Believe it or not, most people don’t have the slightest idea as to what money actually is or what it represents. This dominant force in our lives that we call “money” is a mystery to the 99.99999% of the population. This mystery exists only because most people refuse to explore the topic due to pure apathy. Well…..APATHY DIES HERE!!! You are about to become one of the .0000001% of the population who understands that the fractional reserve system in use today is the greatest enslavement tool ever developed by mankind.“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. ” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1822, German Writer and Philosopher)Before we get started, I would like to share a couple of quotes which will hopefully get you thinking about money in a ways that you are not used to:“Fractional reserve banking is nothing more than a mechanism by which the world’s elite monopolize intellectual capital at the top of their hierarchical pyramid.” – Me“What money actually does is usurp the miraculous nature of life because now you have the ability to say “Well I earned this,” or “I want this,” and no longer are the gifts given to you by life’s miracles but of your own ego and your own making. So money actually is placed before us to usurp the very miraculous divine nature that we all are.” – Freeman (esoteric scholar)The video clips below do an excellent job of explaining what money is and how it works.
Here’s a few quotes about money mechanics to back up what you just saw in the first clip above:
“[Banks] do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes in exchange for credits to the borrowers’ transaction accounts.”
– 1960s Chicago Federal Reserve Bank booklet entitled “Modern Money Mechanics”
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
– Economist John Kenneth Galbraith
[W]hen a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower’s deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposit; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.
– Robert B. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury under Eisenhower, in an interview reported in the August 31, 1959 issue of U.S. News and World Report
“Do private banks issue money today? Yes. Although banks no longer have the right to issue bank notes, they can create money in the form of bank deposits when they lend money to businesses, or buy securities. . . . The important thing to remember is that when banks lend money they don’t necessarily take it from anyone else to lend. Thus they ‘create’ it.”
-Congressman Wright Patman, Money Facts (House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1964)
“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.
– Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Bank of England and the second richest man in Britain in the 1920s.
“Banks create money. That is what they are for. . . . The manufacturing process to make money consists of making an entry in a book. That is all. . . . Each and every time a Bank makes a loan . . . new Bank credit is created — brand new money.”
– Graham Towers, Governor of the Bank of Canada from 1935 to 1955
In a hearing held on September 30, 1941 in the House Committee on Banking and Currency, then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Mariner S. Eccles) said:
“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”
Indeed, Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said:
“If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.”
Are you pissed off yet? I certainly hope so, but if you’re not then check out these simple charts:
I know the picture above is a little blurry, but the point is that total debt (Gov’t, Corporate, and Consumer) totals a little over $50 Trillion. That’s just the principal! How much money is there in circulation to pay off this debt?
There’s you’re answer…THERE’S ROUGHLY $15 TRILLION DOLLARS IN CIRCULATION TO PAY OFF $50 TRILLION IN PRINCIPAL OWED!!!
Now are you pissed? If not, check you’re pulse cause you may be dead. Or maybe you still don’t understand what this means. The only way to stay current on debt payments is to take out more loans in perpetuity. The debt can NEVER be paid off!
After suggesting that we only use the amount of resources that we can replace and recycling everything else, the narrator slips in a quick comment that was disturbing to me. He says “…and the population just replaces itself.” This implies some sort of population control. I don’t think these solutions are valid, but I will get into that more later.
He also suggests that we employ a new banking system run by the government as a non-profit operation offering interest free loans. The problem with this is that speculation would run wild if businesses and consumers could get their hands on interest free money. In fact, that is precisely what is happening now with the Federal Reserve’s 0% target rate. That money is pouring into equities and commodities as we speak driving up prices and causing yet another bubble. It would be unwise to allow a government takeover of all banking.
I do agree that the system itself does need to be replaced, and I do agree that a gold standard is not the answer. After all, what intrinsic value does gold really have? Isn’t gold only valuable because we say it is, just like fiat money? If we were on a gold standard under a fractional reserve banking system, the same problems would apply. Money would be created out of debt and the value of gold would fluctuate accordingly. Eventually all debts would have to default and all assets would be seized by the banks.
The grassroots barter system suggestions don’t offer any real solutions either. Here’s one statement that bothered me. The narrator says: “All work being valued equally…” How can all work be valued equally? Should a heart surgeon who just spent two hours operating on me earn the same amount of money as the teenager who just spent 2 hours working a night shift at McDonald’s? Of course not.
Their last suggestion does have merit, but it’s incomplete. Again they suggest that we have permanent interest free money…meaning money not created out of debt. They don’t say whether or not money lent out to businesses and consumers would have interest attached to it. If there is no interest, we would have wild speculation. If interest charges were involved, we would have a more stable system.
