Poverty Amidst Plenty - Chapter 1 - Money: Fallacies & Facts (incomplete)

1.1 Money - What is it? And what is it not?

It is a symbol, which is supposed to reflect the value of the goods and services available in a community.
It is not wealth in itself, but only the claim to wealth - a symbol or ticket for the purpose of effecting trade. For instance - what is a cool million dollars worth to a thirsty man in the desert where there are no goods to purchase? Nothing!
It is not (or at least should not be) a commodity.
To place an additional cost on the action of trading artificially inflates the value of the traded commodity, and reduces the benefit of association between traders.
Money does not give birth to more money.


1.2 Money - What is its function?

To enable the fair and efficient trade of goods and services, so that consumers may purchase available goods. It is the 'life-blood' of trade, the means by which the exchange of goods is possible.
It enables trade between very different types of goods which otherwise would be very difficult to manage fairly - such as potatoes for combine harvesters, or many years wages for a house.


1.3 Money - How is it created?

Mostly by an entry in a bank ledger. When a bank lends money it creates it out of nothing. When you borrow money from a bank, the bank does not debit anyone else's account to credit yours - the credit is created!
No bank lends the money deposited with it. Practically all the money in the community comes into circulation as a debt to the banks.


1.4 Money - Who is responsible for its creation & distribution?

Currently - private enterprises (Banks).

In Britain, since 1694 the Bank of England has been responsible for creating and regulating the issue of money for that country. This bank, despite the name, is not a division of the British government, but a private business - with profit as its goal.

In America, since 1913 the Federal Reserve Bank - another deceptively named private business - has had that same responsibility.

In Australia, for many years the Commonwealth Bank, and then the Reserve Bank of Australia - again privately owned - have had that same responsibility.

All of these banks create and regulate the money in circulation according to the wishes and directions of their shareholders and the international financiers such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund), and the World Bank.
So this function which is the 'life-blood' of trade is under the control of a world wide privately owned monopoly - for the purpose of creating profit.

Consider this ...
If money is a symbol of wealth, surely only he who owns the wealth should have the power to regulate and distribute the symbol that represents that wealth.

Let us observe an example of a simple potato farmer:
The farmer provides, lets assume, enough potatoes to satisfy his local community.
Lets assume also that this community is a primitive one and that there is no common money symbol like the dollar.
Now the farmer requires other goods - he cannot live by potatoes alone. So he trades most of his potatoes for the other essentials of life, which are also available locally. The farmer decides – for convenience - to create a token, or ticket system that will enable him to trade his potatoes for other goods. Of course, these tickets are not worth anything in themselves, and would be entirely useless if there were no available potatoes. In effect, the farmer has created receipts in advance. In other words he has created his own money.
He goes to the village to purchase goods and offers his tickets as a guaranteed claim to a portion of his stock of potatoes. The village people know him, and trust his word that he will supply the goods according to the promised value written on his tickets.
Trade is accomplished!

Now, who has the right to issue these tickets?
Who has the responsibility to regulate the amount of tickets in circulation?
In both cases - it can only be he who owns the goods that they represent!

Now, what would happen if a printing business offered to make the tickets for the farmer but claimed ownership of the tickets at their face value?
And what if the printing business then lends these tickets to the farmer under the provision that he will pay them all back - that is - not to give back the tickets, but to pay back the face value of the tickets!
Can you see how ridiculous this would be?
Can you see that the farmer no longer owns or regulates his own purchasing power?
Can you see that in one foul swoop, the printingbusinesss has claimed the farmers wealth as his own?
Incredible? This is exactly what the banks have been doing to society for over a century.

This is nothing short of Legalized Robbery!
If the wealth of Australia belongs to its people (the true meaning of commonwealth), it is only the people - through their representative government - who has the right and responsibility to issue and regulate its own wealth!
Anything else is illegitimate.
Money should not be issued as a debt to be repaid, but as a dividend - acknowledging the wealth of the nation and enabling the fair trade of its production.
Charging Australia ANY fee for being productive is an immoral act.
Charging Australia a fee equivalent to the value of the production itself is an extraordinary reversal of logic!
Ruthless thieves have led us all into debt.
Even our government has been duped, and are unwilling to take up their constitutional responsibility.

