Date: 8/22/2001 2:52:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From:
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;;
MONEY MATTERS --
22 August 2001
Carroll, Huber, Carmack and other Responses to the NESARA postings
________________________
Dear list members,
Below are three e-mails from list members re my NESARA posting on 17 August
and the follow up on 20 August. They are from
1. Robert Carroll, who edits the MONQUES site -
http://landru.i-link-2.net/monques/ – which I recommended as a useful
starting point for coordinating monetary reform efforts round the global.
2. Joseph Huber, co-author of Creating New Money – with James Robertson
(not John Robertson, as I wrote!), commenting on the NESARA monetary reform
proposal. Click to New Publications at www.neweconomics.org to purchase
Creating New Money.
3. Patrick Carmack, producer and co-author of the Money Masters –
www.moneymasters.com.
There were other responses to the postings.
David Weston thought I was recommending Creating New Money and he
was not happy about that. He wants to do away with the Bank of England and
other central banks entirely, whereas the Huber/Robertson reform proposal
reorganizes them. He also wrote that there were interesting metaphors in my
précis of Professor Auriti’s articles but that he was not fully satisfied
that Professor Auriti understands the legislative process by which money
comes into being. For example, Auriti writes that "All nominal money is
issued by the banks in the form of loans." David wrote, “By 'nominal' does
he mean all money not in the form of coins and notes? For coins and notes
are money in the modern sense of the word”. This is, of course, correct.
I responded:
“I am not recommending Huber and Robertson's answer. I am saying that we
must know about their approach, along with all the others, and we must come
forward, as monetary reformers, with a common approach that answers the
immediate political need for a way through the happening break down of the
banking system. I think Huber and Robertson (a pity I got Robertson's name
wrong! - I'm aging too fast!) have a more politically possible approach than
NESARA and Auriti, when it comes right down to it, for meeting the immediate
need to clear up the banking mess.
”This common approach must also take into account that what people really
want is to live with minimal outside control and even support from outside
the family and community structures within which they feel at home.
”It follows that whereas a public service money supply is inevitable and
even necessary in the short term, it is pointless and will lead into anarchy
(and tyrannical controls to crush that), unless justified by the
simultaneous prioritizing of educational reform and the support of local
'free' economies – free from outside control, that is, and eventually even
outside support.
”This is what interests me most, and what I should focus on, therefore. I
was not endorsing Auriti. There is much to fault there. You have picked up
on one issue. I am not really bothered. I just want us to know about each
others efforts, to take what is useful for our own efforts.”
I used similar wording in my response to an e-mail from Peter Scott, who
wrote: “I read you as coming from a very ambiguous position. On the one hand
you are warning about state issued money, on the other hand your own writing
supports it (quoting Lincoln, etc), and you recommend Carroll, Huber,
Robertson and Auriti who are all pro S plan [by which I presume he means
‘state issued money’ – BW]. What gives?”
Truth to tell, I am deep down uncertain about what is the best approach to
the money issue!!! I shared my confusion with Patrick Carmack, in my
response to his e-mail.
I wrote out of the religious deep in me, “I do not want to see a return to
barter, nor do I believe that government-sourced money is the ideal. What
does God really want of us? ‘Justice and mercy’, is the immediate answer
that comes through. ‘The regular clean slating of debts and land bonds’, is
the next. The way I read the Bible, God wants us to feel at home with Him,
in family and community structures in which we feel at home. If we can build
a beehive of family and community structures to embrace all of God's people,
with a central, coordinating secretariat, which is religiously, politically
and economically for GOD in all of its dealing, there need be no imposed
control from outside any one of the beehive cells, and there will be strong
support in their all being interlinked.”
For those who do not like the God talk, let God equal Love. My e-mail to
Patrick reads as well that way.
In friendship,
Boudewijn Wegerif
Monetary Studies Programme
Folhogskola Vardingeby**
________________________
THREE RESPONSES TO NESARA POSTINGS OF 17 AND 20 AUGUST
1.
from Robert Carroll, editor of the MONQUES website
http://landru.i-link-2.net/monques/
Monques was created for the free use of any interested parties and with the
hope of doing exactly what you are suggesting: Finding common cause to
effect reform.
If my memory is accurate, it was John Nance Gardner who said that the effect
of all public interest organizations was mutual cancellation. I often feel
that way about money reformers.
