor, who accepts it as such. In the United States and most other “free” countries, private currency vouchers are entirely legal and there are numerous historical instances of their issuance and circulation. These questions and many other details have been fully answered over the years in my various writings and presentations, most of which have been posted or linked on my website, https://beyondmoney.net/.  Particularly relevant are my book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, as well as my 2021 presentation, Transcending the present political money system–the urgent need and the way to do it, and my 2021 webinar series, Our Money System – What’s Wrong with it and How to Fix it.

A few years ago I wrote up a proposal for a private currency voucher that I call the Solar Dollar which attracted some significant interest. My intention was twofold, one, to provide an independent payment medium for a local community, i.e., a currency that can be created outside of the banking system and thus empower participants in a local economy by compensating for shortages and mal-distribution of government fiat money, and two, to incentivize the shift of energy production, sales and usage toward solar and other renewable sources of electric power. My hope was that some electric utility company somewhere would implement the plan and become a model for others utilities to follow. That, unfortunately, has not yet happened but I am confident that it, or something like it, eventually will. In the meantime, I’ve continued to publicize it, and in 2021 I was invited to give a presentation titled, Solar Dollars–Empowering Communities While Powering Communities With Renewable Energy, for a virtual conference that was sponsored by the Zero Carbon Lab at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). Later that year, under the good auspices of Professor Ljubomir Jankovic, my original white paper was revised and published with the title, Solar Dollars: A Complementary Currency that Incentivizes Renewable Energy, in the academic journal, Frontiers in Built Environment.

Overall, the primary objective of my work has been, and remains, the decentralization of financial, economic, and political power. The most promising strategy for achieving that is the design and deployment of private credit currencies that are spent into circulation by trusted issuers that are ready, willing, and able to redeem their currencies promptly for the real goods and services that are their normal stock in trade. By breaking the credit monopoly that the banking cartel presently holds, and empowering producers and sellers of real value, it then becomes possible to reverse the longstanding trend toward ever greater power and wealth in the hands of the global elite who have captured the machinery of finance, economics, and government.

The Solar Dollar is a special case and example of a private credit currency issued by a trusted producer and provider of real value, but similar objectives could be achieved by companies in other lines of business, for example, by:

  • The issuance of local Farm Produce Dollars that would be spent into circulation by a single local farmer or jointly by a cooperating group of local farmers and ranchers, or by
  • The issuance of local Shelter Certificates that are spent into circulation by a single local owner of rental property or jointly by a cooperating group of local owners of rental property, or by
  • The issuance of Service Certificates by a local provider of some sort of professional or household services, or jointly by a cooperating group of such service providers, or by
  • The issuance of currency vouchers by all of the above producers/providers and others  who band together to cooperatively issue a sound complementary currency under a common “brand.” Such a currency would provide a means of payment that is not only independent of the banking system but solidly backed by the combined production and distribution capacity of all participating businesses. (Many “community currencies” have been created over the years in many places around the world but virtually all of them are  “sold” for government fiat currencies which defeats the main objective of creating a currency that is independent of government and the banking system).

All of these currency vouchers or credits are able to circulate as payment media throughout their local communities to enable trading despite any scarcity or unavailability of official money. There are many historical and contemporary examples of such private credit instruments, so most of what I’m suggesting has already been shown to be workable. The main problem I have observed is getting producers of real value to recognize the power they already have and to exercise it on their own behalf and that of their communities.

In his 1944 book, Private Enterprise Money, E. C. Riegel made that point very clear, saying:

“The stream of political monies from the beginning to the present day runs deep and dirty, yet to suggest that money can spring from any other source is to surprise if not even to dismay. So has tradition dulled men’s senses. No matter how often the state fails to supply a virtuous money system, men rush back to it in desperation and beg it to try again. Indeed, until we learn that the money power resides in us, we must abjectly beg the state to give us an exploitative system because we cannot return to a moneyless civilization. Yet, no matter how often and earnestly the state tries to provide a true money system, it must fail because of an inherent antipathy between the money issuing power and the taxing power. A money issuer must be a seller who bids for money, not a taxer who requisitions it in whole or in part, as politically expedient and without a quid pro quid.” — pp. 25-26.

