Get rid of the money system, then get rid of goverrments

Alternative currency proposals in Virginia and Colorado

I am not familiar with either of these efforts.

Virginia is considering a bill proposing alternative currency:
[link to fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com]

The actual bill in pdf format is just 3 pages, but I barely skim read the bill. Here is the blurb:

America is $14 trillion in debt. The secretive Federal Reserve System — a bastard-hybrid of privately-owned banks that act as America’s central bank with limited government supervision — secretly bailed out foreign banks for a mind-boggling $12.3 trillion. The much-anticipated demise of the dollar is given an extra push by last November’s announcement by China and Russia that they’ve abandoned the dollar and will use their own currencies for bilateral trade.

Now comes news that the state of Virginia is considering adopting its own currency.

A bill has been prefiled for the 2011 session of the Virginia state House with this title:

“Establishing a joint subcommittee to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.“

After the first couple of introductory pages, the bill gets down to the real job at hand — a proposal for the state of Virginia to create its own currency:

“RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That a joint subcommittee be appointed to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.”

Here’s the proposed Virginia bill in pdf: [link to lis.virginia.gov]

The interested reader might contact Richard Cook who I know is working in Virginia on some form of alternative currency.
[link to www.richardccook.com] blog: [link to www.richardccook.com]
Currently Cook is running some stuff on "the return of the Aeons" which makes me doubt his wisdom.

Thomas Greco reports

Geneva.

I left Tucson on October 1, arriving in Geneva on the 2nd where I was hosted by Tim Anderson of Community Forge ( [link to communityforge.net]

On October 3, I was one of three presenters on a panel session titled, Solidarity Economy & Alternative Finance, at the United Nations Palais des Nations. The session was moderated by Hamish Jenkins of the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS). The other panelists were:

- Peter Utting, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) who spoke about general trends and issues relating to the solidarity economy, and

- Frederic Lepeyre, who spoke about his research with the ILO.

You can find a full report of the session at the NGLS website: [link to www.un-ngls.org]

On October 5 and 6, I conducted a workshop on moneyless exchange for a group of Community Forge associates.

Thomas Greco report

Crete.

I was on the island of Crete from the 6th to 14th of October, during which time I participated in a two day workshop on Community Exchange Systems and Alternative Currency Systems for Sustainable Communities, led by Prof. Jem Bendell, as part of the International Sustainability Summit that was held at the European Sustainability Academy (Sharon Jackson, Director).


My presentation was titled, The Emerging Butterfly Society: Making the shift to a steady-state economy and a world that works for all.

The 2-day workshop included a sharing of experiences and ideas by leaders of local exchange groups from Crete and from Volos on the Greek mainland. The latter was represented by Giannis Grigoriou one of the co-founders of the Volos credit clearing exchange (called TEM) that has gotten considerable coverage in the international media, including the New York Times, PRI, and the BBC.


A concrete result of the workshop was an agreement to publish The Drapanos Declaration on exchange alternatives. Here is the text of the Declaration in English:

Individuals, communities and environments are the true source of our wealth and well-being.

Therefore we develop alternative means of exchange between individuals and organisations to foster more cooperative and equitable relations.

Although we may focus on our own communities, we share this principle with other communities.

Therefore we commit to work together in Greece and worldwide, to improve our practices, so that more communities connect to their own abundance.

Our efforts are part of a greater movement to make economic activity more accountable, socially beneficial and environmentally sustainable.

Our work must develop ever expanding circles of cooperation, exchange and learning.

We invite others who share these aims to join us in a growing movement and emerging profession on community exchange.

We are asking others to join in endorsing this Declaration. You can do so by adding your name in a comment to the post at
[link to jembendell.wordpress.com] where it is also available in Greek.

Volos.

Following Crete, Sergio Lub and I flew to Thesoloniki where we were met by Andreas Andreopoulos who had helped to organize our mainland tour. The following day, Andreas transported us to Volos where we met up again with Giannis who had arranged for us to conduct a workshop for a dozen or so of the core people in the TEM exchange. He also arranged for me to do a brief interview with a local TV channel, and for us to meet with the Mayor, who has been very supportive of this grassroots effort to cope with the financial austerity being imposed on Greece by the IMF and the EU.

