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In defense of Ellen Brown

October 10, 2010

Gary North on Rockwell’s site comes with a fairly vicious attack on Ellen Brown. He calls her a ‘Greenbacker’ as if that is something distasteful.

What it is all about is the Goldbug people versus the Interest Free Money crowd. It is one of the most crucial debates around. As I have mentioned before both on this site and elsewhere, Gold is the preferred currency of the Banking Fraternity and they plan to reinstate it in their world currency, which is coming closer every day.

North has compiled an enormously lengthy article with no less than 50 links to individual, detailed critiques to some of the statements in Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt.
Some of them are fair, others are outrageous. Such as his defense of deflation. Not seeming to realize that Europe suffered protracted (semi) depressions for long periods of time right up to the Great Depression. While on the Gold Standard. All these were caused by structurally scarce gold.
The simpleminded defense of deflation as ‘natural’ without reviewing the very negative implications of deflation for the broader social and economic fabric is difficult to swallow. It is not that we cannot see the effects of deflation today.
North apparently does not realize that the Bankers always favor deflation. Because deflation makes their outstanding debts more valuable.

He also thinks it is cosmopolitan and streetwise to attack Brown for her nuanced approach to Hitler.

It is not. Although many people would sympathize with North (which he obviously expects and hopes to use to destroy Brown’s credibility), it is simply politically correct and immature to do so. To understand Hitler, so we can learn to avoid people like him, we must understand what attracted others to him. Anybody with even marginally developed skills for independent thought can see that the treatment of Hitler in the post war era is a classic case of ‘Sieger Justiz’ and his current image has nothing to do with reality.

However, these are just minor points. Because North has managed to do something profoundly dishonest and unwise. In this enormous article of his he actually does not mention the problem of interest at all.

This is so totally unfair to Brown’s work, because this is surely one of the most important aspects of her narrative.
North only mentions Brown wants to print fiat money. But not the kind we have today. She wants to print debt free and interest free money.

If ever I saw an elephant in the room being ignored it is this case by North.

A more detailed expose on interest is here, for here and now just a few reminders of what again this interest problem is:

The US Government at this point pays between 400 and 500 billion dollars in interest per year on the ‘National Debt’. The trillions that the FED have created and will create to buy up Treasuries are interest bearing.

If you buy a house you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest for your mortgage. For money that was created by pushing a few buttons.

Forty percent of prices you pay are costs for capital. So just through prices for normal commodities you pay 40 % of your disposable income to banks and other financiers.

Who pays for all this? The 80% poorest of the population. The have nots pay interest, the haves receive it. We are talking a worldwide, yearly multi trillion wealth transfer from poor to rich through usury.

Gold is also interest bearing and that is only one reason why it is totally unacceptable as currency.

And most important: there is no reason at all, no necessity, no economic law of any kind that makes this necessary. It is only the power of the few and the lack of knowledge of the many that allow this to continue.

Yes, there are many rationalizations for interest. And I’ll debunk them patiently time and again, because it is so necessary. But keeping the above in mind everybody can understand that what we have here is a simple, large scale fleecing of the multitude.

Anybody can see that if money is so ridiculously cheap to produce, it is simply outrageous that society needs to pay such mind boggling costs for it.

Interest free money, either printed debt free by the Government or through interest free credit either by private organizations or again by the State, is simple, proven technology and centuries old.

Yes, many systems have been abused resulting in inflation.

No, interest bearing Gold is definitely not an acceptable solution.

The solution is to fire and prosecute all those who mess up our money. The solution is to have a populace of which at least a few percent have a decent grasp of the money basics, which can be taught to all normally gifted people. The solution is to see the Bankers and their advocates for what and who they are.

To see that interest bearing Gold and interest bearing paper debts are just two sides of the same Central Banking hoax.

North expects to have fun with destroying Brown. To me it is simply annoying to have to point out simple facts like the above to people who can make such noise about their own monetary expertise.

129 Comments
  1. I never did trust North, or much like him. Nor do I trust Lew Rockwell.

    As for gold – of course it can be manipulated in the same way paper can, and so can silver and it has been, for centuries, except that silver is now an industrial metal. Read “The Babylonian Woe.” by David Astle, available on line. He explains how usury began.

    Ellen Brown is right. Money should not be anything more than a means of exchange and it must not ever be used for profit by privateers and vampires.

    • Yet she advocates reasonable interest rates if the it is re-spent back to the economy. But that ignores the inherent instability of interest that has nothing to do with being able to pay it but everything to do with debt growth.

      When you charge interest the system becomes unstable and even if you charge interest at equal rates on positive and negative balances, the system remains unstable because the ratios between debt and money are balanced but the ratio of both to original collateral is forced to change systematically over time.

      The ability to pay or not pay debt does not define whether the system design is stable or not nor it is the unbounded (i.e. non BIBO) growth that creates instability.

      • I meant:

        The ability to pay or not pay debt does not define whether the system design is stable or not it is the unbounded (i.e. non BIBO) growth that creates instability.

      • marc, one question.

        Earlier I agreed with you on this issue.

        But now I’m not certain: Ellen Brown will take interest, but she will SPEND it back into circulation.
        Or better: I’m not even sure she will.

        Rephrase: If the money is SPENT (instead of LENT) back into circulation, shouldn’t that keep the money supply stable and leave P+I=P?

        • Anthony,

          Stability is when a system that receives an input that changes its state of equilibrium regains its original point of equilibrium on its own accord without having to do add energy or effort to the system. If to regain the original position of equilibrium it requires external effort or the addition of energy, the system is unstable by definition. This is summarised by Bounded Input Bounded Output (BIBO). A stable system is when both the input and the output are bounded sums BY VIRTUE OF THE SYSTEM DESIGN.

          Take the following cases:

          Case A

          A ball placed at the bottom of a bowl when pushed with a fixed energy will roll up and down the sides of the bowl and by design alone, the ball will return to its original position.

          Case B

          Now If you turn the bowl over and balance the ball on the top of it and push the ball it will roll down the side onto the table, off the table and who knows where else, now in order to get the ball back to its original point of equilibrium energy outside the design has to be added.

          Case A is BIBO stable because the push is a bounded input and the rolling of the ball back to its position is a bounded ooutput of the system by virtue of its design. Therefore the BIBO principel is satisfied. But in Case B, the same bounded input produces an output that is not bounded by the design because you had to add energy to the system to bring the ball back to its position.

          Now lets look at the problem of interest contract:

          Input: Principal
          Output: Debt

          By definition, the Principal is a fixed sum so it is bounded but the debt grows as a function of time so it is unbounded because if any time lapses and growth takes place you are never going to regain the original point of equilibrium and to just prevent the growth from growing to infinity you have to add energy to the system. So the system is unstable.

          Now you say we can live with that, as long as enough money is in circulation so that the debt could or might be paid in the future. “Could be paid” is not enough because if for any reason it isn’t paid the debt will continue to grow, so just having the money around doesn’t stop the debt growth by design you have to add effort to make sure the money gets to the debt. So now you have to add more energy to the system. But to do that “efficiently” you have to program the whole economy (state control). All of this energy to compensate an instability that could have been eliminated from the start by just making interest = 0!

          Basically, the instability of interest permeates the whole system because it is built into prices of everything and when it is passed up the value chain each link refinances the interest from the previous link compounding interest so that debt output grows geometrically, inflation thus rises and increases demand for money constantly. Rising prices becomes the third unbounded output of the aggregate system.

          This means that the only way recycling interest can help, is if it is faster than the debt growth which is impossible not to mention pointless because then the effect would be exactly the same as zero interest and no one would benefit because no interest would accrue. The whole point of interest is to make debt grow so cancelling faster than it grows makes no sense when you can just make it zero.

          This is why the only answer is zero interest. Compensating interest does not stabilise the system. In chap 3 of my book all can download here: http://www.bibocurrency.org/English/BOOK%20DOWNLOAD.htm, I write:

          ……..

          Now and very importantly, instability is not identified by whether or not all Principal and Interest demands can or cannot be satisfied, but rather instability is identified by the fact that if, for whatever reason, either are not satisfied, then the debt will continue to grow unboundedly.

          Therefore and since it is absurd to expect the outcome where 100% of both principal and interest are satisfied for 100% of all scheduled payments at all times, then it can be accurately stated that such a system, invariably produces residual unbounded Principal and Interest debt that without issuance of new debt money units, remains un‐payable leading to a situation of perpetual
          debt. As we shall see in the next lesson, if this debt is refinanced, then it necessarily becomes exponential in nature exacerbating the aggregate system’s state of instability.

          ……….

          This above the definitive statement as far as control systems theory goes.

          But for those who want a more succinct explanation that proves the same point by showing that any interest proposition is simply logically absurd I invite you to read this: http://www.bibocurrency.org/English/The%20Scam%20short%20form.htm. And to understand how interest necessarily destroys the measuring function of money you should read this: http://www.bibocurrency.org/English/Free%20Liquidity%20Revolution%20v3.1.htm

          All of the above arguments and proofs hold irrespective of whether or not money is recycled or not. So I think we have the definitive and irrefutable scientific proof that interest is insane.

          Happy reading!

          • Thanks for writing.

            I understand 90% and will work on the remaining 10%.

            It’s just great to have you here with this kind of stuff.
            Thanks, Anthony

          • Its a pleasure to be able to share our work and be given a fair hearing.

          • Marc, I haven´t read the book yet but what you say is in line with Mathematically Perfected Economy (correct me if wrong). Can I invite you for a debate with Mike Montagne on this very subject. Thanks Jac

          • Hi Jac,

            I would be glad to discuss the issue with Michael but I am sure that there is close to 100% agreement because it is the math that rules not anyone’s particular opinion. What we have done at http://www.bibocurrency.org is to simply take an important step of standardising stable money following the standard procedure used in editing international IT standards that I have had experience as editor of two published ISO/IEC standards. From the preface of my book:

            Preface

            The “system” is controlled by the “the money system” and “the
            money system” is an arbitrary, very rudimentary and ancient
            “Information Technology” (IT). We have inherited this system
            irrationally through centuries of social conditioning and subtle
            coercion. But today in the age of IT, it would never occur to us to
            design any technology without first gathering a full and coherent set
            of requirements. Yet in this 21st century, there still exists no
            published set of formal coherent system requirements for money
            systems that can be ratified in the full context of our otherwise
            advanced notions of human rights and freedoms. This book for the
            first time in history, presents us with both a set of integral and
            coherent requirements that any money specification should meet as
            well as a first formal specification of a stable money system design
            that satisfies those requirements.

            The single most important requirement that money satisfies and for
            which it may be considered fundamental, is to provide “liquidity”, so
            that otherwise indivisible value may be made divisible in a standard
            way. For example, money solves the problem of how to exchange
            the value of just a piece of my house for an ice‐cream cone for my
            child. In today’s world, such can be delivered through an inordinate
            number of simple technological and scientifically stable
            mechanisms, at practically no cost to the users and without the
            need for imposing arbitrary conditions or limits. Therefore, and in
            the 21st century, there exists no reason for a “lack of funds”, that at
            best is a conceptual error and at worst, given that economics has
            come to be considered a “science”, scientific fraud!

            The other contribution we believe we have made is to identify the corner stone fallacy of the whole judeo christian false belief system and that is the definition of money as both a unit of measure as well as scarce commodity. Having designed the Media Value Chain Ontology (MVCO) ISO/IEC 21000-19 that relates the definitions of terms used in identifying and classifying different types of Intellectual Property I realised two things:

            1) In order for an ontology (aka a knowledge space) to be functionally valid beyond simply identifying terms and definitions, all definitions must be unambiguous and logically consistent between themselves. Ontologies can be formalised such that a program called a reasoner can pinpoint logical inconsistencies in a broad set of terms and definitions that make up the ontology.

            2) That human use of language does not enforce such strict rules of consistency between terms and many areas such as law and economics harbour invalid definitions that are the basis of complete branches of reasoning that are completely made invalid.

            On the basis of the above, we have identified a cornerstone composite definition that is used axiomatically in economics that is entirely inconsistent. That definition is none other than the definition of the unit of currency/money. Once that definition is clarified and the inconsistency resolved, the complete invalidity of economics as a rational belief system is made patently clear. But what is more, is that the simple technical solution to solving the requirement for stable, abundant and accessible liquidity also becomes trivially obvious.

            The errant composite definition is to define money simultaneoulsy as a unit of measure as well as a scarce commodity. These two definitions are mutually exclusive because a unit of measure has a constant value and cannot ever be scarce. When we conceive of money as only a unit of measure it then becomes clear how trivial it is to provide any amount of liquidity to facilitate any transaction in a way that is stable, dependable and therefore inherently trustworthy at practically no cost to the users and without the need for imposing arbitrary conditions or limits.

            I suggest that all follow the following link: http://www.bibocurrency.org/English/The%20Scam%20short%20form.htm to get a handle on how ludicrous the current economic belief system is.

            Finally, I would like to add that in as much as most people have not been able to understand that in effect the problem is a faulty belief system it may be the case that those running the system simply don’t understand what they are doing. They simply are convinced that “that is THE way things REALLY are”. After the effort of so many of us in the 21 st century that shows that the belief system is simply false, we may be able to undo this terrible spell for ever without having to suffer its ludicrous consequences. If we stick to math and science and simply insist on our right to represent our value using a mathematically stable design those opposing will simply look like lunatics for denying us this right.

