Understanding Money

A half hour presentation on why and how to create a Just Abundance

We know how to earn it, how to spend it, how to save or invest it, and how to borrow it, but, we don’t know what it is. John Kenneth Galbraith famously said: "The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. With something so important, a deeper mystery seems only decent." Alan Greenspan once admitted he was having trouble defining money1. What is the difference between money and credit? There is much to clarify and great creative possibility in developing an understanding of money. Who creates our money? How does it come into circulation? We hear that most countries are in debt. Who are they in debt to? Who is California in debt to? Why is it obscure? Is there a banking secret? Why didn't we bail out the victims and let the perpetrators go bankrupt? Why is Goldman Sachs too big to fail but not California which only needs $200 billion? In the next half hour we will look at these questions, discover what real money is, and discover the creative opportunities that arise out of this understanding.

Cognitive Dissonance
What is the difference between the perception we have of something and our understanding of it? It is the CONCEPT we use to explain the perception. This is crucial because the concepts that we have available to us to understand our perceptions determine our understanding and make up our world view. In this presentation I will be giving you many concepts with which to understand your perceptions which do not exist in our educational system or in the popular culture. What I am hoping for is that you will counter the cognitive dissonance and allow yourself to live into these new concepts so that you give yourself an opportunity to see if the new concepts give you a better understanding of your perceptions and a more positive world view than those provided by the ready made concepts from the culture. Economics is called the dismal science for a very good reason. The concepts that it uses to explain human behavior are not accurate, it is not an empirical science but an ideological one. What do Adam Smith and Karl Marx have in common? They both maintain that only gold is money! That idea is wrong and that idea serves only bankers. In order to develop a true social science of economics we will need to start from first principles.

Human Nature of Exchange
The first new concept, which underpins all the rest of the presentation, is in three parts:

1. Something is economic if it can be exchanged at a price. Family relationships are not economic, religious experience is also not. Our rights are not. Culture in general is less clear. Most of our culture does not support itself from admission prices alone. But it is easy to agree that all the goods and services we provide for each other are valuable and carry a price tag and are therefore exchangeable. Economics is about the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services through exchange. Exchange is the essence of economics.

2. It lies in our nature as human beings that we make an exchange when we judge that the exchange will make us better off. If we look at exchange exactly we can see this. We make an exchange – what I have for what you have – when we make the judgment that – at the agreed price – we will be better off. Both parties to the exchange do this, and so exchange makes both parties better off. When I walk into a store I am aware of what I have (in the form of money) and the store has already determined, by determining the prices on the things it sells, that it will be better off if I buy anything for sale there at the stated price. So I look at the items I need or want with their prices, and mindful of what I have, I select things to buy, making the judgment that at the stated prices I will be better off for buying them. When I leave the store, having paid for my purchases, I am better off and the store is better off. That is the nature of exchange. It is perhaps a little clearer when the buyer and seller negotiate a price. When they agree a price it is because they both reckon they will be better off as a result of the exchange. If they can't agree a mutually beneficial price, they forgo the exchange. There are instances of fraud and deceit which in retrospect mean that the exchange was not advantageous to one of the parties, but those are the exception, not the rule. The law is intended to protect us from fraud and deceit so that in the vast majority of cases exchange makes both parties better off. The exchanges that I make, that you make, that everyone makes are made because they make us better off. Therefore, in the aggregate, it is reasonable to expect that all the exchanges will make everyone increasingly better off. The increase is due to human nature, not the difference in nature between the human beings who are party to the exchange. The increase results from our being together in a society and an economy in which there is plenty to exchange, - people providing goods and services for each other that we need or want, resulting in exchanges that make both parties better off and in the aggregate everyone better off.

3. Are we increasingly better off?3 If not, why not? Might there be something which is siphoning off or appropriating the increase? Could it be that the surplus is being siphoned off by a feature of the monetary system? What are the consequences of the idea that your money can work for you? What is real wealth? What is phantom wealth? What is money?
So let us begin with easy to understand concepts and work our way carefully to the paradigm shifting ideas.

Money as Power
Money gives us a claim on the resources and labor of society – the goods and services that make up the economy. We need money to live and the more we have the better we live. And, the more we have, the greater our claim on the productivity of society and the greater our ability to shape society.

Money as Measure
To measure value we use dollars and cents, much as we use hours and minutes or feet and inches. We use dollars and cents to measure the value of all the goods and services available in the economy so that we can compare them to each other and make reasonable decisions about what to buy or sell and at what price. The dollars and cents as prices are crucial to making decisions about which exchanges will make us better off.

Money as Means of Exchange
The dollars and cents we use to measure value make all the goods and services commensurate and thus exchangeable. To effect the exchanges, we use a device or instrument we call money. The difference between the measure (dollars and cents) and the instrument we use to make exchanges is similar to the difference between hours and minutes and our watch or clock. The watch or clock makes the hours and minutes useful, the money makes the dollars and cents useful. Let us bear that in mind. Dollars and cents are not money, they are the units of the measure of value. Money is the device that allows us to make use of them.

Money as Commodity
Gold and Silver have traditionally been thought of as money, but they are commodities and as such are subject to market forces. A valuable commodity can’t also be the measure of value for everything else without distorting the value of all the other goods and services. A commodity never has and never will be as good as money for effecting exchanges. For many centuries now, there has not been enough gold or silver to function as money and the convertibility of bank notes to gold has always been a fraud.

Money as Legal Tender or Fiat of the Law
Money is either legal tender or it is a commodity, but not both. When gold is legal tender its face value has to be more than its commodity value for it to function as money. If the value of gold rises above the gold or silver coin's value as legal tender they cease to function as money and become gold or silver! When gold or silver coins are money, their intrinsic value is irrelevant to their function as money. And, of course, when paper notes are legal tender their lack of intrinsic value is irrelevant in their use as money. Money, legal tender, is a fiat of the law! The association of gold or silver with money has been used by the bankers to confuse the issue of what money is since the dawn of civilization. Because it is easy to understand that a commodity like gold could be scarce or abundant it is easy to imagine why there might be too little or too much money.

Money as Accounting
The transfer of money by check or debit card between bank accounts in the banking system makes it clear that money is not physical but rather a matter of accounting. Federal Reserve Notes are a very small percentage of the money in circulation. We use banks to settle the accounts between us. When I write a check or swipe my debit card I am instructing the bank to settle the account between me and the merchant. I have the merchants goods, the merchant gets my money via the bank. It is called checkbook money and the whole banking secret is based on it. When we use paper money we don't need banks, but what percentage of your transactions are done with money rather than credit?

How is Money Created?
Now we get to what the Federal Reserve has called money mechanics4. All the money in circulation, except coins, is created by banks as credit, as IOUs, as the principal of a loan. The borrower’s promise to pay becomes an asset of the bank against which it creates a liability, the money it “lends” you. Money is created with accounting entries, assets and liabilities. Promises and loans. When you lend someone money you have to lend them your money, but banks create the money that they lend you. Did you think that banks lend you their money or their depositors money? Did you commit to leave your money “on deposit” for 30 years? Now you know the banking secret. Banks create almost all the money in circulation, and they do it as debt!

Credit Money
Almost all of what we think of as money is created as the principal of a loan. From the bank’s point of view, the asset is the promise to pay and the liability is the loan “money”. As the loan is repaid the bank’s asset is reduced and the corresponding liability – the “money” - is reduced, until both the asset and the “money” are extinguished when the loan is repaid.

Money as Credit
A promise to pay, or an IOU, is, by its very definition, not the money, but an obligation to provide money according to the terms of the promise. In the abstract world of money as credit, a promise to lend you a car is considered the same as lending you a car. This is absurd, because in the real world a promise to lend you a car does you no good if you need a car.

Interest
What we think of as money is created as the principal of a loan which must be repaid with interest. Where, in this system, is the money to pay the interest ever created? It isn’t. Therefore, all the money to pay the interest must come from new loans, which in turn bear interest.

Consequences
Only coins are issued as money. All the rest of the money is issued as debt, or a promise to pay. With what shall we pay? More promises? If all the “money” is created as debt and is extinguished as the debt is repaid where is the permanent money supply? The permanent money supply has to be the debt that no one expects will ever be repaid! Do you expect the Federal Debt will ever be repaid? The Federal Debt is the permanent money supply! All the funds collected from the income tax will soon be insufficient to pay the interest on the Federal Debt!

More Consequences
At what point does the interest on the Federal Debt become unpayable? As a result of the bailouts (more debt) interest will soon be the single largest expense in the Federal Budget!5 The current 11.6 Trillion Dollar debt costs about $700 billion in interest each year! Who is “earning” that interest?

