| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] Richard C. Cook: Monetary Crank | | Date: | Wednesday, September 3, 2008 10:46:01 (EDT) | | From: | Adavans <Adavans @...com>
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I ran across Zarlenga a number of months ago and was impressed with his
vehement rejection of Social Credit principles. My guess is that Richard
Cook's involvement with Zarlenga is kind of an uneasy dance that involves
compromise and reduction of principles to almost the least common
denominator.
With that in mind I can see why Richard Cook might promote something that
isn't 100 percent what he wants but comes the closest to addressing the issues
he is concerned with, even if he is only getting 50 percent of what he really
wants as an advocate of Social Credit.
Regards
Alan
In a message dated 9/3/2008 9:31:23 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
johngrawson@hotmail.com writes:
You
appear to have missed a lot of Richard's material.
His policies are
identical with Douglas, including the "price discount" which I consider
unworkable, but with two exceptions: One the immediate cash payment to
consumers. We could not do that here, but I think perhaps your economy is so
strong and so depressed that it might be practicable and perhaps necesary. The
other is use of the nation's credit for infrastructure. I believe that the
debt structure has grown so much since Douglas' time that this is absolutely
necessary. It certainly worked here when our first NZ Labour govt. was
applying monetary reform principles.
I believe it is no accident that deep
thought over the years here by our movement coincides
almost exactly with that of a man of Cook's stature.
He appears
to have a more complete grasp of the situation than Zarlenga.
Your term
"crank" is very familiar here. It has invariably come from orthodox
opponents who dared not counter us with reason.
John R.
> Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 08:42:12
-0700
> From: william_b_ryan@yahoo.com
> To:
socialcredit@elistas.com
> CC: rickycook21@hotmail.com;
ami@taconic.net
> Subject: [socialcredit] Richard C. Cook: Monetary
Crank
>
> Appended below is Richard Cook's recent Internet
posting. It is a great disappointment to me in many respects. Gone is even the
pretense of Social Credit theory. It is heavily influenced by Stephen
Zarlenga, a Georgist who argues that Henry George was a Greenbacker!
>
> The A + B theorem is replaced by the fallacious "debt virus" theory
that we have discussed previously. The "usury" argument is an Islamic
fundamentalist slam against modern informed Christianity, which we have also
discussed previously, so I'll just briefly outline the arguments now.
>
> In Zarlenga's "American Monetary Act" is a provision for a so-called
"citizens' dividend." Says Cook: "The Act also includes a provision for a
citizens’ dividend, similar in some respects to the Alaska Permanent Fund,
which would inject desperately needed purchasing power into the economy
without additional government debt or taxation."
>
> Lest anyone
think that this "citizens' dividend" is similar to the Social Credit proposal
for a dividend, read this from the act itself, as posted on Zarlenga's
website:
>
> "SEC. 506 INITIAL MONETARY DIVIDEND TO CITIZENS Not
later than 90 days from the effective date of this section, the Secretary, in
cooperation with the Monetary Authority shall provide recommendations to
Congress for payment of a Citizens Dividend as a tax-free grant to all U.S.
citizens residing in the U.S. in order to provide liquidity to the banking
system at the commencement of this act, before governmental infrastructure
expenditures have had a chance to work into circulation."
>
>
Please note that in Zarlenga's plan the dividend is not continuing, as in
Social Credit, but paid only once at the beginning of the plan's
implementation "before governmental infrastructure expenditures have had a
chance to work into circulation."
>
> As to the "debt virus"
argument, Cook quotes Bob Blain:
>
> “Loans created only the
principal. Interest had to be paid out of principal. So payment of interest
reduced the money supply and slowed economic activity. Recovery could come
only when new loans were taken out at least equal to interest paid.”
>
> The second sentence is simply a false statement of fact. Banks create
customer deposits not only through the principal of loans, but when they
spend, through reciprocal economic activity, salaries, wages, dividends and
ordinary business expenses into the community, which become available to pay
interest back to the banks.
>
> As to the religious argument, I
have as the authority John Calvin's letter of 1545, as related by Norman Jones
of Utah State University, that two quite different words in the Semitic
languages were inappropriately translated as "usury" into the European
languages.
>
http://www.geocities.com/new_economics/Calvin-usury.txt
>
> This
is supported in modern Islam.
>
http://www.geocities.com/new_economics/Quran-usury.txt
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
FAIR_USE_CLAIMED
>
> Democrats in Denver Should Skip One of Their
Parties & Read the American Monetary Act
>
> by Richard C.
Cook
> Aug. 27, 2008
>
> How are things going at the
Democratic Party National Convention in Denver this week?
>
> Are
they talking about the fact that the Western world is run by an international
financial elite headquartered in London, the financial capitals of mainland
Europe (such as Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, and Milan), and, of
course, New York City?