Since all banking would be government ran under this scenario, there would be a very delicate balancing act for the government to perform in order to keep the monetary system stable. Spending a little too much money into existence would quickly cause inflation and too little would cause deflation (don’t get me wrong, this method would be much more stable than the system we have now. I just think that we can do better). Using taxes to manage these fluctuations is making the system needlessly complicated, and the political will to raise taxes in times of inflation would be non-existent as it is now.
So, what would be a valid solution?
My suggestion is very similar to the last one offered in the video above. Here are the steps that I would take in order to fix our monetary system:
1. Abolish the Federal Reserve – The power to create money should be in the hands of congress and congress alone just as the constitution dictates. Money will be created by congress interest free.
2. Abolish Fractional Reserve Banking – Banks will no longer be allowed to loan money into existence. They will still perform the function of providing loans using depositors’ money, but the system will operate on a 100% reserve ratio. Under this system, when you put your money into the bank, you are providing a short term loan to the bank (just like you do when you buy a CD). You won’t be able to get your money back until the term is up. The bank loans this money to a borrower. The bank will pay you an interest rate that is slightly less than the interest rate that they charge the borrower. The spread will be the bank’s profit. This system will discourage excess risk taking because a few bad loans will greatly hinder a bank’s ability to meet its obligations to its creditors (depositors).
The bank’s primary function under this system would be to provide underwriting services on behalf of it’s creditors/depositors and to provide recourse to it’s creditors on all loans made with the creditor’s deposits. This 100% reserve requirement would be highly deflationary were we to initiate it without having initiated step 1 above and step 3 below. Also, interest rates paid to creditors/depositors would have to skyrocket in order to entice them to take on this kind of risk.
But since we would have abolished the federal reserve and placed the power to coin and print money back in the hands of congress before initiating step 2, we can avoid deflation and use market forces to keep the money system stable. Here’s how…
3. Spending money into existence – Since fractional reserve banking has been abolished, we no longer loan money into existence. Instead, Congress will use it’s power to coin and print money to spend money into existence. We are now going to use this power to overcome the deflationary pressure initiated by step 2. The amount of interest charged on all loans will be spent into existence by congress. That way, the money supply will always equal the amount of outstanding principal plus the amount of interest charged…no more and no less. This will automatically keep prices stable. Since congress is spending money into existence instead of borrowing money into existence, we can abolish ALL taxes!!! How does that sound?
The money supply would be expanded to meet productive capacity at all times. The inflationary force of newly printed government money hitting the spending stream coupled with the abolition of all taxes, would automatically be counterbalanced by the deflationary force of the 100% reserve requirement.
There will always be enough money to pay off debt. Thus market forces of supply and demand would dictate how much money would be in existence at any given time. Advancements in technology and population growth will necessitate more borrowing from banks. These advancements would automatically be reinforced by newly created government money reaching the spending stream at a proportionate ratio dictated by market forces.
The 100% reserve requirement will force banks to take on only those loans which they are reasonably certain will provide a return. These loans won’t be speculative because there will be no government bailouts for institutions who take on too much risk. The same goes for the creditors/depositors. There will be no FDIC. A deposit will be an investment similar to buying a bond. Speculative loans will no longer be able to fuel asset bubbles.
Banks would specialize in their functions as underwriters for depositors. For example, some banks would become experts in underwriting loans to start-up businesses while others would specialize in construction loans. This specialization and competition will eliminate inefficiencies. Banks’ loan portfolios will be made public so that depositors/creditors will know the financial condition of any bank in real time. Depositors/creditors will make their own assessments as to how much risk they are willing to take on and to which bank they would like to lend their money too. There will be no FDIC insurance, so the risk will be very real…as will the return.
-What do you think?
3 comments
Daniel Miller
2015-10-18 at 03:36 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
First, I love your work generally and agree 100% with your first two proposals.
However, I think the third point is faulty, and may even contradict much of your work regarding precious metals as money. I think your short-term analysis is fine, because there would be a short-term deflation if you enacted step 2. However, that effect would be as short-lived as the transition to 100% reserve banking. To the extent that policy 3 counteracts the expected deflation, it also increases the size of socialistic deformations in the economy. And once the short-term deflation clears, you would still be left with a fiat currency, an expanded appetite for government spending (and therefore heavy pressure to inflate), and no guarantee that citizens could opt off transacting with such a flawed currency.
I don’t see any system working without two characteristics:
1. Protection of property rights. Your 100% reserve requirement is exactly this.
2. Liberty in money. While I don’t know that we could ever get to a pure separation of money and state, it would be enough to abolish government’s monopoly privileges for currency.
Thoughts?
Keith Weiner
2015-10-18 at 09:08 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I am not the author of this article.
George Dorgan
2015-10-18 at 15:58 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Author corrected. I suggest it remains in the Debt category