Real Money
Real money is, and can only ever be, the circulating medium of exchange issued by the sovereign to serve the needs of the people. Real money is a public good not a private privilege. Real money measures value and enables us to effect exchanges, and benefits everyone equally. Real money is a fiat of the law. The US has not had real money since the Lincoln Administration issued Greenbacks!

Who is the Sovereign?
Are we the people the sovereign? Are the Banks which issue the currency as debt the sovereign? What if we decide once again that we the people are sovereign and reclaim the power to issue the currency? Do you think we would issue it as debt bearing un-payable interest? Or would we spend it into circulation to pay for the government services we as a people agree are needed?

United States Money
The Federal Government could, and has in the past, issued the currency to pay for the legitimate goods and services the government is charged with providing. A debt and interest free currency spent into circulation would obviate the need for taxes and, if the statistics gathered by the Commerce Department and the Federal Reserve were used to regulate the money supply so that the value of the dollar remained constant, there would be no inflation or boom or bust ‘business’ cycle and no growth imperative. Contrary to the myth, Government issued real money has been absolutely reliable in the past. And we could make sure it would be again.

The Science of Money
Money is a public good like any other measure. It needs to be regulated to ensure that it is a reliable measure. More money in circulation than is justified by the goods and services available and prices rise, or the money becomes less valuable; less money in circulation than needed and prices fall, people can’t pay their debts, products can’t be sold, etc. What is a recession or depression? Did something change as far as the resources, skills and willingness to work are concerned? No, the only change is a shrinking of the money in circulation so there is no longer enough circulating medium to make all the payments that were being made before the shrinkage. The science of money is the regulation of the money supply so that prices remain stable. The money is not valuable in itself. It represents and makes commensurate the value of the real goods and services in the economy. Good data collection, which we have, is all that is needed to regulate the money supply and keep prices stable.

Banking for the Common Good
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Two paragraphs contain the nub!
“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation.
Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have a different opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.”6

What Can We Do?
If you believe that there is still a possibility of rescuing our sovereignty from the privately owned Federal Reserve through the existing political process then there are numerous reforms worth supporting. The American Monetary Institutes's American Monetary Act, would authorize Congress to take over the Federal Reserve and issue United States Notes debt and interest free to rebuild the infrastructure and provide the money for Health Care and other needed services7. The Social Credit movement would issue the currency directly to the people, which would create a democracy of consumers served by an aristocracy of producers, and would distribute a national dividend.8 North Dakota has a $1 Billion budget surplus and has its own bank, owned by the state and not part of the Federal Reserve, so chartering State Banks similar to the Bank of North Dakota is a possible idea.9 Paul Grignon is working on a proposal for digital money, called digital coin, or perpetual coin and credit coin which could be worth supporting10.
However, if you believe, as I do, that it is up to us to think globally and act locally then you can support the establishment of the Common Good Bank.

Common Good Bank
The Society for the Benefit of Everyone, Inc. is a charitable company which developed and is promoting the establishment of the Common Good Bank with divisions in local communities all across the US and eventually the world. The Common Good Bank is designed to bring a just abundance and environmental healing to every community that establishes a division, and to do it quickly and surely. Common Good Banks are designed to create a society to benefit everyone. The Common Good Bank is not another bank with a social mission, rather it is a social mission with a BANK! The Common Good Bank offers a transition that returns our sovereignty to us and will allow us to issue the currency debt and interest free to pay for those things which we agree will benefit all of us.

Join Us
Go to www.commongoodbank.com
Watch the video and read all about the plans for establishing the Common Good Bank. Sign up as a future depositor, investor, partner, etc. Attend our organizing meetings and donate, whatever feels right for you!

Find out More
Web of Debt by Ellen Brown
Agenda for a New Economy by David Korten
The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zerlanga.
The Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer
Money as Debt – video available at video.google.com
Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed available at moneyasdebt.net
www.commongoodbank.com

Quotes
The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again...
Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England 1928-1941 (reputed to be the 2nd richest man in Britain at the time)
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. Franklin D. Roosevelt
In December 1921, the American industrialist Henry Ford and the inventor Thomas Edison visited the Muscle Shoals nitrate and water power projects near Florence, Alabama. They used the opportunity to articulate at length upon their alternative money theories, which were published in 2 reports which appeared in The New York Times on December 4, 1921 and December 6, 1921.
Objecting to the fact that the Government planned, as usual, to raise the money by issuing bonds which would be bought by the banking and non-banking sector -- which would then have to be paid back with money raised from taxes, and with interest added -- they proposed instead that the Government simply create the currency it required and spend it into society through this public project. This is also the Prosperity proposal11.
Thomas Edison made it plain in the following excerpt from The New York Times, December 6, 1921 issue ("Ford Sees Wealth In Muscle Shoals"). Here, the reporter is quoting Edison:
"That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.
"Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 -- that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.
"But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way.
" ... if the Government issues currency, it provides itself with enough money to increase the national wealth at Muscles Shoals without disturbing the business of the rest of the country. And in doing this it increases its income without adding a penny to its debt.
"It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.
"Look at it another way. If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people's credit in interest-bearing bonds?"

Common Good Bank
A Social Mission with a Bank!

COMMON GOOD BANKS WILL BE DIFFERENT.
All profits go to schools and other nonprofits.
Depositors decide what the bank should invest in.
Free local credit card processing for local businesses.
Micro-loans for new businesses and community projects.
Full range of secure, FDIC insured banking services.
Committed to sustainability and economic justice.

Watch the Video
The video on the common good bank . com website explains how the Common Good Bank can create a local currency among all its members that exists only in the bank and which therefore does not require any of the inconvenience of a paper currency. The exchange between Local Currency and Federal Reserve Credit money is explicit on your monthly bank statement. The Common Good Bank can create real money for those purposes its depositor owners vote for.

Design
All of the innovations of the Common Good Bank are proven in other settings, the combination is unique to the design of this bank. The Common Good Bank was designed by the Society to Benefit Everyone (S2BE) to provide a sure and rapidly deployable remedy to our debt based monetary system for any community that cares to implement one.

Direct Democracy
Our winner take all democratic system is so easily gamed that we often feel cheated, that we have no real choice. The democratic system designed into the Common Good Bank is based on one person one vote with proxies to vote for you if you don’t vote and ranking of the choices, as in instant runoff voting. You either vote yourself or the proxy you appoint votes for you, or their proxy for all three of you, etc. You may change your proxy at any time and those who are the proxies for the most people become trusted persons, because they are trusted by the most depositor/owners and they manage the affairs of the local division of the bank. As you may realize this system makes democracy direct and effective.

Directing the Bank
Common Good Bank stock is designed to be like a 30 day Certificate of Deposit, and pays the inflation rate. Minimum investment is $10. This gives you your right to vote, one person one vote, it also makes you a member of the depositors association which directs the bank.
What kinds of projects should the bank lend to? Rank the choices! Which schools and charities should the bank give its profits to? Allocate 100 virtual pennies! What projects should we issue local currency to support? You get the idea! All major decisions of the Common Good Bank local division are voted on by its depositors, all decisions affecting the Common Good Bank as such are made by its Board of Directors just as in a conventional bank.

Establishing the Bank
The Common Good Finance Corporation was established by the Society to Benefit Everyone to oversee the chartering of the Common Good Bank. The target date for this is between September ‘09 and Jan ‘10 during which time it will be helpful for the process to sign up as many depositors, businesses and nonprofits as possible. To become a local Community Division we will need a minimum of 50 depositors; at least one business that will be able to provide cash for depositors using their Common Good Bank card (like a debit card) and at least one nonprofit willing to assist depositors with the paper work. It will also be helpful to have many businesses offering a discount to depositors. Half of the discount goes to the benefit of the depositor and half to the Community Fund of the local division. Half of the Community Fund is granted locally and half is granted somewhere else in the world – we want a society to benefit everyone.

Take Action
Go to the Common Good Bank . Com website and sign up as a future depositor and please make a donation! The website is broad and deep – you are sure to find what you are looking for, if not call or email me.
Thank you!

John G Root Jr 413 528 3102 Cell: 413 329 3200
email: johngrootjr@gmail.com
Blog: johngrootjr.blogspot.com
Website: www.justabundance.org

* Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance, which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states. When people's ideas are consistent with each other, they are in a state of harmony, or consonance. If cognitions are unrelated, they are categorized as irrelevant to each other and do not lead to dissonance.
A powerful cause of dissonance is an idea in conflict with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good person" or "I made the right decision." The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one's choices. A person who just spent too much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may or may not be true, but it would likely reduce dissonance and make the person feel better. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.