I have in the past, I think, and many others now, put too much emphasis on
the technical aspects and not enough on the philosophical aspects. The
philosophy is now dominated by "free market", "private enterprise"
unchallengeable assumptions that have brought the state of affairs we
"enjoy." The successful people in the system do enjoy it, but too many of
these assumptions have been absorbed and accepted by would be money
reformers.
Obviously, one of the sticky points that needs addressing is government vs
private. Neither alone is workable for reasons of power. Both government
and private systems are abusive without restrictions and regulations. The
U. S. monetary system is in private hands with supposed government
oversight, and it must be abolished--my personal assessment. The Federal
Reserve System, tobacco companies, Ford and Firestone, drug companies, the
Mafia, etc., provide glaring contradictions to the assumed ethics of private
business regulated by "market forces", especially in the form of myth entity
corporations where personal responsibility is subsumed by the make-believe
entity. Ideological flim-flam cannot be maintained in the face of well
documented facts.
Government, in general, is the most murderous and destructive of all human
institutions. But for bankers, it would be the most thieving, too. So can
government be trusted with money? There-in lies the debate. An
anticipated argument that private business is the lesser of two evils does
not fly with me. We have to find a way to eliminate the evil from
government and private enterprise.
I have some misgivings about democracy as a solution, but then when was
democracy ever tried? It seems to me that humans have always organized into
some form of pyramidal power structure that is commandeered by ruthless
individuals who subvert any and all ideological rationales by which the
organization was formed.
The idea that in a democracy the people vote themselves more and more of the
national treasury is not rational. If they did under existing tax theft
systems, what would be the harm of voting back to themselves what was stolen
from them? And if democracy meant equal sharing, what would be the harm?
Ostensibly, national treasuries are there for the benefit of the people.
In the case of the inflation of the French Assignats and American
Continentals, Alexander Del Mar contends that it was brought about primarily
by a conspiracy of bank counterfeiting. English banks shipped counterfeit
money by the boatload to France, and three out of four Continentals were
counterfeit when abandoned. I don't know the facts of it, but the loss of
money control to bankers and their reaction cannot be ignored in such
historical examples. I would expect bankers to do everything possible to
protect their "interests."
I certainly applaud your efforts to move things forward.
Best regards,
Robert Carroll
__________________________
2.
Joseph Huber – co-author with James Robertson of Creating New Money
www.neweconomics.org
We had e-mails these days by Sabine [McNeill] and Boudewijn about
NESARA, which really took me by surprise, and I want to thank you for the
information. I had a first closer look at it this morning, and as far as I
was
able to understand, I cannot follow the announcements of a possibly big
thing to
come.
The core point in my understanding is the nationalization of the Federal
Reserve System. Its institutional structure would basically be preserved,
with the important difference, however, that it would become an integral (=
non-independent) part of the US Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury
would have the same discretionary power of creating/issuing new money as the
Treasury Bank's Board of Governors. This is an incredible piece of etatism,
opening the door to future misuse of the prerogative of money creation,
which today even the French would not dare to propose publicly.
>From the text of the law (www.nesara.org/ ...) I do not see two features
that were included in the e-mails: Neither would (a) existing bonds going to
be bought back obligatorily (redemption of governmental debt), nor does the
law aim at (b) restoring the gold standard or any other variant of a
precious metal currency.
As far as I can see,
(a) Only the reserve banks (hitherto part of a formal private consortium,
now to be nationalized under the law) would have to deliver their treasury
securities, government bonds, etc. in exchange for new treasury credit-notes
that are non-interest-bearing (as all modern banknotes are). There is
nothing special about this. A government authority holding government debt
and paying interest to the government wouldn't make much sense. But private
commercial banks and individuals would keep their government bonds.
(b) Official gold and silver coin would continue to be legal tender (which
isn't very important in practice) as well as the non-precious metal alloys
that would continue to represent the bulk of coins. Any individual could
continue to exchange gold and silver for credit-notes at any branch of the
central bank. That's no change at all, and I don't see "metallism" at work
here, just incremental law knitting.
Personally, I don't understand why complicated 18th century legal
specifications on coins no longer in use continue to exist, nor why CBs
continue to exchange banknotes for gold while selling their gold reserves.
(I don't understand either, by the way, why a low gold price still continues
to come with a high US dollar, and vice versa. In principle, there should
now be no more relation at all, but maybe it is so that cash holdings of
larger amounts still include bullions as an alternative to currency).
In addition, the proposed NESARA act wants to introduce a new tax on
monetization fees. That's part of the package, though not necessarily
related to all of the rest. The tax would be imposed on the commercial banks
in the form of a tax on lending-interest received by customers.