>
> Are they mentioning at their cocktail
parties that the financial elite exert control over the world’s population
through the cartels that make up the world’s producing economies and through
the civilian and military bureaucracies who work for the governments that
kow-tow to them?
>
> Of course they know that the most important
cartels are those which control energy resources. And that of these, the
commodity of central importance is oil. But is any of this helping them draw
conclusions regarding the doubling of oil prices during the last year or about
the largest oil company profits in history?
>
> Also, they should
be drawing the right conclusions from the fact that every private and pubic
enterprise operates on the basis of a money economy, though it would be more
accurate to call it a credit economy. This means that whoever controls the
issuance of money and credit controls the world. And the world’s monetary
systems function on the basis of money and credit being introduced into
circulation through loans from the banking system, loans for which interest is
charged. So what should that tell them?
>
> In fact, they should
be pointing out to each other and their TV viewers that the charging of
interest for the use of money is a chain around the neck of everyone on earth.
Further, that these cumulative interest charges are built into the price of
every product that is manufactured or consumed. And that growth of debt means
price increases too.
>
> They should be honest in making it clear
that the world is a master-slave society, that the slaves are those who borrow
and pay interest, that the masters are those who collect the interest, and
that this unjust system has existed in one form or another for thousands of
years.
>
> The candidates and delegates are talking about the
aspirations of the American people and how everyone should have an opportunity
to achieve their dreams. But if the United States were a free nation, they
would also be talking about a financial system that destroys people’s
dreams.
>
> Unfortunately, the highest rung the candidates and
delegates have been able to reach on the ladder of modern-day slavery is the
need for more jobs—but they fail to note that jobs are not only the means by
which people live, but also the instruments for them to pay the heavy burden
of interest the masters of finance require.
>
> What they won’t
say is that the world economy is based on usury, something religions used to
consider a crime (and which Islam still does). Usury is the charging of
interest for the use of money. As the religions backed off from their
prohibitions of interest, usury became just excess interest. But that’s not
what the word really means.
>
> So what have over two centuries
of usury done to the United States?
>
> The best answer ever
given to that question was contained in a paper entitled “Revisiting U.S.
Public and Private Debt” published in January 2005 by Dr. Bob Blain, Emeritus
Professor of Sociology at Southern Illinois University. The paper updated an
earlier study by Dr. Blain published for the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the International Social
Science Journal, November, 1987, Paris, pages 577-591.
>
> In his
paper, Dr. Blain examined the growth of total public and private debt in the
U.S. Total debt includes “the debts of governments (federal, state, and
local), corporations, farmers, home mortgages, and consumer, commercial, and
financial debts.”
>
> In his analysis, Dr. Blain began with data
from the Bureau of Economic Analyses of the United States Department of
Commerce which covered the years 1916-1976. After that year the Bureau stopped
publishing the data.
>
> The figures showed that from 1916-1976,
total U.S. debt grew from $82 billion to $3,800 billion ($3.8 trillion). But
most of that growth was during the last 21 years, from 1955-1976, when it
began to grow exponentially. Dr. Blain wrote, “The consistency of the pattern
suggests that some imperative is at work, something that requires debt to
increase.”
>
> Dr. Blain found the answer by researching American
history. He wrote: “Then I read G.R. Taylor’s 1950 book, Hamilton and the
National Debt, which described the debate over Alexander Hamilton’s plan to
fund the new economy with borrowed money.” He continued:
>
> “The
most revealing account was a speech by the first congressman from Georgia,
James Jackson, on February 9, 1790, in which he predicted that adoption of
Hamilton’s funding plan would lead to the explosive growth of debt. Jackson
said, ‘Though our present debt be but a few millions, in the course of a
single century it may be multiplied to an extent we dare not think of.’”
(Annals of Congress, Vol. I, February 1790, pp. 1141-2)
>
> From
the very beginning, the U.S. had a monetary system based on borrowing and
debt. First came the thousands of state chartered banks that began operating
late in the Revolutionary War period and continued in one form or another
until today. Then there were the two early central banks: the First Bank of
the United States (1791-1811) and the Second Bank of the United States
(1816-1836). Today’s national banking system began during the Civil War with
the National Banking Acts of 1863-64. Then there is the system we are living
under today, the Federal Reserve, chartered by Congress in 1913. Even during
the times when the government has sold its debt directly to the public, as
with war bonds, savings bonds, and Treasury notes and bills, that too has been
money borrowed at interest.
>
> Although there have been times in
history when money entered into circulation other than through debt, such as
with coinage and the Civil War greenbacks, those were exceptions and today are
of little importance.
>
> Dr. Blain estimated that from the time
Alexander Hamilton placed the U.S. under a debt-based monetary system until
today, the debt has compounded at 5.8 percent annually. The big problem with
this system, he said, was “that no money was created to pay interest.” He
continued:
>
> “Loans created only the principal. Interest had to
be paid out of principal. So payment of interest reduced the money supply and
slowed economic activity. Recovery could come only when new loans were taken
out at least equal to interest paid.”
