An invitation to dialog [Archive]

someguy

11-06-2011, 09:50 AM

To me, it seems one of the most important things we can do is to sit down together, share our truth and practice hearing and understanding each other. Below is some of what I've come to in pondering the Occupy movement. I post it here as an invitation to dialog. Please share your thoughts, perceptions, hopes, fears, vision.
_________________________________________

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something,
build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

They – the 1% (or 0.1%) - have a plan and are well organized around that plan. This, along with their positions of vast power, gives them greater effectiveness. Our power is in our numbers and our togetherness. To realize our true power, our challenge is to come up with a plan and come together around that plan.

Their plan is based on what they want: domination and control. We need a plan that's based on what we want (see below). We need to shift our focus from our grievances and what we don't want to formulating a clear statement of what we do want. Staying focused on what has happened and on our grievances tends to keep us stuck re-creating what we don't want.

If we want to get riled up, we can focus on what we don't want. If we want to make changes, we need to focus on what we want and use the positive energy for building something new..

I seriously question the wisdom of trying to reform or overthrow the existing political-military-economic systems. People have been trying to do that for a long time with little real success. Trying to reform the existing government or corporate structures is like trying to make a tractor into an airplane: it's not likely to succeed, will take enormous effort and we probably won't like the result.

So we need to start from a clear vision of what we want: governing and economic systems that are humane and healthy, and that will foster the qualities we want in our world. Once we have that vision, we can design new structures based on those functions and values and develop plans to begin building them. Here is what I believe most of us want:

A just society based on mutual caring and support; on sharing of resources, responsibility and power.

Collective planning and decision-making; working cooperatively to fulfill our plans and choices.

Ensure that everyone has access to the resources that are required to meet real human needs.

Peace: the absence of war and other forms of violence

Technologies that are ecologically sustainable, benign or restorative.

Compassionate treatment for all creatures.

There comes a time when the only thing that makes sense is to go for what we really want.
If not now, when? If not us, who?

Clint Summer
Beautiful post Clint. I'm very impressed. And I echo your concepts of what we all really want for ourselves and our society. I also resonate with your analysis of the .1% having a plan and that reforming or overthrowing that plan is an exercise in futility. I think what is very important for us all to realize is that the .1% is above the law, and we the 99.9% seeing that grave injustice fall into the practice of demanding more laws to compensate for the current inadequacies. The problem however doesn't get fixed. No matter what law we pass, the .1% are still above that law, and the force of that law is passed down to the 99.9%. Essentially we keep tightening the rope around our necks with our good intentions, and subsequent regulations. I believe that the way to dismantle the .1%'s plan is to strip them of their power... Now we must realize that they print our money, run our government, own our media, tell us what is healthy, control the education system, etc.... So we must take back these systems. Not through reform, but through dismantling the current ones and creating new systems that make the .1%'s systems obsolete. We can do this by ending the Federal Reserve, or at least voting for Ron Paul who would take drastic measures to do so. We can stop funding the government by ending the income tax, and other taxes. Why should we give our money to these people for them to continue their systemic control grid? We have all sorts of means to produce alternative media and we must forge ahead with these means and disregard the conventional media sources. You can see where I'm going with this. We need to take control of our lives more, and stop allowing big corporations and government to decide what is best for us. Remember we always have freewill. No control grid or person can take that away, it is God given.

Thad

11-06-2011, 10:15 AM

_________________________________________

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something,
build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

Clint Summer

We have such imagination in the area the above quote would be hugely interesting to work with. I think the person honored below has much to do with the above.

https://www.northbayvoice.org/20111101441/press-releases/white-house-to-honor-dougherty-as-champion-of-change.html

What could we do with a 24/7 Makers Faire that intended to be part of the "occupy the future" movement.

The Great Handcar Regatta is no longer and the interest and talents brought about by that could very well be used to be an ongoing parade of dreams on wheels just looking to park and set up their vision of how they would wish to occupy the future and stimulate the economy at the same time.

Hotspring 44

11-07-2011, 08:05 PM

... So we must take back these systems. Not through reform, but through dismantling the current ones and creating new systems that make the .1%'s systems obsolete.
I agree with that.

... We can do this by ending the Federal Reserve, or at least voting for Ron Paul who would take drastic measures to do so.
Okay, but what do we put in place that takes the place of that Federal Reserve money system?
What about other candidates for other offices?
What about the process of appointing Supreme Court justices? How could we change things so that appointing Supreme Court justices wouldn't be so politicized compared to the way it is now?... ...Should there be any amendment to the Constitution regarding that?... .. If so how should it be?

What about differing ideas of what the Constitution and the amendments are supposed to mean and the fact that slave owning elitists were the primary authors of the original draft of it and how it relates to us and what we desire now?

... We can stop funding the government by ending the income tax, and other taxes.
“The government” is supposed to be “we the people” (not we the corporations), why would we want to stop funding ourselves?
I don't think that what the “government” is supposed to be is up to date.
Okay, supposing that we eliminate income taxes; how does the government collect revenue? Or is it going to be a revenue-less government? If it's going to be a revenue-less government, what is the function supposed to be?
Will there be any taxes? If so, what would get taxed and how would it be taxed?... . ...After answering those questions how would it be possible to keep track of all of the transactions; If transactions are going to be what's going to end up being taxed?

If everybody bartered would it be possible to pay any taxes? There wouldn't be any cash! It would be just like if I were to trade you something of equal value, and I have no money and you have no money; there wouldn't be any money to pay tax from a transaction like that.

So I think the point is very specific about we need to state what we want not just what we don't want.
Okay, so you, someguy, (and others) say you don't want income tax but what do we do in place of that for revenue? The government cannot run without revenue.
Anyway, in theory; after getting rid of the Federal Reserve system, the government is going to be coining the revenue in the first place, so it has to be based on something. What is that something? Remember, we have to state what we want with reasonably good suggestions on how to do that not just say what we don't want.

Some people see the government as the bogeyman, sometimes it's because of income tax sometimes it's because of regulations etc.; but we the people are supposed to be the government; does that mean we are our own bogeyman, and we should do away with ourselves, we the people, so to speak?... ... I don't think so.

I've also heard some people say that we cannot reform the government because it is too corrupt. I have not heard any of them say what they want to do to actually accomplish having a different government, particularly in a nonviolent and peaceful way. Major revolutions like that are never peaceful and nonviolent. So I think reform is the only way to peacefully, nonviolently, (or at least maximum peacefully and nonviolently as possible) make such radical changes.

...Why should we give our money to these people for them to continue their systemic control grid?
That’s the inside the box, dogma trap we seem to be in; thinking that it's “our money” when in fact it is Federal Reserve notes and Federal Reserve notes are specifically not individually 'ours' in The first place; the Federal Reserve notes have always been property of the Federal Reserve and intended only for us to do trade with... ...example if I have a piece of firewood I can trade it to you for something else, or I can burn it, on the other hand, it is some sort of a federal offense for just you or me to arbitrarily, actually, literally, burn, Federal Reserve notes... ...why? Because it's not really "our money"!

Okay, so the government needs to start printing or coining Money and get rid of the Federal Reserve System; I agree with that but we need to figure out how to go into that proposed system from where we are now...
... Do we start from scratch where everybody starts out having the same amount of money? Or do we still give the ultra rich 1% fat cats the majority of the money that they already have only in new government stamped money?
Even if we've figured it out domestically, what would happen internationally? Does anybody have any good concrete ideas on that one? BTW, at the end of this full 3 hour + movie there is a possible answer (with some explanations) to that question; How International Bankers Gained Control of America - Money Masters - Full Docu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2zr4y-Ip2I)

 on YouTube (long version) about 3 hours 3 minutes to about 3 hours 27 minutes 27 seconds (shorter version without as many explanations) 3 hours 10 minutes to about 3 hours 19 minutes 6 seconds.

Note: This movie was made before the 1996 election so some of the timelines regarding the proposed solutions may be different now but the underline theme still holds, it seems to me.

We have all sorts of means to produce alternative media and we must forge ahead with these means and disregard the conventional media sources. You can see where I'm going with this. We need to take control of our lives more, and stop allowing big corporations and government to decide what is best for us. Remember we always have freewill. No control grid or person can take that away, it is God given.
I don't know if it was so much God-given any more than it would be anywhere else in the world where there are far fewer freedoms for those people Compared to us here in the USA as it was hard fought for with an ocean of insulation between North America and Europe , where the “fight for independence” occurred at that particular time in history.

I think discarding the conventional means of media is a very good idea, but I think that one thing I have not heard anything about in any of the occupy movements anywhere is the fact that well-planned strategic boycotts are going to be necessary to fulfill that quest of dethroning the 1%.
On that note, I wonder what the occupy list of products to boycott is going to be; or, if and or when it's going to start?

Everybody in theory, has free will but the practices of particular militaries and police in certain areas in the world and the US for that matter come down pretty hard on people that actually practice their free will to disagree with their government or whatever regime it may be that is doing something they, the people don't like.And sometimes the authorities end up actually persecuting people that express there free will to gain enough public attention for a movement to actually make the changes that the people really want and need.

Anyway, I do like the idea of dialogue here.:thumbsup:

zenekar

11-07-2011, 10:08 PM

I agree with that.

Okay, but what do we put in place that takes the place of that Federal Reserve money system?
What about other candidates for other offices?
What about the process of appointing Supreme Court justices? How could we change things so that appointing Supreme Court justices wouldn't be so politicized compared to the way it is now?... ...Should there be any amendment to the Constitution regarding that?... .. If so how should it be?

What about differing ideas of what the Constitution and the amendments are supposed to mean and the fact that slave owning elitists were the primary authors of the original draft of it and how it relates to us and what we desire now?

“The government” is supposed to be “we the people” (not we the corporations), why would we want to stop funding ourselves?
I don't think that what the “government” is supposed to be is up to date.
Okay, supposing that we eliminate income taxes; how does the government collect revenue? Or is it going to be a revenue-less government? If it's going to be a revenue-less government, what is the function supposed to be?
Will there be any taxes? If so, what would get taxed and how would it be taxed?... . ...After answering those questions how would it be possible to keep track of all of the transactions; If transactions are going to be what's going to end up being taxed?

If everybody bartered would it be possible to pay any taxes? There wouldn't be any cash! It would be just like if I were to trade you something of equal value, and I have no money and you have no money; there wouldn't be any money to pay tax from a transaction like that.

So I think the point is very specific about we need to state what we want not just what we don't want.
Okay, so you, someguy, (and others) say you don't want income tax but what do we do in place of that for revenue? The government cannot run without revenue.
Anyway, in theory; after getting rid of the Federal Reserve system, the government is going to be coining the revenue in the first place, so it has to be based on something. What is that something? Remember, we have to state what we want with reasonably good suggestions on how to do that not just say what we don't want.

Some people see the government as the bogeyman, sometimes it's because of income tax sometimes it's because of regulations etc.; but we the people are supposed to be the government; does that mean we are our own bogeyman, and we should do away with ourselves, we the people, so to speak?... ... I don't think so.

I've also heard some people say that we cannot reform the government because it is too corrupt. I have not heard any of them say what they want to do to actually accomplish having a different government, particularly in a nonviolent and peaceful way. Major revolutions like that are never peaceful and nonviolent. So I think reform is the only way to peacefully, nonviolently, (or at least maximum peacefully and nonviolently as possible) make such radical changes.

That’s the inside the box, dogma trap we seem to be in; thinking that it's “our money” when in fact it is Federal Reserve notes and Federal Reserve notes are specifically not individually 'ours' in The first place; the Federal Reserve notes have always been property of the Federal Reserve and intended only for us to do trade with... ...example if I have a piece of firewood I can trade it to you for something else, or I can burn it, on the other hand, it is some sort of a federal offense for just you or me to arbitrarily, actually, literally, burn, Federal Reserve notes... ...why? Because it's not really "our money"!

Okay, so the government needs to start printing or coining Money and get rid of the Federal Reserve System; I agree with that but we need to figure out how to go into that proposed system from where we are now...
... Do we start from scratch where everybody starts out having the same amount of money? Or do we still give the ultra rich 1% fat cats the majority of the money that they already have only in new government stamped money?
Even if we've figured it out domestically, what would happen internationally? Does anybody have any good concrete ideas on that one? BTW, at the end of this full 3 hour + movie there is a possible answer (with some explanations) to that question; How International Bankers Gained Control of America - Money Masters - Full Docu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2zr4y-Ip2I)

 on YouTube (long version) about 3 hours 3 minutes to about 3 hours 27 minutes 27 seconds (shorter version without as many explanations) 3 hours 10 minutes to about 3 hours 19 minutes 6 seconds.

Note: This movie was made before the 1996 election so some of the timelines regarding the proposed solutions may be different now but the underline theme still holds, it seems to me.

I don't know if it was so much God-given any more than it would be anywhere else in the world where there are far fewer freedoms for those people Compared to us here in the USA as it was hard fought for with an ocean of insulation between North America and Europe , where the “fight for independence” occurred at that particular time in history.

I think discarding the conventional means of media is a very good idea, but I think that one thing I have not heard anything about in any of the occupy movements anywhere is the fact that well-planned strategic boycotts are going to be necessary to fulfill that quest of dethroning the 1%.
On that note, I wonder what the occupy list of products to boycott is going to be; or, if and or when it's going to start?

Everybody in theory, has free will but the practices of particular militaries and police in certain areas in the world and the US for that matter come down pretty hard on people that actually practice their free will to disagree with their government or whatever regime it may be that is doing something they, the people don't like.And sometimes the authorities end up actually persecuting people that express there free will to gain enough public attention for a movement to actually make the changes that the people really want and need.

Anyway, I do like the idea of dialogue here.:thumbsup:

There is face to face dialog at the Occupy General Assemblies (GA) everyday -- 3:30 pm in Santa Rosa -- like a town-hall meeting but in a circle, where people express their concerns and listen to others'. It is a way to learn to work together to organize. People in this society have been conditioned to look to a leader. In the Occupy movement there is a facilitator or facilitation team but no leader. Decisions are made by consensus. Everyone has an equal voice.

We live in a disfunctional society and you can expect to experience the disfunction carried over to the Occupy GA, but people are consciously working as a group to find solutions -- being the change we want to see happen.

So, come to Santa Rosa or go to Oakland or San Francisco, or visit your local Occupy camp. Nobody is treated as an outsider. Listen, learn and participate in the evolving democratic experiment. Don't expect easy answers or miracles. It's primarily about the process -- the journey, coping with reality along the way -- no woo woo.

Dialog, like here on Wacco, is ongoing at the Occupy camps -- one on one, small groups and at the Assemblies. Try it.

zenekar

11-07-2011, 10:28 PM

Not sure if this is where it should be posted, but I received this email from Philip Harlan after I posted my reply here.
It is a logical followup to my previous invitation to come to participate with the Occupy camp in Santa Rosa.

There will be a Santa Rosa City Council meeting tomorrow, Tuesday November 8, at 4:00 pm (100 Santa Rosa Avenue).

I was at the negotiations today, between Occupy Santa Rosa and the City and I also stayed for the General Assembly of Occupy Santa Rosa. It was decided tonight that Occupy SR would accept the permit process. The details are to be worked out tomorrow, with a GA at 1:00 PM. I will be there.

The City Council is expected to reach a final decision on the agreement at the 4:00 Pm meeting. This is no secret to the Tea Baggers and they are expected to turn out in force. WE NEED AS MANY SUPPORTERS AS POSSIBLE TOMORROW.

If you cannot attend, could you please phone or fax city hall or write the Mayor, Vice Mayor and Councilmembers? As last week some text and email addresses are below.

If we are to change the direction our country is going, now is the time and the Occupy Movement is the force, please stand up for the 99%. THAT’S US!

I am asking you to please write the councilmembers and to show up at the city council meeting if at all possible. I have written sample text and contact information for the Council below.