Common Good Banks

On Wednesday Evening, July 8th we will have a meeting with William Spademan from the Society to Benefit Everyone, Inc. 501 c 3 Call me for info: 413 528 3102 or cell 413 329 3200 (no service when I am home)
The Society to Benefit Everyone is sponsoring Common Good Finance and creating the Common Good Bank which will have branches all across the country and the world.
We can reclaim our sovereignty and establish Common Good Banks to give us the society we imagine is possible. The society to benefit everyone. The Common Good Bank is a for profit bank owned by its depositors with one person one vote. I uses a wonderful participatory democracy model to assure that all the depositors are represented in the decision making. It takes advantage of fractional reserve banking and creates and administers a local currency. It has the potential to allow us - the local community to control our destiny and free us from the clutches of the money as debt system we are enmeshed in.

Check back for a report on the meeting!

Money Seminar

The Money Seminar: Just Abundance, the Case for Constitutional Money is going well and we are finding it very stimulating. We are concentrating on Crash Course, which you can view at www.christmartenson.org, because it explains the situation that we are heading into in terms of the problems resulting from exponential growth in the money supply, peak oil and environmental degradation, any one of which could doom us, but taken togethether require a very fundamental shift in consciousness to find solutions. It is a wake up call we are heeding. We are also imagining community and finding it very fullfilling.
Join us any Wednesday Evening at 7:15 at the Friends Meeting House in Great Barrington.

JUST ABUNDANCE The Seminar

THE BANKING SECRET REVEALED!
Why are we bailing out the perpetrators instead of the victims. Why do we privatize profits but socialize losses? Where do the banks get the money they lend you? Who owns the Federal Reserve? What can we do about the credit freeze? Why it matters and why you should attend the Twelve Week Wednesday Evenings Seminar 7:15 to 9:15 at the Friends Meeting House in Great Barrington, MA 01230.

email me for the details: johngrootjr@gmail.com

JUST ABUNDANCE The Case for Constitutional Money

A WEEKLY SEMINAR ON THE NATURE OF MONEY, AND AN EXPLORATION OF HOW WE CAN HAVE AN ECONOMY OF ABUNDANCE, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALING.
MISSION STATEMENT
Just Abundance: The Case for Constitutional Money, provides a forum in which we can explore the nature of money, the difference between real wealth and phantom wealth and how we might design a new currency so that we may all enjoy a just abundance, heal the environment, and have peace in the world.

SYLLABUS
There are two books which form the foundation of this seminar: AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth (Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed and How to Replace It) by David C. Korten; and THE WEB OF DEBT: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.
Other books we will refer to are: THE FUTURE OF MONEY: Creating new Wealth, Work and a Wiser World by Bernard Lietaer; THE REAL WEALTH OF NATIONS: Creating a Caring Economics by Riane Eisler; A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEBT: Inspiring Solutions to the Social and Economic Crisis by Eric de Maré; THE GROWTH ILLUSION: How economic growth has enriched the few, impoverished the many and endangered the planet by Richard Douthwaite; NEW VIEW ON MONEY by Richard Kotlarz (which is available online at http://economictree.blogspot.com/ ) among many others AND three videos:
MONEY AS DEBT by Paul Grignon; THE MONEY MASTERS; and CRASH COURSE; all available at http://video.google.com
Each session of the seminar is two and half hours and will consist of a half hour presentation by one of the faculty, a presentation based on the previous session by a volunteer member of the seminar, dialog about the presentations and concluding with a guided imagination and sharing.
Participants are expected to commit to buying and reading the books and viewing the three videos and to attending the full seminar.

During the course there will be many opportunities for independent study and presentations to the group and opportunities to participate in and or develop locally based projects in the spirit of service towards creating a just abundance.
Participants who complete the seminar can expect to have a reasonably full understanding of why the way the currency is issued so profoundly affects the economy, a relatively detailed understanding of the history of money and of the United States in relation to the “money power”, what Constitutional money is, why and how to imagine community; and participants will have the opportunity to engage in social change projects working towards implementing the imaginations that arise from imagining community.
There is no fee for the seminar. Donations will be gratefully accepted and will be used to offset the cost of advertising and producing the hand outs.

FACULTY
John G Root Jr has overall responsibility for the seminar. He has no formal qualifications, which he regards as an asset. He is a full time volunteer for Berkshire Village, Inc. a 501 (c) (3) of which he is president, and which is a member of the Cadmus Lifesharing Association. He has lived and worked with adults with mental disabilities for the past 36 years and was instrumental in inaugurating Community Supported Agriculture. He has had a lifelong interest in the monetary system and has studied the issue intensively for the past 5 years. He is a frequent guest on WBCR radio programs, especially the Aquarian Hour and Truth Search. He is a founding member of Co-Act. www.co-act.org
Robert Feuer is a lawyer in Stockbridge who was a principle organizer of the Clean Elections law and in the Impeach Bush Cheney campaign. He ran for Congress against John Olver in the last Democratic primary winning 21% of the vote. He has been a progressive activist all his life and is active in Stockbridge Politics. He is also a founding member of Co-Act. Bob’s interest in the currency question and his ongoing study is coming to expression in his participation as a faculty member of this Seminar.
Alan Becker is an entrepreneur and free thinker who hosts the WBCR radio show Truth Search. He is also a founding member of Co-Act.
Ted Pierce is an accomplished guitarist and singer with his newly organized band, etc. He has also had a lifelong interest in the subject of money and the elite control of the economy.



SCHEDULE
The Seminar will take place on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9:30 pm at a venue to be determined. The first session will be on March 25th and will meet every week until the last session and graduation ceremony on June 10th 2009

Please RSVP to

John G Root Jr
135 Jug End Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
413 528 3102
johngrootjr@gmail.com
johngrootjr.blogspot.com

The first session will be a sampler and you are encouraged to come if you are at all curious and might be interested in understanding the nature of money, the new economy, and the power of imagining, so that you can have a taste of the seminar. We will seek a commitment from the people who return the following week.

We have developed an outline curriculum for the course, but we will conduct it as a seminar, and we will involve everyone in the dialog and shaping the subsequent sessions.

USURY AND EVIL

INTRODUCTION
When one steps back from all the fear being generated by the crisis in the financial system one might look to Abraham Lincoln and John Adams for some understanding of what is going on. "As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." : U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) - Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY) "All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from defects of the Constitution or Confederation; not from any want of honor or virtue, as much as ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." John Adams
But what is the real problem? Is there a systemic problem of which we are unaware? Why does the bible condemn usury, or interest? Is it possible that issuing the currency as debt and charging interest is the underlying problem? Might it be that usury really is evil?

HUMAN NATURE AND THE EXCHANGE PROCESS
If one looks at really basic things about human nature and the economy then one can see that human nature itself, the way we are constituted, generates a surplus through the process of exchange. In every exchange both parties have something that the other party wants and the exchange happens when they both judge that they will be better off as a result of the exchange. The exchange does not happen when it will be equal, no change, just as well off as before, NO, every exchange makes both parties better off. In the aggregate all the exchanges in the economy should add up to everyone being increasingly better off. Now, if we understand that this continual increase is due to human nature, we will easily agree that the economy should be organized so that everyone is increasingly better off. We also know that we are all different, with different talents and energy, ambition and ingenuity, with different destinies, and we know that some of us will create things which are more valuable, than others. But we also know that we are all dependent on what we have to offer being the subject of an exchange that makes us both better off. Obviously, in an economy organized to reflect human nature, some will be wealthy and some will be poor, but most will be well off, neither rich nor poor. Logically one would expect there to be the typical bell curve, with a few stupid, lazy people relatively poor and a few ambitious smart people relatively rich. What has happened to the middle class? Why is the income distribution an exponential curve?
This business of exchange as the engine of our prosperity cannot be over emphasized. Because it is the result of human nature any attempt to organize the economy to channel the surplus - which results from human nature - to oneself or ones group, and away from the economy and people in general, contravenes human nature, denies human nature, appropriates human nature, privatizes human nature, and is by any definition, inhuman or evil.

WHAT IS MONEY?
But before we get to usury, which does that, of course, we need to understand what money is. We understand that the exchange takes place at a particular price. The price at which the exchange takes place is how each party to the exchange can know that they will be better off after the exchange. Prices let us value all the exchangeable things, what we have to offer and what others have to offer, relative to each other. We use the price to make the very human judgment: “At this price, this exchange will make me better off”. It really doesn't matter how abstract this gets, or how remote the establishment of the price for one side of the exchange is. The price at which the exchange takes place makes you and WalMart or you and your friend better off economically. Of course, there can be problems with pricing, if you price your good or service too low or too high you will sell too many or too few. This sort of thing is not what I am concerned about here, but it does point out the importance of fair prices. Not too high, not too low, just right, so everyone will be better off as a result of you offering it at that price and me buying it at that price. Yes, fair prices are really important, as you already know, for the beneficial-to-all functioning of the economy.
We price things so we can assess the relative value of the things to each other so the exchanges will make us all better off. Prices are the measure. You can't own the measure, only the measuring device, in this case the money, like you use your watch to measure hours or the odometer to measure miles, and the measure has to be reliable, not subject to inflation and deflation and distortions and bubbles and crashes and etc. The measure is not valuable, the goods and services are valuable, the measuring device (money) lets you effect the exchanges that will make you better off or not at the agreed price. If you think the measuring device is valuable in itself, “the means of exchange” like gold or silver, then you will be oriented towards the money and not the economy, and the valuable in itself means of exchange will obscure the economy, which is people doing things for each other.