            Marc

  2. “Interest free money, either printed debt free by the Government or through interest free credit either by private organizations or again by the State, is simple, proven technology and centuries old.”
    Jct: Glad you focused on the usury as the elephant in the room that Gary North dared not address. Shift B Inflation from Turmel’s Miracle Equation exposes Big Lie of Economics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqlthpY94cQ
    And I’m sure Gary North’s reason for not liking Hitler’s interest-free time-based Reichmark currency that offered full employment while the rest of the world suffered the Great Depression is as sound as for his not liking Hitler’s Volkswagons.

    • I watched this video.

      Cool dude. No wonder he gets only 500 hits. He’s brilliant and telling some truth…………..

  3. Dibbles permalink

    Wasn’t the use of gold-backed currency the primary causes of depressions in the latter 1900s? Bankers would extend credit then hoard and create a shortage.

    Voila – depression.

    • I disagree. Booms and busts under the gold standard were not caused by the use of gold per se. The bankers issued more banknotes than they had physical gold in their possession. This contradicted legal principles known quite well even to the Romans, and this fraudulent issuance of credit in the form of banknotes caused the artificial booms, which were followed by busts in the form of bank runs as the citizenry became aware of the scam.

  4. Mary Beth Morrissey permalink

    Anthony Migchels God Bless You and THANK YOU for telling the truth and for elucidating this discussion.

    Lux et veritas

  5. Ellen Brown permalink

    Yes thanks for taking the high ground and seeing the big picture! You did a better job than I did on that. I posted your response on my blog, here — http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/

    Best wishes, Ellen

    • It’s a pleasure to have been of assistance to someone who has made such a major contribution to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our time.

  6. Jay permalink

    Anyone who has read Ellen Brown understands that she is a very tolerant and progressive person. She fully condemns the murders of millions of innocent people under the evil philosophy of National Socialism.

    There is nothing wrong with her studying the Nazi’s technical competence in economic matters. Obviously the Nazis must have done something right economically to take their country from the worst inflation ever at that point in history to near full employment. To say we have nothing to learn from the technocrats who saved the German economy during the Nazi era is as stupid as denying that German rocket science was far in advance of the allies. The other point that she makes is that the economic system that the Nazis advocated was not their own invention, only that it explains Germany’s economic success. In economics whatever policies work for the most people are the policies we should study. To say she is advocating Nazism is like saying the American rocket scientists who studied Nazi technology were Nazis.

    • AJHenry permalink

      Umm, Jay, when they stop jailing people for asking questions about the “millions murdered by the Nazis” then I’ll go back to my knee jerk acceptance of the official version of WWII. No, I guess I can’t.

      FACT: Auschwitz once claimed 4 million murdered.
      FACT: today the plaque says 1.5
      FACT: people are in jail today for questioning the 6 million figure.
      FACT: Ernst Zundel was kidnapped from his home in the US, held in solitary confinement for 2+ years in Canada, and sentenced to 5 years in German prison for violating a German law while living in the US.

      I would urge people to ask themselves what kind of “truth” needs such policing. Absurdities only need a little sunlight to be exposed after which they pose no danger or so I was told. A couple of links s for readers’ convenience:
      http://www.rense.com/general62/cnn.htm
      http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com
      http://www.whale.to/b/holocaust_revisionism.html

      I understand any emotional reactions to the suggestion that we’ve been lied to about the Holocaust because I’ve gone through it myself.

      But I was unaware until I read Veale’s Advance to Barbarism that torture had been extensively employed at Nuremberg. But I am like the courageous Bishop Richard Williamson in saying when the experts (not the media) change their opinions, then I’ll likely change mine also. See him here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6C9BuXe2RM

      • I agree with the above points.
        However: Hitler killed millions. His rape of Russia was almost as bad as Stalin’s was.

        Yes, Hitler has been demonized, but he was good subject for the treatment.

        What is annoying is the fact that both the ones that set him up in 1933 AND the ones leading the way in disgracing him are the real bad guys behind the curtains.

  7. Thanks Jay, great response! I’ll use that about the rocket scientists next time, with your permission.

  8. its verry good web

  9. There is absolutely no reason to peg currency to precious metals. If the currency is Passive Bounded Input Bounded Output (BIBO) design see: http://bibocurrency.org/stability%20video%20v%207.1.pdf the unit will be stable and reflect economic activity.

    All that is required is the following:

    a) All money be the result of the creation and transaction of wealth (not the other way round where money is required to create wealth.
    b) The value pledged in a transaction cannot be allowed to change over time i.e. no interest on debt

    Gold reinforces the notion that monetary units have intrinsic value which they cannot if they are to be useful as objective measure of value. It is entirely circular logic to claim a particular value must measure value. It is wealth that is relatively scarce and it is self defeating and absurd to make the measure of that wealth scarce.

    Please read the Passive BIBO Currency Standard at: http://bibocurrency.org/BIBO%20currency%20specification%20v4.6.pdf and comment.

  10. Kevin Cox permalink

    This is a great defence of Ellen Brown.

    Unfortunately it goes beyond a defence to push the idea that all interest is bad.

    Some interest is bad but some is good. It is the unjustified interest that is bad but justified interest is good.

    Justified interest is interest paid on lent savings. Unjustified interest is interest paid on money lent when it is first created.

    The problem we face is separating the two – not the elimination of all interest. One way to do this is to spend money into existence. The other way is to loan interest free money into existence.

    Spending money into existence is too easy to abuse by those given the right to spend. Lending interest free money into existence is harder to abuse because the money has to be paid back. Lending interest free money into existence and distributing the interest free loans widely throughout society is even more difficult to abuse because everyone has a stake in making sure abuse does not happen.

    • You are correct in pointing out the difference between interest on savings and interest on the money supply itself.

      Keep in mind, though, that both the Q’uran and the Bible suggest that what you call justified interest (interest on savings (or loans made with real savings)) is out of order. Of course, for a critical mind this is not ‘evidence’ in the real sense of the word, but to my mind it is something to be reckoned with.
      There is something intrinsically exploitative about interest. Interest bearing loans over longer periods of time are simply unaffordable.

      However, when we get to a system in line with your last paragraph (I’m happy to see that you appreciate the fact that it is not debt, but the interest that is the problem in money creation), this would be a moot point: interest free credit would then be available for all normal economic activities and loans based on savings would not be a part of the normal economic system. It would have a place only in high risk ventures.

      • Kevin Cox permalink

        Anthony,

        Islamic scholars tell me that rent on money is OK. That is, if I lend you money then it is OK if you pay me rent as a proportion of the earnings you make when you use the money. The critical point from the Islamic point of view is that we both share the risk.

        Interest on savings is another way of paying rent on savings. In itself it will not cause a dysfunctional system. It becomes usury and “unfair” when interest does not reduce when the earnings reduce.

        There is no justification for paying interest on money used for the exchange of goods.

        There is a justification for charging a fee for unpaid credit.

        The confusion arises because interest is the same mechanism to serve different purposes.

        One way to fix things is to eliminate interest from those situations where it is unjustified.

        Interest on savings serves a useful purpose and it is unnecessary to eliminate it to fix the monetary system.

        JCT argues that we can never create enough money to cover the interest hence interest causes the system to become dysfunctional. His assertion is incorrect because we have ways of creating money without interest that can cover interest. These are spending it into existence and lending it into existence with interest free loans.

    • On the question of interest on savings:

      First some important background facts.

      We must distinguish between interest on debt-money and interest on savings of that debt-money. The difference lies in the fact that in the case of Savings both P(savings) and interest (to savings) must come from P (debt money). That is the savings cycle is nested in the debt money cycle.

      Now we know that the underlying problem with the economy can be understood by understanding the following generic loan equation:

      D = P(1 + ik). Where, P = Principal, k = Loan period measured in time, i = Interest

      The essence of this generic equation is that “D” always exceeds the value of “P” by “i” at any point in time. On an aggregate system’s level, the amount of outstanding P is equal to the sum of all positive current accounts insufficient to satisfy P(1+ik) and there is a perpetual deficit as long as “i” > 0 (as all seem to agree).

      Now, in order for there to be a balanced economy it is necessary to maintain a constant ratio between pledged wealth, current account entries Credits and Debits. The moment these ratios change the system becomes unbalanced, if the wealth disappears then the Credits and Debits become meaningless, if the Debits multiply (interest on debt) then more credits must be issued against the same collateral leading to inflation or failure occurs. Similarly, if the amount of Credits are multiplied without an increase in wealth and the price of the wealth is not fixed, then inflation will also ensue.

      Now, please consider the following cases:

      1) Case 1: The effect of interest on savings when i > 0 on P (debt money) and i > 0 on P (savings): Demand for D = P(1+ik) exceeds P so there is an inherent deficit for all debtors. Demand for i on P(savings) can only exacerbated the afore mentioned deficit, by creating an incentive to reduce current account balances (to increase savings balances) making even more money unavailable to the system at large.

      2) Case 2: The effect of interest on savings when i = 0 on newly created money and i>0 on savings. Here there is no shortage of money in the system as D = P(1+0k) = P. But i > 0 on Savings will still have the effect of creating an incentive to make money immobile (saved) creating a delay in the availability of money to pay D on time, leading to the situation where for the same wealth more Debits will be required to compensate for the amount unavailable in savings.

      3) Case 3: The effect where there is no interest on either debt money or savings. In this case there is absolutely no impact on the balance between wealth pledged, Credits and Debits.

      So, if we agree that what is required is to maintain a constant ration between the wealth pledged, Debits and Credits. Case 3) is the most desirable. One of the problems in understanding this and feeling comfortable with it is our education that tends to make us value the unit as if it were equity. The only thing that makes the currency unit have “equity” value is if it is made scarce and applying interest on newly created debt money can only do that. This we all agree must be done away with leading to the conclusion that money is just a scorecard and just as there is no point in marking points without first scoring new wealth, there is no point in giving free points to those who have scored most and taking points away from those who haven’t had time to score.

      My understanding is that money is not wealth but rather money measures wealth so that a rich man is one who has a deed to real wealth, no debt but with immediate access to a stable unit of credit when he wishes to liquidate his wealth e.g, buy an ice cream cone with a piece of his farm.

      For more info on our work and why we think the way we do in this respect, please read:

      http://bibocurrency.org/stability%20video%20v%207.1.pdf (this gives a low level primer on the nature of money systems in general and why they become unstable by design)

      http://bibocurrency.org/BIBO%20currency%20specification%20v4.6.pdf (this is a first draft of a generic stable money system specification)

      http://bibocurrency.org/Formal%20Stability%20Analysis%20and%20experiment%20(final)%20rev%203.4.pdf (this is a rigorous Control System Analysis we have prepared that proves that both linear and exponential debt growth both lead to aggregate exponential debt growth forcing the ration of wealth, Debits and Credits to diverge)

  11. Kevin Cox: Some interest is bad but some is good.
    Jct: Some impossible to pay P+I when we only got P debt causing death in the mortgage death-gamble is bad and some death is good. Now you know why I dont’ read Kevin Cox any more. The man knows nothing about feedback in banking systems engineering and should be kicked out of the money design room.

    • DrKrbyLuv permalink

      KingofthePaupers,

      It is a pleasure to encounter someone who views money as a public utility that should be approached as a function of engineering. In analyzing any system, the observation of a feed-back loop (negative or positive) should alert us to the fact that there will be exponential growth – can it be mitigated or eliminated?

      If we take the basic, P + I > P we can see that it is an unbalanced equation (P = Principal & I = Interest).

      Since all money is created this way we know two important keys. First, there will always be more debt than money and second, the debt can never be fully repaid.

      You mentioned that there may be times when interest (or some form of return) is needed. For example, when money is recycled (loaned more than once) it stands to reason that whoever is parting with their money deserves compensated for the risk and inconvenience.

      I suggest that a “hybrid” system may be the answer as we know that as soon as interest is added, the equation becomes unbalanced and we are dooming a percentage of loans to default.

      Here is a “hybrid” revision of the basic formula shown above:

      P + I is less than or equal to P + S to at least balance the equation (P = Principal, I = Interest & S = debt free money spent into circulation).

      Ellen Brown has suggested that the Federal Government should pay for itself by charging an issuance fee on all newly created money. This would be a new revenue source. Banks could continue under the current model with one major exception, that is that instead of creating money for free, they would pay for their product.

      The federal government could be required to live within their means by being required to balance their budget. If something unusual happens, like an undeclared war, taxes would have to instantly rise to cover the shortfall as a financial discipline.

      In this “hybrid” system, I would only enable state owned public banks to issue debt free money, and only for infrastructure projects that endow the money with the value of the labor, materials and productivity.

      This would de-centralize the system and free the states from being dependent on the federal government. Decisions should be moved as close to the people as possible.

      I am also in favor of interest free loans, provided they add value to the economy. For example, a state could decide that they want to save energy by upgrading residential HVAC systems. It is not unrealistic to target a 50% usage reduction by funding the work with interest free money.

      It is good that we are having this discussion and I am very encouraged by the fine people here who understand the interest conundrum. Some have rightfully argued that if interest were eliminated, the problem would be solved.

      While logical, this strategy is untenable as we (USA) already have an unbalanced equation to deal with. Private and the national debt total around $58 trillion (not including state and local government debt and unfunded liabilities) while the M2 money supply is just under $8 trillion. How do you pay $58 trillion with only $8 trillion? You either borrow more or default.