Thank you,
Philip Harlan
Phone: 707-235-5606

Dear (Mayor, Vice Mayor or Councilmember),

I am writing in support of the Occupy Santa Rosa Movement.

As the Occupy Movement spreads and gains support all over the nation, I gain hope that it will result in legislation that will benefit the citizens of the United States of America. But the movement can only sustain itself with the support of the public and those who have been charged with leading us.

Santa Rosa, proudly, has the distinction of having the largest Occupy Movement in the nation in proportion to the population of the city. I urge you to support this movement by allowing the tents to stay up.

Occupy Santa Rosa needs the support of all of us.

Respectfully,
Your Name and contact information.

The Santa Rosa City Council's mailing address is:
100 Santa Rosa Avenue, Room 10
Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Phone: 707-543-3010 Fax: 707-543-3030

You may email the Council at the addresses below.

Mayor Ernesto Olivares
[email protected]

Vice Mayor Jake Ours
[email protected]

Councilmember Scott Bartley
[email protected]

Councilmember Susan Gorin
[email protected]

Councilmember John Sawyer
[email protected]

Councilmember Marsha Vas Dupre
[email protected]

Councilmember Gary Wysocky
[email protected]

Hotspring 44

11-10-2011, 06:44 PM

I Received an email from Barry that that was titled "Lost post on WaccoBB". It said:
 <table class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse:collapse;border:none;mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt; mso-yfti-tbllook:480;mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext;mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid windowtext" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-irow:0;mso-yfti-firstrow:yes;mso-yfti-lastrow:yes"> <td style="border:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt; padding:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt" valign="top"> I'm very sorry but we have had to restore the WaccoBB database to Tuesday morning after encountering too many problems with a system upgrade.

This post is no longer on the the system.

It would be a big help in returning the database to the most current form if you would return to WaccoBB.net

and repost this under your account. Note that the buttons below won't work. You should be able to copy the text below and paste it into your new post. You are welcome to make whatever changes that may be appropriate.

</td> </tr> </tbody></table> ...So I am re-posting it here less the emoticons as was requested.
I also noticed that the post from someguy that I was replying to was also "lost" (?)


someguy wrote: <img class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv1986928731c32bef60-a98f-4f8b-8d06-e40b8ea6b4b4" height="10" width="12">
Well what should take place of the private federal reserve bank should be whats written in our Constitution, which is a gold standard to ensure that our spending is kept in check, and reverting back to allowing our congress to print money.I'm guessing maybe you did not watch this 3+ hour movie: How International Bankers Gained Control of America - Money Masters - Full Docu (https://www.youtube.com/?v=T2zr4y-Ip2I)
? They did a very excellent job on explaining why the gold standard will not work and would put us right back where we are right now.

Anyway, I think you should do some homework on that one; Google “what happened to the gold in Fort Knox?” to get a better understanding of what I am talking about.

After you've done that homework, if you could then explain to me why the gold standard would work considering the way that things are now; I am quite interested in a reasonable explanation of how the richest 1% wouldn't already have the same advantage as they do now and the rest of us 99% would make any gains in making equitable the imbalance in the economic system the way it is now if the “gold standard” system were to be mandated into law now.

The unfortunate fact is that the international bankers (“Money Masters”) already have the vast majority of the processed gold and claims on the known mineral deposits, etc. so the gold standard is as old-fashioned and out of date for us 99% as the model T is on the interstate where the speed limits are 70 and 75 mph and is also as out of date as Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first aircraft compared to an F 16 fighter jet.
I think your thinking on that particular issue is either based on a lack of information about the gold situation or some form of rigid mindset regarding what you believe the Constitution is supposed to mean to be so absolutely literal about being only gold standard.
That was adequate for the times, I suppose, but it wouldn't work for the 99% the way things are now; it would just backfire on us rather hard and rapidly.

We need a different paradigm than the gold standard at this point.
Anyway, that movie I put the link to is rather long and it took me several times of listening to it and watching it, and I will certainly need to listen to it and watch it 10 more times to really fully get a grasp of all of what was said; but, I think it's extremely important to realize all of what was said about how the system which they were describing works and how to get out from under it to save the country/world before it's too late.

someguy wrote: <img class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv1986928731272d6754-0fdb-4eed-bb10-1a1dba604f68" height="10" width="12">
As far as appointing Supreme Court justices, I really don't know how to go about reforming that situation. Maybe you might have some ideas Hotspring44?I most certainly do not have any absolute answers, but one suggestion would be that there should be a pool of judges, which have made decisions on controversial issues, and another pool of judges either current or retired maybe even both, and also the current, elected politicians and then maybe even an odd number of citizens who are elected by the locals (citizens) to decide out of the pool of selected judges and prospective Supreme Court justice nominees, which few of those should be considered for each individual seat. (?)<img alt="" title="Hmmm" class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv1986928731e58c4647-c932-4688-9431-630ed1d1602f" border="0" height="20" width="20">

The reason I mentioned controversial issues that they (the perspectives) presided over is because of how they made their decisions and what their decision/s were based on and how the other justices helping the process would consider their decisions.

Then there would be the politicians that are the current elected representatives, and then there would be citizens, who are specifically elected by other citizens in their local areas to represent the citizens just for that one single pool that would be able to ask questions directly to each prospective....

..At that point, I'm not sure exactly how but that pool of justices left over to decide on would be narrowed down to somewhere between three and five perspectives.
Also, there is the possibility that somebody does not necessarily have to have been a judge, but also a prospective could actually be a extremely well-balanced and astute law professor or lawyer or both and that person would quite likely be a good, Supreme Court Justice that could also be in that pool of final persons being considered for Supreme Court Justice for that particular position.

I have not processed those thoughts very thoroughly, but that's just what's on the top of my head at the moment. {For the sake of dialogue, you know.}.

someguy wrote: <img class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv19869287313923fa2a-a637-4ffb-94ad-be348950d439" height="10" width="12">
That is why we have a democratic republic to hash out these ideas among the people. Albeit difficult with a corrupt corporate media structure that is monopolized by what, like three mega corporations now? Regardless of who wrote the Constitution, it still stands as the best document ever devised by a country. It gave the most freedom and equality to this country, maybe not at its conception, but throughout American history it has enabled our country to grow and realize these guarantees promised in that document.
I realize that nothing is perfect, but there are some mighty strong forces out there that have been gaming the system and they, by doing so have been royally kicking our collective ass!
We have to make some extremely difficult to do changes to make them stop!
They won't stop it until they can't do it to us anymore!
Remember that the democratic republic was based on servitude to get the job done; some of which was not voluntary. That's why there was a draft into the armed services.

someguy wrote: <img class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv19869287317ad5ee40-1752-4ef9-bb6e-70148f0518ec" height="10" width="12">
Also the Constitution can be amended and has been several times. That is another beautiful aspect of the document and the people who wrote it.That’s where the political gaming has come into play. If a certain number of paid for by the 1% people in the House of Representatives in Congress are in office, there will be no amendments that would amount to any advantage to 99%; that’s where I think we are at now.
Also on that note, the Electoral College system may have to be reconsidered for amending because that has been gamed into the ground and favors the few at the cost of the many<img alt="" title="2 cents" class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width:728px;" id="yiv1986928731c143f561-8ed3-4ff1-9e23-9888dd1cf4a2" border="0" height="15" width="23"> (IMHO).

There is more to this reply but I am still editing it and I am too tired to continue on it tonight.

Hotspring 44

11-10-2011, 07:28 PM

someguy; You stated the problem well. It [I]is not we the people, it is we the corporations. That is why we should stop funding the corporations and retain our own wealth.
I also did state: "it's not our money" and I might add at this point in time; nor is it our gold now ether.

Could you be more specific? What do you mean when you say, “our own wealth”?.. ...Because that term could become quite subjective; so I need to have a reasonable understanding of what you mean, when you say that for me to be able to make a reasonable reply to it.

someguy; The government should collect revenue, from tariffs, sales taxes, and usages fees. But the Federal Government really shouldn't be very big. I would argue that local governments should be collecting the majority of taxes from the people directly in those communities.
Okay, so you say tariffs. I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say “tariffs” Do you mean taxes on imports from foreign countries?... ... Or other states?... ... Could/would that include; production of goods or commodities, consumption, or purchases of fuel, minerals, or any other energy and for mining related commodities (only) for (one) example, or?

Sales taxes; are you referring to the original sales were the way it is in some States like California where when a retail business buys something wholesale, they have to pay the state sales tax directly upon original purchase. Then when they sell that product to you, then you pay that State sales tax as it shows on your receipt?... ...Or something to that effect?

Anyway, what about if somebody buys something from the retail store (and of course pays the tax that the merchant charges) and then sells it to somebody else; would it matter? Would they have to pay sales tax under your proposal?... ... Would that sales tax be state, county, community, or?... ... or could it possibly be some combination of the above?... ...I see the potential for tax based, localized discrimination on that.

”Usages fees”, usages fees could quite easily become abusiveages fees!
A local area could just discriminate against certain class of people and force upon them by so-called "reasonable" usages fees a “sin tax” so to speak, but not because it's actually reasonable, no, instead, it really would be because they can get away with it and make painful tax burden onto the people who may have lifestyles they (the local supervisors, or majority vote) decide (unconstitutionally (?)) they don’t approve of.

Usages fees is one of the most horrible ways to tax, unless it's federally (or at least state) based on a product which needs processing after use, such as un-recyclables that cost the public after use to deal with like petroleum, Natural Gas, and other things that have consequences to all of us even those of us that don't directly use them but still have a share in the burden of the costs and loss of use of the public lands due to mining drilling, and pollution, etc. , also, on some recyclables for example; bottles, cans, plastic etc. , the California CRV on particular beverage containers is one example.... ...

Then, what about when it comes to funding for roads and other infrastructure? Would there be any tolls for using a Highway instead of gas tax or any other already existing taxes? If so who will collect the money for the roads, highways and bridges etc.? What about train or, mass transit?...
...Usage fees certainly aren't enough to put together and maintain infrastructure like that.

There are just so many things to consider when it comes to revenue.
I think that's why people like to have the comfort of foisting those decisions off onto others of whom they call leaders (politicians).
And those I mentioned so far are just the domestic things.

What about international things and actual defense?... ... Military?... ...International trade and other treaties that may have been forged by the 1%'s stooges that we may be on the hook for, which may be to our collective economic disadvantage?

someguy; We need to decide what we want the government to do for us. Do we want our government to occupy countries and bomb children?
I would hope not! I sure don't!

someguy; Do we want a government to give tax breaks and subsidies for the mega rich? Do we want the government spying on us? Do we want a government telling us how to build our homes, what we can do with our land, or a government that forces us to buy goods and/or services from their big business buddies? If your like me, I would say no to all of the above. And that means the government needs far less revenue than it is receiving currently.I'm not so sure if I can say that I entirely agree with you on the:... ..."what we can do with our land" part of what you are saying, because, in my line of thinking, that depends upon whether or not doing that (whatever it is) on your land (with “your own” property etc.) endangers the community at large in a real substantial way.

I don't want a nuclear power plant built in bodega Bay, or Point Arena which happens to be on the San Andreas Fault zone area. Each of those almost got built, by the way. PG & E. did own the property there at bodega Bay at one point in time and they were going to build a nuclear power plant there.
So, shouldn't PG& E or anybody else for that matter be regulated at some level? With very powerful entities like PG&E, Oil and Gas conglomerates, etc.; The locals don’t have a chance without Federal Regulations that protect the people from being overrun and abused and even sometimes, poisoned by the bigger, for the profit benefit of the very few who don’t even have to once set foot on the places that they pollute, destroy, and make a living hell for the ones that have nowhere else to go to live?

I think we have to be extremely careful when we talk about deregulating and disempowering federal government regulatory systems without reasonable immediate replacement where it counts, because doing that could turn the huge corporate dogs on us and they could end up biting us real hard on the butt!... ... More than once!... ...and more than one corporate dog!

There are good reasons for regulations (yes federal government environmental regulations for one) that the government enforces.
You wouldn't want your next-door neighbor to just dump his poop out of a bucket onto the ground under your kitchen window, would you?... ...(I know, that’s local but scale that up and the neighbor could be a sewage importer!).
Or what about somebody that wants to burn tires in their wood stove and you happen to be downwind choking on the black smoke; You wouldn't want them doing that would you?... ...( I know, that’s local too but scale that up and the neighbor could be a toxic waste management disposal site operator).

What about regulations about banking? The repeal of the Glass-Steagall act without any reasonably good alternatives to change it was just like pulling the rug out from under us, it is one of the things that many of us 99% believe that helped feed the current economic crisis we are experiencing now.

Wouldn't abolishing the fed have to be some sort of “regulation”?

I think people have to be more aware of the situation and be well informed so that regulations that do come in the future are good necessary ones and not onerous, absurd, bad, or unbalanced ones that favor somebody that has enough money to bribe and twist a few arms, politically, and get away with something nobody else could get away with without the power of big money.

Then there is a multitude of humanitarian things to consider regarding federal regulations, such as: the ingredients in baby food to how to treat prisoners You know the people that get put in prison for possession of marijuana and other essentially victimless crimes, for example?
Not to mention the ones that get put in prison for crimes committed that are not victimless.

Food and adequate shelter for the less fortunate, unemployed, homeless, disabled,... ...single teenage mothers that have been abused and have no family back-up, etc etc etc.

There are always going to be humanitarian considerations, and most baby food is not poisonous, but shouldn't a poor mother's baby that gets poisoned by bad baby food still get timely, competent medical treatment?

Also, prison sentences aren't life sentences, eventually the vast majorities of those prisoners are going to come out and most of them will need to become normal, working citizens. That is pretty much impossible if they are not treated humanely inside of the prison walls, particularly when the unemployment level is so high.

We have to figure out how to rein in the power of big corporate money; particularly international and “shadow government (https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread60574/pg1)” (also see: https://www.shadowstats.com/).
We also have to figure out a way to rein in and abolish the “prison industrial complex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex)”.

Then there is farm labor; shouldn't there be some kind of humanitarian regulations regarding farm laborers and their access to drinking water, shaded rest spots and allocated times for that when working in the open under the hot sun, and bathrooms so they don’t have to hold it or go in the field?
What about medical care for those who become ill in the field or anyone that becomes disabled from work-related injury or illness?

someguy; Well like I said and you implied, the government is not we the people, on the contrary it is a system for the oligarchs, aristocrats, corporate cronies, and war criminals. Those people are truly bogeymen, and we have to strip them of their power and influence over our daily lives. Just think how much power we strip from these people when we stop them from printing money and giving it to their friends. Just think about how much power we reclaim by keeping what we earn to better ourselves and our community.
It sounds to me like you are leaning back towards the gold standard discussion again.

Remember, “They” have the vast majority of the gold already in their vaults, they also have the deeds and long-term government leases to most of the gold mines and other valuable mineral deposits.

They already have the advantage in their contracts regarding the gold and other precious metals that could be used in such a way as gold has been used to base the money system on.
We have to figure out another way besides something that would preemptively disenfranchise us, and we also don't want to end up in a position where we would just have to wrench the power back and away from the 1% repeatedly throughout eternity.

To go by, the old gold standard now would be fools gold for us!

I don't really have any specific answer for that, other than the gold standard is not the answer that is for sure. I'm absolutely certain of that.

The only way the gold standard would work is if the government seized the gold since the gold isn't really that important, it would not be worth having a huge bloody world war over it.
There must be a better way to use something other than metal that would not preemptively disenfranchise us for the purpose of having a stable, equitable, and fair monetary standard.

I think human creativity and sharing is a good standard on which to use as a baseline to derive a new monetary standard to formulate something better than what we have now.
Figuring out exactly what that is, is beyond what I am capable of formulating in my head at the moment.
I think most people would have a difficult time formulating something like that properly or reasonably without most of everybody's input as to what would be valued and could actually be utilized in a fair and balanced manner.