THE UNDISTORTED VIEW OF THE ECONOMY
If you are looking at the things (goods and services) that are valuable according to their price, and you are not looking at the money, then you are seeing the economy undistorted. If the money is valuable in itself it will distort everything in the economy because it is one of those things that has a price, that fluctuates, like everything else in the economy. It's usefulness as a measure is compromised. Let us assume at this point that this is clear, and it is possible to assume that money, by its nature, is a measuring device, and if it is to be reflective of human nature and serve human nature then it is a public good, a measure, that needs to be regulated so that its function as a measure is reliable.
How do we regulate the value of money so that it is a reliable measure? Make sure that there is always the right amount of money in circulation to accurately measure the goods and services being created, exchanged and consumed. If new goods and services are being created by human ingenuity and industry they will need to be represented by new money, if goods and services are consumed and not replaced, money to represent that will have to be taken out of circulation. Too much money in circulation and prices will generally inflate and too little money in circulation prices will generally deflate. How can the regulators know how much money is needed? Benjamin Franklin pointed out that there always has to be enough money for all the transactions the people want to make, and if there isn't enough money there will be poverty and misery. If there is enough money for all the transactions the people want to make, they will be prosperous and of high moral character. This is what Maslov describes in his hierarchy of needs. When your basic needs are secured, you are free to concentrate on the higher needs, all the way to self actualization.

CREDIT
This raises the question of credit. Ben Franklin advocated, as did Lincoln, that the Government should spend all the money into circulation that it needs to provide for the common good, and if someone wanted to start a business and needed capital to build or acquire the means of production then the public should create the money as a grant or a loan at a reasonable rate of interest, either as the legislature or regulate the banks to do this. This was their understanding at the time. As you will see, loans bearing interest are not appropriate.
So, here we are at credit and money as something valuable in itself and usury. Let us remember that to honor human nature and remain true to the expression of human nature that is the economy, we have to see the goods and services with prices, not the money. So credit, money in advance, allows human potential, entrepreneurship, ingenuity, ambition, organization skills, etc. to create new goods and services, that didn't exist before, to come into existence to be valued and exchanged, making everyone better off. This potential needs to be recognized and monetized. Do we have a right to the capital our capacities warrant? I think you will agree that we do. If people have grown up with the idea that the money is only a measure, then all we have to do is ask the person what he believes the value of the goods and services he will create will be and give him the money he requires, to create that value. Of course, in order for him to make a reasonable estimate of this he will need to assure at least himself , if not also, the issuer of the currency that he has taken enough advice and acquired the necessary skills, etc. If the business is successful then the money is properly represented and if it fails then some money will probably need to be taken out of circulation or the new money will tend to be inflationary.
There always has to be enough money in the economy so that everyone is able to do productive, useful things for each other, things, where the exchanges make each party better off. Credit is no different. Credit represents potential value, which can be estimated, and adjusted after the fact. Too little credit and people can't create new things, too much credit and the new things are probably not going to be worth what was put into circulation.
So, to regulate the economy and let everyone enjoy the surplus, once a year or once a quarter, the currency regulators check the general level of prices and pay everyone a dividend to put more money into circulation or assess a tax to take money out of circulation. See the social credit movement literature for more on this:
Social Credit is a socio-economic philosophy wherein consumers, fully provided with adequate purchasing power, establish the policy of production through exercise of their monetary vote.[1] In this view, the term economic democracy does not mean worker control of industry.[1] Removing the policy of production from banking institutions, government, and industry, Social Credit envisages an "aristocracy of producers, serving and accredited by a democracy of consumers."[1]
The term Social Credit, as a formal name, originated from the writings of British engineer and originator of the Social Credit movement, Clifford Hugh Douglas (1879–1952), who wrote a book by that name in 1924. According to Douglas, the true purpose of production is consumption, and production must serve the genuine, freely expressed interests of consumers. Each citizen is to have a beneficial, not direct, inheritance in the communal capital conferred by complete and dynamic access to the fruits of industry assured by the National Dividend and Compensated Price.[1] Assuming the only safe place for power is in many hands, Social Credit is a distributive philosophy, and its policy is to disperse power to individuals. Social Credit philosophy is best summed by Douglas when he said, “Systems were made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man which is self-development, is above all systems, whether theological, political or economic.”[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
GOLDSMITHS BECOME BANKERS
Now that we have some idea of how the economy could be organized to benefit everyone, let us look at how the system we have now came about. This is the story of the goldsmiths who became bankers. At the end of the middle ages gold and silver were the medium of exchange. The goldsmiths were integral to this situation because they could assay the gold and and silver as to its purity and weight, and keep it safe in their vaults. They issued receipts for gold, which circulated in lieu of gold and silver. Receipts for gold and silver are more convenient for trading because they represent the assayed and safely stored gold, they are more reliable as a measure than the gold itself. Goldsmiths became bankers when they lent receipts for gold they did not have and charged interest on these loans. Since we now know that there always has to be enough money in circulation for all the exchanges the people want to make it should be clear that issuing currency is a very powerful function. Because the Goldsmiths were able to increase the supply of gold and silver (with their receipts for gold that did not exist) far beyond what was being stolen from the New World or mined, they made the Age of Discovery possible. When the means of exchange is valuable in itself, gold and silver, people want the money, they are working for the money, and their view of the economy is distorted because gold and silver is both valuable in itself, and what they use to measure the relative value of the offerings in the economy. However, at that stage in history that may not have been very important, what was important is that the expansion of credit, to match the entrepreneurial spirit manifesting during the Age of Discovery was in the hands of the Goldsmiths.
THE BANKING SECRET
Because the Goldsmiths as bankers were engaged in deceiving the public (issuing receipts for gold and silver they did not have, as loans and charging interest) secrecy was necessary and the banking secret reared its ugly head. If people became suspicious that the receipts for gold were fake, they would cash them in and get real gold and silver. What we know about all this is that the bankers formed a secret society to protect the banking secret, to support each other if there were a run on the bank and to decide together what activities should get credit and which not. In order to protect the banking secret the bankers learned to control the kings and princes, who were induced to believe they needed their credit; they learned to control education and especially history, and they learned to protect their authority to issue the currency. Because the bankers issued the currency, (receipts for gold) as loans, bearing interest, they were able to direct the surplus, which arises from human nature, into their own coffers, to accumulate the wealth for themselves that their credit made possible. The loans made new value creation possible, the interest directed the surplus to themselves, depriving the people in general of the rightful fruits of their labor and conferring on the bankers the power to shape the economy and society to their ends.
WHO IS THE SOVEREIGN?
It should be clear now that the banking secret also hides the fact that the issuer of the currency is the true sovereign. The sovereign power, to order society, to create the conditions that reflect the sovereign's values, was in the hands of a group of people who were deceiving the public and accumulating the surplus value. This is all possible because of usury. It is only possible because of usury. As the banking secret became more widely known there was a movement to share in the “benefits” of interest and the bankers started paying a low interest on deposits. Everyone who had spare money or savings, could deposit it with the bank and earn interest, and was thus co-opted into the system; and the media, the educational system, etc. prevented any understanding of the true nature of money from taking hold. Interest is only conceptually possible if one believes that the money is valuable in itself. As we have seen, this creates a distortion that obscures the beauty of the economy in which we do for each other and enjoy increasing prosperity because we all want to place our capacities and destinies in the service of the community.
What have the bankers used their power to create? Nothing less than the world we inhabit. Bankers foment war and fund both sides so that it doesn't matter which side wins, they accumulate the profits. And the war rearranges society to express their values mostly by centralizing power in their hands.
The American Revolution and the establishment of the united States of America, with a constitution that makes the people sovereign, has one little line in it giving the people's representatives the power to issue the currency and regulate the value thereof. The line from the Constitution reads: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. (I am very impressed that it is in the same line as Weights and Measures, obviously the Founders also thought of money as a measure!) For the first hundred years or so, up until 1913, the bankers would acquire the right to issue the currency and then lose it again. Andrew Jackson and the battle for the bank is the best known example. But all the Presidents who were assassinated came to understand the banking secret and either did something about it or planned to. Lincoln issued Greenbacks, debt and interest free money, and when Kennedy understood the role of the Federal Reserve, he issued United States Notes, silver certificates, as a debt free, interest free currency saying that he would pay off the Federal Reserve and free us from its clutches.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH DEBT AND INTEREST?
What is, however, the underlying problem of debt and interest? If the currency is issued as debt, then the bank creates only the principal; but you have to repay the principle plus interest. At no point in the system is there an opportunity to create the interest. This has the consequence that all the money to pay the interest has to come from new principal. If you never create the money to pay the interest there is a logarithmic increase in the amount of interest owed, requiring ever increasing debt to pay it, which in turn requires more interest. Eventually more interest is owed than there is collateral to secure new loans and the system has to crash. Because the interest is accruing to the very small percentage of people who earn more interest than they pay, they acquire extraordinary buying power relative to the rest of the population. If you plan to retire on the money you are saving that is earning interest and you belong to the baby boom you are just now realizing that all that supposed value is being destroyed as the bubble bursts, the stock market crashes and plans to bail out the banks advance. Why is no one in power objecting to the losses being socialized? Why are we bailing out the perpetrators rather than the victims? Does it make any sense at all to give the banks money to clear their bad debts so we can borrow it from them again?
WHAT HAVE THE BANKSTERS BEEN DOING?
What have the banksters done since their private banking cartel was established in 1913? How about WWI, the Soviet Union, the Great Depression, Hitler and WWII, Nuclear Weapons, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Israel and Palestine, decimation of the middle class, Free Trade and Globalization, terrorism, the current wars, etc. What don't you like? You can be sure the banksters are behind it. Am I overstating the case? NO, read all the alternative history the banksters try so hard to keep from us.
EVIL IS BASED ON USURY
There you have it. The control of the world by the banksters is all made possible by usury. All the evil in the world is created by the machinations of the banksters via their usurpation of the surplus through the device of usury.
Let me provide one example of how this works. Because the interest is never created there is competition in the economy to acquire the interest. There is great fear of not being able to make the mortgage payments and there is an underlying sense that the end justifies the means. This is a direct – not an indirect – result of the debt and interest based monetary system. Because human nature is really cooperative and inclusive and giving and sacrificing and altruistic, and because deep down we all know that only the means assures the end, there is always the danger that we will wake up to the competition being caused by interest. The banksters knew that they had to provide a reason for competition, other than interest, and they found it in Darwinism. When Darwin published the Origin of Species, it was quickly discredited because it was such an untenable theory. None of its tenets were viable. Survival of the Fittest is tautological (How do you know who is the fittest?, The ones who survive! Who survives? The fittest!) For example, acquired characteristics are not passed on. There have been no long periods of uninterrupted time in which natural selection could work. The offspring of different related species are sterile (mules for example) and there are no missing links in the fossil record, species appear fully formed; there is no explanation for how something that must be perfectly formed to work could evolve, etc. This did not deter the bankers. They needed natural selection and survival of the fittest as camouflage for the problems created by interest. Evolution, neo-darwinism (based on beneficial mutations, not natural selection or survival of the fittest) was funded in the early years of the last century as a “legitimate” field of scientific study so that by 1913 it was reasonably well established as the modern scientific view. Ever since it has been promoted and all the substantial evidence disproving it has been suppressed. How many books critical of evolutionary theory are you aware of? How often is evolution mentioned in normal news articles? How often does Time Magazine do a cover story on evolution? One can follow this development by seeking out the critical books and one discovers that the issues raised were never addressed by the evolutionists, only the character of the author was assassinated. My uncle, Norman Macbeth, wrote a book in 1971, which is still in print, called Darwin Retried. No one from the evolutionary biology departments addressed the issues he raised, the only criticism was that he was a lawyer, not an evolutionary biologist, so what could he know? This is how the banksters work to create a society we know in our bones is anti human and it is time we woke up, assumed our sovereignty again and issued the currency as measure, debt free and interest free. Then, and only then, will the paradigm shift and human nature, through the process of exchange will make us all increasingly better off, increasingly able to pursue our spiritual development and heal the earth.