      The roughly $50 trillion shortfall should be spent into the economy over a number of years – we only need to make up the shortfall one year at a time.

      The necessity of debt free money would be a powerful elixir for the economy – talk about stimulus!

      Amortized mortgages should be eliminated as they are usurious. An amortized mortgage at 7.5% requires that the holder pay back around 2.5 times the principal borrowed. And, credit card rates must be reduced, 27 to 30% is outrageous.

      Larry

      • Tom S permalink

        You have come the closest to the best solution.

        A. The government SPENDS new money into circulation by building and maintaining a world-class, state of the art, transportation infrastructure. The roads are what everyone has in common and the better the road system, the more efficient and prosperous the economy.

        B. The government LOANS new money into circulation by acting just as any private bank does today. These loans must be paid back with interest just as they are today, BUT, instead of all that interest going into the pockets of the private bankers who then buy more yachts and mansions and private jets and limos, etc., that money goes into the government general fund to pay for the government.

        And here is the bonus: THIS WOULD ALLOW US TO ELIMINATE ALL TAXATION AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT!

        The government would be self-sufficient simply by taking over the role that private banks now hold.

        • I agree this is a fully functional model, although I’m not sure that interest on would be the best way to finance the Government. However, this model would create a balanced system devoid of the leakage to private interest.

          It is noteworthy that this is exactly what is suggested in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in protocol 20 on their financial programme

          For instance: ‘The right to issue interest-bearing paper will be given exclusively to industrial companies who will find no difficulty in paying interest out of profits……..’ ‘……Industrial papers will be bought also by the government which from being as now a payer of tribute by loanoperations, will be transformed into a lender of money at a profit. This measure will stop the stagnation of money, parasitic profits and idleness, all of which were useful for us among the goyim so long as they were independent, but are not desirable under our rule.’

          For more information on the treasures in Protocol 20: http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/the-protocols-on-money/#more-113
          But you’ll have to read the entire chapter itself to get the full picture on what they are proposing to do with money once they have their way.

  12. If you want to BUY it, it ain’t money.

    Interest is absolutely, unequivocally bad.

    “Only eradication of interest can solve inevitable collapse as a consequence of inherent multiplication of debt by interest.” Mike Montagne, perfecteconomy.com

    High five to the Engineer!

    The US government: Guilty of treason since at least 1913.

  13. Ollie permalink

    North is a Misean and the Miseans NEVER mention interest usury. That said, I don’t think the depressions of the nineteenth century were caused so much by the “manipulation of gold” as they were by the inherent flaws of a fractional reserve banking system whereby currency, whether gold backed or not, can be injected or restricted at the whim of the big banks without correlation to the gold in reserve.

    We are suffering from that flaw now as a result of Greenspan’s easy money policy put in effect over the last twenty years through fractional reserve banking. That is a major point you miss, Tony. Otherwise good rebuttal to North’s tirade.

    • North and Brown (and I) agree on the fraudulent nature of fractional reserve banking. So there was no point bringing it up. We disagree about the nature of depressions in the 19th century. It is not the inherent lack of stability of FRB that caused the depressions: it was the conscious actions of the bankers to deflate the money supply. This is a well documented historical fact, imo.

      You’re absolutely correct with your first sentence. That’s what it’s all about and if the Gold guys ever want to redeem their precious metals they’ll have to come clean on this. I don’t see how, though.

  14. Anthony Migchels: “interest free credit would then be available for all normal economic activities and loans based on savings would not be a part of the normal economic system.”
    Jct: I keep saying what idiot would borrow savings at interest when they could borrow interest-free from the central timebank? Except Kevin Cox who will keep looking for someone to loanshark their savings to him.

  15. usurykills: “Interest is absolutely, unequivocally bad… High five to the Engineer!
    Jct: It’s amazing that anyone could look at the control system of the 1/(s-i) usury banking system http://johnturmel.com/cont.jpg and that the only way to fix it is http://johnturmel.com/contb.jpg so that we’re left with the functioning interior circuit of a LETS 1/s http://johnturmel.com/contc.jpg

  16. Jct: Kevin Cox says a little positive feedback morting just few borrowers (I/(P+I) is okay having missed that only idiots would try to find themselves a loanshark when there is a bank of social credits waiting to lend the interest-free online.

  17. Jct: Now Kevin’s misrepresenting what I say:
    “JCT argues that we can never create enough money to cover the interest hence interest causes the system to become dysfunctional.
    Jct: P/(P+I) survive their mort-gage death-gamble and I/(P+I) are morted into foreclosure.

    KC: “His assertion is incorrect because we have ways of creating money without interest that can cover interest.
    Jct: That are now not used.

    KC: ” These are spending it into existence and lending it into existence with interest free loans.
    Jct: I have always acknowledged spending up to I into existence with P to match the P+I debt as that Douglas Social Credit numerator solution to the imbalance whereas the Turmel Social Credit denominator solution got rid of the imbalance in the denominator so no balancing is necessary. To say I do not acknowledge the ways to balance the shortage because I want to eliminate the shortage ab initio (from the start) is silly.
    And interest-free loans issued are matched by new interest-free debt so that doesn’t help the imbalance at all. Only spending debt-free up to I works, interest-free loans do not help the original imbalance.
    And now you know why I don’t read Kevin Cox at public_banking or I’d be swamped by all the wrong information he’s flooding the group with.

  18. Jct: My grandfather Adelard Turmel was the only person in his whole poll who voted for the Social Credit candidate and was a staunch Socred all his life. He turned me on to the imbalance between the size of the debt wheel on the cart and the smaller money wheel on the other side. I’m talking Louis Even Quebec LETS Social Credits, not the Douglas “balance the increased debt with dept-free spending) social credits. In Quebec Social Credit the government is just another user account.
    Plus I was leader of the Social Credit Party of Ontario in the mid 1980s so don’t try to tell the world I don’t know about the “debt-free” money numerator solution because I advocate the more efficient “all interest-free loans” denominator solution.

  19. Jct: Finally, imagine what might happen should Ellen Brown flash the cash betting John the Banking Systems Engineer’s Miracle Equation from the banking system blueprint says she’s right. Yahoo or Google for “miracle equation” and you find the technical truth. All that credit is ours to use and not the banks’.
    It could be a heck of a show and the start of the last 2 years of my 33-year AIR mission to Abolish Interest Rates on earth before 2012 and make the Mayan prophecy come true by banking on Earth as it is in Heaven. If Mr. Spock can phaser the right computer and make the rest work fine, why can’t I phaser the right “positive feedback” computer and make the rest work fine? Kids understand, why not adults?

  20. Jct: Besides, if anyone is going to a Banking Systems Engineer on TV, it’s going to RT!

  21. DrKrbyLuv Larry Says:
    October 12, 2010
    “KingofthePaupers,
    It is a pleasure to encounter someone who views money as a
    public utility that should be approached as a function of
    engineering. In analyzing any system, the observation of a
    feed-back loop (negative or positive) should alert us to the
    fact that there will be exponential growth – can it be
    mitigated or eliminated?
    If we take the basic, P + I > P we can see that it is an
    unbalanced equation (P = Principal & I = Interest).
    Since all money is created this way we know two important
    keys. First, there will always be more debt than money and
    second, the debt can never be fully repaid.
    You mentioned that there may be times when interest (or some
    form of return) is needed.”

    Jct: Kevin Cox said that. I’m in favor of pure service charge.

    “For example, when money is recycled (loaned more than once)
    it stands to reason that whoever is parting with their money
    deserves compensated for the risk and inconvenience.

    Jct: No one’s parting with their savings when everyone has
    their own interest-free account.

    “I suggest that a “hybrid” system may be the answer as we know
    that as soon as interest is added, the equation becomes
    unbalanced and we are dooming a percentage of loans to
    default.

    Jct: Agreed, which is why we don’t lend savings, only new
    chips.

    “Here is a “hybrid” revision of the basic formula shown above:
    P + I is less than or equal to P + S to at least balance the
    equation (P = Principal, I = Interest & S = debt free money
    spent into circulation).

    Jct: This is the old Douglas Social Credits spent into
    circulation to balance the extra debt due to interest! Mine is
    the new Turmel Social Credits loaned into circulation to
    government and citizens alike interest-free eliminating the
    need to balance any shortage.

    “Ellen Brown has suggested that the Federal Government should
    pay for itself by charging an issuance fee on all newly
    created money. This would be a new revenue source. Banks could
    continue under the current model with one major exception,
    that is that instead of creating money for free, they would
    pay for their product.”

    Jct: Ellen’s been swamped with garbage, as a true reformer
    should be. Look at the heap I live under. King Henry didn’t
    need it with his Tallies, we don’t need it with our tax
    credits.

    “The federal government could be required to live within their
    means by being required to balance their budget.”

    Jct: When they borrow Principal, spend for upkeep of the
    realm, tax out Principal plus Interest, ouch. When they print
    tallies, spend for upkeep and tax out no interest, wheee.

    “If something unusual happens, like an undeclared war, taxes
    would have to instantly rise to cover the shortfall as a
    financial discipline.”

    Jct: As Socred Engineer Major Douglas said, economic war leads
    to real war. Without the mortgage war between nations, real
    war has no such basis.

    “In this “hybrid” system, I would only enable state owned
    public banks to issue debt free money, and only for
    infrastructure projects that endow the money with the value of
    the labor, materials and productivity.

    Jct: Sure the government should spend debt-free money if
    you’re going to allow a shortage of money to debt that has to
    be covered. But if the growth of debt is eliminated, then
    government adding new credits out of the blue without an
    equivalent amount of social debt would be Shift A
    inflationary. Let government borrow what it needs interest-
    free like King Henry, spend it and tax it back, no interest.
    No need for “debt-free” money to balance extra debt when there
    is no extra debt.

    “This would de-centralize the system and free the states from
    being dependent on the federal government. Decisions should be
    moved as close to the people as possible.”

    Jct: Yes. Economic power immediately goes to the individuals
    who can pool their social credit to buy out their company
    owners and let the workers become the owners.

    “I am also in favor of interest free loans, provided they add
    value to the economy.

    Jct: I’m in favor of interest-free loans to starving babies
    too. I know they can’t pay right away but… So, no
    “providing.” If junior dies early, we pro-rate his negative
    over the whole database. That’s why no one will want any
    inheritance on their score cards.

    “For example, a state could decide that they want to save
    energy by upgrading residential HVAC systems. It is not
    unrealistic to target a 50% usage reduction by funding the
    work with interest free money.”

    Jct: It is not unrealistic to fund the new improvements with
    new chips.

    “It is good that we are having this discussion and I am very
    encouraged by the fine people here who understand the interest
    conundrum. Some have rightfully argued that if interest were
    eliminated, the problem would be solved.

    Jct: http://johnturmel.com/contb.jpg Nehemiah 5:10 & Thomas 95

    “While logical, this strategy is

    Jct: the only one a worthy banking systems engineer could
    adopt.

    “untenable as we (USA) already have an unbalanced equation to
    deal with.”

    Jct: Gee, because you’re out of chips, you think you’re out of
    wealth?

    “Private and the national debt total around $58 trillion (not
    including state and local government debt and unfunded
    liabilities) while the M2 money supply is just under $8
    trillion. How do you pay $58 trillion with only $8 trillion?
    You either borrow more or default.

    Jct: Print enough to pay it off then earn it back year after
    year interest-free as fast as you can is all anyone could ask.

    “The roughly $50 trillion shortfall should be spent into the
    economy over a number of years – we only need to make up the
    shortfall one year at a time.”

    Jct: Or replace all interest-bearing debt with interest-free
    currency to stabilize the debt and allow all payment to go
    against principal. That’s the key. Debts must get paid off
    eventually when there is no interest.

    “The necessity of debt free money would be a powerful elixir
    for the economy – talk about stimulus!”

    Jct: Yes, but that’s only an elixir for governments in a
    society where loansharks keep imbalancing the debt. I’m for an
    elixir for citizens and governments in a society where there
    is no imbalance, you owe for what you got.

    “Amortized mortgages should be eliminated as they are
    usurious.”

    Jct: No-interest amortized loans are not usurious.

    “An amortized mortgage at 7.5% requires that the holder pay
    back around 2.5 times the principal borrowed. And, credit card
    rates must be reduced, 27 to 30% is outrageous.”

    No one’s going to use a loanshark credit card when they can
    use their national UNILETS credit card payable in cash or in
    time.

  22. JB Hickock permalink

    “Gold is the preferred currency of the Banking Fraternity….”

    Unless you mean central banksters want all the gold for themselves that argument makes no sense as we have a global fiat system today controlled by them. Why aren’t we currently on some kind of gold standard? They’ve only been running the world for centuries. Maybe they need a few thousand years to get this global gold standard rammed through? If banksters wanted a gold standard, they never would have let FDR steal everybody’s gold.

    Yet banksters do love gold. How have they acquired so much? Simple. Counterfeiting, i.e. fiat currency ( and FDR stole a bunch from Amerikans.) They print a bunch of monopoly “money” up and use it to gobble up gold and other truly valuable things. There’s no mystery there. It’s just a good old fashioned scam. The solution is liquidation and redistribution in a culture approximating a free market. I’ll leave it to the readers to figure out what I mean by liquidation, but what it means to me is this: all the control freaks and their sycophants must go bye bye and their ill gotten gain be returned to the rightful owners.

    The ultimate argument against greenbackers is this – nobody should have the right to counterfeit. Social contracts are mythical and cannot justify counterfeiting.