Quoting an influential money baron of the past ...
"Let us issue and control the money of a nation and we care not who make its laws". Amschel Mayer Bauer (1743 - 1812)


1.5 Should Interest be charged?

Are those who issue money entitled to gain profit from lending it?
As if it is not enough to exploit the public by assuming ownership of our wealth, we are not only required to 'pay it back' but we are also charged interest!
This in itself is an intriguing situation. Let us forget for a moment about the robbery described above and look only at the interest:

A simple example:
Lets say the bank loans you $100,000. It demands you pay it back in 1 year at an interest rate of, lets say 5%. Now, by the stroke of a pen the bank (the monopoly of credit) has credited $100,000 to your account which you are now at liberty to spend. The bank did not create the additional $5,000 you are expected to pay back as interest. So where will the extra $5,000 come from?
The bank expects more money back than it had issued in the first place, and since the bank is the only source of new money, this extra money must come from either another loan or out of circulation.
This means that as a whole, the community cannot pay back the entire sum of the loans it has acquired. Some people or businesses, through impressive profits, may be fortunate enough to be able to pay, but only at the expense of the bankruptcy of others.
There just is not enough money in circulation for everybody to repay their debt.
This not only causes a continual need for growth (and inflation of prices), but also forces the continuous need to feed more money into the community (reducing the value of the dollar).
To top it off, this newly required money would of course come about only through the banks as a further debt!
This is the real reason why the richest countries in the world are the ones which are most deeply in debt.
Oh, how deeply we have been swindled!


1.6 How did we get here?

Since the start of the earliest recorded civilizations, we can trace much of the reasons for downfall to internal strife rather than external conquest. The greatest example is the Roman Empire.
Cicero & others record the internal strife there stemming from the financial pressures of usury.

Within our current "Western Christian Civilization" we can trace the proliferation of usury along with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, from the original goldsmiths and the fractional reserve system which they engendered. So with the great advances in Industry over the past 200 years, what should have been a great prosperity and release from menial work for all mankind has been undermined and turned into a monopoly of money power for the elite.

For more information, follow the link to the ALOR Library from this page.

Poverty Amidst Plenty - Contents (proposed)

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Proposed)


1 Money - Falacies & Facts:

1.1 What is it? and What is it not?
1.2 What is its function?
1.3 How is it created?
1.4 Who is responsible for its creation & distribution?
1.5 Should Interest be charged?
1.6 How did we get here?
1.7 How do we currently cope?
1.8 What is the better way?


2 Employment & Technology

2.1 The Paradox of Employment vs Automation.
2.2 A+B Theorum.
2.3 Welfare.
2.4 Social Inheritance.


3 Principles of Social Credit.

3.1 The Ownership and Regulation of Money
3.2 The National Dividend
3.3 The Compenated Discout
3.4 The role of the National Credit Office


4 The implementation of Social Credit

4.1 How do we make this happen
4.2 Government Responsibility
4.3 Public Awareness
4.4 Public Action

Poverty Amidst Plenty - The Case for Social Credit

Preface

This paper is written to substantiate the existence and nature of the current economic crisis, and to offer practical and viable solutions.
I am not a professional economist. Nothing I have written here is original, but has been collected from other authors.

I believe that my fresh point of view as one who is not trained to embrace certain disciplines and pre-suppositions in the field of economics is an advantage - you may or may not agree with me - but please read on, and decide for yourself.

I will be issuing this paper one chapter at a time (since I haven’t actually written it yet!)
Even though the format will be more like an essay than a discussion, I warmly welcome (and desire) your comments.


Introduction

A few observations:
Most countries throughout the world are wallowing in debt.
The 'richest' countries in the world, contrary to what seems logical, have the biggest debt!
How can this be? How can the biggest riches equal the biggest debt?
Always, when one is in debt, certain assets and freedoms are surrendered to the debtor.
So, to whom do these countries owe their livelihood?
To whom, and to what extent, have they surrendered their assets and freedoms?
Is it possible for them to regain control?

Some further questions:
Does the current financial system work?
Are there unmet needs in our world?
Why are we taxed so high? Where do all our taxes go?
Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
If the goods are available, why can't we afford to purchase them?
Why do interest rates fluctuate?
Why do we have inflation?
Why does the government sell off public assets like Telstra & the water works?
Why doesn't the government truly represent the wishes of the people?
Why does it take most of our working lives to maintain a modest living, only to find that we must settle for a lower standard of living when we retire?

So many questions.
So much evidence to show that things are not as they should be. Even our experts in government and finance offer no real answers.
They encourage us not to live "beyond our means"; yet without accelerated spending on borrowed money our economy will collapse.
They promote full employment; yet they embrace new technologies, which put us out of work.

What is happening? Something is not right!

I believe that most countries (including Australia) have many rich resources, and can afford a good living for each and every citizen of their country.
So why doesn't the common person experience this wealth?
I have come to understand that the current financial system (which is the life-blood of our trade) has several significant, conceptual errors in it, which are causing the difficulties we see.

The following paper attempts to identify the issues and their underlying causes.
Then, to propose a better way.