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again...
Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England 1928-1941 (reputed to be the 2nd richest man in Britain at the time)

Abraham Lincoln on the subject of Constitutional Money; from an address to Congress.
Money is the creature of law and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national Government.
Money possesses no value to the State other than that given to it by circulation.
Capital has its proper place and is entitled to every protection. The wages of men should be recognized in the structure of and in the social order as more important than the wages of money.
No duty is more imperative for the Government than the duty it owes the People to furnish them with a sound and uniform currency, and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.
The available supply of Gold and Silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the People, some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed, and some means other than that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use.
The monetary needs of increasing numbers of People advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the Government. Such needs can be served by the issue of National Currency and Credit through the operation of a National Banking system .The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the Government can be properly regulated and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amounts as may be necessary by Taxation, Redeposit, and otherwise. Government has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the Nation.
Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the Bank deposits of the Nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency or Bank bankruptcy.
Government possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by Taxation and otherwise need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing Governmental work and public enterprise. The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Governments greatest creative opportunity.
By the adoption of these principles the long felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprise, the maintenance of stable Government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own Government. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.

There appeared in The London Times during the Civil War the following from Otto Von Bismarck:

"If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic (the public issue of usury-free currency) should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."

In 1876, Bismarck explained further:
"The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence which would upset their financial dominance over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed. They saw tremendous booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the financiers, for the vigorous Republic which was practically self-providing. Therefore, they started their emissaries in order to exploit the question of slavery . . . Lincoln's personality surprised them. His being a candidate had not troubled them; they thought to easily dupe a woodcutter. But Lincoln read their plots and understood that the South was not the worst foe, but the financiers."

Lincoln agreed:
"I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy."

References: Money As Debt, and Crash Course, available at video.google.com, Web of Debt Ellen H Brown, Richard Kotlarz http://economictree.blogspot.com/ OR http://www.concordresolution.org/column.htm
Agenda For A New Economy by David C. Korten, The Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer
The hidden history is most usefully described in David Icke's Complete Guide to the Global Conspiracy and How to End It.

Evil Is Interest

INTRODUCTION
The title of this essay on money is not 'interest is evil', that is also true, but rather that usury, euphemistically called interest, nowadays, is the source of evil, or is interchangeable with evil, or evil is usury. This is a very strong idea and will require some justification if you are to take it seriously, and therefore I trust that you will suspend your disbelief and grant me the opportunity to take you on a journey that will show you that evil manifests usury and usury manifests evil.

HUMAN NATURE AND THE EXCHANGE PROCESS
If one looks at really basic things about human nature and the economy then one can see that human nature itself, the way we are constituted, generates a surplus through the process of exchange. In every exchange both parties have something that the other party wants and the exchange happens when they both feel that they will be better off as a result of the exchange. The exchange does not happen when it will be equal, no change, just as well off as before, NO, every exchange makes both parties better off. All the exchanges in the economy add up to everyone being increasingly better off. Now, if we understand that this continual increase is due to human nature, we will easily agree that the economy should be organized so that everyone is increasingly better off. We also know that we are all different, with different talents and energy, ambition and ingenuity, with different destinies, and we know that some of us will create things which are more valuable, than others. But we also know that we are all dependent on what we have to offer being the subject of an exchange that makes us both better off. Obviously, in an economy organized to reflect human nature, some will be wealthy and some will be poor, but most will be well off, neither rich nor poor. You know, the typical bell curve.
This business of exchange as the engine of our prosperity cannot be over emphasized. Because it is the result of human nature any attempt to organize the economy to channel the surplus - which results from human nature - to oneself or ones group, and away from the economy and people in general, contravenes human nature, denies human nature, appropriates human nature, privatizes human nature, and is by any definition, inhuman or evil.

WHAT IS MONEY?
But before we get to interest, which does that, of course, we need to understand what money is. We all know that the exchange takes place at a particular price. The price at which the exchange takes place is how each party to the exchange can know that they will be better off after the exchange. Prices let us value all the exchangeable things, what we have to offer and what others have to offer, relative to each other. We use the price to make the very human judgment: “At this price, this exchange will make me better off”. It really doesn't matter how abstract this gets, or how remote the establishment of the price for one side of the exchange is. The price at which the exchange takes place makes you and WalMart or you and your friend better off economically. Of course, there can be problems with pricing, if you price your good or service too low or too high you will sell too many or too few. This sort of thing is not what I am concerned about here, but it does point out the importance of fair prices. Not too high, not too low, just right, so everyone will be better off as a result of you offering it at that price and me buying it at that price. Yes, fair prices are really important, as you already know, for the beneficial-to-all functioning of the economy.
Money is the measure we use to price things so we can assess the relative value of the things to each other so the exchanges will make us all better off. It is a measure. You can't own a measure, you can only use the measure, like you use your watch to measure hours or the odometer to measure miles, and the measure has to be reliable, not subject to inflation and deflation and distortions and bubbles and crashes and etc. The measure is not valuable, the goods and services are valuable, the measure (money) lets you make the assessment whether you will be better off or not at this price. If you think the measure is valuable in itself, “the means of exchange” like gold or silver, then it can be manipulated, just look at the gold and silver markets and the manipulation that is going on now. What does that have to do with a reliable measure which lets me make judgments about exchanges that will make me, and my exchange partner, better off?