    The ultimate argument against government is this – no matter what system you make, the highest functioning sociopaths will either subvert or pervert it to suit their interests. SYSTEM truly is the problem.

  23. Mihail permalink

    This is their answer,in any country they used the same tactics.People should open their eyes,those Ashkenazi have brought fake wars,terrorism,debt,emigration to USSA.The country is finish.
    http://www.realzionistnews.com

  24. JCT’s Miracle Equation:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqlthpY94cQ

    Interview with Mike Montagne: (5 parts)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=menOXvoKw7U

    Common ground between these two men is
    their understanding that interest drives
    inflation. This is a key concept.

    What John calls the “miracle equation” and
    Mike calls “insoluble debt” are the same thing.

    Higher interest rates only add to our woes.

    Interest is just one manifestation of usury.
    Usury is simply cheating and cheating is really
    stealing — forbidden of course by the Ten
    Commandments for you Christians keeping score.

    Luke 6:31 (IMHO) is all you need from the Bible.

    Nobody likes a cheater. Usury kills.

  25. usurykills: “Interest is just one manifestation of usury. Usury is simply cheating and cheating is really stealing — forbidden of course by the Ten
    Commandments”
    Jct: Yes, grandfather Adelard Turmel’s second axiom was: interest is theft. But usury is just one manifestation of interest. Interest on cows or grain isn’t usury if it’s too high, it’s excessive. Ezekiel condemned both excessive interest and usury. Usury creates the death-gamble among participants. Usury is the demand for more on sterile Principal, gold or credits, than is there, an impossible demand.

  26. JCT’s Miracle Equation was already put on paper in 1891
    by Mary Hobart.

    In her 50 page book “Errors in our monetary system” she writes :


    Let
    A == the amount of a contract (which is the sum of the principal and
    interest).
    P == the principal.
    R == the rate per cent.
    T == the time

    Now
    P == A at the date the contract is drawn,

    and

    P + PRT/100 == A at the time the contract expires.

    Quantities that are equal to like quantities are equal to each other.

    Hence
    P == P + PRT/100
    which is impossible

    This formula shows that the contract is impossible, that PRT/100 calls for a
    production of money and cannot be canceled by a production of values. Neither
    can it be eliminated by a contraction of T, which constantly increases PR/100. ”

    The whole book is interesting and it’s available via a torrent download.

    • It would seem absurd to think that something as clumsy as interest would have to wait so long to be shown absurd. What we are showing then, restating what Mary Hobart deduced 1891, is that all money contracts should be made null and void according to contract law.

      We shown that according to engineering principles that such an impossibility forces a physical process to become unstable in order to attempt to balance the instability.

      We nee to establish a standard open specification to define a stable money and the system requirements to run such a system. We are doing that with BIBO Currency at bibocurrency.org and I suggest that we all participate in this project together.

      Marc

  27. helvena permalink

    Gottfried Feder is who to read to understand the National Socialist economic ideas. This is very good although you must read German.

    The Manifesto for breaking the Chains of Gold

    http://www.archive.org/details/DasManifestzurBrechungderZinsknechtschaftdesGeldes

  28. JCT’s Miracle Equation was already put on paper in 1891 by Mary Hobart.
    In her 50 page book “Errors in our monetary system” she writes :
    ”Let A == the amount of a contract (which is the sum of the principal and
    interest).
    P == the principal.
    R == the rate per cent.
    T == the time
    Now P == A at the date the contract is drawn,
    and P + PRT/100 == A at the time the contract expires.
    Quantities that are equal to like quantities are equal to each other.
    Hence P == P + PRT/100 which is impossible

    Jct: # = PRT/100
    Yes, it is true that with money P and with debt P+#, it’s just like P and P+I.
    Of course, with those two functions, you can now work out what ratio of mort-gage death-gamble borrowers surrive: P/(P+#) and the ratio morted into foreclosure and poverty: #/(P+#).
    Because Mary’s # was so complex, she didn’t derive the final equations, I’d bet. But she’s right. You can’t pay P+# when you only borrowed P without getting your # from some other borrower in the death-gamble.
    Mary Hobart, I do you respect.

    • John, have I ever expressed my wholehearted gratitude for looking out for us when we were still in our diapers, explaining to people how wonderful the Netherlands are?

  29. ConcernedCitizen permalink

    Anthony,

    I want to thank you for two things.

    First, for posting this blog article. I came to it a few days earlier in a roundabout way. I found this blog post by way of a link in the article posted on InfoWars, http://www.infowars.com/the-after-the-fed-solutions-debate-begins-greenbackers-vs-goldbugs/.

    I’ve been studying the U.S. monetary crisis since the late 1970s, long before it was ever declared a “crisis”. Any American who has seriously studied the currency issue should be familiar with the two legal tender clauses in Article 1, Sections 8 and 10 of the U.S. Constitution. And, believing in strict adherence to ALL provisions of the Constitution, I have lately encountered a dilemma. What if the Federal Reserve is, finally, abolished and there is no gold in Fort Knox? Certainly, there is no silver. What would U.S. citizens use as a tenable legal tender?

    Being a proponent of gold and silver backed currency, I began wondering what could be used as a medium of exchange if our government has NONE of either. It was the aforementioned article posted on InfoWars, copied from Eric Blair’s article on the Activist Post site, that led me to start researching Ellen Brown. In turn, that led me to research the Bank of North Dakota, owned and operated by the State of North Dakota. I am still wrapping my head around the idea of a well-regulated currency supply, backed by tax deposits. But, at least I now know there are alternatives to backing by precious metals. I have long known the pitfalls of currency issued as debt.

    Second, I want to thank you for listing a video on one of your previous posts, https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/lets-consider-alex-jones-msm-from-now-on/. The video you listed in a reply is the one on YouTube of Alex Jones crashing a populist gun rally in Austin, Texas. I found another one on YouTube, of the same incident, where Alex later goes on his radio show and claims that he was the victim of COINTELPRO instigators at the same rally, and falsely claiming he had attended the rally as a participant. This really opened my eyes to the fact that Alex is just as guilty of lying as everyone else he accuses of it. Doing a bit more research on Alex turned up even more glaring discrepancies.

    I read that you consider this weblog as just a “hobby”. I want you to know it has made a profound difference in my understanding of the current money crisis, just in the past week. Thanks, again.

    • Thanks ConcernedCitizen. I’m glad my articles have been of use.

      Yes, the blog is only a ‘hobby’, but currency is my business, so there is a lot of passion behind it!

      Anthony

  30. It is an enormously article to some of the statements in Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt.

    **************************

    Mark

    High Yield Savings Account Rates

  31. oh i wish to be debt free in the next few years and i wanna be a millionaire too :

  32. davidgmills permalink

    DrKrbyLuv:

    Article 1 Section 10 of the Constitution does not allow the states to issue any kind of currency other than gold or silver coin.

    Bills of credit (essentially paper money along with a few other things) are not permitted to be issued by the states.

  33. davidmills: “Article 1 Section 10 of the Constitution does not allow the states to issue any kind of currency other than gold or silver coin. Bills of credit (essentially paper money along with a few other things) are not permitted to be issued by the states.”
    Jct: He’s right. And since that can’t be changed, I guess Americans are going to have to stay broke until they all starve to death. Too bad they have a law that says they may not save themselves. Some banker must have written it.

    • No, a banker didn’t write that because bankers issue money as book entries and so can anyone. I would like to see any government prevent citizens from keeping records between each other.

    • Just between you and me John: there is one, and only one thing GWB and I agree on: the constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper………………………………………………….

      Between you and me, you hear??

  34. KEITH E. TIBBITTS permalink

    Many thanks to Anthony Migchels, he is right on. I haven’t read your book yet, but North is wrong if he thinks we should return to the Gold Standard. Gold has better uses and paper is just as acceptable so long as we don”t abuse its issue. Ellen, you woke everyone up and put us on the right track. Paper issue with no interest is the solution, along with public banks. How to run them without abuse is the problem. The bankers know you are right, they just are not going to let go. You do not need to answer North, you have it right on the main points.

  35. Unfortunately a defense that doesn’t understand economics is not helpful.

    “Anybody can see that if money is so ridiculously cheap to produce, it is simply outrageous that society needs to pay such mind boggling costs for it.”

    The problem is that by making such statement and promoting greenbacks and fiat currency one makes the bankers seem like sober and responsible individuals.

    What Gary North is trying to do is show people that Ellen Brown’s advice on what we should do can’t be trusted because she is a variety of socialist and doesn’t understand economics. (The two go hand in hand.)

    “She made Greenbackism exciting and understandable: for ignorant people who think Hitler’s National Socialism was based on economics.”

    If we want to put our country’s future prosperity on a sound basis we have to realize it is based on sound money, not on public or private issuance of paper money. Gary North and all people who love peace, liberty, and property must speak about any popular movement or person, no matter how well meaning, who promotes public or private issuance of paper money.

    Ellen Brown is making the classic mistake of many proponents of socialist thought. Assuming that something done for private gain if done by the state will be for public gain. http://mises.org/daily/4686

    If you wish to understand how the gold standard failed because it wasn’t a true gold standard but allowed inflation of the money supply, read this, among others. It is relatively.
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/desoto4.1.1.html

    For more comments
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/39405733/Gary-North-vs-Ellen-Brown

    • I’m sorry my friend, but you have clearly not read the article you are responding to.

      Please explain why the poorest 80% of the population are paying trillions and trillions PER YEAR to the richest ten percent in interest, while we can create interest free money with pushing a few buttons.

      When you start contemplating this question, you will start to learn about money.

    • “Unfortunately a defense that doesn’t understand economics is not helpful.”

      Money whether based on gold or not is a receipt for value. It can be issued against any collateral not only gold. The key question is that once issued the relationship between the units in circulation and the corresponding pledged value must remain fixed. The only function that systematically changes this ratio is the application of interest see: http://www.bibocurrency.org. If money were to be based on gold and were to bare interest, then the exact same problem would persist.

      So the issue is not whether money is based on gold or not but rather whether the ratio of money to wealth is historically maintained. In the case of the “Greenback” concept of money, money is issued interest free as payment for public works in a fixed ratio to those works and retired as taxes or user fees for the use of those public works. Such a scenario is certifiably stable in terms of control systems theory as the principle of Bounded Input Bounded Output (BIBO) is preserved.

      If gold money were to be issued interest free against wealth in general then the system would also be BIBO stable but would tend to be centrally controlled by the owners of the gold. This in my opinion represents an unwarranted danger as in general central control is one step away from absolute corruption. In any event, it is unwarranted given that it is a matter of basic human rights for anyone to issue receipts against one’s own value whatever that value might be.

      All the malaise that we are witnessing can be unequivocally attributed to the effects of interest defined as a demand beyond ANY outstanding Principal at any point of time. The following generic equation illustrates this:

      Debt = P (1+ik)

      Where P is any outstanding Principal sum, i is the interest rate and k is any given period within the loan term.

      By making i = 0 the system becomes stable period. This is what has to be pursued not the arbitrary use of one commodity over all others.

      Marc

  36. Tom S permalink

    Monetary.org has a great plan to restore monetary sovereignty to the American people.

    Hearitonline.com is George Whitehurst Berry’s website. He also has a one hour program on gcnlive.com: “Crash! Are You Ready?!”. He has GREAT info from old, hard to find books on the subject.

    There is nothing wrong with gold as a personal investment, but there is everything wrong with using it to “back” a currency.

    We need to point out that worshiping gold is primitive, archaic and superstitious. Just because a government has a pile of shiny yellow rocks locked away in a vault somewhere doesn’t magically create a thriving economy for its people. Human labor is what creates real value and wealth.

    • The message in the video is generally correct, however it contains an error:

      “Money issued as debt is a ponzi scheme”

      This is only true in the case that the debt has interest applied otherwise it is perfectly sound see my last post.

      Debt is a fundamental part of any money. Greenbacks are receipts that represent the debt owed to those that provided the wealth that was purchased by those greenbacks that ostensibly would be under the stewardship of the government aka the people.

      Marc

      • indeed. The problem is not debt, it’s interest. It’s such an annoying misunderstanding I actually gave an article that title.

  37. I’m grateful for the clarifying remarks by Anthony Migchels in his original “Defense” of Ellen Brown and her remarkably lucid exposes of our international central banking system, and the “Goldbugs” behind them. In my opinion, after thoroughly studying all sides of the money issues for the better part of my 72 year lifespan, Ellen Brown needs no defense against the smears and misrepresentations of an attack dog like Gary North, or other Austrio-Miseans who wish to see a circular return to the “gold standard”, a “standard” that never existed, and cannot exist in a fractional reserve banking system.

    I appreciate your bringing up the “interest issue” as pertains to money. It does seem to have sparked additional controversy. I believe this is dues to the nearly universal misunderstanding of the distinctions between money and wealth. Money is a proxy for wealth, or a claim on wealth, not wealth itself, such as gold or other commodities are.

    Personally I see no problem with moderate and reasonable interest on the lending of wealth, but “money” is another issue entirely, and adds complexity to the discussion, as we have already seen here in considerable volume.

    My website, http://wealthmoney.wordpress.com has extended discussion around the distinctions between money and wealth.

    Again, thanks for defending Ellen and her book, Web of Debt: http://webofdebt.wordpress.com

    • Jere,

      You’re as phony as phony gets.