Political democracy cannot work without economic democracy; and the money power is the franchise of the latter. — p. 35

It is the false concept of political money power that converts citizens into petitioners, and makes government a dispenser of patronage instead of a public servant. This power of patronage utterly destroys the democratic system of government – since the people cannot be both petitioners and rulers.” — pp. 78-79

Throughout my career as a monetary theorist, educator, and advisor, taking up where Riegel and others have left off, I have tried to influence producers, entrepreneurs, and social organizers toward effective action based on sound principles of credit allocation and management. But superstitious myths die hard and old habits are difficult to break. The great majority of people remain in thrall to official currencies. That is what the oligarchs depend upon to keep us in debt and under their control. I have learned to be patient and await the changes in financial, economic, and political conditions that will open people’s minds to adopting self-help and cooperative approaches to getting our needs met, specifically, the need for free and fair exchange of value in the marketplace.

Surely, the day will come, and is rapidly approaching, when the failures and demands of the dominant global central banking, political, interest-based, debt-money regime will become so clearly evident and abysmal that the only peaceful option will be for we-the-people to implement our own systems of exchange and finance grounded in our own initiative and judgment in allocating credit based on productive capacity and trustworthiness.

Diagram of the reciprocity circuit. Issuance, circulation and redemption of Private Currency Vouchers
Issuance, circulation and redemption of Private Currency Vouchers

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Emerging paradigm, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Prescriptions, The Political Money System

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Shall We Have Honest Money–or Inflation, Depression, and War?

Posted on August 2, 2022 | 1 comment

This little vignette written by Don Werkheiser remains one of the best concise explanations of inflation I’ve ever seen. It was published in the spring 1982 edition of Green Revolution, the journal of the School of Living a non-profit organization with which I was associated throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The story helps to elucidate the nature of the dysfunctional political money system that has plagued the world for hundreds of years, but in its brevity and simplicity neglects to mention another feature of the money system that adds to our misery; that is the fact that the “Mayor” and his friends do more than spend counterfeit money into circulation, they have also established “banks” and require that other people who need money to do business must borrow their pseudo-money into circulation and pay interest on it. That enables the bankers to extract even more wealth from the rest of the people while creating an unending and unsustainable expansion of debt. I have articulated that “debt-growth imperative” in my paper titled, the Usury Conjecture.  

An Honest Money Would Stop Inflation by Don Werkheiser

A rural village has no money. All trade is by barter. A farmer comes to town and deposits 10 bushels of corn with a man who has a store room. This operator gives the farmer 10 receipts, each redeemable in a bushel of corn. But the farmer asks for receipts in smaller denominations. The storekeeper gives him 40 receipts for 40 pecks. The farmer trades ten of these corn-receipts for other products; they are each accepted at the value of a peck of corn. That acceptance constitutes the issue of corn notes as money.

Such receipts are generalized credit instruments. They refer to stored corn, but not to any specific peck of corn. When the seller wants a peck of corn the receipt is redeemed. Otherwise it is spent again, and ownership of a peck of corn is conveyed to the next seller. The next day the farmer returns to town and spends 10 corn notes (each of one peck of corn in value) for his wife’s birthday present. Now the farmer has doubled the money supply in circulation, but there is no inflation; there are redeemable goods back of them.

What then is inflation? We must understand “money” and the storekeeper’s actions.

The store room owner noticed that the corn notes were accepted in trade. So he made 40 more “peck-receipts” looking just like corn-receipts and then he spent them into circulation. That is inflation–counterfeit receipts passed as valid receipts. Assume that the counterfeit receipts were accepted at face value. In that case, the counterfeiter effected a robbery of commodities equal in value to 40 packs of corn, while those who accepted them received receipts which measured the extent to which they had been robbed. So long as confidence lasts, the game would continue and receipts could be spent. New sellers would be holding empty receipts. The game would collapse when all the corn in the warehouse was redeemed, and holders of the 40 counterfeit receipts found no one who would take them in trade.