I think using something like gold and silver coins etc. and all that sort of thing was good practice for humans to learn from but it most certainly is not the final answer by any means, it's just a step along the way of our evolution that we have made.

someguy; While it is true that when people express their freewill they can be repressed by the same forces that I'm arguing should have their power striped. But on a deeper level even if our freewill results in repression, we still have it. Everyone has it, not just Americans. And that is what is most threatening to the status quo...
For the most part, I don't think an individual's free will means one hair on a gnat's ass to the status quo per se, but two or 3 billion people's combined, organized, and relentless resolve most definitely is.
That's what we need, two or 3 billion of us to start with, and then it has a fair chance of growing into something that has a reasonably good chance of succeeding. That's what I truly believe our challenge to the 1% is supposed to accomplish.

Anyway there is probably a multitude of things that the 99% want change, but I think that to keep it together it would, at first, have to be narrowed down to maybe three things.

(1) One thing (here in the US) is to get rid of corporate personhood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood). Corporations are not people!

(2) Another thing would be to get rid of the money creation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve#Money_creation), with the fractional reserve banking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve) system and replace it with something like the greenback (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenback_%28money%29).... ...(also for a detailed history of that: https://www.xat.org/xat/usury.html).

(3) Another thing would be to During a time of war in other words, such as; Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. there should be written into the Constitution that a progressive income and/or profit tax rate on corporations and possibly individuals that Increases to at least 75% In ascending steps and also taxes charged on all transfers on Wall Street to pay for and to discourage wartime profiteering, particularly by foreign, corporate entities. In other words, make it unprofitable to have war!

CSummer

11-10-2011, 08:20 PM

For some time now I have thought that we suffer from major illusions about what we have the power to do.
For example, if we think we could - "dismantle the .1%'s plan . . . [and] . . . strip them of their power," I don't
see how we have the power to do that.

On the other hand, more and more of us recognize that we live in a very un-democratic society and some
may believe that this is our only option. This may also be an illusion, though. It may be that we do have the
power to create true democracies, at least on a small scale. This, it seems to me, is what the Occupy
movement is attempting to demonstrate, and is what many egalitarian intentional communities have
tried to do.

Responsibility and power are inextricably connected. We live in a culture in which the accepted way of life
has involved giving responsibility to others - to authority figures and economic entities (e.g., corporations)
over which we have little or no control in order to meet our needs. In doing so, we give vast power to others -
and often have no idea who those others are. This is very dangerous, of course, and leads to all kinds of
power abuses due to the lack of accountability. The economic and governing systems are based on this
way of life and facilitate the surrendering (hence concentration) of power and responsibility. This, I believe,
is the core of our dysfunctional, violent and destructive socio-economic systems, at least on the level of
human society. (There is another, even more basic core on the personal/psychological level that I won't go
into here. It is, though, our greatest obstacle to creating a society based on mutual caring and sharing of
resources and power.)

My "two bits" on money: The only real value is human energy (work-hours) and what it produces, so it seems
to make sense to have that as the basis for a medium of exchange. Gold is a finite, scarce resource, but the
supply of money needs to expand as more people produce more goods through their efforts. Basing money
on a scarce resource results in a scarcity of the medium on which economic activity depends (e.g., money),
hence creating an artificial scarcity. If we want an abundance-fostering economy, we need a medium that expands
with everyone's real or potential productive work.

CSummer

Iolchan

11-11-2011, 01:28 AM

<img class="yiv1986928731inlineimg" style="max-width: 728px;" id="yiv1986928731c32bef60-a98f-4f8b-8d06-e40b8ea6b4b4" height="10" width="12">

This is Really a wonderful Thread ! At last, we are getting somewhere !

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png someguy wrote: https://waccobb.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=143246#post143246)

Well what should take place of the private federal reserve bank should be whats written in our Constitution, which is a gold standard to ensure that our spending is kept in check, and reverting back to allowing our congress to print money.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Hotspring 44 wrote: https://waccobb.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=143246#post143246)

I'm guessing maybe you did not watch this 3+ hour movie: How International Bankers Gained Control of America - Money Masters - Full Document (https://www.youtube.com/?v=T2zr4y-Ip2I) ? They did a very excellent job on explaining why the gold standard will not work and would put us right back where we are right now.

Anyway, I think you should do some homework on that one; Google : “what happened to the gold in Fort Knox?”to get a better understanding of what I am talking about.

After you've done that homework, if you could then explain to me why the gold standard would work considering the way that things are now; I am quite interested in a reasonable explanation of how the richest 1% wouldn't already have the same advantage as they do now and the rest of us 99% would make any gains in making equitable the imbalance in the economic system the way it is now if the “gold standard” system were to be mandated into law now.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.pngHotspring 44 wrote: https://waccobb.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=143246#post143246)

Remember, “They” have the vast majority of the gold already in their vaults, they also have the deeds and long-term government leases to most of the gold mines and other valuable mineral deposits.

They already have the advantage in their contracts regarding the gold and other precious metals that could be used in such a way as gold has been used to base the money system on.

We have to figure out another way besides something that would preemptively disenfranchise us, and we also don't want to end up in a position where we would just have to wrench the power back and away from the 1% repeatedly throughout eternity.

To go by, the old gold standard now would be fools gold for us!

I don't really have any specific answer for that, other than the gold standard is not the answer that is for sure. I'm absolutely certain of that.

The only way the gold standard would work is if the government seized the gold since the gold isn't really that important, it would not be worth having a huge bloody world war over it.

There must be a better way to use something other than metal that would not preemptively disenfranchise us for the purpose of having a stable, equitable, and fair monetary standard.

I think human creativity and sharing is a good standard on which to use as a baseline to derive a new monetary standard to formulate something better than what we have now.

Figuring out exactly what that is, is beyond what I am capable of formulating in my head at the moment.

I think most people would have a difficult time formulating something like that properly or reasonably without most of everybody's input as to what would be valued and could actually be utilized in a fair and balanced manner.

I think using something like gold and silver coins etc. and all that sort of thing was good practice for humans to learn from but it most certainly is not the final answer by any means, it's just a step along the way of our evolution that we have made.

(1) One thing (here in the US) is to get rid of corporate personhood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood). Corporations are not people!

(2) Another thing would be to get rid of the money creation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve#Money_creation), with the fractional reserve banking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve) system and replace it with something like the greenback (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenback_%28money%29).... ...(also for a detailed history of that: https://www.xat.org/xat/usury.html).

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://waccobb.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=143246#post143246)

My "two bits" on money: The only real value is human energy (work-hours) and what it produces, so it seems to make sense to have that as the basis for a medium of exchange. Gold is a finite, scarce resource, but the supply of money needs to expand as more people produce more goods through their efforts. Basing money on a scarce resource results in a scarcity of the medium on which economic activity depends (e.g., money), hence creating an artificial scarcity. If we want an abundance-fostering economy, we need a medium that expands with everyone's real or potential productive work.

The reason why "going back to the Gold Standard" won't work is because roughly 90% of the Gold that has ever been mined, milled, and melted into ingots, has been deposited in Zurich, Switzerland, in the vaults of Credit Suisse – [which vaults, curiously, are not located in the bank itself, in downtown Zurich, but under the tarmac of the international airport at Zurich.] I learned that from Francis Shopp, who used to be the bagman for Cardinal Spellman.
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The Swiss bankers are not likely to cough up any portion of that stash of gold just to oblige conservative American "gold-bugs" who want the Gold Standard back. That's just the way it is... Nevertheless, I would favor the re-opening of the United States Treasury Mints to the free coinage of Silver and Gold.

I like the Quote - of Buckminster Fuller, that CSummer offered us at the beginning of this thread:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something,
build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller
If you would like to see a Plan, a Model, for a new institution – a “Common-Wealth Central Bank” to replace the privately-owned, devious corporation known as the "Fed," you may check out the thread I initiated, also in this same "Occupy Everywhere" category, "Amendment XVIII." All of the angles and Questions that are being raised here have already been asked, and the Solutions formulated.

Gentle folks, I would like to offer and submit this Amendment XXVIII (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?84771-Amendment-XXVIII&p=143024#post143024), into this forum as an document to be examined, and subjected to the most minute, and critical scrutiny... You have my permission to kick it around, and find whatever faults and flaws there are in it. Who knows? Perhaps, in the Forum of Public opinion, we can collectively perfect a document that is already pretty close to perfect.

Blessings,
Mark

"Mad" Miles

11-11-2011, 04:32 PM

Tried to post this link two days ago, but site problems prevented me. I found this several weeks ago, and in all the back and forth about the Fed here on waccobb in recent years and what should be done about it, this made the most cogent sense to me:

https://lbo-news.com/2011/10/13/on-ows-and-the-fed/

Iolchan

11-27-2011, 05:42 AM

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png "Mad" Miles wrote: https://waccobb.net/forums/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=143246#post143246)

Tried to post this link two days ago, but site problems prevented me. I found this several weeks ago, and in all the back and forth about the Fed here on waccobb in recent years and what should be done about it, this made the most cogent sense to me:

https://lbo-news.com/2011/10/13/on-ows-and-the-fed/This is what Doug Henwood, at Left Business Observer wrote, in the link posted, by Miles, directly above. I am posting it here, in full, because, as an analysis, it deserves some comment.

On the Federal Reserve

I have noticed some strange, Ron Paul-ish stuff about the Federal Reserve around Occupy Wall Street. I do want to file a complaint about that.

The Federal Reserve is admittedly manna for conspiracists. It’s a fairly opaque institution that does work for the big guys. But it’s not their puppet exactly. A friend who spent many years at the New York branch of the Fed once told me that within the institution, the thinking is that bankers are short-sighted critters who come and go but the Fed has to do the long-term thinking for the ruling class. So it has more autonomy than the popular tales allow.

The founding of the Fed is also a great subject of mythmaking—like secret meetings involving more than a few Jews. (The conspiratorial mindset often overlaps with anti-Semitic stories about rootless cosmopolitans, their greed and scheming.) There were some secret meetings, but the creation of a central bank was a major project of the U.S. elite for decades around the turn of the 19th century into the 20th. There’s a great book (https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801496810/leftbusinessobseA/) on that topic by James Livingston that I urge anyone interested in the topic to read. It was a long, complex campaign, and not the task of a secret train ride to a remote island.

Although the Fed does put U.S. interests first, it is internationally minded, and consults constantly with its foreign counterparts. This is also rich soil for conspiratorial thinking—that, plus, of course the Jews. (Greenspan. Bernanke. You’d almost forget that 1980s Fed chair Paul Volcker’s middle name is Adolph.) You know the story—dastardly plots involving foreign financiers (with names like Rothschild) whose victims are good patriotic Americans. As anyone who watches the Fed closely, like me, could tell you, that’s just not the case.

And it’s tempting to see this body as controlling everything—it’s complicated and messy to think about how financial markets work, and the Fed’s relationship to those markets. Much easier to think of the Fed controlling everything. But in fact the Fed sometimes reacts to the markets, sometimes leads them, and on occasion fights with them.

In the 1980s, the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker ran a very tight ship. It deliberately provoked a deep recession in 1981-82 by driving up interest rates toward 20% to scare the pants of the working class. It was a very successful class war from above that led to a massive upward redistribution of income. More recently, the Fed handed out massive amounts of money—I’m not citing actual figures since they’re vague and mind-boggling, but they’re very big—with no strings attached to major banks. Something like this was necessary to keep everything from going down the drain, but it didn’t have to be done so secretly and with no accountability. Banks were basically given blank checks to restore the status quo ante bustum. That’s terrible. You could say the same for the TARP bailout—massive giveaways with no accountability or restrictions. This is all odious.

But more recently, Fed chair Ben Bernanke has been about the only major policymaker in the world pushing for more stimulus for the U.S. economy. He’s not a partisan of austerity, like the Republicans or much of the pundit class. For this he’s earned some criticisms on the right. The right would be happy to let things go down to prove a point. They think we need a “purgation.” I was recently on a panel with a Fed-hating libertarian who invoked the concept of “purgatory,” as if we’ve all sinned. But that would create far more misery than we know now.

There’s a video (#OWS Protester Nails It! Federal Reserve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqP6v_BoV4)) of an Occupy Wall Street protester calling for an end to the Fed and urging a vote for Ron Paul. It, and the comments, are straight out of the right-wing critique of the Fed. I’ve seen signs calling for that around the occupation. This is bad news. Ron Paul has a coherent political philosophy. He’s a libertarian. He may hate imperial war, but he also hates Social Security and Medicare. The reason he wants to end the Fed is that he wants to get the state out of the money business and return to a 19th century gold standard. A gold standard is painfully austere. The gold supply increases by less than 2% a year. That means tremendous pressure on average incomes. It’s great if you’re a big bondholder, but hell if you’re a regular person. When we were on a gold standard in the 19th century we had frequent panics, crises, and depressions. Almost half of the last three decades of the 19th century was spent in recession or depression. It put both rural farmers and urban workers through the wringer.

We need to democratize the Fed, open it up, and subject money to more humane and less upper-class-friendly regulation. But let’s not sign on with Ron Paul, please. And let’s not join with the simple-minded right-wing critique that blames all of capitalism’s systemic problems on government institutions.

Iolchan

12-07-2011, 07:27 PM

Quite apart from the red-herring issue of the libertarian Republican, Ron Paul,

As I wrote in The House of Morgan, (https://www.paleoprogressives.org/house-of-morgan.html)

Historically, it was axiomatic amongst the non-communist, Old Left in the 1920s and '30s to regard the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank, in 1914, as a kind of bloodless financial coup d'etat by Wall Street over Constitutional government. The Progressive Party Platform of 1924, the Platform upon which Robert LaFollette ran; the Farmer-Labor Platforms from 1920 through 1934; as well as the Socialist Party Platform of 1932; all contained planks calling for the nationalization of the Federal Reserve Bank. (See, National Party Platforms, Vol. 1, 1840-1956, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois).

And, if you study the Congressional Record in the years from 1908 through 1913, you will find that the chief opposition to the "Aldrich Plan" and the subsequent Federal Reserve Act of 1913, came from the group known as the "Western Progressives" - amongst whom Robert LaFollette, Sr., George Norris, and Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., were prominent. Charles Lindbergh, Sr., the radical congressman from the Sixth District of Minnesota, presented the most articulate and principled opposition to the Money Trust, and the train of banker-sponsored legislation that led to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Lindbergh's books, Banking and Currency, and the Money Trust, 1913, Why is Your Country at War?, 1917, and The Economic Pinch, 1922, were suppressed and quietly removed from practically every library in the country. One book by Lindbergh, The House of Morgan, has disappeared without a trace, even out of the Library of Congress. It has gone into the Orwellian memory-hole, and become a non-book, as if it never existed.

The main thesis of Lindbergh's books posets the existence of a Super Trust, developing out of an agglomeration of capital accumulated by a group of American industrial and finance capitalists who are commonly known as the Robber Barons. According to the elder Lindbergh, this group - which included the Stillman-Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Kuhn-Loeb interests - had unified their common interests into a powerful Trust by the early 1870s. They then promoted the Sherman anti-Trust Act, in order to prevent any other, late comers from climbing up to enjoy the Olympian privileges that they had acquired on their plateau of Wealth.

The elder Lindbergh termed this Super Trust the Money Trust. I have given a name to his thesis - the Lindbergh Analysis.

The House of J.P. Morgan, and the Morgan banks, Guaranty Trust, and Bankers' Trust, were vitally interested in the foundation of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and were among the "big six" money market Prime Banks, which purchased the "Class A" stock of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1914.

Ferdinand Lundberg, familiar to 'Sixties radicals as the author of The Rich and the Super-Rich, wrote, in his far more radical, and specific work, America's Sixty Families, in 1937:

"The Federal Reserve Act was the offshoot of a bill originally presented in the Senate by the dubious Aldrich, whose measure incorporated the collective wisdom of a monetary commission under his chairmanship. The ideas of the commission in turn emanated from the fertile brains of the Wall Street clique, whose deputies worked out the details in 1908 [sic, actually, it was in 1910] at the remote Jekyll Island Club, Jekyll Island, off the Georgia Coast, during an ostensible duck hunting expedition. Among those present Were Paul M. Warburg, partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Company; Henry P. Davison, partner of J.P. Morgan and Company; Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank; Dr. Piatt Andrew, special assistant to the Senate Monetary Commission; and Benjamin Strong, vice-president of the Bankers Trust Company ( J.P. Morgan).