THE UNDISTORTED VIEW OF THE ECONOMY
If you are looking at the things (goods and services) that are valuable according to their price, and you are not looking at the money, then you are seeing the economy undistorted. If the money is valuable in itself it will distort everything in the economy because it is one of those things that has a price, that fluctuates, like everything else in the economy. It's usefulness as a measure is compromised. Let us assume at this point that this is clear, and it is possible to assume that money, by its nature, is a measure, and if it is to be reflective of human nature and serve human nature then it is a public good, a measure, that needs to be regulated so that its function as a measure is reliable.
How do we regulate the value of money so that it is a reliable measure? Make sure that there is always the right amount of money in circulation to accurately measure the goods and services being created, exchanged and consumed. If new goods and services are being created by human ingenuity and industry they will need to be represented by new money, if goods and services are consumed and not replaced, money to represent that will have to be taken out of circulation. Too much money in circulation and prices will generally inflate and too little money in circulation prices will generally deflate. How can the regulators know how much money is needed? Benjamin Franklin pointed out that there always has to be enough money for all the transactions the people want to make, and if there isn't enough money there will be poverty and misery. If there is enough money for all the transactions the people want to make they will be prosperous and of high moral character.

CREDIT
This raises the question of credit. Ben Franklin suggested, as did Lincoln, that the Government should spend all the money into circulation that it needs to provide for the common good, and if someone wanted to start a business and needed capital to build or acquire the means of production then the public should create the money as a grant or a loan at a reasonable rate of interest, either as the legislature or regulate the banks to do this. This was their understanding at the time. As you will see, loans bearing interest are not appropriate.
So, here we are at credit and money as something valuable in itself and usury. Let us remember that to honor human nature and remain true to the expression of human nature that is the economy, we have to see the goods and services with prices, not the money. So credit, money in advance, allows human potential, entrepreneurship, ingenuity, ambition, organization skills, etc. to create new goods and services, that didn't exist before, to come into existence to be valued and exchanged, making everyone better off. This potential needs to be recognized and monetized. Do we have a right to the capital our capacities warrant? I think you will agree that we do. If people have grown up with the idea that the money is only a measure, then all we have to do is ask the person what he believes the value of the goods and services he will create will be and give him the money he requires, to create that value. Of course, in order for him to make a reasonable estimate of this he will need to assure himself and the issuer of the currency that he has taken enough advice and acquired the necessary skills, etc. If the business is successful then the money is properly represented and if it fails then some money will probably need to be taken out of circulation or the new money will tend to be inflationary.
There always has to be enough money in the economy so that everyone is able to do productive, useful things for each other, things where the exchanges make each party better off. Credit is no different. Credit represents potential value, which can be estimated, and adjusted after the fact. Too little credit and people can't create new things, too much credit and the new things are probably not going to be worth what was put into circulation.
So, to regulate the economy and let everyone enjoy the surplus, once a year or once a quarter, the currency regulators check the general level of prices and pay everyone a dividend to put more money into circulation or assess a tax to take money out of circulation. See the social credit movement literature for more on this:
Social Credit is a socio-economic philosophy wherein consumers, fully provided with adequate purchasing power, establish the policy of production through exercise of their monetary vote.[1] In this view, the term economic democracy does not mean worker control of industry.[1] Removing the policy of production from banking institutions, government, and industry, Social Credit envisages an "aristocracy of producers, serving and accredited by a democracy of consumers."[1]
The term Social Credit, as a formal name, originated from the writings of British engineer and originator of the Social Credit movement, Clifford Hugh Douglas (1879–1952), who wrote a book by that name in 1924. According to Douglas, the true purpose of production is consumption, and production must serve the genuine, freely expressed interests of consumers. Each citizen is to have a beneficial, not direct, inheritance in the communal capital conferred by complete and dynamic access to the fruits of industry assured by the National Dividend and Compensated Price.[1] Assuming the only safe place for power is in many hands, Social Credit is a distributive philosophy, and its policy is to disperse power to individuals. Social Credit philosophy is best summed by Douglas when he said, “Systems were made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man which is self-development, is above all systems, whether theological, political or economic.”[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
GOLDSMITHS BECOME BANKERS
Now that we have some idea of how the economy could be organized to benefit everyone, let us look at how the system we have now came about. This is the story of the goldsmiths who became bankers. At the end of the middle ages gold and silver were the medium of exchange. The goldsmiths stored the peoples gold and silver in their vaults and issued receipts for gold, which circulated in lieu of gold and silver. Goldsmiths became bankers when they lent receipts for gold they did not have and charged interest on these loans. Since we now know that there always has to be enough money in circulation for all the exchanges the people want to make it should be clear that issuing currency is a very powerful function. Because the Goldsmiths were able to increase the supply of gold and silver (with their receipts for gold that did not exist) far beyond what was being stolen from the New World or mined they made the Age of Discovery possible. When the means of exchange is valuable in itself, gold and silver, people want the money, they are working for the money, and their view of the economy is distorted because gold and silver is both valuable in itself, and what they use to measure the relative value of the offerings in the economy. However, at that stage in history that may not have been very important, what was important is that the expansion of credit, to match the entrepreneurial spirit manifesting during the Age of Discovery was in the hands of the Goldsmiths.
THE BANKING SECRET
Because the Goldsmiths as bankers were engaged in deceiving the public (issuing receipts for gold and silver they did not have, as loans and charging interest) secrecy was necessary and the banking secret reared its ugly head. If people became suspicious that the receipts for gold were fake, they would cash them in and get real gold and silver. What we know about all this is that the bankers formed a secret society to protect the banking secret, to support each other if there were a run on the bank and to decide together what activities should get credit and which not. In order to protect the banking secret the bankers learned to control the kings and princes, who needed their credit; they learned to control education and especially history, and they learned to protect their authority to issue the currency. Because the bankers issued the currency, (receipts for gold) as loans, bearing interest, they were able to direct the surplus which arises from human nature into their own coffers, to accumulate the wealth for themselves that their credit made possible. The loans made new value creation possible, the interest directed the surplus to themselves, depriving the people in general of the rightful fruits of their labor and conferring on the bankers the power to shape the economy and society to their ends.
WHO IS THE SOVEREIGN?
It should be clear now that the banking secret also hides the fact that the issuer of the currency is the true sovereign. The sovereign power, to order society, to create the conditions that reflect the sovereign's values, was in the hands of a group of people who were deceiving the public and accumulating the surplus value. This is all possible because of usury. It is only possible because of usury. As the banking secret became more widely known there was a movement to share in the “benefits” of interest and the bankers started paying a low interest on deposits. Everyone who had spare money or savings, could deposit it with the bank and earn interest, and was thus co-opted into the system; and the media, the educational system, etc. prevented any understanding of the true nature of money from taking hold. Interest is only conceptually possible if one believes that the money is valuable in itself. As we have seen, this creates a distortion that obscures the beauty of the economy in which we do for each other and enjoy an increasing standard of living.
What have the bankers used their power to create? Nothing less than the world we inhabit. Bankers foment war and fund both sides so that it doesn't matter which side wins, they accumulate the profits. And the war rearranges society to express their values mostly by centralizing power.
The American Revolution and the establishment of the united States of America, with a constitution that makes the people sovereign, has one little line in it giving the people's representatives the power to issue the currency and regulate the value thereof. For the first hundred years or so, up until 1913, the bankers would assume the right to issue the currency and then lose it again. Andrew Jackson and the battle for the bank is the best known example. But all the Presidents who were assassinated came to understand the banking secret and either did something about it or planned to. Kennedy, for example, issued United States Notes, silver certificates, as a debt free, interest free currency saying that he would pay off the Federal Reserve and free us from its clutches.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH DEBT AND INTEREST?
What is, however, the underlying problem of debt and interest? If you issue the currency as the principle of a debt and charge interest then the currency is extinguished when the principle is repaid, and the interest is unpayable except out of new debt. The point is that, if you never create the money to pay the interest there is a logarithmic increase in the amount of interest owed, requiring ever increasing debt to pay it, which in turn requires more interest. Eventually more interest is owed than there is collateral to secure new loans and the system has to crash. Because the interest is accruing to the very small percentage of people who earn more interest than they pay, they acquire extraordinary buying power relative to the rest of the population. If you plan to retire on the money you are saving that is earning interest and you belong to the baby boom you are just now realizing that all that supposed value is being destroyed as the bubble bursts, the stock market crashes and plans to privatize Social Security, etc. advance. Why is no one in power objecting to the losses being socialized?
WHAT HAVE THE BANKSTERS BEEN DOING?
What have the banksters done since 1913? How about WWI, the Soviet Union, the Great Depression, Hitler and WWII, Nuclear Weapons, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Israel and Palestine, decimation of the middle class, Free Trade and Globalization, terrorism, etc. What don't you like? You can be sure the banksters are behind it. Am I overstating the case? NO, read all the alternative history the banksters try so hard to keep from us.
EVIL IS USURY
There you have it. The control of the world by the banksters is all made possible by usury. All the evil in the world is created by the machinations of the banksters via their usurpation of the surplus through the device of usury.
Let me provide one example of how this works. Because the interest is never created there is competition in the economy to acquire the interest. There is great fear of not being able to make the mortgage payments and there is an underlying sense that the end justifies the means. This is a direct – not an indirect – result of the debt and interest based monetary system. Because human nature is really cooperative and inclusive and giving and sacrificing and altruistic, and because deep down we all know that only the means assures the end, there is always the danger that we will wake up to the competition being caused by interest. The banksters knew that they had to provide a reason for competition other than interest and they found it in Darwinism. When Darwin published the Origin of Species, it was quickly discredited because it was such an untenable theory. None of its tenets were viable. Survival of the Fittest is tautological (How do you know who is the fittest?, The ones who survive! Who survives? The fittest!) For example, acquired characteristics are not passed on. There have been no long periods of uninterrupted time in which natural selection could work. The offspring of different related species are sterile (mules for example) and there are no missing links in the fossil record, species appear fully formed, there is no explanation for how something that must be perfectly formed to work could evolve, etc. This did not deter the bankers. They needed natural selection and survival of the fittest as camouflage for the problems created by interest. Evolution, neo-darwinism, was funded in the early years of the last century as a “legitimate” field of scientific study so that by 1913 it was reasonably well established as the modern scientific view. Ever since it has been promoted and all the substantial evidence against it has been suppressed. How many books critical of evolutionary theory are you aware of? How often is evolution mentioned in normal news articles? How often does Time Magazine do a cover story on evolution? One can follow this development by seeking out the critical books and one discovers that the issues raised were never addressed by the evolutionists, only the character of the author was assassinated. My uncle wrote a book, published by Yale University Press, called Darwin Retried. No one from the evolutionary biology departments addressed the issues he raised, the only criticism was that he was a lawyer, not an evolutionary biologist, so what could he know? This is how the banksters work to create a society we know in our bones is anti human and it is time we woke up, assumed our sovereignty again and issued the currency as measure, debt free and interest free so that the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers, and we are all prosperous and of high moral character.
So, is usury evil? Am I justified in saying that evil is usury?
John G Root Jr, November 16th 2008, johngrootjr@gmail.com 413 528 3102

