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Usurious Usurpation

January 6, 2012

The sucking up of wealth goes ever higher up the ladder.

It is not just the poorest 80% paying interest to the richest 10%.

Of the richest 10%, those gaining from the interest wealth transfer, the poorest 8% pay more than they gain from interest to the first 1%. And within the 1% the poorest 0.8% pay the richest 0.1%.

We know of the calculation that if the Rothschilds owned $50 billion in 1850 and made 5% per year on that, they would have $150 Trillion now.

Since it was widely reckoned that they controlled half the world’s economy at the time of the First World War, that sounds about right.

What Government on Earth can compare to such a power base? Is it fair to say Government is the problem, when it is so totally dominated?

Government is a problem.

The Money Power is the problem.

And it rules through Usury.

What does it matter to explain that we pay interest because of the fact that the lender can’t use the money while we do?
Of course the loan shark will have a good explanation why we should go along.

The World’s poorest 80% pay between 5 and 10 Trillion per year to the richest 10%.

In the face of that fact only one question remains: what are we going to do about it?

I will give you interest free credit if you will give me the same.

We’ll call it Mutual Credit.

More:
Daily Bell: wrapping up
Discussing Gold and Interest with the Daily Bell

The Goal of Monetary Reform
On Interest
Mutual Credit, the Astonishingly Simple Truth about Money Creation
Disconnecting from the System

62 Comments
  1. Anthony,

    Why don’t you look at the creation of a standard unit of value. At http://www.bibocurrency.org we have done all the math and provided a standard unit of measure to be used anywhere. Why don’t all mutual credit systems adopt a common standard unit measure of value that is formally specified? That way while these separate systems retain their operative independence, identity and autonomy they all become instantly interoperable with each other by virtue of defining a common money specification. It is essentially the same as adopting a common unit of length, mass etc. implementations are autonomous but all implementations are interoperable.

    Marc

    • I fully support your work Marc, which is visionary.

      With the advent of new systems in the face of this depression, a standard like BIBO can certainly help to improve quality. It provides both users and producers of interest free units with a benchmark.

  2. Bankers have gotten to where they are because they have people brainwashed into believing they have money to lend. All money is created at the point of an exchange between two producers who agree to become in debt with each other(though not consciously currently). Bankers collecting interest on this debt isn’t usury – it’s fraud. As the borrowers account is debited in “interest”, the banker credits his own account. Then the borrower has to sell to the nothing producing banker in order to extinguish the debt.

    • We can keep using dollars if the issuance of them is taken away from private banks and issued directly to the people as evenly as possible. Then, because this would put banks out of business, let the free market establish private local brokerages for the pooling of resources. Doesn’t that seem like a simpler logical approach?

      • Hi philo,

        I did want to come back to your previous comment, but I needed to process it a little.

        I can’t completely fathom the implications of your ‘private brokerage’. Yet.

        It certainly sounds as an attractive way of ‘pooling resources’ as you called it.

        I’m convinced that many feasible ways of equitable finance with ultra low cost of capital exist. And that they should exist next to each other. All these models should be explored and simultaneously developed and used. It lessens dependence one system, broadens our horizons, opening up new possibilities, offers the widest range of possible services.

        Please correct me if I’m wrong. But what you are saying is: print the money necessary (either in Social Credit (debt free, handed over to the people to spend) or Mutual Credit (interest free credit evenly divided over all).

        Make sure everybody has the same access.

        For large projects, either private or for the commonwealth, private capital is brought together in the brokerage, where everybody shares in the proceeds. Since private capital will be with all, this is an equitable way.

        For as far as I can understand it, it certainly sounds attractive. But (with limited info) my gut tells me there is some scope for powercentralization.

        • The only way industrialists can monopolize is because of our current monopoly on the cash supply. If the public cash is issued directly to the public, they can choose to invest their earnings in whatever they want or not. It’s certain they will always be employed though because no longer will the cash supply be contracted at the whim of private bankers. Yes, the workers building a large project would be the ones who bought the stock to fund the project. They would decide who spearheads the project and how much they get paid. It’s called free market.

        • I just found this on your youtube channel:
          “1. Close all banks. Give the depositors their money. Stop charging interest on the borrowers. Let them pay down their loans directly to the government to $1500. This takes away the ability for a private entity to monopolize and profit from the creation of public cash. As that debt is extinguished –
          2. Have the government issue $1500 interest free to every producer that would like a loan. Don’t require repayment of the loan until the producer retires or moves from the country. Now you have a steady public cash supply resulting in a steady economy and full employment. No one is in too much public cash debit, resulting in minimal defaults, thus minimal inflation.
          3. All pooling of resources would then be done through a private brokerage by the creation of stocks and bonds. Your broker would also handle your checking account. ”

          Great stuff. I’m happy to have become aware of it.