My urgent message to the TEM organizers, as well as to the other groups that I addressed throughout my tour, was this.

In order for a mutual credit clearing exchange to be scalable and successful over the long-run:

(1) it must be anchored in the local business community, especially the small- and medium-sized enterprises that form the backbone of every local economy, and

(2) the allocation of credit lines cannot be arbitrary, but must be based primarily on the level of sales by each account into the exchange.

The fundamental objective of mutual credit clearing is to create liquidity within the local economy, i.e., to provide a means of payment by which associated producers can buy and sell with one another without having to rely on the availability of scarce official money. That liquidity must logically be founded upon local productivity. It is therefore the most productive enterprises that should be allowed to carry negative balances in the system. Because they have demonstrated their earning power, they are the ones that can be trusted to spend before they earn. Except for small credit lines allocated to new members who bring goods or services ready for sale to the market, all others should be required to earn credits before they can spend.

After Sergio’s departure to return to the U.S., I stayed on in Volos for two more days during which Giannis took me to meet with the Archbishop and to do an interview on the Diocesan radio channel. He also took me to visit the twice weekly TEM market to observe the variety of things being offered, and to talk with some of the participants.

Athens. On October 18 I took a motor coach to Athens where I met up with some like minded colleagues and participated in a festival on the Solidarity Economy during which organizers of several exchanges came together to discuss how their local exchanges might be networked together. My thanks to Anthi Theiopoulou for providing hospitality during my Athens stay.

UK. On October 23 I flew to London, then journeyed onward by train to York to give a presentation at the York LETS Conference. I then traveled back to London on the 26th to do a colloquium at the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and two workshops for LETSLink UK on the 27th and 28th, finishing on the evening of the 28th with a presentation in Brixton sponsored by NEF and the Brixton Pound.

I next travelled to Ambleside in the heart of the Lake District to give a presentation, Beyond Money, Banks, and the Left-Right Divide,for executive MBA students at Cumbria University.

The following day (October 31), after joining the MBA group for a boat ride on Lake Windermere and spending a couple hours at the Ruskin Museum in Conniston, we proceeded to Lancaster where I gave a lecture to a mixed audience at the Lancaster campus of Cumbria University, then followed up the next day with a workshop that was supposed to last 3 hours but stretched on closer to five.

All in all, I was quite pleased with this tour. I think we accomplished some significant results, and I was encouraged to meet up with so many dedicated and able people along the way.

I recently posted Richard Logie’s TEDx talk about Complementary Exchange Systems. Richard has operated a successful commercial trade exchange for almost twenty years, so he knows what works and what doesn’t. Exchange organizers at the grassroots can learn a great deal from Richard and others in the commercial trade exchange business so I strongly urge them to watch this.

Please pay particular attention to the method Richard uses to determine the credit lines to be provided to members' accounts, as well as the list of advantages that membership in a credit clearing exchange provides and the elements that need to be standardized in order for exchanges to be effectively networked together.

These are the issues that need to be adequately handled in order for moneyless exchange based on mutual credit clearing to become robust and to achieve significant scale.

Richard Logie on TED:
[link to beyondmoney.net]

Hidden Cures on Money by Richard Walbaum

Natural Law Papers: [link to www.hiddencures.com]

Eric Harris-Braun 10/22/2010 looking forward =>
[link to www.metacurrency.org]

Read the entire piece, but focus on this powerful paragraph: “When I was growing up in Ecuador, I remember being in the marketplace where I saw a man sitting at a table with a pen and paper. He was listening to a customer and was writing away like mad. I remember not understanding what that man was selling. Was he composing a poem on the spot? I couldn't imagine the visibly poor customer wanting a poem. So I asked my parents who told me that he was selling the writing itself; that the customer was illiterate and needed to send a letter and so would pay the man to write the letter. I remember being amazed by this at the time, but then forgot about it pretty quickly. This story comes back to me now that I've come to understand that almost all of us in the world are doing exactly the same thing as those illiterate customers I saw in my youth. We are illiterate and don't even know it. We don't recognize that there is a form of "writing" we hire others to do for us but could learn ourselves. This form of writing is the writing of wealth acknowledgments, and what we call it is money.”