      First of all, you pretend to introduce authority to the matter, when you have supported Ellen Hodgson Brown yourself (OpEd News, as you well remember), *even as she was advocating interest was not even the issue*, and yet as she was advocating the further preposterous assertion, that we needed to introduce the interest with the principal — which of course, is an erroneous solution of my long previous work, which proved decades before not only that interest is inherently terminal, but that no lawful consideration is ever given up which justifies interest to a banking system which itself denies interest to every actual creditor, who gives up property for the promissory obligations we deploy as currency.

      So you’re just trying to claim credit for revealing things which were reduced to their actual facts long before you; and in your egotistical assumption that you’re doing the same by your own obfuscations, you’re in fact nonetheless exposing the fact that you still don’t understand these things — which invalidated interest long before Ellen Hodgson Brown merely pretended likewise that that the work she stole from did not exist, that she could parallel the my original thesis nonetheless, disputing the very fact upon which her purported authority depends.

      You’re just another plagiarist, like she is.

      On the other hand, who is Gary North?

      Years ago, Gary North contacted me, broke and penniless. He asked how my work was being received. Upon learning how many people were students of my work (as was DrKirbyLuv above [Larry Larkin]), he soon began offering to charge people to produce invalidations of my 1968 thesis that any purported economy subject to interest inevitably terminates itself under insoluble debt. He now purports to do so by merely claiming Lincoln advocated my thesis in his issuance of Greenbacks… and thus you have the present purported Greenback movement, which likewise goes on as if my prior work never existed, likewise to usurp the only real solution, that it may claim to be working on or for what was established long before.

      Lincoln never determined an obligatory schedule of payment, retiring principal at the rate of consumption or depreciation of the related property *alone* eradicates 1) inflation, deflation, and maldisposition; 2) systemic manipulation of the cost or value of money or property; and 3) inherent, irreversible, and therefore terminal multiplication of artificial, falsified indebtedness by interest.

      In fact there is little evidence of his arguments; and largely we can only deduce (at least the historical process today is largely only to deduce) what Lincoln’s objects were. The only assumably obvious object of course is to eliminate redundant cost.

      But that certainly does not even imply that Lincoln reduced the problems of such a lie of economy into categoric faults by which we can and would determine solution. Neither does it imply that Lincoln deduced inherent, inevitable failure, particularly as exposure of that fact from the presidency would likely have generated immense support, and establishment of a fact of singular solution at that time.

      Likewise then, it is not even probable that these further reasons beyond the mere expense of interest contributed to Lincoln’s decision, because they amount to a proof of singular solution which is in fact only incorporated in my original thesis of mathematically perfected economy™, which ultimately solves all the categoric faults which were not even identified then in the terms which precipitate in solution.

      In the end, a definition of solution might be little different; but the difference is critical… and the only reason you’re referring to Greenbacks without reference to mathematically perfected economy™ (which you know about and have argued against), is you hope to hide here, pretending that you don’t know a proposition of solution has long existed, before you and Ellen Hodgson Brown sought not to promote solution, but instead to promote yourselves in the most preposterous ways, as if you were advocates of solution (and/or identifiers of the problemS).

      As to your preposterous notion that the elite are planning a return to the gold standard — of course that’s impossible merely for the proportional disparity of the present circulation; and likewise, for their assumable further objects, which can hardly withstand any return to the purportedly lawful definition of the value of gold.

      Neither of course then could that result in “a standard,” for the very disproportion alone which is inevitable in sustaining any further industry is itself an inevitable destruction of every successive, purported standard.

      (And Larry Larkin knows this well too, because of our past discussions invalidating the purported need for greater “velocity” in “money,” which invalidations establish instead that volume is the issue.)

      Imagine that… finding all of you here, as if solution *yet* needs to be developed.

      As I say, Jere, you’re (still) as phony as phony gets.

  38. The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. Once you understand (MPE) supporting anything else is economic suicide!! The solution to your fate is Mathematically Perfected Economy, ….but will you listen?

    http://endtheecb.ning.com/video/mathematically-perfected

  39. Okay, for those who still, to this day, believe the myth about JFK and his EO 11110, it is important to understand exactly that the order did, it did not do anything remotely approaching the mythology. To prove that all one needs do is read JFK’s Economic Report to Congress in 1963!

    Here is an except from that report:

    I again urge a revision in our silver policy to reflect the status of silver as a metal for which there is an expanding industrial demand. Except for its use in coins, silver serves no useful monetary function.

    “In 1961, at my direction [EO 11110], sales of silver were suspended by the Secretary of the Treasury. As further steps, I recommend repeal of those Acts that oblige the Treasury to support the price of silver; and repeal of the special 50-percent tax on transfers of interest in silver and authorization for the Federal Reserve System to issue notes in denominations of $1, so as to make possible the gradual withdrawal of silver certificates from circulation and the use of the silver thus released for coinage purposes. I urge the Congress to take prompt action on these recommended changes.”

    The fact is that, for those old enough to remember the 1960s, then you will remember when the first $1 Federal Reserve Notes were placed into circulation. The fact is that prior to that United States Notes were issued by the Treasury from 1862 to 1971, the fact that they also happened to be issued during the Administration of JFK is simply the same reason they had been issued earlier, there was nothing special about them, they were no different than the ones issued prior or afterwards. The only difference is that it was under the Administration of JFK that he directed the FED to issue $1 Federal Reserve Notes into circulation. Far from opposing the FED, JFK strengthened the FED and also, in many ways paved the way for Nixon to cut the final tie between the Dollar and gold.

    The Lincoln Greenback was a disaster, far from being either successful or a debt-free system of currency, or some type of imagined national currency that would prevent government indebtedness, the Lincoln Greenback system was based upon and relied upon the creation of debt and the organization of that debt into various types of currency, one of those currencies used during the War was Greenbacks, the others were subsystems of the Greenback system. While Greenback notes did not have a direct debt obligation attached to them, they were nonetheless a debt obligation of the government, as we shall see.

    In fact, it was estimated by a special Congressional committee that the cost of indebtedness directly associated with the Greenback system was $2,565,000,000.00 and that if the Union had remained on specie the amount of debt would have been a third of that cost. There was, in fact, a 45-fold increase in the debt accumulated during the Lincoln Greenback War Machine period. As we can see, the Greenback system did nothing to restrain debt, but everything to create a system of debt money that rivaled anything we now face today. In fact, if you account for inflation, the amount of debt accrued during the Lincoln Administration under the fiat Greenback system is larger than what we now face today, the difference is that the debt of Lincoln could be paid because it was paid in gold and silver, which are assets, not liabilities.

    By 1865, the Secretary of the Treasury, Hugh McCulloch reported the following to Congress:

    There are no indications of real and permanent prosperity, in the splendid fortunes reported to be made by skillful manipulations at the gold room or the stock board; no evidences of increasing wealth in the facts that railroads and steamboats are crowded with passengers, and hotels with guests; that cities are full to overflowing, and rents and the necessities of life, as well as luxuries, are daily advancing. All these things prove rather that the number of non-producers is increasing, and that productive industry is being diminished. There is no fact more manifest than that the plethora of paper money is not only undermining the morals of the people by encouraging waste and extravagance, but is striking at the root of our material prosperity by diminishing labor

    Greenbacks were first issued in April 1862; from that time until specie payments were finally resumed on January 1, 1879 they served as the standard of value, though declining in real purchase value. The subsystem that allowed for the government to actually function financially was United States Notes that were issued in June of 1862, the Treasury was paying out enormous amounts of interest payments on the maturity redemption on these Notes. While the Greenbacks served as a medium of exchange for most transactions, except those under $5 since there were no $1 Greenbacks until later issues.

    Although it is commonly assumed that the Greenbacks were the only currency in the Union during the War, the truth is that there were 3 other types of Treasury Notes that were made legal tender, but these bore interest. By the time the third legal-tender act, passed on March 3, 1863, the amount of over $400 Million in interest-bearing Treasury Notes were issued that paid 6% interest. Subsequently, more interest-bearing Treasury Notes were issued. These Notes were both retained and exchanged as money.

    By the end of 1864, the necessity to borrow more money by the Union just to pay the troops was urgent. The new Notes were to be repaid at 5% interest with half-yearly interest coupons. There was drastic expansions and contractions in the currency, causing economic disruptions that eventually became embarrassing for the government. By July 5, 1864, the problems were becoming so desperate that the government sought to withdraw the interest-bearing coupon Notes from circulation.

    Of course, that didn’t solve the problem, thus another issue of interest-bearing Treasury Notes were placed into circulation. By October, 1865 there was over $10 Million of these compound-interest notes in circulation, used as legal tender, this caused both direct and indirect inflation. What these compound-interest Notes did was that it made it possible for the banks to hold the Notes in reserves instead of Greenbacks which had no direct interest bearing obligation attached to them. It proved to be a boon to the banks and bankers.

    There were two other types of interest-bearing Notes issued, they were time certificates of indebtedness, which were bought at a small discount and again, they were used as yet another circulating medium, as you can see, the entire system was not only confusing, but extremely disruptive economically and socially. Over $50 Million of these interest-bearing certificates were issued into circulation and eventually they were even used as collateral for bank loans and directly as yet another form of currency.

    The entire Greenback system threw the country’s economic and social structure into disorder, especially among businesses who relied upon monetary stability to conduct business and make future business decisions. Not to mention the fact that the rate of inflation increased to the point that a Greenback was rated as 35 cents gold by the time the war ended. By the time of Lincoln’s re-election in 1864, an election basically bought and paid for, the Greenback fell from 40 cents gold to 38 cents, it increased after his assassination.

    Thus, for those who advocate such a “debt-free” currency, a so-called “sovereign currency”, you are using a very poor example for your cause.

    The vast majority of the information on this blog is based either partially or wholly on mythologies, fabricated history and quotes. If you want me to go into the in detail I can however, if anyone is actually willing to do some real research instead of gathering bits and pieces of this website and that website, propagating myth after myth until people don’t seem to be able to discern truth from falsehood.

    I find that most people who believe in these myths are not above using fake quotes from Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin and others just to garner support for their particular dogmas. Here are a few of the fake quotes used by Greenbackers:
    “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…Fake quote by Jefferson

    “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…Fake quote by Jefferson

    “The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”Fake quote by Jefferson

    “In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it to pay the government’s approved expenses and charities. We make sure it is issued in proper proportions to make the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers. . . . In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one. Fake quote by Franklin

    “The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers….. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “The wages of men should be recognized as more important than the wages of money.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “Money is the creature of law and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as an exclusive monopoly of national government.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “No duty is more imperative on the government than the duty it owes the people of furnishing them with a sound and uniform currency and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “The available supply of gold and silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the people, some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed and some means other than that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue fluctuations in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “The monetary needs of increasing numbers of people advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the government. Such needs can be served by the issue of national currency and credit through the operation of a national banking system. The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the government can be properly regulated, and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amounts as may be necessary by taxation, redeposit and otherwise. Government has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the nation.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the bank deposits of the nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciated or inflated currency or bank bankruptcy.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “Government possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should not borrow capital at interest as the means of financing governmental work and public enterprise. The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing of money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums in interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprise, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to Money Power.” Fake quote by Lincoln

    “If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.” Fake quote from the London Times 1865

    “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!” Fake quote by Mayer Amschel Rothschild

    “The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages…will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests.” Fake quote by Senator John Sherman

    “The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world.” Fake quote by Bismark

    Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce . . . And when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate. Fake quote by James Garfield

    The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in inequity and born in sin . . . . Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. . . . Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. . . . But, if you want to continue to be the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit. Fake quote by Sir Josiah Stamp

    “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword. The other is by debt.”Fake quote by John Adams

    I can provide more if you like…

    Ellen Brown, Bill Still, Mike Montagne and others, even the newly revived Neo-Chartalists are under some major delusions…

    • Thanks Republicae, a very lucid expose of the Greenback system.

      Please see my article (http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/reassessing-the-greenback-and-other-alternative-monetary-systems/) on the limitations of the Greenback. I use very different arguments, but I was not aware that the Greenback was as complex as you write above. When speaking of ‘debt free’ money, I simply mean paper printed by the Govt, and spent into circulation.

      There would certainly be no interest payments on that. Although there would be inflation, I don’t doubt that at all.

      I don’t think you should equate interest free credit and the Greenback: they are two very distinct beasts.

      However, the main point is, that there should be a free market for currencies, where they can compete.

      Gold people nowadays suggest the same thing. Up to a short while ago a more statist Gold Standard was advised, but it has become transparent that this was the old situation, and that clearly didn’t work either.

      Gold people assume Gold will win in such a market.

      It will not.

      Gresham’s law says Gold will be hoarded, and units depreciating faster than metal will be used to pay.

      Gold is a good store of value, it’s a lousy means of exchange.

      It’s easy to understand. Consider this:

      If you are going to get a mortgage for a house in a free currency market, will you go to a Gold based bank, who wants 5% per year?
      Or will you go to a mutual credit facility, charging 0% per year?

      In a free currency market with interest free credit and Gold circulating beside each other, people will buy with interest free credit based units and if they have too much of that and want to save a little, they’ll buy some Gold (or silver) and bury it in the back yard.

      That’s the difference between a good means of exchange, and a good store of value.