Worse could happen if the counterfeiter had the skills of a politician. If, when confronted by angry holders of his counterfeit receipts he declared himself a benefactor of the community–and showed that the original issue by the farmer was too limited, and that his own issues stimulated industry and trade (he would not mention that the farmers issue was redeemable while his own was not). He noted that most people did not want corn; they wanted a medium of trade that they could use to speed up trade.
More to come.

They were told: “If the game stopped then, the holders would be losers, but if they continued, they could all buy what they wanted. In fact if they elected him Mayor he would declare pseudo-corn-notes to be legal tender, and he’d also begin a program of public works. Soon everyone would be rich.” An ignorant public agreed.

Elected Mayor, the counterfeiter issue another stock of corn-notes called “pecks” and declared them to be worth a peck of corn in the market (but not anywhere redeemable). On each note was a picture of a peck-basket, but what it contained was not specified.  Just a peck of value.

The “pecks” circulated and trade increased. Then a strange thing happened. The Mayor and his agents could outbid everybody for produce and services. They also controlled the printing presses for printing “pecks.” Prices were bid up on the things the Mayor’s group approved. Workers and businessman migrated into those industries for wages and profit. The stock of other things became short. Everyone couldn’t buy what they wanted. People threatened to recall the Mayor if he didn’t improve things. So he issued more “pecks” and then more and more.

The more money people had, the less they could buy. Only the Mayor and his friends had enough — rather too much — money. They gave expensive parties, bought votes, hired police and soldiers; and gave everyone a vested interest in continuing the game, through welfare, social security, profitable contracts, and “peck-funded” jobs.

Confusion resulted. It is evident there are two kinds of money: honest redeemable money and inflatable unredeemable money. These keep our economy teetering between “prosperity” and “depression.” Have we any proof that those in charge of our money system intend to create an honest system? That would break their power. A sound alternative is for people to operate their own money system. American and world history have produced workable patterns; some are underway today.

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Take note that the story does not mention any need for gold or silver backing for money to be honest. As E.C. Riegel makes plain in his book, Private Enterprise Money, “When businessmen resolve to set up a money system, they agree to hold in trust for each other goods and services that are pledged against the drafts which they have issued in the form of money. These values — that are held in trust by all for any who may present a money draft therefore — constitute a vast pool, not housed at one place, but scattered throughout the trading sphere. This vast pool of goods and services is the basis or backing for the outstanding money supply. “Reserves” and metal hoards are but window dressing. Only that which is purchasable is back of money.”  

To learn more about honest and effective forms of money and how to create them, see my books, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, and, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender.

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Posted in Debt, Exchange Design, Finance and Economics, Inflation, The Political Money System

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No democracy when government has the money power

Posted on November 28, 2020 | 6 comments

Think for a moment about the basic necessities of life. One can live only a few minutes without air, a few days without water, and a few weeks without food. We also need shelter from the heat and cold, from rain and snow and sun. We need energy–gas, oil, electricity–to warm us when the weather is cold and to cool us when it is hot, to help us do our work and enable us to move about­.

And how do we acquire those things? Air is still freely available, although it may not always be clean or healthy to breathe. Water is increasingly not free, even if we draw it from the kitchen faucet, and all of those other necessities, we depend upon others to provide. But at every turn there is someone with an outstretched hand saying, “Pay me.” The point is that there is another element that we are utterly dependent upon–MONEY!

As Adam Smith observed long ago, “When the division of labor has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man’s wants which the produce of his own labor can supply” (Wealth of Nations). That puts economic exchange and the devices we use to facilitate it at the center of human interaction. Money has become so familiar to us in our daily lives that we hardly even notice it, except when it is lacking. But our ignorance of the nature of money, where it comes from, and how it is created has cost us dearly both in terms of material comfort and increasingly in our loss of freedom.  