"The protracted Jekyll island conference took place in the atmosphere of an elaborate conspiracy. The trip to Georgia was made in a private car chartered by Aldrich, and the travelers all used assumed names so that the train crew would not establish their identities. For a long time there was no public knowledge that such a conclave had been held.

"The financiers wanted a central bank on the European model to facilitate the large- scale manipulation of the national economy... But when Aldrich introduced the scenario produced by the Jekyll Island duck hunters it was immediately hooted down as a nefarious Wall Street enterprise and, for the time being, came to naught.

"The task of the liberal Wilson Administration was to place essentially the Jekyll Island measure on the statute books, but in an eccentric guise. The job of drawing up such a bill was given to Paul M. Warburg, one of the Jekyll Island plotters. Warburg collaborated with all the big financiers, as his own memoirs reveal.

"The Warburg-Wall Street draft, superficially revised by Wilson and Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, was simply the Jekyll Island duck hunters' scheme for a central bank, dressed up in fancy toggery. There was some opposition to it from uninformed Wall Street quarters, but it was, significantly, endorsed by the American Bankers Association.

"In practice the Federal Reserve Bank of New York became the fountainhead of the system of twelve regional banks, for New York was the money market of the nation. The other eleven banks were so many expensive mausoleums erected to salve the local pride and quell the Jacksonian fears of the hinterland. Benjamin Strong, one of the original duck hunters... president of the Bankers' Trust Company, was selected as the first Governor of the New York Reserve Bank.

"An adept in high finance, Strong for many years manipulated the country's monetary system at the discretion of directors representing the leading New York banks. Under Strong, the Reserve System, unsuspected by the nation, was brought into interlocking relations with the Bank of England and the Bank of France, greatly strengthening the financial fabric of the political status quo in the western hemisphere. While Wall Street, during and after the World War, moved on to ever enlarging profits, the farmer, whom the Reserve System was ostensibly created to assist, moved from bad to worse."

Ferdinand Lundberg, the historian, and professor of political science at N.Y.U., who wrote those lines, was Jewish, and a Leftist, as well.

Sincerely,
Mark Walter Evans,
mischelling of the second degree.

Iolchan

01-07-2012, 11:32 AM

Happy New Year !
2012, We Salute You !

Over the holidays, I happened to find a remaindered copy of Ron Paul's book, "END THE FED" for sale on a discount table. So I bought it, read it, and carefully highlighted all of the important passages. Perhaps I will write a serious critique of the book; someday, soon.

Meanwhile, I'd like to share a few reflections I gleaned about it.

In the first place, I absolutely agree with Congressman Ron Paul of Tehas about the critical significance of the Institution known as the Federal Reserve Bank - and that it is the main problem in the North American economy. Together with the Bank for International Settlements in Basel Switzerland {the First "World Bank," established in 1930} and the World Bank / I.M.F. complex {a Beast with two horns} the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the special franchise it has on Money-creation, is one of the major problems in the entire World.

I agree, wholeheartedly, with Ron Paul that we should "End the Fed." However, upon reading Ron Paul's book, and analyzing what he is proposing, in the place of the Federal Reserve System - a return to the Gold Standard, I can hardly agree with his proposed solution. In point of fact, it would be far better to liquidate the National & International Debt; indeed, All Debt, Public and Private, than to merely "end the Fed."

It seems to me, that one of the chief goals of the Occupy Movement should be to make 2012, Our Year of Jubilee - for the cancellation of all Debt; public and private. For, to merely "End the Fed" and yet consider the trillions of dollars of Debt paper {in the form of U.S. Treasury Securities} as somehow legitimate - and worthy of payment; to be paid in Gold no less; would be to fix upon the Masses and the tax-paying citizens - the 99% - a burden greater than the burden borne by the peasants under Feudalism.

You think things are bad Now? It can scarcely be imagined how we could function under the present debt burden; when the only money of account to pay off the "Debt" would be Gold...

It is not clear, from reading his book - that Ron Paul understands the difference between the various kinds of paper money. Indeed, he seems to confuse and conflate "fiat money" - which he holds to be invariably bad, with Debt-paper, (i.e. interest-bearing U.S. Treasury bonds.)

The National Debt of the United States of America stood at only one billion dollars in 1913. The rest of it has been generated because the Federal Reserve System requires the U.S. Treasury Department to "under-write" (with interest-bearing T-Bills) all of the Cash Money that the Federal Reserve Bank is allowed to create for free. And that, in a nutshell is the crux of the problem.

Ron Paul possesses a religious devotion to the teachings of the Austrian, or (https://mises.org/.../The-Austrian-School-of-Economics-An-Introduction)Vienna (https://mises.org/.../The-Austrian-School-of-Economics-An-Introduction)School of Economics (https://mises.org/.../The-Austrian-School-of-Economics-An-Introduction) (Ludvig Von Mises, Frederick Von Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, etc.) They are known, colloquially, as the "Gold-bugs," or the "hard-money school." The Austrian School are ideologically opposed to the notion of the Central Bank. That, after all, was one of the planks in the Communist Manifesto (https://www.google.com/search?q=Central+Bank%2C+Communist+Manifesto&hl=en&gbv=2&num=100&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=10133580l10174844l0l10177459l37l34l0l0l0l0l2089l8606l7-1.3.1l5l0&oq=Central+Bank%2C+Communist+Manifesto&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=). Furthermore, Ron Paul's economic adviser, Lew Rockwell, (https://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo30.html) is adamantly opposed to the very Idea that any State >read, government< should have the power to create "fiat money."

Thus, Ron Paul does not think that the Lincoln Greenback Dollar (https://www.heritech.com/ymagchy/heath/heath.html) is the solution to our financial woes. That is too bad; because obviously, it is. Perhaps, if Ron were able to bend on this point, more informed Radicals would be able to support - or bloc with him.

Of Such Substance Dreams Are Made... Don't hold your breath.

Mark Walter Evans

Magick

01-07-2012, 09:37 PM

I would like to bring up a different side to the Ron Paul story.
Some people, (I am not referring to Iolchan) seemed enamored with Ron Paul around the issues of economics and military policy, but are people aware that he considers abortion a violent, criminal act that denies the so-called rights of the unborn? That he advocates the repeal of Roe vs. Wade?
Yours in truth, Magick

Happy New Year !
2012, We Salute You !

Over the holidays, I happened to find a remaindered copy of Ron Paul's book, "END THE FED" for sale on a discount table. So I bought it, read it, and carefully highlighted all of the important passages. Perhaps I will write a serious critique of the book; someday, soon.....

Mark Walter Evans

someguy

01-08-2012, 09:33 AM

I would like to bring up a different side to the Ron Paul story.
Some people, (I am not referring to Iolchan) seemed enamored with Ron Paul around the issues of economics and military policy, but are people aware that he considers abortion a violent, criminal act that denies the so-called rights of the unborn? That he advocates the repeal of Roe vs. Wade?
Yours in truth, Magick

I think most people who support Paul realize this and admire him for defending everyone's right to life, just as our Constitution guarantees.

CSummer

01-08-2012, 04:38 PM

I won't pretend to understand all this, and I think that's part of the problem. They (the "one percent") have built an economic system over centuries that only they and their advisers - and perhaps a few astute economist-types - really understand. It also seems that only they can change it, and if it's working for them, why would they? So to me, it seems that thinking, talking or writing about it is sort of like commenting on professional sports or on a construction project as a "sidewalk superintendent." We can yell, "Hey, you guys are doing that all wrong! Don't you see?" And they'll say, "Oh, thanks for telling us!" and have a good laugh.

Perhaps that's why the "new paradigm" economic system I envision makes vastly less use of money (or other means of exchange accounting) than the current system. Indeed, we dispense with it entirely for the meeting of basic human needs, reserving its use for non-essentials or optional transactions. And the currency we use is based on something everyone can understand: the value of human effort (e.g., a person-hour).

So, my preference is to think, talk and write about those things that are within our power to change or create, and I would request that anyone who writes about major reforms to the existing systems of economics or governance include something about how they imagine those changes could be brought about - realistically, given the existing "corporatocracy."

I will confess, though, to being somewhat of a spectator myself, so I have been curious about Ron Paul - even to the extent of spending some time on his campaign web site. I appreciate hearing what other people have to say about him/his candidacy, as I wonder why some people seem to really like him. I do definitely appreciate his anti-war/ anti-imperialism stance but am quite turned off by his views on domestic programs. My sense is that before you dismantle something that's providing a valuable function (e.g., Social Security) - even if it's less than ideal - you need to come up with something to replace it. If he has proposed anything, I'd appreciate someone telling me about it. I would also be very interested to know his position - as an Ob/Gyn - on routine infant circumcision.

CSummer

Happy New Year !
2012, We Salute You !

Over the holidays, I happened to find a remaindered copy of Ron Paul's book, "END THE FED" for sale on a discount table. So I bought it, read it, and carefully highlighted all of the important passages. Perhaps I will write a serious critique of the book; someday, soon.
. . .------- . . .

Of Such Substance Dreams Are Made... Don't hold your breath.

Mark Walter Evans

Hotspring 44

01-08-2012, 08:09 PM

CSummer, I posted about that so-called "new paradigm" (https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/new+paradigm) on another thread in the Category: Occupy Everywhere (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?search.php) titled: “What’s the economy for anyway??!” (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86499-%E2%80%9CWhat%E2%80%99s-the-economy-for-anyway-%21%E2%80%9D&p=145867&highlight=#post145867). If you haven't seen it yet and you have the time and internet bandwidth for a 20.55 mp3 MB audio Download that the link in it goes to; It is worth the time to listen and ponder the ideas that are presented. :idea:

Perhaps that's why the "new paradigm" economic system I envision makes vastly less use of money (or other means of exchange accounting) than the current system. Indeed, we dispense with it entirely for the meeting of basic human needs, reserving its use for non-essentials or optional transactions. And the currency we use is based on something everyone can understand: the value of human effort (e.g., a person-hour).

So, my preference is to think, talk and write about those things that are within our power to change or create, and I would request that anyone who writes about major reforms to the existing systems of economics or governance include something about how they imagine those changes could be brought about - realistically, given the existing "corporatocracy."

CSummer

Glia

01-08-2012, 09:22 PM

during the past summer Intact Sonoma (https://intactsonoma.org/) had an information table at the Santa Rosa farmer's market. The table was across the street from the Ron Paul/libertarian table and contingent. The table and setup they had was impressive.

One evening crossed the street and asked a young, energetic disciple almost exactly that same question. He did not know and had never heard of Dr. Paul stating a position or opinion on it. His first *guess* was that Paul's position would be that it was the choice/right of the parents. When I asked him about the son's right to make his own choice as an adult and his right to autonomy over his own body and all of its parts, he pondered for a moment and then said Dr. Paul would probably support the right of the individual to make his own choice about his own body. "Right of individual choice" seemed to be the unifying theme of his response.

It was interesting that he had never been asked about this issue and had not given it consideration before. When presented with the idea that a child's body belongs to the child and is not the property of the parents, he agreed after a moment of thought. Just about everybody does as it really is a no-brainer.

... I would also be very interested to know his position - as an Ob/Gyn - on routine infant circumcision.

ubaru

01-08-2012, 10:12 PM

I will confess, though, to being somewhat of a spectator myself, so I have been curious about Ron Paul - even to the extent of spending some time on his campaign web site. I appreciate hearing what other people have to say about him/his candidacy, as I wonder why some people seem to really like him. I do definitely appreciate his anti-war/ anti-imperialism stance but am quite turned off by his views on domestic programs. My sense is that before you dismantle something that's providing a valuable function (e.g., Social Security) - even if it's less than ideal - you need to come up with something to replace it. If he has proposed anything, I'd appreciate someone telling me about it. I would also be very interested to know his position - as an Ob/Gyn - on routine infant circumcision.

CSummer

I just listened to Peter Schiff speak about Austrian economics from a lecture series sponsored by Ron Paul's office which speaks to a lot of what Hotspring44 and others in this thread have mentioned such as our economy's relation to China and other countries. He speaks to the social value of eliminating some social programs. ie. If you don't have the hugely inefficient government running the Department of Education, the cost of education goes way down which means families won't be so put out to save for their kids' education and young people won't be graduating up to their eyeballs in toxic student loan debt.

He points out the obvious that I could not see, that now we are in a government bubble that is bigger than any previous bubble economy, including the housing bubble, and in order to recover, we're going to either have to take the medicine preemptively or have it forced on us in crisis when other countries refuse to buy our debt. And then we need to stop operating any more debt-based bubbles in our economy which may be accomplished by ending the federal reserve.

Bottom line: Austrian economics makes for a prosperous society based on capital, not debt, and eliminates laws that stop the people from prospering as they will when they are unencumbered with them.

I've written more about it here, including on social security, and I've posted the video. It's worth listening to just to view all these issues through this lens which, in my opinion, is full of common sense. It also carries an assumption that life operates out of a higher intelligence and leads to a natural order and balance in all sectors of life when allowed to do so.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86226-quot-What-About-Money-Causes-Economic-Crises-quot-Part-3&p=145884#post145884

So, my preference is to think, talk and write about those things that are within our power to change or create, and I would request that anyone who writes about major reforms to the existing systems of economics or governance include something about how they imagine those changes could be brought about - realistically, given the existing "corporatocracy."

I like that request, Clint, and Peter Schiff's reform discussion qualifies as practical and doable IF we can organize enough people to audit the vote counting in the Republican primary where Paul would most certainly be winning if the vote weren't being tampered. And we can (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86472-Audit-the-Upcoming-Elections-June-5th-2012-Training-on-How-to-Volunteer&p=145839#top).

As to Paul's position on infant circumcision, I can't speak for him, however Libertarian philosophy would say that it's up to the parents whom you can educate and persuade, but you can't ethically force by law to do anything. But then again, it may get into the "liberty and pursuit of happiness" part of the Constitution. ;-) I'm against it myself, but I'd hate to have the government make a law for or against it. We're currently at such an extreme end of the pendulum of control by government for it's own ends--total government, total control--that voting for Ron Paul feels essential. He certainly is a mouth piece of this long overdue revolution we are in.

Liz:waccosun:

CSummer

01-09-2012, 01:47 AM

Dear Liz,

Allow me to share a response to your statement: "I'm against it [infant circumcision] myself,
but I'd hate to have the government make a law for or against it."

I would agree that authoritarian government is less than an ideal institution - indeed, I see it
as a symptom of our social immaturity. It is our way of giving up our responsibility and power
to others to manage our affairs for us. But if there's any justifiable function for a government,
it is protecting the rights and safety of those who are vulnerable and unable to protect themselves.

And this - routine infant circumcision (RIC) - is one way government fails to perform this most
basic function - and even supports those who appear oblivious to the harm infant circumcision causes.
This is not a surprise to me, however, as I strongly believe the 1%, who want a supply of "pre-
traumatized" males to fight their wars, are behind the misguided professional advocacy of RIC.
They want men who are loyal, controllable and more willing to face danger: men who were robbed
of any sense of personal safety or autonomy at a very young age.

If the question were about laws to protect women against rape, I wonder if you'd feel the same way.
For those of us who have known the effects of trauma our whole lives, infant circumcision is no less
a violation of rights, no less an abuse of power and no less harmful psychically than any other form of
sexual assault.

May we some day soon grow to care and empathize enough with the newest members of our society
(and understand the principle of violence in; violence out) that we wouldn't dream of allowing anyone
to inflict such a wound on them. To me, it's not even a question of morals or ethics; it's asking:
what kind of world do we want to live in?