Colonial Scrip: Principles of Paper Fiat Currency

Benjamin Franklin attended an Iroquois Nation Pow Wow when he was a young man and was very inspired by the separation of powers he found in their governance, which was an inspiration for our republic. While he was there a brave came into the camp laden down with Wampum which he proceed to give to the chief, who distributed it to all the chiefs of the tribes and clans. The chief recognized the question Ben Franklin had and explained to him that in Indian culture wampum is not money, but is used to make flags and belts to commemorate and remember all the events and gifts that are given during the year. “Of course, there always has to be enough wampum to make all the ceremonial mementos we use to honor our gifts to each other.” Ben Franklin realized in that instant that “There always has to be enough money for all the transactions the people want to make”. He became a major advocate of fiat paper money, called Colonial Scrip, and attributed the prosperity the colonists enjoyed, to its use.
When Franklin was in England representing the colonists he was dismayed to discover the unemployment and poverty and alms houses and debtors prisons. It was explained to him that there was a population explosion and too many people without enough work. He wrote:
“There is abundance in the Colonies, and peace is reigning on every border. It is difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort prevails in every home. The people, in general, keep the highest moral standards, and education is widely spread… We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
This was not the case in England, which had the Bank of England and a debt based monetary system in place – and where debtors who could not afford to pay their debts were often thrown in jail. There was plenty of poverty in the streets of London and elsewhere. Here, Franklin explains the difference between England and her colonies:
“In the colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and have no interest to pay to anyone… You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury.”
Soon enough, however, the Bank of England had Parliament impose restrictions on the Colonies’ issuance of Colonial Scrip. The first law was enacted in 1751, with more restrictive measures in place by 1763. Colonial Scrip became illegal tender, and British Parliament declared that all taxes could only be paid in coin. Poverty and unemployment began to plague the colonies just as it had in England, because the operating medium had been cut in half and there were insufficient quantities of money to pay for goods and work. Indeed, this was the cause of the Revolutionary War, and not the Stamp Act or a tax on tea, as is taught in most history books.
“The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.” – Benjamin Franklin

Complimentary Currencies
So there it is plain as day. There can't be too many people or too little work. Only too little money. Just think for a minute about the poverty in the world. Are there too many people who are unwilling to put their capacities in the service of the community and thus provide everything that the community needs? Or, is there too little money for them to be able to do this? If you look at the goods and services that are available and think about how you want to contribute to the mix then you realize how important credit is. You need money up front so you can put yourself in a position to do what you want to do to meet the needs you see which are unmet and which you are particularly suited to provide. Should the community capitalize your capacities? Does everyone have a right to the capital their capacities warrant? If you agree, then it is easy to see that issuing the currency debt free and interest free is an essential community function. If the community (town, county, state, region or nation) gives too much credit then prices increase and if too little credit is given then productive capacity is limited and prices may go down. Just the right amount of credit and everyone is prosperous and prices are stable. It really is this simple.
Once we have the will to issue a debt and interest free currency there are numerous ways in which we could go about it. Increase the use of Berkshares until there are enough transactions to decouple from the dollar and issue credit in Berkshares based on a locally available resource, such as hydro power from the Housatonic, or locally generated hydroxy gas, etc. Berkshares would be accepted everywhere because they can be redeemed, not for dollars, but for power..
This is the discussion that I hope we will engage in because I believe it will bear the most fruit in the near and long term.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1913?
In 1913 there were three legislative events that profoundly shifted the balance of power from the people to the Federal Government. All three of these events worked together to create an entirely new situation in America that has resulted in the nearly complete loss of our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights and gave us a century of unspeakable fear and horror. Recognizing the significance of these three events is a good beginning towards understanding our current situation and what we need to do to reclaim our Republic from the corporations which have bent it to their will and made us their subjects.

DIRECT ELECTION OF SENATORS
On April 8th, 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. The Constitution has the members of the House of Representatives being elected by the people directly, and the Senators, with 6 year instead of two year terms, being elected by the States Legislatures. The intention was that the people are represented in the House and the States are represented in the Senate. As soon as the Senators are elected by the people directly the need for campaigning and the corrupting influence of money enters the picture. When the Senators are elected by the State Legislatures they are being elected by their peers, people who know them, and their duty in the Senate is to represent their State. As you can easily imagine there will be very little chance that “States Rights” will be ignored. We have now had almost a century of directly elected Senators and most of us have no idea what States Rights are! The states are no longer represented in Congress, and this is one pillar on which the growth in power of the Federal Government is based.

FEDERAL RESERVE ACT
From the founding of the United States until 1913 a major political issue was called the “battle for the bank”. Should privately owned banks be allowed to issue the currency as loans and charge interest? Banks create the money they lend you on the basis of your promise to pay. Just before Christmas when most of Congress had gone home for the holidays, the Federal Reserve Act was passed which established the Privately Owned but deceptively called Federal Reserve Bank as the issuer of the dollar, our legal tender, as interest bearing debt. The Constitution specifically says that Congress should issue the currency debt free and interest free and regulate its value (no inflation or deflation). In the words of the founder of central banking, Meyer Amschel Rothschild: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws." Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve System private bankers have issued and controlled the money of our nation. The Fed pays no taxes and has never been audited.