Eric Harris-Braun goes on to describe money as a writing; I have been calling money a communication.

Thomas Greco - Your Money Power: "The vast majority of people remain unaware of it, but the fact is, we have in our own hands, right now, the power to create or completely transcend money. As I’ve been preaching for many years, money is nothing more than credit, i.e., the willingness to trust that the value we provide as sellers of goods and services will be reciprocated when we become buyers. But, as we are now becoming so painfully aware, our trust in conventional political currencies and banks has been misplaced; we have been betrayed. It’s not only a matter of fraud and malfeasance, bad as that is, rather, the entire system was designed from the very start to enable the few to exploit the many..."


[link to lucas2012infos.wordpress.com]


Further down in that piece Greco writes: "It is our own credit that we entrust to the bankers, then beg them to lend it back to us, and pay interest for the privilege." This is what I have been writing; that Roosevelt implemented the fifth plank of the communist manifesto that says the credit of the people is the property of the state. The next step in this theft was to license the banks to loan the people's credit back to the people.

There has been no off-setting account, no administrative practice, nor any writing of law that acknowledges the fact that the credit entries made in the banks is actually based upon the people's credit.

This present monetary system uses interest bearing hypothecated debt as the base model.

The result is an exponential growth of the total debt which is quite impossible in a finite world.

Not only is there the 11th marble problem (search for the parable of the cards), but the overall problem is compounded by the improper assignment of seigniorage.

Essentially, the banks have presumed ownership of the credit when in fact the credit is owned by the people.

This is the critical center of the seigniorage problem.

It springs directly from the fifth plank of the communist manifesto.

The field of political protest known as "redemption of the strawman" is essentially an attempt to correct the bookkeeping.

The federal reserve banking and monetary system is already a mutual credit system, but with incorrect bookkeeping.

Time for a new Theory of Money by Dr Ellen Brown:

[link to www.commondreams.org]

The core problem that IS NOT EXPLORED is that a true capitalism only exists when people actually own the money and the money system institutions.

This message is found in the Skousen book THE NAKED CAPITALIST and again in the book NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY;

[link to www.captaincanadacrusades.ca]

Previously I have brought up Mondragon and binary economics and pointed out that Mondragon cooperative was the very best example in the whole world of binary economic principles.

However, author Robert Ashford never mentioned the Mondragon cooperative in his book. The guy credited as "co-author" Rodney Shakespeare of England (I believe he functioned more as a proof reader of the manuscript) has corresponded with me on the matter of the cooperative. Rodney Shakespeare subsequently wrote another book - SEVEN STEPS TO SOCIAL JUSTICE that also discusses the monetary system.

Jeff Gates also wrote a similar book THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY and there was an online discussion about the principles of binary economics. In a similar vein the Mondragon cooperative seemed taboo on the discussion forum.

Here is the point; what we are using for money is already a system of mutual credit - but the bookkeeping is incorrect. Essentially, it is a question of seigniorage. When the money was presumed to be a gold or silver coin about 75% of the seigniorage was vested in the coin. Paper printing was somewhat constrained because of the belief in redemption in coin.

Silver was lawfully replaced as the "backing" in what was characterized as "the crime of 73" (1873) and that was the story associated with the presidential contest with William Jennings Bryan who opposed gold backing and supported a return to silver backing for the dollar. Then, in 1933 under Roosevelt, the gold backing was removed for united states citizens although redemption was available to foreign entities and persons. That was stopped by Nixon (197x).

The defacto default backing for the federal reserve note became the credit of the people.

Essentially, the fifth plank of the communist manifesto was implemented through this series of changes. The fifth plank says that the credit of the people is the property of the government. The government in turn assigned the people's credit to the banks via license. We have given uncle Sam a credit card, and now uncle Sam is complaining because we are failing to keep up the payments. Who knew that Uncle Sam was a profligate gambler who liked to start fights, and that his word was no good?