Economics and politics are inextricably linked; they are in fact a unitary system which early economists like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau recognized, using the term “political economy” to categorize their work. Economics as a separate discipline did not exist until about a hundred years ago when latter day academicians sought to cloak the fact behind a mask of mathematical rigor. But it cannot be denied that economic structures and policies have heretofore made implicit choices about who would be the winners and who would be the losers. The challenge before us today is to build political-economic systems that allow everyone to win, not just in terms of material comfort, but in terms of peace, harmony, dignity, and freedom. We cannot change politics without changing economics, and we cannot change economics without changing money.

In my own work I have often credited E. C. Riegel for much of my enlightenment on these matters. He said:

“We have been pursuing the illusion that by voting political ballots biennially and quadrenially, we controlled our affairs. While the government must beg us each two years for our political ballot, we beg the government every day for our economic ballot. Since we are dependent upon our government for our daily dollar ballot, there stands over our political democracy a monetary autocracy. Therefore, we are not democratic governors; we are economic subjects. … The process whereby parchment freedoms become sterile is quite simple. It begins with the fact that we need a constant money supply to effect our exchanges whereby we live. The supply is completely in the hands of government. We beseech the government to issue it. … Is not every public expenditure the result of pressure by some large or small segment of the citizenry? And are not these pressure groups impelled by the necessity of petitioning government since it is the only source of the economy’s life blood? How can we blame the government for spending and on the other hand, how can we blame those who invent schemes for spending, without which our economy would stagnate? It is the false concept of political money power that converts citizens into petitioners, and makes government a dispenser of patronage instead of a public servant. This power of patronage utterly destroys the democratic system of government–since the people cannot be both petitioners and rulers” (Private Enterprise Money (1944. pp. 78-79 in print edition).

Riegel devoted his life to showing not only how the political money system corrupts both economics and politics, but also how it can be transcended, a work that I have taken up and pursued over the past 40 years. My own books, lectures, interviews, and web posts have built upon, interpreted, and extended the works of E. C. Riegel, Henry George, Ralph Borsodi, Ulrich von Beckerath, Heinrich Ritterschausen, and many others. My latest book, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, is a comprehensive treatment of money and politics and a guide to how to create effective exchange media that are independent of government, banks, and political money. Once we realize that money is credit, and that it is in our power to give or withhold it, we can take back control of the exchange process and our government.

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Posted in Finance and Economics, Government, Politics, Prescriptions

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New Year’s Newsletter — January 2020

Posted on January 18, 2020 | 1 comment

cool art8

The dirty secret of capitalism — and a new way forward
In this TED talk, billionaire businessman, Nick Hanauer debunks the assumptions of neo-liberal economics and shines light on the path toward a new economics that promotes a more sustainable, Hanauer_biz_tedtalks_0517prosperous and equitable society. Hanauer argues that neoliberal economic theory has sold itself to us as “unchangeable natural law, when in fact it’s social norms and constructed narratives, based on pseudo science.” He says that “If we want a new economics all we have to do is choose to have it.” Watch it here.

Of course, implementing that choice depends on “we” having enough power to tilt the political landscape back toward something closer to level. I continue to argue that E. C. Riegel had it right when he said:

We have not even made a beginning in democracy by merely putting at the westPointAdjdisposal of man an occasional ballot to choose who should be his governor under a system that is inherently paternalistic and autocratic. Man must have untrammeled command of a daily – an hourly ballot which he casts in the market place to support the things and services he desires and which he withholds from others and which he transmits to the state or denies it according as it merits his patronage. He must have the power to create this money ballot in a measure commensurate with his power to produce and serve his fellow man without hindrance from his servant, the state. The moment we limit or thwart or bias this money power, which is natural to man, and the very criterion of his sovereignty, we pervert democracy beyond the power of any political ballot or any parliament to remedy. Money power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration – political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there cannot be democracy under the political money system.

Until, through the assertion of his money power, man can requisition from industry all he produces, and put government under his direct patronage, human aspirations will be unattainable.
— From Private Enterprise Money.