    • a_reader permalink

      Thanks for the link. I read most of your material, including the “Formal stability analysis” pdf. If I understand correctly, you are showing that even with simple interest the system is inherently unstable. It was my understanding after reading (quickly, I admit) the MPE material that this was
      only the case with compound interest, because of the exponential curve. It is an important point because (if I understand correctly), you are showing that ANY interest (simple or compound) would lead eventually to infinite debt. Is that correct?

      And I assume that this would be valid for any type of currency (fiat, commodity-based currency such as gold standard, or 100% commodity), given the simplicity (well, “simplicity” is not the best word, let’s say “straightforwardness”) of the mathematical models you use.

      • simple interest can become compound interest. Even you could do it: just start saving and don’t spend the interest.
        But you’d be a few centuries behind.

        The problem with the money supply exists always where income through interest is lent out again, instead of spent back into circulation.

        So any interest is inherently unstable, because the Money Power will always do this.

        • a_reader permalink

          Yes, you are right. Sorry for being slow with this… I think I focused specifically on compound interest because of my earlier readings, but in reality all interest leads to instability. Marc Gauvin’s material shows this indeed.

  3. We earn our own credit. You cannot “give” me credit but you may acknowledge it.

    As a nation we also have a certain amount of credit, now mostly used up it seems.

    If money is created from my own credit, how is that bankers charge interest upon it? What service does the bank perform? Is that service worth doubling the cost of everything?

    How is that the people inherit the debts of the banks without ever receiving a benefit? Why are we forced to pay for the bankers’ finery even as we lose our homes and live on the streets?

    Government is complicit in the design enslaving us all with insurmountable debt at interest.

    Go to perfect economy dot com to find out how money really works.

  4. Anthony – The only way industrialists can monopolize is because of our current monopoly on the cash supply. If the public cash is issued directly to the public, they can choose to invest their earnings in whatever they want or not. It’s certain they will always be employed though because no longer will the cash supply be contracted at the whim of private bankers. Yes, the workers building a large project would be the ones who bought the stock to fund the project. They would decide who spearheads the project and how much they get paid. It’s called free market.

  5. I think the blog settings are automatically censoring comments which makes it kind of hard to have a dialogue.

    • Incredibly annoyingly you turn out to be right. I don’t understand, after authorizing your first comment most were posted, but some spammed. Even though you don’t offer links and formulate concisely. Sorry, I’ll look into it, but cannot guarantee quick improvement. Some other feedbackers’ comments were also deleted.

      Thanks for pointing out, I had to restore no less than 13 comments!

      • What am I going to link to? I am the link, the missing link. I have the mind of a banker. Bankers think in a completely different language than “humans”. That’s what Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard was about – alien bankers ruling the Earth. I’m trying to communicate as best I can. That’s why I have a YouTube channel where I use illustrations.

        • Well, to be honest, if more people got off the hypocritical ‘decent’ horse manure and started digging inside, I wouldn’t be working on this site.

          They’d find the beast inside them, and quickly realize the world is probably ruled by people who let the beast do it’s thing, instead of resisting and repressing it.

          Once you know your own depravity, you get a very faint notion of what the world really is.

    • philo, could you please send me an email at infoATgelre.org (replace AT with @)? I have a private request for you.

      Thanks,
      Anthony

  6. a_reader permalink

    Anthony,

    Here is a nice article on Stephen Zarlenga’s “American Monetary Institute” website (perhaps you already know it, but just in case):

    The Usury Problem Remains:
    http://www.monetary.org/the-usury-problem-remains/2010/12

    Excellent historical overview of the problem, in my view.

    • thanks, a_reader. Nice piece of work indeed.

    • I heard an interview where Zarlenga told Jan Irvin that Bill Still shouldn’t be listened to implying Still’s approach to monetary reform is worthless. Funny thing is, both their approaches are actually identical so I guess they’re both worthless. I’ll find a link.

    • Well, they both seem to plug a classic Greenback. This is probably the most primitive way for Govt to go, although much better than handing over their monopoly to a CB cartel of course.

      Social Credit and Public Banking are both much better.

      But it’s strange how the interest free community is rife with people thinking they’re the only ones with the real answer.

      The truth is: none of them has a comprehensive answer.

      We all need each other and we should be empowering those who are on the right track, even if we don’t agree with everything they have to say.

      • It’s not even primitive, it just won’t even work – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gowVz8pLVQ

        • a_reader permalink

          Thomas Greco was quite critical of Zarlenga’s proposal.
          But note that I was only praising Zarlenga’s article on usury, not necessarily his solutions…

          • Yes, I got that, but do you understand that usury is something charged by a lender? Banks don’t lend anything so what they are doing is pure fraud. Banks only facilitate the creation of debt/currency. The debt is between the borrower and the person who exchanged something for the currency. If anyone should be collecting interest, it would be the person holding the currency.