For Peace,
CSummer

As to Paul's position on infant circumcision, I can't speak for him, however Libertarian philosophy would say that it's up to the parents whom you can educate and persuade, but you can't ethically force by law to do anything. But then again, it may get into the "liberty and pursuit of happiness" part of the Constitution. ;-) I'm against it myself, but I'd hate to have the government make a law for or against it. We're currently at such an extreme end of the pendulum of control by government for it's own ends--total government, total control--that voting for Ron Paul feels essential. He certainly is a mouth piece of this long overdue revolution we are in.Liz:waccosun:

phredo

01-09-2012, 05:53 PM

The guy who made the 3 hr film, "The Money Masters", Bill Still, later made a 116 min film, "The Secret of Oz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI)," which, in my opinion, is much more watchable. (4 min trailer here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cq9yEVcGIU) .) The title is based on the idea that Frank Baum, the author of "The Wizard of Oz", was a backer of the greenback/populist movement of the late 19th century, and that his work was partially an allegory about money. You may think from the age of the ideas that they are outdated, but it all makes sense to me. Although the film doesn't have an exact "action plan", Still's ideas for monetary reform sound very similar to Paul Zarlenga's, below.

Paul Zarlenga wrote a bill that Dennis Kucinich introduced. You can read about it at https://www.monetary.org/ . They really want you to read the "short" 32 page synopsis, but at the section of the page, "Action Materials for Demonstrations", you can find shorter explanations. The basic idea is that banks will no longer be allowed to create money by issuing loans for more money than they actually have (ending the practice of "fractional reserves"), that all new money will be issued by the government rather than loaned to the government by the Federal Reserve, as is now the case, thereby eliminating the National Debt and it's interest payments which represent a transfer of money from taxpayers to private bondholders. In other words, a return to "greenbacks".

These ideas sound pretty esoteric when you first hear about them, but watch "The Secret of Oz" and you'll find that the struggle between those who want bankers to control the money supply and those who want the government to control it has been going on since the start of the United States. For those who say, "what difference does it make?", consider that it is not only that private financial institutions get to collect a large amount of money each year from us taxpayers, about $450 billion, but also that these institutions are given a large say-so in how money is spent because of their role. If the government was in charge of how money is put into the economy, (theoretically) it could decide to build day care centers instead of the money being created when someone wants to finance a new auto mall.

Glia

01-09-2012, 10:19 PM

Liz, with respect to government making laws for/against genital cutting on children, that's already in place. Any form of cutting, "mutilating" or alteration of girls' genitals (outside of medical necessity) is prohibited by federal law passed in 1995. However, boys' genitals remain fair game, for any reason or no particular reason, in violation of all of the progressive values, several of the conservative values, and the equal protection clause of the Constitution of the United States of America.

And now the California state legislature has passed a law declaring that "male circumcision has a wide array of health and affiliative benefits", is nothing like female circumcision/genital cutting, and is not a type of amputation like cutting off fingers or toes -- all of which is total nonsense.

The embarrassing sham of a hearing on this bill is available on YouTube. You may recognize some of the players. Be sure to read the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKMLV--lXQI&t=2s

Dear Liz,

Allow me to share a response to your statement: "I'm against it [infant circumcision] myself,
but I'd hate to have the government make a law for or against it."

I would agree that authoritarian government is less than an ideal institution - indeed, I see it
as a symptom of our social immaturity. It is our way of giving up our responsibility and power
to others to manage our affairs for us. But if there's any justifiable function for a government,
it is protecting the rights and safety of those who are vulnerable and unable to protect themselves.

And this - routine infant circumcision (RIC) - is one way government fails to perform this most
basic function - and even supports those who appear oblivious to the harm infant circumcision causes.
This is not a surprise to me, however, as I strongly believe the 1%, who want a supply of "pre-
traumatized" males to fight their wars, are behind the misguided professional advocacy of RIC.
They want men who are loyal, controllable and more willing to face danger: men who were robbed
of any sense of personal safety or autonomy at a very young age.

If the question were about laws to protect women against rape, I wonder if you'd feel the same way.
For those of us who have known the effects of trauma our whole lives, infant circumcision is no less
a violation of rights, no less an abuse of power and no less harmful psychically than any other form of
sexual assault.

May we some day soon grow to care and empathize enough with the newest members of our society
(and understand the principle of violence in; violence out) that we wouldn't dream of allowing anyone
to inflict such a wound on them. To me, it's not even a question of morals or ethics; it's asking:
what kind of world do we want to live in?

For Peace,
CSummer

rossmen

01-09-2012, 10:31 PM

i listened to this. he lost me (one more time), when he said all the unemployed could go fishing because the us imports 90% of our seafood, so there is plenty of opportunity to be professional fisher people. i can cite many more examples of his ridiculous reasoning, history misinformation, and 3rd grade economic simplification if you wish. please keep educating yourself.

for a single person or family what he presents is good advice. like going fishing if you don't have a job.

I just listened to Peter Schiff speak about Austrian economics from a lecture series sponsored by Ron Paul's office which speaks to a lot of what Hotspring44 and others in this thread have mentioned such as our economy's relation to China and other countries. He speaks to the social value of eliminating some social programs. ie. If you don't have the hugely inefficient government running the Department of Education, the cost of education goes way down which means families won't be so put out to save for their kids' education and young people won't be graduating up to their eyeballs in toxic student loan debt.

He points out the obvious that I could not see, that now we are in a government bubble that is bigger than any previous bubble economy, including the housing bubble, and in order to recover, we're going to either have to take the medicine preemptively or have it forced on us in crisis when other countries refuse to buy our debt. And then we need to stop operating any more debt-based bubbles in our economy which may be accomplished by ending the federal reserve.

Bottom line: Austrian economics makes for a prosperous society based on capital, not debt, and eliminates laws that stop the people from prospering as they will when they are unencumbered with them.

I've written more about it here, including on social security, and I've posted the video. It's worth listening to just to view all these issues through this lens which, in my opinion, is full of common sense. It also carries an assumption that life operates out of a higher intelligence and leads to a natural order and balance in all sectors of life when allowed to do so.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86226-quot-What-About-Money-Causes-Economic-Crises-quot-Part-3&p=145884#post145884

I like that request, Clint, and Peter Schiff's reform discussion qualifies as practical and doable IF we can organize enough people to audit the vote counting in the Republican primary where Paul would most certainly be winning if the vote weren't being tampered. And we can (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86472-Audit-the-Upcoming-Elections-June-5th-2012-Training-on-How-to-Volunteer&p=145839#top).

As to Paul's position on infant circumcision, I can't speak for him, however Libertarian philosophy would say that it's up to the parents whom you can educate and persuade, but you can't ethically force by law to do anything. But then again, it may get into the "liberty and pursuit of happiness" part of the Constitution. ;-) I'm against it myself, but I'd hate to have the government make a law for or against it. We're currently at such an extreme end of the pendulum of control by government for it's own ends--total government, total control--that voting for Ron Paul feels essential. He certainly is a mouth piece of this long overdue revolution we are in.

Liz:waccosun:

Iolchan

01-10-2012, 03:53 PM

While I think it is perfectly legitimate for feminists to criticize Ron Paul for his position on Abortion - or fans of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal to criticize him for his position on Social Security - which completes the job Ronald Reagan began, of dismantling the New Deal - or for associating with Austrian School economists whose solution for the poor and unemployed is to "go fishing;" I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now.

After all, this thread began with Clint Summer quoting Bucky Fuller, and his - justifiably famous - axiom :

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Buckminster Fuller

So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%...

Is that alright, folks? There are plenty of reasons for plenty of folks on the Left to have qualms about Ron Paul. Perhaps someone can start another thread and have it out with Ron Paul on all of the other issues. Barry - you might want to start such a Thread yourself.

I must confess, that, even though I am among those who hold a variety of sound Reasons for being wary of Ron Paul, I still consider him to be the best of the Republican candidates in the field. And I am also glad that he is among the front-runners - if only because his candidacy presents an opening for a Serious thrashing, & debate about Ending the Federal Reserve Bank - since he has made that such an important plank in his candidacy.

Here is what Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer wrote about the presence of Ron Paul supporters at Occupy Wall Street [Posted a few frames back.] :

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Doug Henwood wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=145921#post145921)

There’s a video (#OWS Protester Nails It! Federal Reserve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqP6v_BoV4)) of an Occupy Wall Street protester calling for an end to the Fed and urging a vote for Ron Paul. It, and the comments, are straight out of the right-wing critique of the Fed. I’ve seen signs calling for that around the occupation. This is bad news. Ron Paul has a coherent political philosophy. He’s a libertarian. He may hate imperial war, but he also hates Social Security and Medicare. The reason he wants to end the Fed is that he wants to get the state out of the money business and return to a 19th century gold standard. A gold standard is painfully austere. The gold supply increases by less than 2% a year. That means tremendous pressure on average incomes. It’s great if you’re a big bondholder, but hell if you’re a regular person. When we were on a gold standard in the 19th century we had frequent panics, crises, and depressions. Almost half of the last three decades of the 19th century was spent in recession or depression. It put both rural farmers and urban workers through the wringer.

We need to democratize the Fed, open it up, and subject money to more humane and less upper-class-friendly regulation. But let’s not sign on with Ron Paul, please. And let’s not join with the simple-minded right-wing critique that blames all of capitalism’s systemic problems on government institutions.

Here is the video Mr. Henwood cites in the paragraph above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqP6v_BoV4

Doug Henwood wrote: " It, and the comments, are straight out of the right-wing critique of the Fed..." This is completely true. But I disagree that it is "bad news" that such soap-box agitators are speaking up at Occupy Wall Street. The "problem" lies in the conceptual misunderstanding that the young speaker holds, in his mind, about the two kinds of paper that are printed on the presses of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing {a subsidiary of the U.S. Treasury Department } on the Banks of the Potomac.

The truth of the matter, is that the Fed is allowed to print the Cash Money - while the U.S. Treasury Dept. prints an equal dollar amount of interest-bearing T-Bills. The U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve Bank then SWAP that which each has created, for that which the other has created. I wrote the Cliff Notes to this subject here (https://www.paleoprogressives.org/problem-with-the-fed.html); and here (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?84771-Amendment-XXVIII&p=145007#post145007), {on WaccoBB.} - the original Systemic Analysis of the Federal Reserve Bank - by a layman - for lay-People.

I prefer the Systemic Analysis, in the case of the Fed, to all of the conspiratorial baggage of history, or blame about Whodunit, that delves into the so-called "Jewish Banker's conspiracy - which field, in all of its various minutia, pro & con, is a real steeple-chase, red herring, and a total waste of Time - a digression.

What we need - if I may be so bold as to state it - is for the old-school Progressive (Left) Analysis of the Federal Reserve Bank to take root, and spread, in the same manner that the original political prairie fire (https://www.worldcat.org/title/political-prairie-fire-the-nonpartisan-league-1915-1922/oclc/646904653/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true) in the Dakotas did, in the 'teens of the last Century, and supplant the confusion that the masses in general - including this young zealot - have, concerning the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank loots the economy (& the 99%) in the interest of the oligarchy/plutocracy/power elite/1%.

We could also use a little of this young man's Zeal; for, even though he is confused about what is actually going on, and he is promoting Ron Paul as some kind of Deliverer on a White Horse, his zeal is impressive. And OCCUPY could utilize a few thousand soap-box orators with that sort of zeal, stumping on the Subject - provided, only, that they educate themselves and fully understand the complex shell game that the Fed is operating...

Seriously,

Mark Walter Evans

Magick

01-10-2012, 10:46 PM

Had you decided to end your reference to Ron Paul by saying that is another discussion for another thread then i would have let it drop, but you chose to "confess" that you are glad he is a candidate.
Stating this is marginalizing the reality that when women are characterized as criminals who are being accused of acts of violence this is a core problem of our society. It is central to the world's awakening to real freedom that women have autonomy and that no one can force them to have children or to shame them, punish them, beat, kill or jail them for self-determination.
This kind of thinking allows people to accept that abortion is some minor side issue to the all important topic of economics.
As a part of OccupySF I testified at the Federal reserve board hearing concerning the merger of Capital One and ING and stated that the word "economics" has its origin in the Greek "oikonomikós" (relating to household management) and if in fact economics was based on the concerns of the household budget then healthcare, childcare, real food, care for the elderly and shelter would all be central to our concerns as they have been to women for thousands of years.
IF women who love and care for their families were honored and respected as autonomous we would be in a different world today.
By the way, the more freedom women have the less children are born, because women are not forced to get pregnant, and there is less rape, incest and child pregnancies.
Maybe you think this is some minor side issue, but in fact throughout most of modern history women's work of caring has not even been figured into the statistics of economics. Read Riane Eisler on the Economics of Care and how Scandinaivian countries have been valuing care as a top priority which has brought more men into this work and made for a much more egalitarian state.
For one moment I would like all the men to consider the possibility of something growing in their body that they will be responsible for and will change their life forever and imagine the state saying you have no right to choose.
There are so many children starving and dying in the world now, that cannot be cared for, many that would not have been brought into a life of suffering and poverty had their mother's had the right to choose.
So I am sitting down right in the middle of this discussion on economics and protesting your idea that feminism is some side issue that is irrelevant to the current mess we are in.
Peace out, Magick

While I think it is perfectly legitimate for feminists to criticize Ron Paul for his position on Abortion - or fans of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal to criticize him for his position on Social Security - which completes the job Ronald Reagan began, of dismantling the New Deal - or for associating with Austrian School economists whose solution for the poor and unemployed is to "go fishing;" I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now.

After all, this thread began with Clint Summer quoting Bucky Fuller, and his - justifiably famous - axiom :
"
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

So, I'd like us to scratch our heads and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%...

Is that alright, folks? There are plenty of reasons for plenty of folks on the Left to have qualms about Ron Paul. Perhaps someone can start another thread and have it out with Ron Paul on all of the other issues. Barry - you might want to start such a Thread yourself.

I must confess, that, even though I am among those who hold a variety of sound Reasons for being wary of Ron Paul, I still consider him to be the best of the Republican candidates in the field. And I am also glad that he is among the front-runners - if only because his candidacy presents an opening for a Serious thrashing, & debate about Ending the Federal Reserve Bank - since he has made that such an important plank in his candidacy.

Here is what Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer wrote about the presence of Ron Paul supporters at Occupy Wall Street [Posted a few frames back.] :

Here is the video Mr. Henwood cites in the paragraph above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqP6v_BoV4

Doug Henwood wrote: " It, and the comments, are straight out of the right-wing critique of the Fed..." This is completely true. But I disagree that it is "bad news" that such soap-box agitators are speaking up at Occupy Wall Street. The "problem" lies in the conceptual misunderstanding that the young speaker holds, in his mind, about the two kinds of paper that are printed on the presses of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing {a subsidiary of the U.S. Treasury Department } on the Banks of the Potomac.

The truth of the matter, is that the Fed is allowed to print the Cash Money - while the U.S. Treasury Dept. prints an equal dollar amount of interest-bearing T-Bills. The U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve Bank then SWAP that which each has created, for that which the other has created. I wrote the Cliff Notes to this subject here (https://www.paleoprogressives.org/problem-with-the-fed.html); and here (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?84771-Amendment-XXVIII&p=145007#post145007), {on WaccoBB.} - the original Systemic Analysis of the Federal Reserve Bank - by a layman - for lay-People.

I prefer the Systemic Analysis, in the case of the Fed, to all of the conspiratorial baggage of history, or blame about Whodunit, that delves into the so-called "Jewish Banker's conspiracy - which field, in all of its various minutia, pro & con, is a real steeple-chase, red herring, and a total waste of Time - a digression.