INCOME TAX
Up until 1913 there was no federal debt. The Federal Government lived within its means. Once the Federal Reserve was conceived and the currency was to be issued as debt there was a need for a means of paying the interest on the debt. This is the real purpose of the income tax. The Constitution specifically prohibits the taxing of income because as soon as your income can be taxed (whether 1% to 99% makes no difference) you are no longer a sovereign person but are subject to the control of the Federal Government. After the Sixteenth Amendment was passed on February 3rd 1913 there should have been enabling legislation to implement the amendment. However, there is to this day, no law requiring you to pay income tax. The IRS is entirely a creature of the Executive Branch of the Government, and as you know, the major way you relate to the Federal Government and a significant source of fear in your life.

These three abominations of the constitution set the stage for the tremendous growth in power of the Federal Government we have witnessed in the past century and continuing today.

Money as Debt or I can't believe that!

WHERE DO THE BANKS GET THE MONEY THEY LEND YOU?
Most of us do not realize that banks actually do not have money to lend. Most of us simply assume that the money we are borrowing comes from the deposits others have in the bank. This is natural because when you lend someone money you have to lend them some of your own money. Banks do not lend us their own assets, or money they earned the way we do when we make a loan to someone, rather, banks create the money they lend you when you promise to pay it back. Your debt, your promise to pay, creates their asset. Your promise to pay is valuable. When your promise to pay is backed by a mortgage or collateral it is more valuable because the mortgage is easier to enforce than an IOU. But, what did the bank provide to earn their asset? You provide everything of value when you borrow from the bank! Is your biggest fear in life not being able to pay your mortgage?
Let me state this very simply. Banks do not have money to lend. Banks create the money they lend you when you promise to pay it back, and you have to pay interest as well, which, on a 30 year mortgage is usually twice what you borrowed!

IS THIS LEGAL?
Yes, it is legal. The whole financial system is based on it. It is called Fractional Reserve Banking and it became legal with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The Federal Reserve issues the currency - our legal tender - to the Federal Government on the basis of the Federal Government's promise to pay! The member banks which own the Federal Reserve use their deposits with it as the basis for their right to create the money they lend you. The courts have been enforcing this system ever since.

IS IT CONSTITUTIONAL?
No! The Constitution gives Congress the authority to issue the currency, debt free and interest free and to regulate its value. Since the Federal Reserve was established by an act of Congress and not by an amendment to the constitution, it is still an unconstitutional law.

IS IT A SECRET?
Yes! It is the "banking secret". As Henry Ford once said: “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?
You would think that if everyone paid off their loans and lived within their means everyone would be better off. But, from the logic of the system, one can see that if the nations money is issued as debt then when the debt is repaid the money is extinguished. So, if everyone repaid their loans, there would be no money. That can't be! But it is. Also, because the currency is issued as the principle of a loan, the interest owed on that loan is never created. All the interest that is paid has to come from new loans. This requires a never ending spiral of increasing debt. If you suspend your disbelief for a moment, you can see that this completely explains why just about everyone is in debt and the system has just spiraled out of control. At present there is more interest owed than collateral available for new loans from which to pay it. And of course, if you are part of the 98% of us who pay more interest than they earn then you know who is getting all the interest and you are in a position to understand why the system automatically transfers the wealth.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?
Research and learn about it, and discuss it with others. There is a wonderful video, which you can find at video.google.com, called "Money as Debt". You may need to watch this a few times so it can all sink in. There is a much more comprehensive video called "The Money Masters", also on google, which goes into great detail about how our monetary system works, how it came about, and how to implement a sound monetary system.
As soon as there are enough of us who understand the problem, we will once again be able to issue the currency debt free and interest free – as the founders intended. If not for the whole country then perhaps only for our local community! Are you using Berkshares? Why not? Or thank you if you are!
John G Root Jr, October 29, 2008 (413) 528-3102, johngrootjr@google.com

What is Money?

What the bible actually says is the love of money is the root of all evil. What is money? In order to develop an understanding of what money is we first have to shed all the conventional ideas we have about money because they are a manipulation. You can realize that this is true when you consider that we only ever learn how to spend it, earn it, save it, borrow it, etc. When was the question ever raised during your education "What is money?" So let us look at that question for a moment. Money is a means of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, a community identifier, and an instrument of Empire. But wait a minute, those are how we use money, they are not yet what money is. We have to back up a little further to get to what money is. Lets look at the economy without reference to money for a minute: Ok, what do we see? Well, mostly people doing things for each other. It is obvious to me, at least, that that is important. If you don't look at the money, don't think about the money, etc. you see people doing things for each other. What happens when you bring the money back in? Well, then you see people doing something for themselves, earning money! Ah, what happens in societies in which there is no money, say the American Indian culture before wampum became money. Well, people did things for each other. They had a gift economy and wampum (shells) were used to commerorate gifts, mostly around major life events like marriages and births. The people always made sure that there was always enough wampum to commemorate all the events, and gifts of the tribe and nation. In our culture a gift does not involve an exchange, that is the point, but we need money to measure the relative value of the goods and services we want to exchange with each other and that as such it is objective and needs to be regulated so that there is always enough money for all the exchanges that people want to make. As soon as there is an artificial limit to how much money is available, too much or too little, the attention shifts to the money. When money is conceived as a measure then running out of money is like running out of inches, it is absurd. There are always as many inches as you need. Inches and money are only a measure, never the thing in itself. That way all you ever see is people doing things for each other that each values.

Now with that insight it is possible to ask the question about what motivates, since that is what money is seen to be in the popular culture. This is where it gets difficult. You see, if you grow up with the idea that money is something in its self, then what you want is the money. But, if you grow up in a society that doesn't use money, then money isn't the motivator. We all know that it isn't the money we want but what the money will buy, so there is an underlying understanding of this. However, the step to doing something to serve society brings the moral element into play. We don't really have to have any more justification for what we do to earn money than that there is a market for what we do. This is what gives rise to our acquiescing to the love of money. If we conceived money as a measure, not something in itself, then it would lose its anonymity. We would be interested in the exchange, not the money. This is the beginning of the way out of the mess we are in, to conceive of money as a measure, with an objective nature and in which the amount of money in circulation corresponds pretty much exactly to the exchanges that take place.

The next issue to tackle is the means to organize the world according to our ideas about how we want to serve society, which is the function of capital. This leads to the experience of what is missing or aberrant. What would make us more in tune with our true nature is the right to the capital our capacities warrant. The bankers control is based on the fact that we need the money to do what we want to do to serve our community and society before we can do it. We need to be capitalized to do our work. The popular culture tremendously limits what we can have access to capital for. In fact, we do the things that we can borrow the capital to do. We place our lives in the service of capital, instead of the other way round. Shouldn't we have the right to place capital in the service of our destiny? Because I am mostly interested in understanding the problem at a fundamental level I don't want to go into theoretical solutions, but the lack of understanding in society about the nature of money is at the root of the problem.

If we go one level deeper, and notice that exchanges take place only when both parties are better off for the exchange then we can see that the economy will always generate a surplus (every exchange makes us better off, all of us are increasingly better off). The reason that this is so obscured goes back to the problem of interest. That surplus doesn't benefit all of us, only those who earn more interest than they pay. If the currency were issued debt and interest free, as a measure, then the surplus would accrue to all of us, in proportion to our capacity. I think that most of us would agree that a meritocracy is a good thing, as long as it is only based on merit and not on privilege. In the Money as Debt video there are numerous quotes about the evils of the debt based monetary system, and in the Money Master's video there are descriptions of other ways to issue the currency and the beneficial consequences of the old ban on usury.

In the current financial crisis, October 2008, one can see what happens when the currency is issued as the principle of a loan. As the loan is repaid the currency is extinguished. Now the question logically arises: Where does the money to pay the interest come from? It can only come from new loans. This requires an ever expanding spiral of debt. The bailout demonstrates that there is no longer enough collateral to secure new loans to pay all the interest due that has accumulated. The whole system is built on a con, namely the borrower provides everything of value and the bank or the Fed provides nothing. You provide the promise to pay and the collateral. On that basis the bank creates the money to lend you. Your liability creates their asset. The banks lend you money against your promise to pay secured by collateral (something real like your house or car) which the banks acquire the right to if you default.

This goes back to the promotion of gold as the medium of exchange. As soon as the gold or silver is the medium of exchange we are interested in the gold or silver. to be continued

Many Hands United Manos Unidas

I am currently helping to expand Manos Unidas into a comprehensive effort to create a cooperative, green and artistic economy for the Berkshires.
This effort addresses the possibilities inherent in Imagining Community and developing the imaginations into organizations and businesses which reflect our true selves. Imaging Community and Action Inquiry and Theory U will help us to know who we really are and what we really want. As that happens we will be able to create the world, at least in the Berkshires, as we would want it to be. This effort can be followed on our website: www.manosunidas.coop