        • Well, that depends on what you consider ‘work’.
          It will dampen the interest drain, as it will save Govt 700 billion per year in debt service.

          But it will be inflated and not just through default, but through rampant printing.

          And there are other issues. Just like with the Euro, the Dollar is circulated in too wide an area. Not all US regions are equally competitive. And that leaves the ‘lesser’ regions strapped for liquidity, as they are exporting capital to more competitive regions.

          Furthermore it does not allow for interest free credit, so even though Govt and the taxpayer will be saved hundreds of billions, you would still pay 300k interest on your 200k mortgage.

          So I support the Greenback as a step in the right direction, but it is far from a panacea.

        • Well, that depends on what you consider ‘work’.
          It will dampen the interest drain, as it will save Govt 700 billion per year in debt service.

          But it will be inflated and not just through default, but through rampant printing.

          And there are other issues. Just like with the Euro, the Dollar is circulated in too wide an area. Not all US regions are equally competitive. And that leaves the ‘lesser’ regions strapped for liquidity, as they are exporting capital to more competitive regions.

          Furthermore it does not allow for interest free credit, so even though Govt and the taxpayer will be saved hundreds of billions, you would still pay 300k interest on your 200k mortgage.

          So I support the Greenback as a step in the right direction, but it is far from a panacea.

          (this comment is replying to philo’s statement the Greenback won’t work)

          • Did you bother to watch the video? You’re talking about an approach that’s a “controlled opposition” “solution”. It’s not interest we pay bankers, they don’t loan anything. It’s an illusion. It’s fraud. They’re making billions for simply keeping books. They’re doing what you do as a community currency bookkeeper, but they’re fooling people into believing they had money to loan and that it’s not being created by the borrower and the person who accepts the currency in exchange for a product. The debt is between the borrower and the person who takes the currency in exchange for a product. The person who takes the currency in exchange for a product is actually the lender. He doesn’t see himself as a lender because he can transfer and spread the debt around in a large economy. I explain this in many of my videos. Focus on the illustrations, not the terms I choose to narrate.

  7. @philo

    Oh, but I completely understand philo, I see it in exactly the same terms. Banking is a complete and utter fraud from a to z and back.

    It is indeed no different from what I do. That’s why I started doing it, after all.

  8. Thiersian Capitalist permalink

    Philo posits:

    “Banks don’t lend anything so what they are doing is pure fraud.”

    Response:

    Banks do in fact lend (i.e. credit) some “thing.” They credit “borrower-saver inter-mediation services” to a savings depositor. More specifically, the bank credits the depositors “invisible” account payable to them with the said services. The bank and depositor have a contractual arrangement such that the bank is paid for its “inter-mediation services” through a share of the cash flows (interest) received from the borrower it matched with the depositor’s savings. Admittedly, it is very difficult to see the depositor-bank-borrower relationship, if a “transaction-analysis” has not been done between the parties involved.

    When you setup a savings (interest bearing) account with a lending institution, you are in fact contracting with that institution to provide you with “inter-mediation services” (i.e. matching your savings with a borrower with the intent of receiving a positive cash flow stream for some specified period of time). A useful analogy is to think of a bank as a rental real-estate property manager. You have real-estate property (i.e. savings) and have contracted with the real-estate property manager to rent out (i.e. lend) your real-estate property to renters (i.e. borrowers) for an annual rental rate of 6,000 units of value, or 500 units of value per month (i.e. annual interest rate of X% of units of value loaned or X/12% units of value loaned per month).

    You can only do one of two things when you are transacting/contracting with others: 1.) Credit/loan “things of value” or; 2) Debit/borrow “things of value.” Banks credit/loan inter-mediation services, depositors debit/borrow inter-mediation services. We all have accounts payable and receivable with one another, they are just “invisible” and we fail to recognize it.

    Admittedly, banks do have a government-granted monopoly on the issuance of government credit (i.e. tax vouchers), which the government-banking-monetary complex has abused throughout history by issuing more (inflating) government credit into existence than there is of actual physical savings to back it. Thus, the real fraud is with the government-banking-monetary complex; it steals a portion of everyone’s physical savings/productive output through inflation (expansion of the “money” supply beyond the government-banking-monetary complex’s own physical savings/productive output). Inflation is the fraud. Inflation undermines contractual obligations resulting in societal decay as a one-sided value-judgement is made (i.e. in favor of debtors) thus placing “the breaking of promises” (i.e. destroying trust; lying, dishonoring contracts) before “the keeping of promises” (i.e. maintaining trust; telling the truth, honoring contracts).