What we need - if I may be so bold as to state it - is for the old-school Progressive (Left) Analysis of the Federal Reserve Bank to take root, and spread, in the same manner that the original political prairie fire (https://www.worldcat.org/title/political-prairie-fire-the-nonpartisan-league-1915-1922/oclc/646904653/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true) in the Dakotas did, in the 'teens of the last Century, and supplant the confusion that the masses in general - including this young zealot - have, concerning the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank loots the economy (& the 99%) in the interest of the oligarchy/plutocracy/power elite/1%.

We could also use a little of this young man's Zeal; for, even though he is confused about what is actually going on, and he is promoting Ron Paul as some kind of Deliverer on a White Horse, his zeal is impressive. And OCCUPY could utilize a few thousand soap-box orators with that sort of zeal, stumping on the Subject - provided, only, that they educate themselves and fully understand the complex shell game that the Fed is operating...

Seriously,

Mark Walter Evans

Iolchan

01-13-2012, 12:47 PM

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Magick wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=145999#post145999)

<style>p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> Had you decided to end your reference to Ron Paul by saying that is another discussion for another thread then i would have let it drop, but you chose to "confess" that you are glad he is a candidate.

Stating this is marginalizing the reality that when women are characterized as criminals who are being accused of acts of violence this is a core problem of our society. It is central to the world's awakening to real freedom that women have autonomy and that no one can force them to have children or to shame them, punish them, beat, kill or jail them for self-determination.

This kind of thinking allows people to accept that abortion is some minor side issue to the all important topic of economics.

As a part of OccupySF I testified at the Federal reserve board hearing concerning the merger of Capital One and ING and stated that the word "economics" has its origin in the Greek "oikonomikós" (relating to household management) and if in fact economics was based on the concerns of the household budget then healthcare, childcare, real food, care for the elderly and shelter would all be central to our concerns as they have been to women for thousands of years.

IF women who love and care for their families were honored and respected as autonomous we would be in a different world today.

By the way, the more freedom women have the less children are born, because women are not forced to get pregnant, and there is less rape, incest and child pregnancies.

Maybe you think this is some minor side issue, but in fact throughout most of modern history women's work of caring has not even been figured into the statistics of economics. Read Riane Eisler on the Economics of Care and how Scandinaivian countries have been valuing care as a top priority which has brought more men into this work and made for a much more egalitarian state.

For one moment I would like all the men to consider the possibility of something growing in their body that they will be responsible for and will change their life forever and imagine the state saying you have no right to choose.

There are so many children starving and dying in the world now, that cannot be cared for, many that would not have been brought into a life of suffering and poverty had their mother's had the right to choose.

So I am sitting down right in the middle of this discussion on economics and protesting your idea that feminism is some side issue that is irrelevant to the current mess we are in.
Peace out, Magick

Many good and valid points, Magick . And thank you for sharing the etiology of the word "economics" :"oikonomikós." That is a true gift. Thank you. Nor do I disagree with the importance of your critique, concerning the very vital role of Women in society. But here is what I wrote:

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Iolchan wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=145999#post145999)

I must confess, that, even though I am among those who hold a variety of sound Reasons for being wary of Ron Paul, I still consider him to be the best of the Republican candidates in the field. And I am also glad that he is among the front-runners - if only because his candidacy presents an opening for a Serious thrashing, & debate about Ending the Federal Reserve Bank - since he has made that such an important plank in his candidacy.

Please Note:

A) I stated that :"...I am among those who hold a variety of sound Reasons for being wary of Ron Paul..."

B) I also stated that : " ...I am also glad that he is among the front-runners - if only because his candidacy presents an opening for a Serious thrashing, & debate about Ending the Federal Reserve Bank - since he has made that such an important plank in his candidacy.

I would re-iterate: "...if only because his candidacy presents an opening for a Serious thrashing, & debate about Ending the Federal Reserve Bank - since he has made that such an important plank in his candidacy."

And that is the Reason. Let's also remember, Magick, the fact, that whatever Ron Paul's flaws may be - and they are many - he is the only front-runner among the Republicans who counts Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader among his personal friends. - And that Ralph Nader said of him that he is in complete agreement with Ron Paul on the issue of Foreign Policy. You can Google that, if you wish.

This thread was moribund for a while. I personally resurrected it - in order that it might continue as a venue for discussing - among other monetary issues - the flaws in the economic doctrines of Ron Paul - and as a venue for the Occupy cadre to forum on the issue of Money and collectively work out what a just and equitable Monetary System might look like. There are other current threads on Waccobb.net - in the National Politics Section, where your comments are entirely germaine to the theme of the thread and your comments, posted above, are entirely appropriate.

If you wish to out me on other issues - e.g., your perceptions, real or imagined, concerning some perceived insensitivity on my part regarding the importance of Women in Society ; or if some other body wishes to put me on the spot, as Liz Yuen, aka, "ubaru" was recently called on the carpet to answer for perceived political sins, real or imagined, you may do so. But please, do it decently, and in order, and start another thread. I will bravely stand my trial, and answer all questions and accusations that any might wish to pose; e.g., "Is it true that you are you a male chauvinist pig, Mark?" =OR= "Do you get money from the [gone] "Farm Holiday Association," or the [moribund] Farmer-Labor Association, for posting Populist Socialist propaganda on WaccoBb.net?'

If anyone wishes to call me on the carpet on this thread, on the issue of why I advocate the economic Platform and Theory of the elder Lindbergh (1859-1924,) (son of Swedish Social-Democrat member of the Swedish Rikstat; Progressive Republican; Minnesota Congressman from little Falls, Minnesota; & the father of the famous aviator;) I will be glad to answer all comers on that issue, on this thread.

=AND, Further= If anyone would like to call me on the carpet as to the possibility that the elder Lindbergh might have been a closet "anti-Semite"; based on the evidence of his son's dubious and infamous faux pas to the press, on September 11, 1941, I will be glad to answer all comers on that issue, on this thread.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png iolchan wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=145999#post145999)

After all, this thread began with Clint Summer quoting Bucky Fuller, and his - justifiably famous - axiom :

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Buckminster Fuller

So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%...

And,

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png iolchan wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=145999#post145999)

What we need - if I may be so bold as to state it - is for the old-school Progressive (Left) Analysis of the Federal Reserve Bank to take root, and spread, in the same manner that the original political prairie fire (https://www.worldcat.org/title/political-prairie-fire-the-nonpartisan-league-1915-1922/oclc/646904653/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true) in the Dakotas did, in the 'teens of the last Century, and supplant the confusion that the masses in general... have, concerning the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank loots the economy (& the 99%) in the interest of the oligarchy/plutocracy/power elite/1%.

Very truly yours,

Mark Walter Evans,
son of three generations of feminists

CSummer

01-15-2012, 02:17 AM

Mark wrote: "I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now."

Since I don't think there's anything I or anyone I know can do about the Central Bank, I'd rather explore how we can make money more of a non-issue. To me, this seems like moving more into the realm of real possibilities for outside-the-box co-creation.

Mark: "So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%... "

Clint: Sounds like an interesting exercise, Mark! Let's see where I can go with it . . .

I would like to begin by pointing out that money, in and of itself, doesn't meet any real human needs. Imagining that it does just leads to obsession with accumulating more and rarely to a healthier or happier life.
A movie I just watched, "The Economics of Happiness" (https://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/) does a great job of showing this.

One thing I seem to have learned about systems (defined as ways of doing something, i.e, of performing some function) is that the less you need them to do, the better. Then the system becomes less obtrusive, energy consuming and problematic.

So in my ideal world, we minimize the need for money - or for a means of accounting for exchanges of goods and services, as well as for an easily portable medium of said exchanges (assuming this is the function of a monetary system). We can meet all basic human needs without the use of money - or with only minimal use. If/when we live in cooperative communities, we can all work together to build dwellings and to construct, maintain and operate systems for food/fiber growing and processing as well as for energy production. Everyone participating in this work to some minimum amount is eligible to have all their necessities provided. (If we're worried about "slackers," we can keep track of each member's contribution and limit access to what is produced accordingly.) Money is then only needed when some critical resource is not available within the community holdings or when some non-essential product or service is desired.

So do we need a monetary system? In terms of meeting real human needs, probably not. One might come in handy though in order to facilitate the exchanging of goods and services when a means of accounting for (recording the value of) such exchanges is deemed desirable.

Here are some values for such a system:

To be trustworthy, it must be fair and simple to understand for all users.
It should be transparent and verifiable, with transaction values traceable to both the provider and receiver of any exchanges.
It should be based on real value, e.g., on human energy and time.
It should be flexible, with exchange values negotiable.
It must be free of any potential for abuse.
It should facilitate economic activity and never unnecessarily restrict it.
It must be easy to use, i.e., user friendly.
Using the system should generally leave people with positive feelings (e.g., gratitude for its existence).

As it turns out, such systems already exist. Some even solve the problem of "money supply" by enabling users to create money or credit as needed. One form is called a mutual credit system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_credit), such as a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS) or a Community Exchange System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Exchange_System). Imagine an on-line service that keeps track of all members accounts. You start with a zero balance, and negative balances are quite acceptable. When you "sell" a product or service to another member, your balance goes up (positive) by the amount of the agreed-upon exchange value and the buyer's balance goes down by the same amount. The value would be negotiable; based on a person-hour (p-h) but flexible in terms of how many p-h's equate to an actual hour, since the hours put in performing surgery (for example) might be considered worth more than those spent helping someone move.

Both buyers and sellers can see each other's accounts, and a seller may want to see a buyer's balance before deciding to provide a service or product. A balance that is a high negative value indicates the member has done a lot more receiving than giving, and a seller may choose not to "extend credit" to the member. On the other hand, a member seeking a service or product may avoid someone with a high positive balance in favor of helping a member with a low balance build credit. In this way, the system encourages a balance between providing and receiving.

How might we create such a system locally? (It doesn't take an act of Congress!) It could be - and has been - done by a nonprofit organization. Ideally, it would be created by a group of people who have come together to form a community of mutual support for the meeting of members' needs. The primary focus of the community would be to explore ways of meeting the basic needs we all share in common - and doing so using local resources, with a minimum of dependence on violent, unjust or eco-destructive institutions. The more successful we are at this, the less we need money. An alternative monetary system would enable economic activity to happen that might otherwise be restricted by a scarcity of money. The larger the user base, the more viable the system.

A money-focused economy is a dysfunctional economy. It creates the illusion that people need money in order to live, so they need jobs in order to earn money. It makes sense if the purpose of a socio-economic system is to keep power and wealth concentrated in the hands of an owner class. But if the purpose is to support all of us in meeting our needs, then money and jobs become much less important. Access to natural resources, tools, knowledge and other people is what enables real people to meet their real needs in healthy, sustainable ways.

We don't need to reform the banking system; we need to build communities of mutual support as the basic elements of a cooperative society. We need to de-commodify the meeting of human needs. And this is a good thing, because it's one thing we may actually have the power to do!

CSummer

While I think it is perfectly legitimate for feminists to criticize Ron Paul for his position on Abortion - or fans of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal to criticize him for his position on Social Security - which completes the job Ronald Reagan began, of dismantling the New Deal - or for associating with Austrian School economists whose solution for the poor and unemployed is to "go fishing;" I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now.

After all, this thread began with Clint Summer quoting Bucky Fuller, and his - justifiably famous - axiom :

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Buckminster Fuller

So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%...

Is that alright, folks? There are plenty of reasons for plenty of folks on the Left to have qualms about Ron Paul. Perhaps someone can start another thread and have it out with Ron Paul on all of the other issues. Barry - you might want to start such a Thread yourself.
----------------------------------------------
We could also use a little of this young man's Zeal; for, even though he is confused about what is actually going on, and he is promoting Ron Paul as some kind of Deliverer on a White Horse, his zeal is impressive. And OCCUPY could utilize a few thousand soap-box orators with that sort of zeal, stumping on the Subject - provided, only, that they educate themselves and fully understand the complex shell game that the Fed is operating...

Seriously,

Mark Walter Evans

Magick

01-15-2012, 03:55 AM

CSummer, I wholeheartedly support what you have stated and appreciate your clarity and brilliance in articulating it. Values need to be reaccessed around life, sharing, caring and community.
Like Dylan said, "Money doesn't talk it swears"!

Mark wrote: "I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now."

Since I don't think there's anything I or anyone I know can do about the Central Bank, I'd rather explore how we can make money more of a non-issue. To me, this seems like moving more into the realm of real possibilities for outside-the-box co-creation.

Mark: "So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%... "

Clint: Sounds like an interesting exercise, Mark! Let's see where I can go with it . . .

I would like to begin by pointing out that money, in and of itself, doesn't meet any real human needs. Imagining that it does just leads to obsession with accumulating more and rarely to a healthier or happier life.
A movie I just watched, "The Economics of Happiness" (https://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/) does a great job of showing this..........

CSummer
[/FONT][/SIZE]

Iolchan

01-15-2012, 01:09 PM

Before too much time elapses, I'd like to comment on these words that Liz Yuan posted:

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png ubaru wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

I just listened to Peter Schiff speak about Austrian economics from a lecture series sponsored by Ron Paul's office which speaks to a lot of what Hotspring44 and others in this thread have mentioned such as our economy's relation to China and other countries. He speaks to the social value of eliminating some social programs. ie. If you don't have the hugely inefficient government running the Department of Education, the cost of education goes way down which means families won't be so put out to save for their kids' education and young people won't be graduating up to their eyeballs in toxic student loan debt.

He points out the obvious that I could not see, that now we are in a government bubble that is bigger than any previous bubble economy, including the housing bubble, and in order to recover, we're going to either have to take the medicine preemptively or have it forced on us in crisis when other countries refuse to buy our debt. And then we need to stop operating any more debt-based bubbles in our economy which may be accomplished by ending the federal reserve.

Bottom line: Austrian economics makes for a prosperous society based on capital, not debt, and eliminates laws that stop the people from prospering as they will when they are unencumbered with them.

I've written more about it here, including on social security, and I've posted the video. It's worth listening to just to view all these issues through this lens which, in my opinion, is full of common sense. It also carries an assumption that life operates out of a higher intelligence and leads to a natural order and balance in all sectors of life when allowed to do so.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showth...884#post145884 (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?86226-quot-What-About-Money-Causes-Economic-Crises-quot-Part-3&p=145884#post145884)

And these words, specifically :

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png ubaru wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

"... and in order to recover, we're going to either have to take the medicine preemptively or have it forced on us in crisis when other countries refuse to buy our debt. And then we need to stop operating any more debt-based bubbles in our economy which may be accomplished by ending the federal reserve.

Bottom line: Austrian economics makes for a prosperous society based on capital, not debt, and eliminates laws that stop the people from prospering as they will when they are unencumbered with them. "

To state: "...in order to recover, we're going to either have to take the medicine preemptively or have it forced on us in crisis" reminds me of the "austerity conditions" that are forced on Third World countries by the International Monetary Fund. The "austerity" being a function of making Debt-payment {to First World Prime Banks} the priority over social programs for the People. Which causes me to wonder about the role that Ron Paul might assume, should he become president - that of the doctor who forces his patient - the American body politic - to take the "hard medicine" of Austerity.

The real bottom line is, that the "Debt" itself, is un-payable & unsustainable - an illegitimate<style>p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> and a Fraudulent entity. That is why we need to make 2012 the Year of Jubilee, for the cancellation and rescinding of All Debt; National & International; Public and Private...

And, as far as your statement, Liz, that "...Austrian economics makes for a prosperous society based on capital, not debt, and eliminates laws that stop the people from prospering as they will when they are unencumbered with them;" I suggest that you do some really careful and deeper Research into what the "Austrian" - or "Vienna" school of Economics is about. There is a dark side to it; and all is not quite as rosy as you have been led to believe, by the boosters of Austrian economics.