  40. home permalink

    can i say something here? how is there really any usury when on the macro level all money required to pay the interest and then some is also created;

    and we can blow the whole thing off whether through bankruptcy or avoidance or immunity or operation of law or dont give a flying donut anyway;

    and when the rate of inflation actually amortizes in real terms any debt. debts get cheaper to pay by the month.

    there is only one problem ever in “political economy” and that is aggression. monopolies of land and other resources without any standard of use or occupation; and locking us up in jail.

    put it this way- burn all the public records especially property and court dockets; and demolish the prisons. now where’s the ‘usury’? only what we can really see and touch what can really be experienced or senses counts. the rest is abstraction.

  41. One thing I have actually noticed is that there are plenty of myths regarding the banking companies intentions any time talking about foreclosed. One myth in particular is always that the bank would like your house. The lender wants your hard earned cash, not your home. They want the cash they loaned you together with interest. Preventing the bank will undoubtedly draw some sort of foreclosed realization. Thanks for your posting.

  42. Other hero in the conspiracist mythology is Thaddeus Stevens, the Grand Old Commoner.

    but who was he before he became ‘grand old’? how did he occupy himself prior to 1861 ? what did he do for or against the money power before Lincoln’s War ?

    From 1833, Thaddeus Stevens was the able leader of the Pennsylvania Legislature where he organized Whigs and Anti-Masons to vote together; in 1835 these two parties elected Joseph Ritner as Governor of the State.

    The years between 1832 and 1836 were the years of Andrew Jackson’s war against the Bank of the United States. Followed by 4 years of agitation against banks and for an Independent Treasury……
    On March 4, 1836, the Charter of the Bank of the United States expired. What did Mr. Biddle, the president of that bank do ? In January 1836, in the Legislature of Pennsylvania, a bill “to continue the improvement of the State by railroads and canals” was introduced, and in short order, passed both houses. This bill included a section for “other purposes,” which “contained the entire draught of a charter for the Bank of the United States, adopting it as a Pennsylvania State bank.” The whole entire membership of the Pennsylvania Legislature –under the able leadership of Thaddeus Stevens– managed NOT to notice this more then one page long charter of the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania !?! and Governor Ritner signed the act into law.

    Some years later the Whigs and Anti-Masons were voted out of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and in January 1842 a committee opened an investigation into the affairs of this bank, relating to the charge of bribery. This committee ascertained that $479,000 was advanced as bribes by the Biddle bank to obtain the State charter in 1836….. Very good reason and explanation why those Whigs and Anti-Masons, and the future ‘grand old commoner’ himself, managed NOT to notice that bank charter in a canal bill.

    So in 1863 Thaddeus wasn’t ignorant of what he was doing when he not only voted for, but didn’t even object to the National Currency Bank bill which established a banking system and national currency following the blue-print that was outlined by Nicholas Biddle; Thaddeus Stevens knew full well what he was doing, he had already done it once before; and the concept of sneaking bills through the Legislature was not alien or objectionable to him…… (on February 6, 1862, he used a similar procedure to pass a version of the greenback bill which no one has seen)….. Even if (big if) he did not take any money, he had to have known what was going on and what was in that canal bill……

    —Oh dear, it is a good thing poor Sarah did not read history

    On Tuesday, January 28, 1862, a strange sound came up from the Thaddeus:
    “While I am up, I will follow an example which has been set me, and give notice of an amendment which I shall offer to the bill. It is to make the semi-annual interest payable in coin.”

    And on December 19, 1862, he made this statement:
    “I procured to be inserted a provision making the duties on imports payable in gold.”
    —poor Sarah spent a whole chapter on the “Exception Clause,” blaming every shylock and banker for it, when all the while it was Thaddeus –and he explained why he did it; but Sarah did not read the Record.

    To put cake on the icing, on June 23rd 1862, during the debates of the second issue of greenbacks, Thaddeus introduced an amendment to the bill which would have abrogated the right of the holder of greenbacks to convert them into 5/20 bonds at their face value…..
    When it was pointed out to Thaddeus that it is convertibility that keeps greenbacks at par, this came up from him: “I do not care what is the cause of their keeping at par“……
    When he realized the majority of the House is opposed to his idea, Thaddeus retreated: “I will withdraw my amendment, although it is in accordance with the wishes of the Secretary of the Treasury”

    —the right to convert was not taken away until July 1, 1863.

    THE next scheme for robbing the people was the national bank act, passed in 1863. Of all the villainous schemes of robbery ever practiced upon any people our national banking system stands pre-eminent.” —writes Sarah in chapter 3, and she is right

    So why has Thaddeus Stevens –grand old commoner and radical re-constructionist– voted for the National Currency Bank bill ? who twisted his arms ?
    What was he thinking? that bank notes will peacefully co-exits with U.S. notes ?
    Perhaps he understood and went along with the plan outlined by Samuel Hooper (father of greenbacks), that greenbacks were a temporary measure, preceding a more permanent one:
    “In order more fully to understand and more easily to meet any objections which may be urged against the first of these measures [greenbacks], being the one now occupying the attention of the House, it will be desirable to notice the other two , which are designed to be more permanent in their character, and upon the expected results of which the present measure is in some degree based.”

    Who opposed and voted against the National Currency Bank bill ? Gold-ites! Vallandigham, Pendleton, Roscoe, Collamer.
    My oh, my; Greenbackers were FOR National Currency Banks, gold-ites opposed them.

    poor Sarah, she must be spinning in her grave ever since

    Representatives who voted for the National Currency Bank bill:–
    Messrs. Aldrich, Alley, Ashley, Babbitt, Beaman, Bingham, Jacob B. Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Calvert, Campbell, Casey, Chamberlain, Clements, Colfax, Conway, Covode, Cutler, Davis, Delano, Dunn, Edgerton, Eliot, Ely, Fenton, Samuel C. Fessenden, Thomas A.D. Fessenden, Fisher, Frank, Goodwin, Granger, Hahn, Haight, Hickman, Hooper, Hutchins, Julian, Pig Iron Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg, William Kellogg, Lansing, Leary, Lovejoy, Law, McIndoe, McKean, McPherson, Marston, Maynard, Moorhead, Anson P. Morrill, Noell, Olin, Patton, Timothy G. Phelps, Potter, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Sargent, Sedgwick, Segar, Shanks, Shellabarger, Sherman, Sloan, Spaulding, Thaddeus Stevens, Trimble, Trowbridge, Van Horn, Van Wyck, Verree, Wall, Wallace, Washburne, Albert S. White, Windom and Worcester

    —Yes, the Record is a cruel thing; it can ruin the best day-dreams, so stay away from history; ignorance is the greatest bliss on this planet

    In 1862 greenbacker John Sherman spoke for an hour in favour of the legal-tender clause; a year later, he spoke for an hour in favour of National Currency Banks. Sarah di not want to know that, either.

  43. http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/lincoln-was-indeed-a-money-power-agent/

    which documents that Ms. Brown lied when she sold you books on Lincoln & greenbacks

    • Name789, I’ve got a question: you mentioned the Greenback wars.

      Can you give me some backgrounds on that? I don’t want to sound like a stoned out post-industrial internet salon socialist, but would you have something palatable to give me clear heads up on this issue?

      Thanks.
      Anthony

      • >>>greenback wars
        In my original rant I wrote that these book-sellers know nothing about the war that took place between 1865-1896
        I am referring to the agitation and contest for keeping U.S. notes, silver coins as legal tender, for elimination of bonded debt, for the concept that Mr. Weaver proposed that all currency gold-silver-treasury note should be issued by government and only government issued currency should exist

        This contest was louder, larger, wider spread than anything in the 20 century –in fact there was nothing in the 20th century, other than peddled books

        The background on this should have been given by these people who lived through the period, then maintained by future book-writers(there was none)
        Sarah Emery, Benjamin Heath, Ignatius Donnelly, William Berkey, SM Brice, James Weaver, Pig Iron Kelley, Black Jack Logan, Senator Doolittle did not write the history of the movement and events (or even the history of greenbacks)
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/weaver/action_index.html

        I do not reside in the United States; the background is in the libraries in New York, Palo Alto, Harvard, Library of Congress, &c.

        It starts with the 1868 election campaign —which was the most important election since 1868— the daily newspapers are sitting in the libraries
        speech of Samuel Cary, the founder of the greenback party, and first candidate with Peter Cooper:
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/cary68.html
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/cary542.html

        Ignatius Donnelly published the Anti-Monopolist for 20 years, someone should look it up (but none of these cock-suckers who populate forums like your would ever set foot in the library, much less produce electronic text; just ask your friend Larry the leech); someone should sit in these libraries and read about what went on; at one time the greenback party got over a million votes, that didn’t just happen without a trace, there had to have been many articles, reports, meetings, pamphlets

        The New York Times reported on Coxey the comic relief, and it reported on the greenback party (even if with contempt); S.M. Brice tells us that the papers wrote about the incident between Weaver and Garfield…. some body should produce the e-text

        at the bottom of this page there are speeches by Kelly, Stewart from that period–
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/speeches.html
        The record of congress is only online upto 1873; someone should walk into the library (there is one in every U.S. city of 100,000) and read what was said, because a lot was said, as we can see from the independently published speeches

        greenback party platforms:
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0

        • Thanks a lot Name789.

          • REN permalink

            Name and Anthony,

            Yankee Leviathan, “The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859 to 1877,” by Richard Franklin Bensel, is very interesting on the Greenback question, as well as other swirling controversies during this period. He does a good job of building circuit models for greenback, gold, silver, and bond flows. Of course, he is an apologist for the “financier class” and his unstated assumption is that central government authority leads to statism. Of course with Bensel, there is no mention of the Bank of Venice or other similar “moral” historical experiences for example- http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/clark/walbert_index.html, and how all of Bank of Venice money types were convertible for taxes. The Greenback had a flaw in that it existed simultaneously with bank money, and thus routed mostly in bank reserve channels. Greenbacks also could not trade as an exchange for a foreign good, thus limiting them to domestic circuits.

            It is a good book for the bookshelf, especially for his circuit models and data sets. Without the models, it is hard to really understand the period. The apologia for the financier class is humorous for those who understand how private money power maneuvers through inflation and deflations.

          • 🙂
            Now you just need to scan it, turn it into and upload it here, and there

          • there is a p.s. of mine stuck in holding

          • I noticed, and noticed something else, too:
            You are 9 hours ahead of me; I made the note around 18:30; within a few minutes the correction was made
            were you up at 4 in the morning?, nothing better to do than adjusting your blog comments?

          • I couldn’t sleep 🙂

        • REN permalink

          This is a good quote form donnely,

          “That the Protestant divines were dangerous foes of monetary “heresy” was never doubted by the heretics themselves, and they were quick to strike back at their clerical detractors. Cameron turned Beecher’s “Thou Shalt not Steal” against the Brooklyn pastor’s stylish congregation—full of “shady” contractors who had amassed fortunes during the War by cheating the government. In the ’70s Ignatius Donnelly’s Anti-Monopolist called Beecher himself a “hollow old shell” for his attacks on the greenbacks, and hit below the belt by alluding to his notorious intrigue with Elizabeth Tilton. The greenbackers scolded the editors of the church weeklies for making themselves a party to exploitation and injustice. “The religious press has almost without exception been the allies [sic] of the bondholders and bankers in their endless schemes to fleece the public, and the mouthpiece of the monopolists and the defender of the soulless corporations that fill their pockets by robbing the toiling people.” Even bankers and brokers occasionally supported labor reform, a writer in Industrial Age noted, but “the religious press has almost universally wheeled into line in support of the Shylocks and the sharpers.”

          ————-

          We look to our Church leaders to give us moral guidance, and where are they? They are totally confused, lost, and usurped. As you well know, it goes all the way back to Babylon.

          http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/astle/astle_index.html

          • not to split hair:
            it is not from Donnelly, it is from Unger; I just put it with Donnelly’s book because I felt it fits there and is appropriate
            http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/donnelly/donnelly_index.html
            the golden church which had John Morgan and John Rockefeller as highly esteemed members –could present day homo-sexual wedding be any worse than that

            “The whole edifice of capitalism was built on a vast, ghastly charnal house, overcrowded with the bones of numberless victims. Yet the industrial grandees who thus slaughtered with impunity in the insidious ways of trade paraded themselves as very devout men : Morgan was a vestryman of St. George’s Church, New York City, and ostentatiously passed the contribution plate in the name of Christ.”

            ====
            Mr. Astle held what the bible holds, that we should have a royal priesthood (after the order of Melchizedek, who was priest and king of the city state); but we have an other kind of royal, in stead

  44. Thanks for all the interest. I could jump in, but with all due respect, I think it’s a time sink worrying about who said what in the 19th century. The banksters are about to eat our deposits in their new bail-in schemes. We need to be writing about what they’re up to, how to stop them, and how to construct better systems to replace theirs.

    • Whatever happened to the concept of integrity — or union?

    • thanks for dropping by Ellen!

      Oh, I’ll take care of Tom Woods and his silly antiquated BS about Greenbacker quotes, that’s not the issue 🙂

      • You take care of what ?? I just read the article you refer
        http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/the-greenbackers-fake-quote-industry/
        what can you take care of in this article ? He is very mild, the fact is that just about every quote in their books is fake; and not only that but these porch-monkies build up entire theories on fabrications, like the one McGeer put together
        http://www.heritech.com/ymagchy/mcgeer/conq_05.html

        I object to Woods’ calling present day groupies and charlatans “greenbackers”, it is an insult to the memory of Peter Cooper, Samuel Cary, James Weaver

        This is what a real greenbacker wanted –and not the welfare money proposed by Ellen Brown and the trojan insinuators, or the worthless notes with an expiry date suggested by sodomite infiltrators; real greenbackers wanted stable money that maintains its purchasing power

        1876 September 8

        General Samuel F. Cary, the nominee of the Greenback Party for the Vice Presidency, has issued a letter to “the people of the United States on the aims of the Independent Greenback Party and the issues of the campaign.”