 

How to assert our “money power” has been the substance of my work for more than 40 years. See my books, articles, presentations and interviews at my website, https://beyondmoney.net
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Presidential Debate
I took a pass on watching the January 14 Presidential debate which pitted Bernie against five establishment candidates in what was a predictably bland rehash that Tulsiwas limited in scope. I chose instead to watch the discussion between Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Lawrence Lessig, and Stephen Kinzer which was live streamed on YouTube. The discussion focused on the key policy issue, the US interventionist foreign policy, and the fact that most Senators and Representatives of both parties in Congress are beholden to the military-industrial [and banking] complex, and are complicit in the immoral, illegal, and wasteful pursuit of global domination. If you missed it you can still see it at https://tulsi.to/discussion.
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All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars
Anyone who wishes to be well informed and understand civilization’s present predicament would do well to watch this video. I may not agree with all the specific details but the basic story is correct and well documented, and congruent with my argument that the global interest-based, debt-money regime that centralizes power and concentrates wealth is the primary obstacle to social justice, economic equity and peaceful relations among people and nations, and indeed, an existential threat to civilization itself. View it here.

Wishing all a happy, productive, and peaceful year,
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Economics, Emerging paradigm, Geo-politics, money, My sites, Politics, The state of democracy

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Can governments and banks be trusted with the money power?

Posted on March 23, 2013 | 1 comment

As governments around the world struggle to manage their soaring debt burdens, the wisdom of E. C. Riegel rings ever more true. The masters of the political debt-money regime are pressuring Cyprus to confiscate part of the savings of their citizens, and Greece and other countries to impose budgetary cuts that burden the poor and middle class. Argentina wants to grab their people’s savings by nationalizing their pension funds. All the while, the purchasing power of national currencies shrinks as governments inflate them to enable deficit spending.

Riegel’s call for monetary freedom must no longer be ignored. –t.h.g.   

LET FREEDOM RING THE CASH REGISTER

[by E. C. Riegel, written circa 1940s]

Old Liberty Bell rang out the political freedom that we cherish. But unless we learn how to make freedom ring the cash register, bureaucracy will ring down the curtain on our liberties.

What is the strange power that makes the government at Washington grow stronger and our state and local governments grow weaker while the people suffer the torment of war and the travail of insecurity and the shadow of dictatorship falls across the land? It is the same power that oppresses the people of all the world — the political money power.

The political money power is the power of national governments to buy the people’s sweat and blood with scraps of paper – paper that falls like a blotter upon our production and our freedom. Each day our

wealth diminishes and more of our liberties vanish. Inflation that threatens to bring chaos is just around the corner. As our sons bleed and our mothers weep, the same grinding power throws its pall over other lands.  Yet our chains are paper – paper money that, through our ignorance, binds us to the treadmill of our own destruction.

We can be masters of our destiny; we are all powerful, if we but realize it. In each of us resides the power to assure liberty, prosperity, security and peace. In each of us lies the money power, which, when springing from us, is democratic and virtuous; when springing from government is authoritarian and vicious. As we liberate our inherent money power we curb the political money power, for the more we use our self-created money, the less we need political money. Thus we defeat dictatorship. Thus we reconstruct the shattered world on a free democratic basis. Thus we save civilization.

Parchment freedoms are but taunts and mockeries without money freedom. A people dependent upon their government for money is a subject people regardless of the form of their government. No people can declare their independence and govern their government unless they assert their money freedom. A government that is not dependent upon its people for money supply is a tyranny regardless of its professions. Government must be made to beg the people for money; the people cannot be sovereign while petitioning government for money. The citizen must command both government and business through his money power. Political democracy is a delusion without economic democracy and economic democracy can function only through the power to issue money – the power to ring the cash register – the power to support and the power to withhold support. To prevent political dictatorship the citizen must himself be a dictator. To prevent centralization of power, power must be reserved by the people. Money power is sovereignty; without it democracy is impossible.

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From Money Freedom, organ of The Private Enterprise Money Movement.

More monetary wisdom from E. C. Riegel, including his book, Private Enterprise Money, can be found at http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info/, and via my website https://beyondmoney.net/.

— Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

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Posted in The Political Money System, The state of democracy

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October Newsletter and Fall tour itinerary: Europe & UK

Posted on September 26, 2012 | 1 comment

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

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