Google Advanced Search: "Austrian School" ,"Mont Pelerin Society" , Gold , B.I.S. ,

<style>p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }div.Section1 { page: Section1;Also, I'd like to commend phredo for hios p[ost; because it ia spot on:</style>Also, I'd like to commend phredo for his post; because it is spot on:

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png phredo wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

The guy who made the 3 hr film, "The Money Masters", Bill Still, later made a 116 min film, "The Secret of Oz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI)," which, in my opinion, is much more watchable. (4 min trailer here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cq9yEVcGIU) .) The title is based on the idea that Frank Baum, the author of "The Wizard of Oz", was a backer of the greenback/populist movement of the late 19th century, and that his work was partially an allegory about money. You may think from the age of the ideas that they are outdated, but it all makes sense to me. Although the film doesn't have an exact "action plan", Still's ideas for monetary reform sound very similar to Paul Zarlenga's, below.

Paul Zarlenga wrote a bill that Dennis Kucinich introduced. You can read about it at https://www.monetary.org/ . They really want you to read the "short" 32 page synopsis, but at the section of the page, "Action Materials for Demonstrations", you can find shorter explanations. The basic idea is that banks will no longer be allowed to create money by issuing loans for more money than they actually have (ending the practice of "fractional reserves"), that all new money will be issued by the government rather than loaned to the government by the Federal Reserve, as is now the case, thereby eliminating the National Debt and it's interest payments which represent a transfer of money from taxpayers to private bondholders. In other words, a return to "greenbacks".

These ideas sound pretty esoteric when you first hear about them, but watch "The Secret of Oz" and you'll find that the struggle between those who want bankers to control the money supply and those who want the government to control it has been going on since the start of the United States. For those who say, "what difference does it make?", consider that it is not only that private financial institutions get to collect a large amount of money each year from us taxpayers, about $450 billion, but also that these institutions are given a large say-so in how money is spent because of their role. If the government was in charge of how money is put into the economy, (theoretically) it could decide to build day care centers instead of the money being created when someone wants to finance a new auto mall.

Here is the Documentary Movie, " THE SECRET OF OZ " :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI

And here is the four-minute trailer version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cq9yEVcGIU&feature=relmfu

- Mark

Iolchan

01-15-2012, 04:29 PM

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png iolchan wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

"I'd like to see this thread stay on track on the Issue of Money - and what to do with the damned Central Bank we have Now."

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png
(https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)
Since I don't think there's anything I or anyone I know can do about the Central Bank, I'd rather explore how we can make money more of a non-issue. To me, this seems like moving more into the realm of real possibilities for outside-the-box co-creation.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png iolchan wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

"So, I'd like us to put our heads together and see if we can co-create {or co-envision} a Just and Equitable Money System that works for the People -the 99%- and not exclusively to grow, exponentially, the Wealth of the bond-holding Class - the 1%... "

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

Clint: Sounds like an interesting exercise, Mark! Let's see where I can go with it . . .

I would like to begin by pointing out that money, in and of itself, doesn't meet any real human needs. Imagining that it does just leads to obsession with accumulating more and rarely to a healthier or happier life. A movie I just watched, "The Economics of Happiness" (https://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/) does a great job of showing this.

One thing I seem to have learned about systems (defined as ways of doing something, i.e, of performing some function) is that the less you need them to do, the better. Then the system becomes less obtrusive, energy consuming and problematic.

So in my ideal world, we minimize the need for money - or for a means of accounting for exchanges of goods and services, as well as for an easily portable medium of said exchanges (assuming this is the function of a monetary system). We can meet all basic human needs without the use of money - or with only minimal use. If/when we live in cooperative communities, we can all work together to build dwellings and to construct, maintain and operate systems for food/fiber growing and processing as well as for energy production. Everyone participating in this work to some minimum amount is eligible to have all their necessities provided. (If we're worried about "slackers," we can keep track of each member's contribution and limit access to what is produced accordingly.) Money is then only needed when some critical resource is not available within the community holdings or when some non-essential product or service is desired.

So do we need a monetary system? In terms of meeting real human needs, probably not. One might come in handy though in order to facilitate the exchanging of goods and services when a means of accounting for (recording the value of) such exchanges is deemed desirable.

Here are some values for such a system:

To be trustworthy, it must be fair and simple to understand for all users.
It should be transparent and verifiable, with transaction values traceable to both the provider and receiver of any exchanges.
It should be based on real value, e.g., on human energy and time.
It should be flexible, with exchange values negotiable.
It must be free of any potential for abuse.
It should facilitate economic activity and never unnecessarily restrict it.
It must be easy to use, i.e., user friendly.
Using the system should generally leave people with positive feelings (e.g., gratitude for its existence).

As it turns out, such systems already exist. Some even solve the problem of "money supply" by enabling users to create money or credit as needed. One form is called a mutual credit system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_credit), such as a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS) or a Community Exchange System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Exchange_System). Imagine an on-line service that keeps track of all members accounts. You start with a zero balance, and negative balances are quite acceptable. When you "sell" a product or service to another member, your balance goes up (positive) by the amount of the agreed-upon exchange value and the buyer's balance goes down by the same amount. The value would be negotiable; based on a person-hour (p-h) but flexible in terms of how many p-h's equate to an actual hour, since the hours put in performing surgery (for example) might be considered worth more than those spent helping someone move.

Both buyers and sellers can see each other's accounts, and a seller may want to see a buyer's balance before deciding to provide a service or product. A balance that is a high negative value indicates the member has done a lot more receiving than giving, and a seller may choose not to "extend credit" to the member. On the other hand, a member seeking a service or product may avoid someone with a high positive balance in favor of helping a member with a low balance build credit. In this way, the system encourages a balance between providing and receiving.

How might we create such a system locally? (It doesn't take an act of Congress!) It could be - and has been - done by a nonprofit organization. Ideally, it would be created by a group of people who have come together to form a community of mutual support for the meeting of members' needs. The primary focus of the community would be to explore ways of meeting the basic needs we all share in common - and doing so using local resources, with a minimum of dependence on violent, unjust or eco-destructive institutions. The more successful we are at this, the less we need money. An alternative monetary system would enable economic activity to happen that might otherwise be restricted by a scarcity of money. The larger the user base, the more viable the system.

A money-focused economy is a dysfunctional economy. It creates the illusion that people need money in order to live, so they need jobs in order to earn money. It makes sense if the purpose of a socio-economic system is to keep power and wealth concentrated in the hands of an owner class. But if the purpose is to support all of us in meeting our needs, then money and jobs become much less important. Access to natural resources, tools, knowledge and other people is what enables real people to meet their real needs in healthy, sustainable ways.

We don't need to reform the banking system; we need to build communities of mutual support as the basic elements of a cooperative society. We need to de-commodify the meeting of human needs. And this is a good thing, because it's one thing we may actually have the power to do!

CSummer

I like what you have written, Clint, and there are good many elements - and wisdom also, in it. However, the Question still remains, "What are we going to do about the National - and International Debt?" Because that is the vise, and the choke-hold, that the 1% - the bond-holding class - have upon We, The Plebes. And they do it through the Franchise in banking that their holding companies - Banks - have received from the Federal and State governments.

You have written:

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

We don't need to reform the banking system; we need to build communities of mutual support as the basic elements of a cooperative society. We need to de-commodify the meeting of human needs. And this is a good thing, because it's one thing we may actually have the power to do!

I agree completely, Clint, about the "need to build communities of mutual support as the basic elements of a cooperative society;" and the "need to de-commodify the meeting of human needs," I still maintain that it is the Banking System - and its "ownership" of the government, that is the main problem, holding us in thrall.

And while you may be absolutely correct that "the one thing we may actually have the power to do" may be "the building of Community;" (ergo) we may not actually have the power to change the "Banking System;" it is only so because of Ignorance and Apathy among the Masses on the score of what is really going on, and how the System really works; that is the cause for our collective powerlessness on this Score...

- Mark

CSummer

01-15-2012, 09:54 PM

Thanks for your response, Mark. I must ask you to explain to me - and perhaps other readers -
how it is that the national and international debt gives the 1% (bond holders) a choke-hold
on the rest of us. I wonder if that is only true to the extent that we participate in their
monetary system (i.e., fail to create our own alternative system). Anyway, if you could
explain that without too much trouble - and without my having to do a lot of reading -
I'd appreciate it. If I believed there is anything we could do about it - or if I better understood
the nature of the problem (i.e., how it affects people like us) - I might be interested in
making more of an effort myself to look into it.

I like what you have written, Clint, and there are good many elements - and wisdom also, in it. However, the Question still remains, "What are we going to do about the National - and International Debt?" Because that is the vise, and the choke-hold, that the 1% - the bond-holding class - have upon We, The Plebes. And they do it through the Franchise in banking that their holding companies - Banks - have received from the Federal and State governments.

> I still maintain that it is the Banking System - and its "ownership" of the government,
> that is the main problem, holding us in thrall.

One definition I find for "thrall" is servitude or bondage. I don't understand how it is true
that the banking system is holding us (you and me) in thrall, except to the extent that we
seem to - or believe - we need their money in order to live. So, again, please explain.

I have been known to say: The problem isn't out there, and neither is the solution.
If it is somewhere out there, then we are removed from it, and I don't see how we
can resolve it. If, on the other hand, we see the problem as within and among us -
in our way of life and our lack of mutually-supportive connectedness (i.e., community) -
which arise from our view of ourselves, others and the world, then it becomes something
we can address. It becomes something within our power to change or remedy.

> (ergo) we may not actually have the power to change the "Banking System;" it is only so because of Ignorance and Apathy among the Masses on the score of what is really going on, and how the System really works;
> that is the cause for our collective powerlessness on this Score...

Yes, I agree, and I applaud your efforts to educate the ignorant masses (myself included!).
In the 35 or so years I've been either participating in or observing political activism,
I've heard the lament that "if only we could get people to understand and get them together . . ."
I don't know how we can do that, unless perhaps we could make a very clear and simple
case for how the banking system is harming people and what we/they could do to change it.
Apathy comes from a sense of powerlessness, and I think we have good reason to feel
powerless - even ignoring all the unconscious powerlessness we carry within ourselves
from infancy and childhood.

I don't think there's any way we can make the 1% change as long as they don't have
a good reason to. Some may think that the people rose up and ended the Viet Nam war,
but the the military was losing the war so it wasn't in their interest to continue. While the
system is working for the 1%, we can protest, write letters and make calls all we want,
and they still won't have a good reason to change anything.

My sense is also that most people listen much more to the 1%'s spokes-people on
corporate TV and radio than they do to voices of dissent - or spending time trying
to educate themselves about issues. This makes "the masses" very controllable by
those with the money to present their messages effectively. I gave up on anything
resembling true democracy ever coming to the US a long time ago - except perhaps
on the local level.

When I see deer in the woods, I think, They don't seem very concerned about the national debt,
inflation or unemployment levels. Not that I'm suggesting we should go graze or become
hunter-gatherers. It might be useful for us to remember though that it is the earth and
our fellow humans - not the government or the corporations - that provide our sustenance.

Focusing on changing these institutions is a way we validate their power.
Creating cooperative ways of making plans and decisions, managing our affairs and
coordinating our activities so as to meet our needs enables us to empower and free
ourselves from the thralldom of our present way of life.

CSummer

I agree completely, Clint, about the "need to build communities of mutual support as the basic elements of a cooperative society;" and the "need to de-commodify the meeting of human needs," I still maintain that it is the Banking System - and its "ownership" of the government, that is the main problem, holding us in thrall.

And while you may be absolutely correct that "the one thing we may actually have the power to do" may be "the building of Community;" (ergo) we may not actually have the power to change the "Banking System;" it is only so because of Ignorance and Apathy among the Masses on the score of what is really going on, and how the System really works; that is the cause for our collective powerlessness on this Score...

- Mark

Iolchan

01-21-2012, 01:51 PM

CSummer

01-22-2012, 10:53 PM

Many thanks for this, Mark. I found it interesting and informative. I still have at least one question -
maybe more.

What I get from this is that an enormous amount of money flows from the federal government to the
holders of US Treasury bonds. And this amount keeps increasing as the government's debt goes up
(and it's already some astronomical amount). The net effect is that there is less money available to
the "public sector" - at least on the federal level. So there is this constant flow from the public to
the private (corporate) sector, and it is probably concentrated at the highest levels of the latter.

It does sound like a rather crazy arrangement, though quite advantageous for those in positions of great
wealth and power. I won't speculate on how this came to be other than to guess that politicians don't
understand economics on the macro level, and they also don't like saying 'no' to their constituents who
want new programs and projects. In a sense, it seems like the corporate sector won in the old battle
between democratic and plutocratic control over the economy. This ensures that the government won't
be in a position to create so many jobs as to result in something approaching full employment - a situation
that is bad for business as it can increase the cost of labor.

(Am I correct in guessing that the federal government could just create money - the way the banks do -
to pay for new programs and projects and there would be no need to "borrow" it from the banks?)

To me, what this reveals is that we have a system designed by - and to serve the purposes of - the
ruling elite, who view the rest of us as having been put here to serve the structures they have created.
This view seems pervasive throughout our culture; it was even reflected in the famous lines from a
speech by John F Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your
country!" Yet no one questions what this "country" is that we're supposed to do something for. If the
"country" (e.g., the government, corporations, etc) isn't serving my and other people's needs, what is
its purpose for existence? My view is that people are more important than things - at least more
important than the things people create, no matter how large or powerful they may seem to be.
So the systems should be serving the people and not vice versa.

To return to the system that enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of the "people's government"
(and hence at the people's expense), I'm left with the question of how this keeps us - you, me and
the people we know - in thrall (bondage) to this elite. It seems to me this economic/monetary system
only affects us to the extent we participate in it, so it behooves us to create alternative systems so
we can meet our needs without depending on - and hence supporting and being subject to - those
corrupt and unjust systems.

I guess I'm coming from a strong sense that as long as we keep focusing on what has been and is not
working (except for the 1%), we will fail to create a society and economic system that enables all true
human needs to be met peacefully and sustainably. As long as we keep trying to have power in
institutions that have been designed to preclude our efforts to change them, we will only feed a
sense of powerlessness that is already pervasive in our culture. As long as these economic and
political structures appear to us as the only game in town, we can resign ourselves to being spectators.
If we want to be true players and not just pawns, we need to devise a new game that empowers all of us
rather than enabling the destructive habits of those who are addicted to power.

CSummer

Pardon the delay in my response. My internet service was out for the past four days and I could not respond.

The term 'Bond-holding class' is an old term; one that All of the old Radicals of the generation born before - or around - the turn of the last century were familiar with. It was a common term during the 1930's and practically everyone had the street-education to understand the nuances of meaning in the term. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the dumbing-down of the masses had proceeded to the point that the meaning of the term has become somewhat mysterious. Now, however, we seem to be witnessing the rebirth of a form - hopefully an enlightened form - of Class-consciousness; for which I am grateful.

The 'bond-holding class' are the families who are the owners of the Money-Market - or Prime banks. They own the "preferred stock" - or the "CLASS A" stock of these Prime Banks, which in turn own the controlling stock in the Central Banks { e.g., the Federal Reserve Bank} which are privately-owned Joint-Stock corporations.

The 'bond-holding class' collectively own, and collect dividends on the interest-bearing assets of the Prime Banks. One of the most important parts of the portfolio of the Prime Banks, is their holdings of U.S. Treasury Securities; aka "bonds." {Not so co-incidentally, perhaps, akin to the word "bondage."} The bond-h0lding class collect quarterly dividends from the Interest that is generated from the enormous, ever-expanding national debt. The long version of this tale, with flow-charts - you may read here (https://www.paleoprogressives.org/problem-with-the-fed.html); or here (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?84771-Amendment-XXVIII&p=145007#post145007).{on WaccoBB.}

Here, also, is a little Reality-check; the U.S. National Debt Clock. (https://www.usdebtclock.org/)

And here is the National Debt Clock Widget. (https://www.widgetbox.com/widget/national-debt-clock)

You see, the important point to grasp about the National Debt, is that we don't really "owe it to ourselves" { Franklin Roosevelt's words} we owe it to Them - the owners of the Banks which are holding the T-Bills in their vaults. It is this class of blue-bloods, who have inherited the "preferred stock" of the Prime Banks, who are the "bond-holding class."