        We appeal to the honest voters of all parties to sustain our cause, and for the integrity of our purpose and the wisdom of our policy we wait the crystallization of history. If you are in favor of a circulating medium issued exclusively by the Federal Government, a full legal tender for all purposes, and by judicious legislation kept equal to coin in its purchasing power under all circumstances; if you are in favor of the total suspension of all bank issues designated to circulate as money; if you are in favor of the restoration of the silver dollar as a legal tender for the payment of all debts, the platform and candidates of the independent Greenback Party alone give you an opportunity to express your sentiments at the ballot-box. If you are ready and willing to continue the sway of the moneyed oligarchy composed of the capitalists of Europe and of this country, you can vote for your old parties respectively, for they have both alike surrendered to its dominion. Their platforms are just as the money lords would have them. The Independent Party has no consolidated organization, no office holders or office-seekers, nor banks nor bond-holders to contribute money to carry on a canvass. It relies upon the integrity of its principles and the intelligence of the oppressed masses to carry its standard in the contest.

    • After filling your book with lies, fabrications and falsehoods, now you see no reason to talk about facts…. how typical of the book-peddler charlatan

      • Name! I know you can drink her blood and I’m pretty positive she does too, but I like Ellen and am happy to see her here! Give us a break man!

  45. >>>>Oh, I’ll take care of Tom Woods
    of course you are happy to see EB here: people seek their own kind
    but what you need to tell Woods and the DailyBell (and what your friend, the just-as-bright Meme has to tell DiLorenzo):
    were you lying when you put together this article:
    http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/lincoln-was-indeed-a-money-power-agent/ (I see, in making it you copy&pasted from Bill Still)

    or are you lying now ?

    If Lincoln was a money agent then lawyer Brown is a liar.
    If Lincoln was over-rated then those who over-rated him lied.

    Your article on Lincoln states that Gary North, DailyBell, DiLorenzo were right about Lincoln, and that they were right about the knowledge scholarship and character of the Lincoln myth makers; it states that your mentor/hero’s book is pile of garbage

    Your highly developed christian morality compells you to rush to the aid of a thief and liar (plagiarism is stealing, and web of debt is nothing but copy&paste from other regurgitators, even from Griffin), so please answer on lawyer Brown’s behalf:

    whence her sudden interest and expertise in 2007 ? (prior to that she was expert and sold books on nutrition)
    who elevated her to stardom in 2007? (you wrote that in 2007 powers that are elevated Paul to stardom; the same powers elevated her, too)

    why did Brown lie in ‘her’ book about Thomas Jefferson, and about Jefferson’s views on money, banking ?
    why did she lie about Lincoln and the greenbacks ?
    (there are many other lies in ‘her’ book, but these two would suffice)
    who compiled the book for her ?

    You are very eager to revile Ed Griffin, but would not say anything about his tag-team partner: Bill Still; both are charlatans but Still is your kind of charlatan, Griffin isn’t

    You say that libertarians are satanists, eventhough their view of government is a lot closer to the biblical form than yours; Ellen Brown is a new-ager, a goddess worshipper, which are just as much satanism as you can ask for, yet E.B. is to your liking because she is your kind of satanist
    Silvio Gesell was also a satanist, but he, too, is to your liking

    What are the views of lawyer Brown on abortion? on socialist programmes? on nationalism? on internationalism? on nature worship?

    In 2002 DiLorenzo published a short history of Lincoln & greenbacks
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo30.html
    Ms. Brown could have learned (or started to learn) from it the history of the subject, but she did not; the real Lincoln and real history does not fit into the picture she was planning to paint
    You, also, could have started your learning with that article, but no, you picked Bill Still to be your mentor (because people seek out their own kind)

    ===========
    in the 19th century, when there was a danger of the greenback movement (not the groupie movement that exists today) becoming something more than just a side show, poster boys jumped into the movement and destroyed it from within.
    in the 20th century conspiracist book-peddlers worked hard to lead the people in circles to nowhere
    Lincoln myth maker, Grattan McGeer, derailed from within the movement of the discontented in Vancouver; posterboy Ernest Manning derailed Social Credit from within
    given the chance, your mentor Brown will do the same; she is rat-poison, but so are you, so you like her

    • There are a couple of problems here Name789.

      In the first place, I’m not interested in ‘theories’ about government or free market, which is just another dialectic.
      I’m interested in how much who pays to who.

      Whatever you say about Brown: her approach saves 450 Billion per year to the taxpayer. Her approach will end deflationary busts.

      Big difference between her and the Austrians.

      Furthermore, I’ve seen no proof for elite financing of her or Bill Still’s approach.
      Bill Still is ready to change tack, when faced with new information: just see what he did with Wayne Walton.

      Bill Still, nor Ellen Brown are my ‘mentors’. However, Bill Still’s Money Masters film was the second film I ever saw on conspiracy. A few weeks later I read Lietaer and that combination is what got me into this business.

      I think its clear I’m not a groupie of either one. I criticize their solutions in terms of not going far enough.
      That’s quite something else as the Austrians, who are just the Plutocracy’s whores, both in terms of their views, which are atrocious, and their financing, which is huge.

      Still and Brown both come from a Populist spirit. I don’t agree with them fully, but they are much closer to the truth than the Austrians. They don’t understand Usury sufficiently yet. That’s why I write, because it’s a bit of the picture that the Americans missed out on and on which the Germans did better.

      Did Brown and Still lie about Lincoln or were they just mistaken? For the time being I suggest the former. I don’t care much, compared to the 450 billion per year issue. They’re not in the same league, these two issues.

      What Ed Griffin did with his Creature book is incomparable to a wrong appreciation of Lincoln, who managed to hide the truth about what he did in a 650 page act. It took you to find Abe out.

      That’s why Tom Woods is making a fool of himself to come up with yet another boring Greenbacker quote article. It’s irrelevant compared to interest on the National Debt which he is desperately trying to ignore, like Gary and all the others too.

      You too are way too focused on being right and quotes. You clearly hurt from not being heard in your strength by them. I can understand it, but you’re wasting your own and everybody else’s time: the world is not going to pat you on the back. The only way is to speak truth and insist on it, without hoping anybody will agree with you, prove you’re right or even appreciate what you say. If you need support, call a friend and get drunk.

      Out here, we need you to be strong, not hostile because you hurt. You’re the best historian on this thing out there. Share, educate, help (thanks for all your sharing, education and help you offered me, I owe you big time) and turn off the computer if your energies are drained by the stupidity of those you are reaching out to until your powers are replenished.

      Furthermore: the Greenback is US, the Money Power is global. That’s one of the main blind spots of the populists, including you. They’re too American centered. The Money Power is not. The lie is not. I am not. Truth is not.

      I like Ellen. There’re issues with what she’s doing. I note them and write about them. I hope to build a rapport with her so she gets even better. If she makes bad mistakes I’ll point them out and if she goes overboard I’ll disconnect. Everybody must do the same with me and everybody else.
      This is war, simple as that. For the time being, she’s way ahead of most out there, for as far as I’m concerned.

      • In contrast:
        If Gary North was asked, he would, without hesitation, tell that he is a tempermental baptist (and so would Woods, Lowel Ponty, Chuck Baldwin, Howard Philips, &c; only Ellen Brown has to hide what lurks in her)
        If E.B. and B.S. were willing and able to change, they would have done it by now, they would have openly declared on their forums that everything they said and wrote about Lincoln, greenbacks, bolshevik revolution, &c was NOT true (if you want to claim them to be ignorant and not liars); not only not true, but that the truth is the exact opposite of what they sold to their victims.

        since compared to you and your kind, i am a paragon of virtue and fine upstanding-ness, i give you one example, free of charge:—
         
        In the conspiracist house of cards there are many floors; one of them is
        lincoln & greenbacks
        another, federal reserve system
        an other, bolshevik revolution
        On the floor “lincoln & greenbacks” there is a room, called

        the dumber than door-nail notion that the House of Rothschild wanted to split the united States into two halves

        “My firm conviction is, that a reconstruction of but one government over all the states of our confederacy” is the only solution to our present difficulties and our future prosperity ~~~wrote the vice-roy in the Summer of 1862.
        This he wrote with his fair hand (there was no typewriter yet) and I was allowed to read it 150 years later, because i am so special (B.S. and E.B. was never interested in the story of the civil war, so they did not look for such thing —fabrications are plenty good for morons who buy their books)
        this document clearly indicates that the vice-roy wanted to conquer the South, not split them away; he wanted to do what Mr. Sergeant, attorney for the bank of the united States openly threatened the South with, in 1841 (to give the South a servile war, a war of conquest); and the vice-roy wanted to re-construct the united States under an all powerful central government (and this is exactly what Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Mr. Stevens and the whole whig crew wanted)

        But the vice-roy didn’t just write letters, he got on the boat in 1862 and sailed to London, then to Paris, and there told everyone who listened that the North will win this war, just leave them alone, and every body should just stay out of the affairs of north America
         
        So, your mentor heroes, if they were really what you imagine-paint them to be, could simply state on their forums that the alleged death-bed dictation of Bismarck, years after his death, was a fakery (displaying the fabricator’s complete lack of logic, lack of knowledge, complete detachment from reality); but your three mentors are not that kind of characters

        =====
        >>>teaching, sharing
        that is exactly what I am doing: applying salt where the wound and desease is
        Larry the leech told me 3 years ago that it is my mission in life to provide e-text for illiterate americans, and it is my duty to try to awaken the sheeple, so I went to the Bill Still(lizzard of Oz) forum, then came here, and made my feeble attempt in vain to awaken the village idiots (my success is clearly in-visible; you people are so firmly suctioned to Stills’ wiener that a crowbar could not remove ye)

        • For my curiosity, what did they say about the Bolshevist revolution that is not true?

          • the problem with the floor “bolshevik revolution” is the same as with the civil war: they did not research, study the story, they ran with their imagination
            Michael Pearson was the only one who was not afraid to walk into the archive and look up the facts, and those facts are very contrary to what conspiracists had sold to us in the previous 50 years (and demonstrate that the conspiracists did not do homework; and your Brown and Still simply copy&pasted)
            http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/pearson/pearson_index.html

            they also did not search and study the federal reserve, and the history of central banking before 1861

      • >>>>You too are way too focused on being right and quotes.
        A fake quote indicates things:
        a) the quoter never actually read what the accused person said/wrote; so, is he a liar? or is he just someone who knows not what he is talking about?
        Bill Still and Ellen Brown took it as an attack on them when someone(s) like me pointed out that none of them fabrications are correct, and this reveals immediatelly their character, that they are not researchers, but book-peddling charlatans

        b) these quoters build up false dogmas, theologies, theories, based on these fabricated quotes (so far not one of the book-peddlers turned from their wicked ways, they simply slither like the slimy snakes they are)

        c) honest people would thank us for pointing out these falsehoods, and adjust themselves accordingly

        d) why should i trust somebody’s book when on the first page a fabricated Jefferson quote greets me? how much research went into that book if the first page is a lie?

        e) why are groupies so attached to these quote fabricators?

        ======

        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/jefferson/jefind.html
        I started the Jefferson page because mis-quotes blamed on him are the most rampant;
        Jefferson wrote a lot of good things which I think people should read and consider/contemplate, so i complied in one place his letters on the subject (naive me thought people would be happy, and willing, to read them);
        quote fabricators present a different Jefferson than what historical Thomas Jefferson was (why?)

  46. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year1865_0.html

    bring back abraham lincoln’s budget

    1865:
    gdp 9,881million

    pensions 00.00
    health care 00.00
    education 00.00
    defence 1,170million
    welfare 00.00
    other 63million
    interest 77million
    total spending 1,311million

  47. Peter Schiff explains why Migchels hates the idea of saving:
    http://fascistsoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/EllenBrown_011411.mp3
    and Ellen Brown demonstrates that she does not understand what she is parroting (and that copy & paste is not the method through which one can learn) —irrational exuberance, regardless of who fuels it, can only lead to the same thing; credibility circulated by bank or government can only lead to the same end: boom/bust

    money can no more be reformed than rain can

    ======
    Rachel Carson was commune-loving Ellen Brown’s and Margrit Kennedy’s kindred spirit. Rachel, too, was a charlatan. One day Rachel discovered that she was an expert on egg-shells and the reproductive processes of birds. Until that moment of awakening Rachel have not studied the relevant science, or been even near a live chicken. Promptly Rachel compiled a book, filled it with fabrications, falsehoods, lies, and large amount of feel-good syrup to keep the whole package together. Her fellow-travellers immediately promoted the hard-cover charlatanry far and wide, and elevated Rachel to stardom; and, of course, groupies swallowed this con-job like cum.
    the result:
    millions of people in Africa and Asia had to suffer the consequences of the feel-good exercise of North American enviro-freaks and clitoris motivated white degenerates

     
    //* It is an insult to the memory of Arthur Kitson to compare him and his concept of government-issued stable currency to Margrit Kennedy and her ideas of worthless drunken sailor money

    h ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFCA-39bm0
    http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/lincoln-was-indeed-a-money-power-agent/
    http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/the-greenbackers-fake-quote-industry/

    we agree with the view of Mr. Hitler, for instance, in Germany, who is expressing only the view-point that the ancient Greeks had and which all students of present-day social problems agree upon and which scientists have indorsed; namely, that there is too little restriction being placed upon who should marry and who should propagate the future generations of mankind. In other words, I believe that the doctrine of eugenics should be made universal and enforced if possible and that in addition to the securing of a legal license for marriage in order that there may be no violation of legal laws in connection with marriage, there should be no violation of natural laws either.

    $$$$$$$$$%%%%&&&&
    by the way, Thomas Greco wants a trip to Europe:

    I have launched a Crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to help cover the costs of this tour. I need $4,000 to make it to all the places on the tour and cover the costs of food and lodging. I hope you’ll help me make that goal by going here: http://igg.me/at/tomstour/x/31801 and chipping in whatever you can.

    so dig deep, and dig quickly

  48. Ellen Brown doesn’t just lie about Lincoln and the Greenbacks, she filled “Web of Debt” with many other atrocious falsehoods, and keeps repeating them. (these are not just her lies, these are the staple of conspiracy book-peddlers for a century now, but she is the star these days)
    According to Larry leech, a group of scumbags compiled “Web of Debt” for her; which would imply conspiracy and action plan (remarks of Jere–thecumsucking–Houg also hint at conspiracy) —how is that for search for facts and truth and solution ?