Again I tend to see this as an etatistic variant of Friedman's proposal to
make the banks pay deposit-interest to their customers. Under NESARA, the
government would take that money.
There are a number of other details, e.g. on mortgage loans, which are
certainly important to those immediately affected, but, as far as I see, of
no general importance to the monetary and banking system as such.
Furthermore, I wondered how an official legal bill passing parliamentary
procedures in a democratic country could be treated as being "secret".
Well, that is what came to my mind.
Best wishes,
Joseph H.
________________________
3.
Patrick Carmack – producer and co-author of The Money Masters video
www.moneymasters.com
Boudewijn Wegerif writes:
>>>"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the
public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the
result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed
by a dictatorship.” >>>
Dear Boudewijn,
Thanks for the Prof. Auriti references. Overall I agree with his proposal
and his rationale. I think the above quotation re Athens which you included
is not necessarily true, but to the extent it is true, it applies to tyrants
and monarchs as well as to democracies - that is, once they are prepared to
be unjust, and depreciate the value of the existing holders of money by
printing an excess (thereby causing inflation), or depreciating the value of
holders of real wealth by hoarding money (causing deflation), all hell
breaks loose, regardless of the form of government.
In other words, the cause is neither democracy not the lack of it - the form
of government is entirely irrelevant. Hitler restored a sound currency to
post-Weimar Germany - many a dictator has done likewise. Napoleon is
another. Later they reversed track and destroyed their currencies – two
examples of non-democracies doing what the above quotation seems to imply is
inevitable in democracies only.
Viewed broadly over the long run, every government eventually unjustly
inflates its money. One can therefore reasonably make the same statement
quoted above about every form of government - that once those in power
discover they can get something for nothing, they are going to do it. Of
course the time lag from "once they discover" must vary to make this work in
every case - but eventually it will. But this is not a comment on democracy
or any particular form of government, rather on original sin.
Eventually, every people will have unjust rulers or be unjust themselves,
and so inflate their money supply to unjust levels.
That being so, ultimately the remedy does not depend upon whether the
money-issuing power resides with the people collectively, nor with the king
nor parliament. It lies in whether justice is the motivating principle in
whichever form of government a nation has.
Inasmuch as the entire world is now dominated by a handful of inbred
usurer-banking families who control the press and politicians over most of
the globe with the money they create ex nihilo, we are left with no choice
but to support local, people-generated currencies and the like. But all this
is a degeneration from the ideal towards private control and towards the
barter system - a necessary degeneration in our day, but hardly the ideal.
Local currencies inevitably require exchange at the city limits, and private
control is the contrary of collective control, and therein lies the rub.
A national money supply requires no exchange for some other currency within
a nation, and if regulated by sound principles of justice (such as I believe
are set forth reasonably well in the Monetary Reform Act you mentioned, or
in the Social Credit theory) is therefore closer to the ideal, whatever the
form of government any given nation adopts. This requires that the
government alone be the source of the money supply, and specifically not any
private source(s). That is a critically important distinction. What we have
now is NOT government-sourced money, but only the appearance of that. We
have privately issued money, done behind a smokescreen of semi-public
institutions controlled lock, stock and barrel by the money changers, whose
private banks issue nearly 97% of all new money.
Nevertheless, in the present circumstances, people will have more and more
to descend from the ideal merely to survive, and local, privately-issued
currencies will assist them to avoid sinking all the way back to barter,
which is so terribly inefficient in a complex society that practically any
alternative is preferable to it. But necessity does not define the ideal. A
starving man may eat road-kill, but that is far from his ideal of a Kansas
City steak done medium-well.
I particularly liked Prof. Artiti's idea of the Church issuing Jubilee
money, but I imagine Pope John Paul II would be understandably reluctant to
let the money changers into the temple again after his Boss twice drove them
out!
Regards,
Pat Carmack
________________________
** Boudewijn Wegerif
Monetary Studies Programme
c/o FHSK Vardingeby, 150 21 Molnbo
Tel:+46.158.23035 – e-mail 552.10327, till end September;
Thereafter +46.552.21112
The Monetary Studies Programme prepares commentaries and study material on
the psychology and history of money. Through the Money Matters mailing list,
information is spread about monetary reform and the growing movement for a
positive economic future, freed from debt oppression and money making for
its own sake. The programme is sponsored by the Adult Education Residential
College, Folkhogskola Vardingeby, south of Stockholm, and works closely with
the members’ owned, interest-free bank JAK (www.jak.se).