- Mark

Iolchan

01-30-2012, 04:24 PM

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

Many thanks for this, Mark. I found it interesting and informative. I still have at least one question - maybe more. What I get from this is that an enormous amount of money flows from the federal government to the holders of US Treasury bonds. And this amount keeps increasing as the government's debt goes up (and it's already some astronomical amount). The net effect is that there is less money available to the "public sector" - at least on the federal level. So there is this constant flow from the public to the private (corporate) sector, and it is probably concentrated at the highest levels of the latter.
Initially, the U.S. Treasury Bonds are sold to the Money Market Banks at Bond auctions conducted under the auspices of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s window on Wall Street. Under the current neo-feudal system Banks are empowered, by the franchise they receive from the government, to create money out of thin cyber-space, by multiplying their deposits {Other People’s Money} and creating credit. That is how the Banks buy T-Bills, at the F.O.M.C. bond auctions, and end up holding the government’s Debt-Paper.

At tax time, the money flows from the tax-payers -> to the I.R.S., -> to the Fed -> to the Prime Banks -> to the bond-holding class, in the form of quarterly dividends on that part of the portfolio of the Prime Banks that is held in tax-exempt U.S. Treasury Securities. Both the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Internal Revenue Service, the Fed’s Collection Agency, are registered as Delaware Corporations (https://www.google.com/search?q=I.R.S.+%2C+%22Federal+Reserve+Bank%22+%22Delaware+Corporation%22&hl=en&num=100&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images).

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

It does sound like a rather crazy arrangement, though quite advantageous for those in positions of great wealth and power. I won't speculate on how this came to be other than to guess that politicians don't understand economics on the macro level, and they also don't like saying 'no' to their constituents who want new programs and projects. In a sense, it seems like the corporate sector won in the old battle between democratic and plutocratic control over the economy. This ensures that the government won't be in a position to create so many jobs as to result in something approaching full employment - a situation that is bad for business as it can increase the cost of labor.
Quite so.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

(Am I correct in guessing that the federal government could just create money - the way the banks do - to pay for new programs and projects and there would be no need to "borrow" it from the banks?)
Yes, the government can create money and spend it into circulation. This was proven to work during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln had the Treasury Department issue four hundred & forty-nine million dollars ($449,000,000) worth of interest-free, “Greenback” dollars.

The difference between the Federal Reserve Note, {which has a green back} and the Greenback Dollar of Abraham Lincoln, is that the Federal Reserve Note is an interest-bearing debt, inasmuch as it is “backed” by an interest-bearing U.S. Treasury Bond; and the Greenback Dollar is not.

The old Greenback Dollar is pure fiat money; backed by Faith alone – the sort of legal tender that Ron Paul, incidentally, is ideologically dead set against.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

To me, what this reveals is that we have a system designed by - and to serve the purposes of – the ruling elite, who view the rest of us as having been put here to serve the structures they have created. This view seems pervasive throughout our culture; it was even reflected in the famous lines from a speech by John F Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!" Yet no one questions what this "country" is that we're supposed to do something for. If the "country" (e.g., the government, corporations, etc) isn't serving my and other people's needs, what is its purpose for existence? My view is that people are more important than things - at least more important than the things people create, no matter how large or powerful they may seem to be. So the systems should be serving the people and not vice versa.
Again, amen.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

To return to the system that enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of the "people's government" (and hence at the people's expense), I'm left with the question of how this keeps us - you, me and the people we know - in thrall (bondage) to this elite. It seems to me this economic/ monetary system only affects us to the extent we participate in it, so it behooves us to create alternative systems so we can meet our needs without depending on - and hence supporting and being subject to – those corrupt and unjust systems.
As long as “we” – the 99% - continue participate in paying income taxes (which are promptly funneled by the I.R.S. & the Fed towards servicing the interest on the National Debt,) the bond-holding class will continue to get their cut out of the fiscal pie. That is how they hold us in thrall.

For the present, in order to legally pull out this dead end system, the individual “taxpayer” must learn the fine art of becoming a “non-taxpayer.” One way to diminish one’s taxable “income” is by earning less “money” in the form of Federal Reserve Notes; and more “money” of the sorts you have mentioned in this thread: e.g., in a mutual credit system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_credit), such as a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS) or a Community Exchange System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Exchange_System), for instance… Here are a few other tips:

Wages, earned on an hourly basis, are not properly, Income; and hence, not >currently< taxable. This will change, if Mitt Romney gets in, and implements his "flat tax" scheme. Money made in the stock market is “income.” If you are licensed by the state or work for the government on any level, that is also defined as “income.” Money made by renting or leasing out property, is also defined as “income.”

In order to “create alternative systems so we can meet our needs” we must have Land -Earth- to live upon, cultivate, and be fed by. And, in the present, in order to pay land taxes, we must have and use Federal Reserve Notes. Land taxes are legitimate. But, none of us personally, consciously, or wittingly, ever signed on to the task of {nor should we properly be liable for} paying the Interest on the enormous, ever-expanding National / International Debt. Thus, we find ourselves in the position of paying out on a contract that we personally did not sign up for. That is Fraud, pure and simple.

It seems the best policy for We, the Plebes, is collectively, to repudiate the National Debt, and refuse to pay a further dime towards it out of our own pockets. The people must realize that the National Debt is a Fraudulent, and an Illegitimate entity.

Mitt Romney, in the service of the bond-holding class, and to service the Interest on the Debt, would fix upon the People a “flat-tax” scheme – the most regressive kind of tax of all. Therefore, the time to engage in tax-resistance is in the Present, Now... Let’s Make 2012 Our Year of Jubilee.

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png CSummer wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

I guess I'm coming from a strong sense that as long as we keep focusing on what has been and is not working (except for the 1%), we will fail to create a society and economic system that enables all true human needs to be met peacefully and sustainably. As long as we keep trying to have power in institutions that have been designed to preclude our efforts to change them, we will only feed a sense of powerlessness that is already pervasive in our culture. As long as these economic and political structures appear to us as the only game in town, we can resign ourselves to being spectators. If we want to be true players and not just pawns, we need to devise a new game that empowers all of us rather than enabling the destructive habits of those who are addicted to power.

CSummer

Amen.

Mark Walter Evans

phredo

01-30-2012, 06:31 PM

Great thread! A question and a comment:

Given that Ron Paul is both against fiat currency and fractional reserve lending, how do he and fellow thinkers think the countriy's money supply would be increased as needed? Would prices just fluctuate against the gold held by the government with no new money being created, or what?

Paul Zarlenga's bill seems to have a good compromise between issuing more debt and simply repudiating the debt, which latter would be a hard sell and would also be unfair to people who had bought bonds in good faith. As federal debt becomes due, it would never be rolled over into new debt; instead it would just be paid off in new government issued money. That way there's nothing for a creditor to complain about, and the problem withers away over a few years period, which also has the benefit of a more gradual transition in general to the new system.

Iolchan

01-30-2012, 09:55 PM

Phredo, in answer to your question,

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png phredo wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=146225#post146225)

Given that Ron Paul is both against fiat currency and fractional reserve lending, how do he and fellow thinkers think the country's money supply would be increased as needed? Would prices just fluctuate against the gold held by the government with no new money being created, or what?
I found the following document on the Internet, dated Friday, September 26, 2003. I can not vouch for the source, a certain Mr. Eastman, but what he says is very interesting.

<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "New York"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyText { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 18pt; font-family: "New York"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style>REP. Ron Paul exposed as fake populist (https://www.varioustopics.com/economy/794826-rep-ron-paul-caught-backing-deflation-high-interest-rates-to-benefit-bond-holding-class-at-expense-of-middle-classes-and-poor.html)

RON PAUL ENDORSES PRO CREDITOR-CLASS, PRO-SUPER-
RICH, TIGHT-MONEY "DEFLATIONIST" ECONOMICS

His anti-Federal Reserve stance is a fraud. Ron Paul is a creditor-class serving "deflationist" -- calling for tightening of interest rates "to fight inflation."

Ron Paul decries low interest rates - forced upon Greenspan to stave of collapse and to re-elect the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle-Kissinger team in the White House.

But these low interest rates afford relief to the debtor class (i.e. everyone but the rich) -- and they are hardly enough to bring real relief from the crushing debt caused by the Fed's past deflationary "inflation-fighting" tight-money policies.

Ron Paul says that the Fed is engaging in inflationary policies -- when that is far from the truth.

The people's money is checkbook deposits and currency - with shortfalls covered by credit card and mortgage debt - an ever increasing spiral of debt. This peoples money (currency and demand deposits) is called M1 (https://www.google.com/search?q=). The people have been starved of this kind of money forcing a certain amount of new debt to be inflicted on that class of earners regardless of whatever thrift or budgeting them engage in -- there just isn't money enough to pay for what people consume in the money that is available to pay out for work done -- the goods come from overseas on a credit basis.

Ron Paul says that there is inflation!!! And that therefore steps should be taken to reign in the growth of M1 (when people have to pay back less in interest to the financial sector that causes growth in the amount of M1 in circulation)!!!

But it is not M1 that is growing! It is M3 -- which is tight M1 plus the other broad transactions that the financial elites use for their international transactions -- and this money is not reigned in by Fed deflationary policy, by lower interest rates on bank mortgage and home-improvement loan and small-business loan credit. It is only the latter things that are squeezed by FED deflation (i.e., by so-called anti-inflationary policies, by high-interest rates)

RON PAUL IS CALLING ON THE FED TO SQUEEZE THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THEIR LOWER-LEVEL "M1 LOOP", WHEREAS THE BOOM AND EASY MONEY FLOWS ARE ALL OCCURRING IN THE OVERNIGHT CD'S, THE REPO AGREEMENTS, THE EURODOLLARS, ETC., THAT THE ELITES ENJOY USING IN AN UNREGULATED ENVIRONMENT.

Ron Paul is spewing poison to the middle class when he argues the lies of deflationism!! Remember, the pensions have been decimated by crooked high-finance (Greenspans and Ron Paul's elite buddies and relatives) – THE IOU'S ARE NOW HELD BY THE SUPER RICH IN THEIR BOND PORTFOLIOS -- CORPORATIONS HAVE LIGHTENED UP ON PENSIONS (THROUGH MERGERS, REORGANIZATIONS, DOWNSIZING ETC.)

AND TIGHT MONEY - DEFLATION - IS ALWAYS WHAT THE CREDITOR CLASS (THE HOLDERS OF THE IOU'S) WANT -- THIS WAS THE SOURCE OF THE FIGHT FOR FREE SILVER BETWEEN POPULISTS AND ROBBER BARONS IN THE LATE 1800'S, THIS WAS THE REASON FOR CREATING THE FEDERAL RESERVE IN 1913!!! WHEN THERE IS INFLATION THE WORKING PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE TO PAY BACK THEIR DEBTS WITH DOLLARS THAT TAKE LONGER TO EARN, THAT YOU MUST WORK HARDER TO EARN, DOLLARS THAT BUY LESS THAN WHAT DOLLARS BOUGHT ON THE DAY THE LOAN PAPERS WERE SIGNED.

Rep. Ron Paul is a phony -- he is a stooge of the money power, disguised as a reformer! The Federal Reserve Act was peddled by frauds exactly like Ron Paul!

Ron Paul is an impossibility. He talks one way -- always in a lost cause -- because the elite knows that that is what we want to hear, what is the truth -- and so Ron Paul becomes our trusted spokesman, when all the time he is a two-faced traitor!

Ron Paul says: This increase in the money supply ultimately causes price inflation, despite the government's claims.

Eastman says: Price inflation is never a threat - because it cannot take off unless deliberately planned and induced by increasing the money supply in open market operations and adjusting the discount rate. Inflation never "runs away". Ron Paul calling for tighter money supply will merely strangle and increase the debt burden upon the working classes (middle and lower) - but will not touch the spending by the corporations and government and the super rich on their ventures (war, new super factories in China,
ownership of international land and capital etc.).

Ron Paul says: The Fed's inflationary policies hurt older people the most. Seniors generally rely on fixed incomes from pensions and Social Security, along with their savings. Inflation destroys the buying power of their fixed income and savings.

Eastman says: Ron Paul neglects to say who the lower interest rates help! People looking for jobs. People earning income. People who want to build. People who want to reduce debt. Ron Paul is lying through his teeth when he suggests that the American people, of any age group, have significant savings. We are being crushed under a mountain of growing debt -- the indebtedness of us and our children to the financial elite and their children -- to the creditor class of Rockefellers, Harrimans, Morgans Murdoch, Soros -- you know the names -- the top few percent of the population -- who are getting five tax breaks anyway!!! Ron Paul is being a disingenuous louse when he attempts to hold out our aged hostage in order to get higher interest rates for the creditor class.

Ron Paul is wrong. Inflation from creating to much money going after too few goods is not the problem. We have an economic pie -- and too much of it is going to buy wars, wars on terror, security at airports, missiles and bombs to replace missiles and bombs dropped on innocent countries, money for spooks, money for a police state, money to for Halliburton and Bechtel to rebuild the nations we have reduced to ruin etc. We don't need to raise interest rates to improve the return tot he bond holding class at our expense -- we need to change the content of the economic pie – we have to revamp the bakery to make more butter and fewer guns so that there will be more on the shelf of the public to buy (that WE MAKE, not that we buy from abroad on credit.)

Don't let any populist ever bring up the name Ron Paul as anything but a vile accomplice in the plunder of America by the financial elites. He is a fraud and no longer deserves the support of any decent American.

I repudiate all past endorsements of Rep. Ron Paul.

Here is my essay detailing the workings of the scam that Ron Paul is helping perpetuate. It teaches you the quantity theory of money, but it also shows you that there are two loops of circulation -- the common people's economy, based on loan credit (checkbook money etc., i.e., M1) kept in near permanent deflationary bust -- and the elite loop of elite moneys that know no restrictions and flow in near-permanent "boom" for the privileged. It shows how we are being farmed by the financial community (which includes the private Federal Reserve) for the sake of criminal elites who have taken over the system and pretend to be rendering a public service as the rig the game to continuously shear us and milk us dry.

After reading this, go on to the other articles showing you what real populist economics is. Someday this information will be important. Get ready.

phredo

01-30-2012, 11:11 PM

Thanks, Mark. I "know" (putting it in quotation marks means "I think I know") from watching Bill Still's "The Secret of Oz" and reading about the Zarlenga-Kucinich bill that linking currency to a gold standard, which seems to be basically what Paul wants, usually is deflationary and that deflation tends to hurt most working people (in earlier times I guess it was the small farmers who couldn't charge enough for their product because there just wasn't enough money in circulation) and benefit creditors, who get paid off in money which can buy more than before the deflation.

Before I go on, I want to mention that I don't share your highly negative view of Paul as a "fraud", "stooge", "phony", etc. I disagree with many of his positions, but I think he's sincere and forthright. I plan to vote for him in the Republican primary (I'm currently registered Green and will probably vote Green in the general election), because I think his views on the alarmingly fascist direction the US is going in will be an important foil in debates with the chief executive of our burgeoning police/warfare state. If all he were was "a stooge of the money power, disguised as a reformer," how come the capitalist media and pacs are not backing him but instead are doing everything possible to ridicule and defeat him?

I like the Still-Zarlenga-Kucinich approach: end fractional reserve banking, print fiat money, and spend it on schools, roads, and so forth. I expect hard times ahead, and these measures would be a way to spread the remaining wealth rather than put taxpayers deeper in debt, and all through a reasonably simple and easy to understand law that could be passed tomorrow if there were enough votes in Congress, without requiring everyone to accept some new barter system, regional currency, or other pie-in-the-sky scheme.

Back to my question: why does Paul, as a gold standard supporting deflationist, rail against the Fed and the practice of "fractional reserve" banking? How does ending that practice fit into his gold standard plans?

Fred Wolters

Iolchan

02-01-2012, 01:01 AM