Comments for How States Can Escape The Credit Crisis: Own A Bank at http://atlanticfreepress.com , comment 1 to 1 out of 1 comments http://atlanticfreepress.com Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:59:39 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/12474-how-states-can-escape-the-credit-crisis-own-a-bank-.html#comment-9216 Thanks Ellen for the info on BND and the references! Very useful. I wasn't aware of the BND story. It's very existence is a surprise. The obvious question that has bothered me for a long time, is what prevents the commonsense exhibited by BND to be deployed across the board in the United States, in all states? The proposed commonsense exhibited by the future governor of Florida is one of courage more than one of knowledge or information - right? Such knowledge isn't exactly a secret - both as your book discloses (which I have read, and you surely didn't need classified information to write it), and as this almost 90 year old NY Times article from December 6, 1921 shows: (the excerpt is from my article "Who will bell the cat?"): [b] “Certainly. There is a complete set of misleading slogans kept on hand for just such outbreaks of common sense among the people. The people are so ignorant of what they think are the intricacies of the money system that they are easily impressed by big words. There would be new shrieks of 'fiat money', and 'paper money' and 'green backism,' and all the rest of it – the same old cries with which the people have been shouted down from the beginning.” “But maybe we have passed beyond the time when the thoughtful 2 per cent – you know, I gather from my questionaire that only 2 per cent of the people think,” and Mr. Edison smiled broadly. “Maybe they can't shout down American thinkers any longer. The only dynamite that works in this country is the dynamite of a sound idea. I think we are getting a sound idea on the money question. The people have an instinct which tells them that something is wrong, and that the wrong somehow centers in money. They have an instinct also, which tells them when a proposal is made in their interests or against them.” “ ... Well, [in the old way of doing business, Congress] must authorize an issue of bonds. That is, it must go out to the money brokers and borrow enough of our own national currency to complete great national resources, and we then must pay interest to money brokers for the use of our money. Old Way Adds to Public Debt “That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. “Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 – that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt not contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issue the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business, we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost. “But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent., whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way. ... “It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurers, and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase national wealth, must go into debt, and submit to ruinous interest at the hands of men ...” “Look at it another way. If the Government issues the bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt-edged paper. Why? Because the Government is behind them, but what is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of bankers receiving the benefit of the people's credit in interest-bearing bonds? “The people must pay any way; why should they be compelled to pay twice, as the bond system compels them to pay? The people of the United States always accept their Government's currency. If the United States Government will adopt this policy of increasing its national wealth without contributing to the interest collector – for the whole national debt is made up of interest charges – then you will see an era of progress and prosperity in this country such as could never have come otherwise.[/b] That extended excerpt leaves no room for imagination to run wild trying to figure out what 'first-principle' of finance gone wild has precipitated the global crisis today, as it explains the most complex E-con gibberish in the most straightforward way. So I would like to know HOW can California actually implement that suggestion of having its own bank like North Dakota and as proposed by the courageous fellow in Florida? And I do not mean it rhetorically, I mean what steps should we take to build the public momentum to enable this reform in the face of the entrenched power of the Federal Reserve System? Just even look at the brazen Chutzpah of Ben Bernanke: youtube.com/watch?v=hYVp-UFzmXw And here is the fuller challenge for us all: "The Missing Link of Monetary Reform: How?" print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/09/response-ami-monetary-reform-conf.html I really hope some people smarter than I can wrestle with it because I do not have answers. Only questions. And I have pretty much given up on platitudes being any more a solution than the Ten Commandments have proven to be these past 3000 years. Thanks. Zahir Ebrahim Project Humanbeingsfirst.org - Project Humanbeingsfirst.org Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:45:03 +0100