>
> Dr. Blain concluded,
“As long as the money supply of a nation is created as debt costing interest,
debt must grow by compound interest.” From a longer-range view, it’s a system
that is constantly collapsing and that must constantly be bailed out.
>
> Dr. Blain next sought to update his figures past the 1976 data from
the Bureau of Economic Analyses. Turning to the Federal Reserve’s series on
“Total Credit Market Debt Outstanding,” he found remarkably similar
indicators.
>
> He found that adding data from the Federal
Reserve from 1945 to 2003 showed the “debt explosion” continuing. In 1945
total debt was $463.4 billion. In 2003 it was $44,967.7 billion ($45.0
trillion). When he projected the debt level for 2010, he arrived at a figure
of $74.9 trillion. By this time the debt curve was climbing so steeply there
would be almost a doubling of the amount of total debt in only nine
years.
>
> It might be argued that these figures do not take into
account inflation. This is because lending at interest is the cause of
inflation. The dollars still have to be repaid with interest. The problem
occurs when economic growth, measured by GDP, does not keep up.
>
> Looking at the growth of GDP from 1945 to 2003, the increase was from
$223.1 billion to $10,987.9 billion, a factor of 49. But the debt ($463.4
billion vs. $44,967.7 billion) grew by a factor of 97, almost twice the rate
of GDP growth. Thus the total debt burden on the economy has doubled from a
ratio of 2:1 to more than 4:1 (though it was much less than that during the
early days of the nation).
>
> But with continued compound growth
of debt and a slow- or no-growth state of the economy as we head into a
recession, we are starting to see what Dr. Blain called an “acceleration to
meltdown.” He wrote:
>
> “We are buying more and more in the same
amount of time. Witness the efforts of people to get rid of their excess
through yard sales, storage units, and big trash pickup days, and the massive
size of what are euphemistically called landfills. While two billion people in
the world lack basics such as clean water, food, and shelter, Americans throw
away their microwave ovens, televisions, computers, refrigerators, furniture,
and cars. Meanwhile, acceleration is applauded as increasing productivity.
It’s like arguing that cancer is good because it grows.”
>
>
These are the things the Democrats in Denver should be talking about, instead
of going to so many parties. They should be making note that the U.S., to
quote economists close to the Federal Reserve, is “functionally
bankrupt.”
>
> In fact, the debt this nation owes to the banks,
to foreign creditors, and to each other can never be paid off. Further, one
big reason for all of our fruitless military endeavors overseas may simply be
to escape unpleasant economic realities at home. But this is pointless.
Nothing creates more debt than war, as the bankers have always known.
>
> The only solution is to adopt a monetary system that is not based on
debt. Dr. Blain makes a couple of specific recommendations: 1) “Stop using
percentage rates to calculate charges for the use of money”; and 2) “Congress
must supply the economy with a money base that is debt-free and
interest-free.”
>
> The second point is a call for a new monetary
system, not one based solely on lending by the banks or on government
borrowing. One organization that has developed a blueprint for such a system
is the American Monetary Institute (AMI), headquartered in Chicago. The
director of the AMI is Stephen Zarlenga, author of a massive, groundbreaking
work: The Lost Science of Money (AMI, 2002). Zarlenga’s assistant is Jamie
Walton, a monetary reformer from New Zealand.
>
> AMI will be
holding its fourth annual conference in Chicago on September 25-28. Expected
as keynote speaker is Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose wife Elizabeth once
worked as an intern at AMI. Dr. Bob Blain will be a featured speaker.
>
> On the AMI website at www.monetary.org is a remarkable document, the
American Monetary Act [.pdf] The product of several years of work by Zarlenga
and his network, which now includes a number of local chapters around the
country, the American Monetary Act would replace today’s debt-based monetary
system with one where the government spends or loans money directly into
circulation.
>
> Under the Act, the Federal Reserve would be
retained as a national financial clearinghouse but would no longer be a bank
of issue. The system would be overseen by a Monetary Control Board within the
U.S. Treasury Department. The Act also includes a provision for a citizens’
dividend, similar in some respects to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which would
inject desperately needed purchasing power into the economy without additional
government debt or taxation.
>
> Also promoting a citizens’
dividend, by the way, is Stephen Shafarman in his important new book,
Peaceful, Positive Revolution. (Tendril Press, 2008)
>
> It’s the
American Monetary Act the candidates and delegates in Denver should skip one
of their parties to read, because it’s the only way any of their hopes for
America can ever be realized. Says AMI’s Jamie Walton:
>
> “This
is a crucial time. Things are happening. We have got some key media people
talking and writing about our kind of reforms. The inertia is starting to
yield. Things are starting to roll. The worsening conditions in 2009 will give
us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be heard above the propaganda.”
>
-
>
>
>
>
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