    1) she lies about the Continentals
    The Continentals were evidences of debt, promising to pay spanish milled silver coins; and were intended to be redeemed and removed from circulation

    2) she lies about Thomas Jefferson
    using fake quotes and fabrications, Ellen Brown presents to her victims a Jefferson who never existed; she makes this fictional Jefferson out to be an advocate of printing-press money. The historical Thomas Jefferson was hard-money man, considered gold and silver the constitutional money of the United States, and wanted coins exclusively to circulate and to be used in daily transactions; for the purposes of financing a defensive war (that was the only kind he could imagine) he recommended the use of Treasury notes as evidences of debt, bottomed on taxes for their redemption, and at the conclusion of war he wanted these notes to be redeemed with taxes and withdrawn from existence

    I am not without a hope, that this great, this sole resource for loans in an agricultural country, might yet be recovered for the use of the nation during war; and, if obtained in perpetuum, it would always be sufficient to carry us through any war; provided, that in the interval between war and war, all the outstanding paper should be called in, coin be permitted to flow in again, and to hold the field of circulation until another war should require its yielding place again to the national medium.

    3) she lies about the Guernsey meat market notes
    she presents the Guernsey Meat Market notes (just as she presents the Continentals) as some printing-press paper money; the notes were nothing of the sort: they were evidences of debt, bottomed on the reasonable expectation of future revenue from rent, and, after completion, the first 10 years’ rent was used to redeem and remove from existence these notes; and the notes were publicly burned (the notes issued for the construction of Elizabeth College were similar evidences of debt, bottomed on expectation of future revenue)
    The people of Guernsey were not some flaming monetary reformist groupies, they were hard calculators, and in 1842 ended up loosing 200,000 pounds that they invested in Nicholas Biddle’s bank

    It is one thing to issue Treasury notes for the construction of the Muscle Shoals project, and it is a completely different thing to issue notes for salaries of governmnet clerks or for socialist programmes; the first is beneficial the second is harmful (it causes inflation and reduces the purchasing power of honest Treasury notes). The proponents of printing-press money, of course, lie about Edison’s remarks regarding that development, and distort their meaning to support their construct of lies. What Ford and Edison suggested was to issue Treasury notes as evidences of debt, bottomed (for redemption) on future revenue from the electricity generated and sold.

    When these bills have answered the purpose of building and completing Muscle Shoals, they will be retired by the earnings of the power dam.

    In the Ford/Edison proposal Treasury notes enter into circulation as earnings (for work performed producing useful goods); so did the Meat Market notes.
    Printing money (sovereign or private) does NOT generate wealth; work, producing food, useful goods and tools generates wealth; currency units merely facilitate the exchange of goods, and they store purchasing power

     

    Deep researcher Lucy Liu conjures up this idea of a unit, issued by a state that is the giver of all things. His sovereign is an absolute monach that never existed in Europe, only in Chinese, middle-eastern, and pre-Columbus central-American despotisms. And, to underpin and provide credibility to his concept, he present a complete fabrication of a quote, blamed on Thomas Jefferson

    http://www.henryckliu.com/page3.html
    Thomas Jefferson prophesied: “If the American people allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied … The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs.” This warning applies to other peoples in the world as well.

    Thomas Jefferson never said/wrote this, but how could deep researcher Liu know that, he never read what Jefferson wrote. Obviously he couldn’t find a real person or a real historical example to support his class-room computer model.

    In one of his other articles Liu says that Lincoln was the great leader, but Mao Ce-tung was even greater than Lincoln, because Mao was not only great leader, but also great revolutionary. Once again, how could deep researcher Liu know that it was the United States State Department that made Mao the great revolutionary and leader of China; just as he did not know that it was the international money power that made Lincoln great leader of the United States.

    Lui writes that Napoleon conquered Europe, and that Lincoln preserved the Union; how not surprising that Lucy Liu considers the man who attempted to liberate Europe from the hold of the London Oligarchy a conqueror, at the same time presents the tool of money the preserver. He either does not know the history of those years or he bold face lies: Napoleon restored kingdoms or established kingdoms, on the other hand, Lincoln conquered the South, and conquered and reconstructed it brutally. And what sort of Union did Lincoln save ? certainly not the one for which the real Thomas Jefferson composed the declaration of independence. Liu writes that the importance of the lesson of Lincoln and the greenbacks were never taught to 3rd world governments. a) they could have learned it any day they wanted to, b) Lucy Liu himself did not learn it, as his paragraph demonstrates, c) is a dictatorial centralized government, permanent national debt, debt-based privately issued currency the lesson which 3rd (or any) world government should learn ?

    http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/the-greenbackers-fake-quote-industry/
    http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/lincoln-was-indeed-a-money-power-agent/

  49. For 3 years now, not one of the groupies around Ellen Brown, or Bill Still (or the charlatans themselves) dared to offer fact(s) to support the contention that Lincoln was opposed to the money power;
    nor did they have the courage to offer something substantive to support the contention that the money power was opposed to issuing legal-tender United States notes and Treasury notes
    http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/the-greenbackers-fake-quote-industry/
    Migchels is still afraid to anwer Woods with regards to quote fabrication
    http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/lincoln-was-indeed-a-money-power-agent/
    he is still afraid to answer why has Ellen brown and Bill Still lied about (over-rated) Lincoln.

  50. No real time to look at this, but I did check out the Yamaguchy cite, looking for the Greenback issue and the allegation that they were interest-bearing. Didn’t find it on that site but did some more research and found this, which is interesting — published in 1890, including the language picked up later by Gerald McGeer — letters of Abraham LIncoln:

    http://www.archive.org/stream/abrahamlincolnsp00link#page/404/mode/2up

    If not valid, I’d be interested in the evidence.

    • The legislative history of greenbacks is obviously way above your paygrade and your new-age brain capacity:—
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/spaulding/green_index.html

      If you were not a charlatan, and if your had ever researched the story of greenbacks, you would know what to read: the text(s) of the acts that issued legal-tender United States and Treasury notes (they speak for themselves); you would also know that greenbacks came in a package that contained a lot of interest; you would also know that greenbacks were mandated to serve as capital for National banks (1 greenback for 4 bank-notes), and they did so until 1917 (what was the interest and other cost of that?)

      What you need to answer is (for 3 years now): why you lied to your customers when you told them that you know about Lincoln and the greenbacks?
      why you lied about Lincoln when you over-rated him and presented him as friend of the people and opponent of bankers ?

      Of course, your whole ‘book’ is a compilation of lies/fabrications –who complied it for your?– but answering these two quoestions would be sufficient

      =====
      Whence your sudden interest in the subject of Lincoln, greenbacks, conspiracy, banking, in 2007 ? –until then you sold books on nutrition

  51. Re: too big to fail, and other recent silly articles by book-peddler Brown

    A very small, yet very typical example; and there are 1,000s of funds like this one

    Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois:—

    Top 10 U.S. Equity Holdings at June 30, 2012

    Apple, Inc. $264,275,768
    Exxon Mobil Corp. 169,396,682
    Microsoft Corp. 113,315,638
    Pfizer, Inc. 107,209,578
    JP Morgan Chase & Co. 96,033,629
    General Electric Co. 88,220,847
    Google, Inc. 87,361,442
    Chevron Corp. 80,391,528
    Wells Fargo & Co. 78,935,254
    Merck & Co., Inc. 69,169,897
    Total $1,154,310,263

    Top 10 International Holdings at June 30, 2012

    Vodafone Group PLC $94,845,481
    Nestle SA 82,462,925
    Novartis AG 71,647,726
    Sanofi 69,957,325
    British American Tobacco PLC 69,401,092
    China Mobile LTD 68,026,831
    Roche Holding AG 65,512,423
    Eni SpA 65,218,749
    HSBC Holdings PLC 61,993,906
    BP plc 61,321,604

    Total $710,388,062

    =======
    so, who is too big to fail? who is wall street ? and what has trojan infiltrator Brown to say to these public employees who are joined at the hip to Wall street and too big to fail banks ?

  52. a national bank is highly necessary and proper to the establishment and maintenance of a sound currency, and for the cheap and safe collection, keeping, and disbursing of the public revenue —Abraham Lincoln, 1843.

  53. Some more too big to fail, big bad owners of Wall street:

    News item, September 18, 2013—
    The Ontario Teachers’ pesion Plan has agreed to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused it of breaking rules on short-selling. The Teachers’ has agreed to pay $224,835, fine and interest.

    The consolidated financial statements of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (among other assets):—

    Government of Canada bonds ……… $20billion
    Wells Fargo & Company ……. $292million
    Toronto-Dominion Bank …… $286million
    Royal Bank of Canada ….. $276million
    JPMorgan Chase & Co. …. $232million
    Bank of Nova Scotia ……. $206million
    Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ….. $140million
    Bank of Montreal …….. $131million
    HSBC Holdings ……. $131million
    Credit Suisse Group …… $164million

    Royal Dutch Shell ……. $194million
    Exxon Mobile ………. $146million
    GoldCorp Inc. ……. $203million
    Pfizer Inc ………. $137million
    Enbridge Inc (of pipeline fame) …….. $116million

  54. Another part owner of Fed Res, and too big to fail Wall street:—

    New York State Teachers Retirement System
    (Fed’s reflating policy helped them a lot)—–

    Goldman Sachs 1,044,570 shares
    Bank of America 25,717,779 shares
    JP Morgan Chase 9,249,084 shares
    Wells Fargo 11,719,040 shares
    Apple 2,238,839 shares
    Berkshire Hathaway 4,233,252 shares
    Chevron 4,696,129 shares
    Exxon 10,690,460 shares
    Halliburton Co. 2,185,861 shares
    Microsoft 18,041,893 shares
    IBM 2,487,558 shares
    General Electric 24,942,816 shares

    Johnson & Johnson 6,531,214 shares
    Coca Cola 9,084,361 shares
    Lockheed Martin 634,287 shares
    Merck & Co 7,210,775 shares
    Morgan Stanley 3,390,884 shares
    Monsanto Co. 1,242,171 shares
    Occidental Petroleum 2,286,394 shares
    Pfizer Inc 17,341,607 shares

    In total: 924,978,819 shares; market value, March 31, 2013: $ 40,421,228,166.27

  55. Yet antother too big to fail Wall street player—

    California State Teachers’ Retirement System

    JP Morgan Chase 11,993,848 shares
    Morgan Stanley 4,808,250 shares
    Bank of America 32,969,262 shares
    Bank of N.Y. Mellon 5,617,762 shares
    American Express 3,247,048 shares
    Goldman Sachs 1,503,614 shares
    Wells Fargo 15,184,165 shares
    VISA Inc 1,861,171 shares
    Citigroup Inc 9,329,305 shares
    Capital One Financial 1,820,863 shares
    Bank of China ltd 57,959,568 shares
    Commerzbank ag 2,824,338 shares
    Deutsche Bank ag 1,081,209 shares
    Bank of India 1,581,149 shares
    Punjab National Bank 1,321,855 shares
    Bank Mandiri Persero 33,758,838 shares
    Mitsubishi Financial 18,284,646 shares
    Mizuho Financial 22,446,665 shares
    Credit Suisse ag 2,398,063 shares
    Barclays 13,808,006 shares
    HSBC 18,214,927 shares
    Lloyds Banking Group 39,843,318 shares

    AT&T Inc 19,411,062 shares
    Archer Daniels Midland 3,624,665 shares
    Monsanto Co. 1,795,550 shares
    Walmart Inc 5,271,410 shares
    Pfizer Inc 25,326,343 shares
    Occidental Petroleum 2,571,095 shares
    Microdoft Corp 24,697,359 shares
    Merck & Co. 10,741,418 shares
    Halliburton Co. 4,665,092 shares
    General Electric Co. 32,215,089 shares
    Exxon Mobil Corp. 14,522,466 shares
    Berkshire Hathaway 5,382,300 shares
    Tokyo Electric Power Co 1,329,049 shares

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