    If government-issued “money” (or “money” issued through any sort of monopoly) exists, it is an absolute requirement that it match the real savings/productive output of itself unit per unit – anything else is fraud. As the ‘ol saying goes, “don’t spend more than you have.” For “money” issuers it is, “don’t issue more than you can make good on.” Both inflation and deflation is stealing, its just that inflation steals from creditors for the benefit of debtors and deflation steals from debtors for the benefit of creditors. That is to say, inflation nor deflation is the ideal, balance between those two is: 0% inflation, 0% deflation.

    Of course, any monopoly “money” issuer has an impossible task: adjusting the supply of “money” to match the actual savings and productive output that backs it unit per unit. Attempting to measure the savings and productive output of everybody and adjusting the “money” supply accordingly is an act of futility – the monopoly “money” issuer will never “get it exactly right,” and that is why monopoly “money” issuing systems are destined to fail. Savings/productive output has the only chance of being accurately measured on an individual basis, which means anyone trying to calculate the savings/productive output for anyone else will never “get it right” and as a consequence will issue more or less “money” than there is savings/productive output unit per unit to back it.

    A decentralized/individualized “money” (voucher) issuing system is the ideal, but it is not without the risk that some individuals will issue their own “money” (vouchers) in excess of their own physical savings/productive output (inflation), meaning they can potentially undermine contracts that are to be settled in their “money” (vouchers). However, such inflation would be limited to those who transacted for or hold the individual’s “money” (vouchers), unlike the widespread, nation-wide inflations or deflations that everyone is forced to experience with today’s monopoly “money” issuing systems. In reality, with such a proposed decentralized/individualized “money” (voucher) issuing system, the only people affected by inflation or deflation would be those who voluntarily subject themselves to it. That is, those people who choose to transact with other people who have a high risk of expanding or contracting (inflating or deflating) their individual “money” (voucher) supply. Of course, if an individual issuer decided to inflate, they would risk losing their good “credit-standing” within society, which would likely result in people NOT wanting to transact with them, additionally resulting in lost prosperity now and in the future for that particular individual issuer.

    The core benefit of a decentralized/individualized system is that it gives individuals “monetary independence.” Individuals no longer have to depend on the government-banking-monetary complex’s “money” (voucher) in which to hold their purchasing power, they have the virtually infinite choices of all the decentralized/individualized monies that would be in existence. The decentralized/individualized system allows for greater risk diversification and decentralization than does the current monopoly “money” issuing systems. Risk decentralization is a very important feature. Central banking/money systems “centralize” everything, including what Nassim Taleb calls “fragility.” When an economic shock of any sort hits a centralized system, the whole system falls like dominoes do, because that is the nature of “centralization.” In order to have a more “robust” system, where economic shocks can be isolated and/or absorbed, an economy must decentralize/individualize and have a large buffer of physical savings.

    • Banks don’t loan depositor money. All the interest paid to a bank is embezzlement. Don’t be a windbag.

      • Thiersian Capitalist permalink

        No need for name-calling friend. There is no good reason a civil and fruitful discourse can not take place amongst people.

        When one individual reduces their transactions with others to a form of hostility – however small it may be – that person is likely to lose credibility in the eyes of others. People are less likely to engage with you as a result.

        I try to maintain this most basic level of courtesy, as it goes a long way in helping facilitate discussion amongst people who would not otherwise find an opportunity to engage with each other. In conclusion Philo, I will respect you if you respect others in this forum and other forums.

        • Short, to the point responses. That’s all you need dude. Obviously you could go to Harvard for six years and learn a bunch of b.s. about banking.

  9. There is only about ~900 billion paper and coin dollars.
    There is about ~14 trillion dollars worth of credit supplied by banks.
    There is about ~55 trillion dollars in total debt, again, supplied by banks.
    What backs the dollar is the faith that the 14 trillion dollars will some day pay the 55 trillion dollars off.

  10. anirishtory permalink

    Reblogged this on Irish Tory.

  11. Najam Saqib permalink

    To de’scribe the diff’errant aspects of U$URY, i.e. interest, many fat books would be required. We will try and squeeze it in a sentence for you : IT$ = “A Per Second Charge For TOUCH’ing Money “, for /or of the Bank. At times IT$ even charged for ‘let’ing you think – you are ‘feeling’. Oho ! Similar to a Prostitute in Per’son or her sub’statute Pro’jected on-to your in-screen. Hence beware, do not touch the bank’s money, makes you poorer.
    So the one who owes the (most) highest amount is the poorest of all. Check-U^P, the Govt. of U.S.A._(man-ager De Le super’CorP) owes by the tons, i.e. over U$D:16.99 Trillions (16,990,000,000,000+%). “Oh! What a heavy sum”, i.e. to rePay. Imagine, how do they manage the ex`terra load of “interest” ??
    Aha ! The Federal-Reserve-Prints+^+add chits/digits to>B.I.S.-(since Fort Knox offers no gold, -empty?).
    See U$ Debt Clock > http://www.usdebtclock.org

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