Anyway, the point I tried to make to the speaker [deleted for privacy] was that the only way a system of mutual credit was if we the people owned the banking system and after cost profits were returned to the people in annual or semi-annual rebate checks - or possibly a retirement fund could be created and managed for the people's future. Much like the Mondragon system is administrated.

It is essential that everyone acquire and read Griffin's MANDRAKE MECHANISM which is easily found many places on the net; that chapter out of his book explains the process of hypothcation of the promissory note and the creation of money.

I wasted a lot of time pondering the 11th marble phenomena (also called the 11th hour and the parable of the cards) without recognizing the seigniorage problem.

The 11th marble problem involves the loan of 10 marbles and asking the return of 11 marbles - it is the usury problem - serious enough itself, but the larger problem which I characterized as the tyrannosaurus rex in the room - "eating everyone alive" involves the bookkeeping problem.

The bank loans credit - BUT IT IS NOT THEIR PROPERTY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Explain to me why money is so bad, as opposed to how much time and effort a real barter system would actually take?

In essence it is just a universal form of the system...true it has been manipulated, but so will be, any form of trade..people are greedy bastards, just look at most threads here...they bastardize everything..

Credit as a Public Utility: the Key to Monetary Reform by Richard C. Cook

[link to www.globalresearch.ca]
[link to video.google.com]

Creditary Economics [link to wfhummel.net]
On this page: [link to wfhummel.net] Hummel discusses the seigniorage problem.

A smooth working monetary system of low extractive cost and high reliability is more efficient. That means people will select the money system over the complexity of multi-party barter.

That said, Greco has written a piece on how there is speculation among high echelon bankers that multi-party barter could potentially replace banks. (look on page 44 - I believe it is there)

I am in favor of open competition - the advice Hayek gave.

Foster Book is rated about 4.3 of a 5 star rating:
[link to www.goodreads.com]

I want to comment on one of the three printed reviews.

Review #1 (3 star): Money is a bad thing to hoard, according to this book, because it loses its value over time, sometimes suddenly. Foster likes the idea of hoarding precious metals, however, because gold and silver has been universally accepted as money for a long time. I would guess that most of us don't even have a lot of paper money, but have savings in the form of numbers on record at a bank or fund. A lot of us have seen the collapse of value in our 401(k) accounts, so the loss of value of paper money should strike a responsive chord. I enjoyed Foster's book, written as it was by a stamp and coin dealer.

The book was originally published in 1991, eight years before the launch of the Euro. Foster calls it a "work in progress." Considering that even paper money is being largely replaced by debits and credits in electronic transactions, the history of money itself is still evolving and is fascinating to watch. Thanks to Mr. Foster for his contribution to this history.

Review #3 (4 star): If you want the history of fiat paper collapses this has most of the major and important ones. Book is a slow read, but worth the time, effort, and thought process required to read it thoroughly. The quick review is: printing money on paper that is backed by nothing but good wishes is not an answer. Learn from the mistakes of the past and do not repeat them.

His section with the interviews of Germans that went through the collapse of the Mark in the 1920s is worth reading.

Review #2 (4 star): ...written by a coin dealer. does not trust paper money for good reason. [Foster's Coin, Stamp, and Publishing - see interview with Darryl Schoon linked below]

He doesn't celebrate colonial script, the money that was made by and for the people of the early American colonies.

Valuable history: as he is obsessed with paper currency, he will tell any interesting story of world history relating to paper money.

Best way to get unadulterated history: read books by those obsessed with some abstraction.

"He doesn't celebrate colonial script, the money that was made by and for the people of the early American colonies."

This is the Greenbacker solution that is so condemned by Gary North. The Greenbacker solution is essentially the solution advocated by Bill Still, Ellen Brown, Stephan Zarlenga, and many others. Just print the money, spend it into circulation to pay for public projects and tax some back out of circulation. This is the solution that the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey implemented roughly 100 years ago and still use today.

My personal observation is that the green-backer solution remains a centralized solution. The control freaks will congregate around the levers of the printing press. I would like to see the human race discover that money is a communication and that there are many methods of communicating value.

