Money, Power, Democracy, and War Finding the path toward global peace, harmony, and prosperity Thomas H. Greco, Jr

Money, Power, Democracy, and War

Finding the path toward global peace, harmony, and

prosperity

Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

March 1, 2007 Thomas H. Greco, Jr. 2

Who Shall Rule?Property or People?

“The Divine Right of Kings” has been transmuted into “The Divine Right of Capital”

An aristocracy of property Elitism vs. Egalitarianism.


How Do Elites Gain Power?

Appropriate essential or desired resources, and compel everyone to pay to gain access. Monopoly, Oligopoly, Cartels

Land Enclosures Government-granted privileges


Money Creation is the Mother of All Monopolies

The entire machinery of money and banking has been contrived to centralize power and wealth.

Money is to People as Water is to Fish


Why is Money so Important?

Exchange is a fundamental necessity in advanced civilizations.

Most of what we need, we get by trade. 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. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.


Whoever Controls Money Controls Everything Else

Give me the power to create a nation’s money, and I care not who makes its laws. – Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Whoever controls the money in any country is master of all its legislation and commerce. – President James A. Garfield

Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world. – Henry Kissinger

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies... – President Thomas Jefferson


Hamiltonian vs. Jeffersonian Government

Hamilton’s goal was to create a firm alliance between government and business.

Jefferson’s vision was of a more egalitarian society based on widespread land ownership and distribution of wealth.


The Central Government-Central Bank Nexus

Hamilton founded the First Bank of the United States – 1791-1811.

FiBUS was modeled after the Bank of England. Both were privately owned.

The debt economy rests upon a conspiracy between the political state and the banking interests against commercial exchange…

E. C. Riegel


The Central Government-Central Bank Nexus

The Bank of England was the prototype central bank.

The banking cartel enjoys special privileges granted by the government.

The government, in return, gets to spend as much as it wants without regard to limited tax revenues (by deficit spending).


The Struggle for Power in America

Historical Landmarks

Jefferson vs. Hamilton The First Bank of the United States

Andrew Jackson vs. Nicholas Biddle The Second Bank of the United States

Abraham Lincoln vs. the Bankers The Greenbacks

Woodrow Wilson’s Error and Lament The Federal Reserve Act

The “Bank War”

Andrew Jackson vs. Nicholas Biddle

Lincoln’s Greenbacks


The FED “The Creature From Jeckyl

Island”

The Federal Reserve Act, passed in 1913, reestablished central banking in the U.S.

It was sold as a decentralized system, but in reality operates as a unitary power instrument at the center of the banking cartel.


The New World Order?

”The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole... Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money…”

- Prof. Carroll Quigley, Georgetown historian, mentor of former President Clinton, and author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time


The Global Political Money System is Destructive, Undemocratic and

Unsustainable

The political money system starves productive enterprise but finances lavishly the destructive activities of war. -- E. C Riegel

It’s undemocratic because it concentrates power in the hands of a few unelected people who are unresponsive to the needs and wishes of the people.

It’s unsustainable because interest (usury) creates a growth imperative.


DysfunctionalPolitical Money System

Political money based on debt is: Misallocated Kept artificially scarce Expensive and exploitative


Monetary Scarcity and Misallocation

Most [present-day money] is ‘backed’ by loans which should never be made

-- loans made to monetize the debts of government; loans made to finance war and the military-industrial complex, monetize the securities of giant corporations which should not exist at all, and to finance speculations in securities, commodities, and land.

-- Ralph Borsodi, Inflation and the Coming Keynesian Catastrophe


Democratic Government Requires the Separation of

Money and State.

In the exercise of the money power, under the dictates of political expediency, the state is driven inevitably from libertarian forms of democracy and republicanism to the autarchic forms of fascism, socialism and communism.

-- E. C. Riegel


The Growth Imperative

The interest burden of debt-money forces cancerous growth!


Debt Grows Exponentially Over Time

Time

Debt


The “Magic” of Compound Interest

Growth of One Dollar

$189,906,200

$115,124200 years

$13,780.65$339.30100 years

$117.39$18.4250 years

10%6%


The Good NewsMoney is Being Reinvented

At the grassroots level LETSystems and local currencies

At the business level Trade exchanges or “barter”

exchanges The governmental level

Municipal and provincial bonds and tax credit certificates are circulating as currency.


Money is CreditMoney Has Evolved in Stages

Commodity Money, to Symbolic Money (redeemable

paper), to Credit Money


The Money Problem Must Be Solved

As long as the banking cartel controls our credit and charges us interest for using it, environmental destruction and social degradation can only worsen.

The key to survival lies in regaining control of our own credit.


How Is Money Created Today?

The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith

Money is credit. Banks create money by lending

our credit back to us – at interest.


Bank

DebtMoney

Mortgage note

MortgageNote

(asset)

Banks now create only debt money, not as notes, but in the form of bank account “deposits” when a “loan” is granted.

AccountDeposit

(liability)

The Creation of Bank Debt-Money as Deposits


Transcending the Money Monopoly

Requires Commercial and Non-commercial Action at All Levels:

• Local• Regional• National• Global

Relocalization - Building Safe Harbors


Liberating Exchange

Two Synergistic Approaches:

Mutual Credit Clearing Exchanges

Complementary Private Currencies


Mutual Credit Associations and Community Currencies Provide Exchange Media that are:

Sufficient Interest-free Community controlled Democratically allocated Self-adjusting Stable and Sustainable

Mutual Credit Issuance and Circulation

Member - IssuersMutual credit clearing association Member - Non-Issuers

Issuing members begin the process by buying from other members.

Then credits are used to pay for purchases within the association.

Currency Issuance and Circulation

Non-member users

Member - IssuersMutual credit clearing association Member - Non-Issuers


Advantageous Outcomes

Reduced need to borrow from banks, lowering interest costs and the risk of default.

Supplements the supply of scarce official money, enabling businesses to sell more of their unused capacity, and consumers to buy it.

Increases independence from outside manipulation of interest rates and money supply.

Enhanced ability of local businesses to compete with large corporate chains.


Learn More and Keep Up-to-date on Developments

Explore the website: http://www.ReinventingMoney.com Read, Money: Understanding and

Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, and

Money and Debt: A Solution to the Global Crisis by Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

Make a donation to Community Information Resource Center.

Get involved with Sustainable Tucson

http://www.reinventingmoney.com/


From the Federal Reserve Bank

•“The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.

• …checkable liabilities of banks are money.

•These liabilities are customers’ accounts.•They increase.. when the proceeds of loans made by banks are credited to borrowers’ accounts.” -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago


Money Power to the People

Each person must have the power to create their money ballot in proportion to their power to produce and serve their fellows without hindrance from our servant, the state.

– E. C. Riegel (paraphrased)


How to Insulate, But Not Isolate, the Local Economy to:

Reduce exploitation,

Enhance local economic vitality,

Enable self-determination, and

Optimize the community's standard of living and quality of life?

RetailersWholesalers

Manufacturers

Basic Commodity Producers

Employees

Achieve Critical Mass and Include all Levels of the Supply Chain

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Documents

Money, Power, Democracy, and War Finding the path toward global peace, harmony, and prosperity Thomas H. Greco, Jr