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

A much longer, well thought out and written review is here:
[link to www.marketoracle.co.uk]
(any summation would be a dis-service)
Review by By Darryl Robert Schoon [Phd of divinity?]
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
blog www.posdev.net

There is a 56 minute interview of author Ralph Foster here: [link to vimeo.com]

This is simply a mp3 file attached to a picture and plays faster than the usual video. (2009)

In this 8.5 minute video: [link to www.youtube.com] Darryl Robert Schoon interviews Ralph Foster in his office. (2010)
Good interview; recommended watch.

In a subsequent video produced this fall Darryl Schoon says "gold is the money of nations and the super rich, and silver is the money of commerce" (my paraphrase from memory)

Video here: [link to www.youtube.com] (50 minutes, 2012)

I found this presentation difficult to stomach while believable in content.

As long as we are buying to live on a land that does not belong to anyone, nothing will get better.

Money has always been a communication between people via various symbols and contracts that allow exchange of ownership of real things by proxy. The critical question regarding any monetary communication is "Is this instrument, coin, or other symbol made truthfully?" The trustworthy monetary communication will be accompanied by some secondary bonding agent or guarantee by a representative agency. There is not necessarily any single solution to the question of trustworthiness in monetary communications.

This "no single solution" aspect is at least partially why the problem is difficult to solve.

But why do you have to buy land to live on??

That is the Georgist point of view and one that Greco shares but doesn't openly promote.

It is also the socialist/marxist point of view.

Personally, I believe in private property ownership.

That private property ownership still has some respect in the US is about the only plank of the communist manifesto that isn't fully implemented.

However, make note that (IMO) Agenda 21 is an effort to impose at least control if not outright ownership of private property.

The entirety of the communist manifesto is at the core of many social problems. The perception that capitalism is the core problem is misinformation and misdirection.

One thing is UN's agenda.

Another thing is Truth.

God gave the land to be shared by all.

No one has the right to sell it to you.

If they do, they are psychopaths. And you are an idiot.

No wonder you need/want money.

The lies!

I believe you have been disenfranchised from any possibility of land ownership. Not an easy problem to overcome for many.

My quick and dirty advice without knowing the full picture of your situation is to stop believing Main Stream Media - read some history and philosophy.

Read Bastiat - easy to follow and gets to the heart of matters.

No.

To BUY LAND IS WRONG!

It does not belong to anyone.

THE LIES!

I have in my possession a newly published book that is subtitled "A Report From the Club of Rome - EU Chapter" that was written by Bernard Lietaer, Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner, and Stefan Brunnhuber.

It was sent to me airmail from London free of cost in return for my promise to read and review and provide a short synopsis.

I'll post a link when my review is publicly posted.

Are you being requested to review books prior to final edit or after publication?

This is the fourth time for me. Two prior to final edits and this is the second after publication.

Well, I think a lot of people in the world with lots and lots and lots of "qualifications" are idiots.

And if I was The Nobody? What then? ;)

My personal philosophy falls close to or is nearly fully congruent with the philosophy being advanced by Stefan Molyneux, Marc Stevens, and Larken Rose (and many others)

The voluntary society. Just do some searches for these three by name and watch some you tubes of their public presentations.

Watch Larken Rose "The Most Dangerous Belief"
His channel: [link to www.youtube.com]

The only socialist thing I do believe in is ownership in common of the money system you are participating within.

Banking as agency -- if you look back through this thread you will discover I have been promoting that particular memeplex on multiple posts.

Hayek: Choice in currency, a way to stop inflation: [link to www.iea.org.uk]

"In this short paper, first published in 1976, Nobel Laureate Friedrich August von Hayek suggests that inflation can be stopped by introducing competition in currency. The notion that it is a proper function of government to issue the national currency is false. Citizens should be free to use and refuse any currencies they wish: politicians and central banks would then have to limit their quantities." At the link there is a PDF file that is essentially a pamphlet on this topic.

It is my point of view that money need not be any single thing, but rather a method of communicating ownership and distribution of things. And that Griffin's MANDRAKE MECHANISM is perfectly valid when the so-called "borrower" is fully informed and the banker is in an agency relationship to the people.

Ron Paul has recommended competition in money systems:
[link to www.examiner.com]

Posted August 13, and he has said similar things at other times.