Part 1 Chapter 3c

Money Rules!!

It's great for the rulers and their plans to take over the world - but not really all that great for us - ...

What it all means
So now we've gone through a bit of history from a perspective you never heard about during your 'education' (a bit more about that later, as we look at that particular thread in the multi-stranded story of how we got where we are today and what this information will tell us about what we need to do to stop losing this struggle), we can talk about what is going on with the current money-credit system, and why we have such financial chaos and instability in what, as described at the first, should be nothing more than a simple, safe and efficient way of organising our modern economy and lives, allowing us to channel our work and energy efficiently into creating a great, peaceful, prosperous, stable, sustainable and happy and satisfying society for all of us. (don't laugh, it really is possible, we'll get to that part later ..)

Just to get the background in mind again - I know that was all new stuff you never heard before, so a quick refresher to remind you where we're starting from here, a recap of the broad-stroke explanation of the basic historical progression, in terms of our current money-credit-accounting system situation:

1: Commonly accepted barter exchange commodity: when we were working in a more or less 'law of the jungle' setting, with warlords and wouldbe warlords marauding more or less at will, with little trust in others outside of a small community, our forebears used straightforward labour exchange, or in a small market gold (or similar things), as a commodity that was widely accepted and had an intrinsic value of its own that would give it exchange power throughout a wider area than simply the community where the barterers were known;

2: Transition: gold artisans-merchants controlling substantial supplies of this gold began to issue paper notes supposedly guaranteed by being exchangeable for gold, which was somewhat limited at first by the 'trust' factor, but as 'democratic' governments were becoming more powerful over both time and space, overcoming the problems of both widespread lawless looting wherever treasure could be found, and of kings dying or being dethroned with new kings denying the debts of the old kings, as debts issued to a 'deathless' 'democratic government' did not so expire, and guaranteeing this paper through generally enforceable laws declaring it 'legal tender', the paper money began to be widely used, with the idea it was, if necessary, redeemable by gold

3: And finally, as governments became stable enough, and controlled enough territory, to guarantee the paper money through the 'rule of law', the idea of being exchangeable for gold was slowly phased out, until today, and for many decades now, the paper represents nothing more than the trust of those who use it that it will be accepted in all other places in the jurisdiction of the government guaranteeing it through laws preventing counterfeiting. This is a truly advanced and efficient system befitting a modern democracy, especially with modern computers and communications networks, but with one major problem.

The problem is - as we transitted to the quasi-democracies where the 'elected governments' were supposed to be the 'supreme power' during the last couple of centuries, and the rise of the 'fiat money' or simply credit-accounting system became ever more dominant during the same time, we allowed the control of the 'money-credit' system to remain in private hands rather than having 'our' governments take control of this most important function - and really, this most powerful non-atomic tool - in any democracy, and accepted the idea of these private businesses thus controlling the money power. Or actually, 'we' didn't really 'allow' it, as explained in the earlier films referenced, as who was going to control this great tool, this 'less-and-less-gold-connected' 'credit-accounting' system, was the subject of a vicious, decades-long battle during the transition by those who understood the power it represented, and the major problems of allowing this potentially great weapon to remain in private hands, a fight pretty much won by the bankers by the end of the 19th century, and then the coup de grace of the establishment of the US Federal Reserve board in 1914. They took a bit of a setback following the great crash of 29 caused by careless or just greedy and stupid bankers issuing far too much speculative credit/money and being unable to deal with a 'panic run' on their banks, having never explained to the public that they were issuing paper not backed by real gold and if everyone just calmed down their 'credits' would be fine, but the actions taken in the US and Canada during the 1930s, as noted above, calmed things down, and then following the second war, with relief at the end of the war and decent lives available with a reasonable amount of work during the 50s and 60s, and the banking system more or less behaving itself following the new regulations of the 30s, when people had had enough of stress and insecurity, and were more concerned with getting on with their lives and the issue was more or less forgotten, kind of like a cancer temporarily in remission. But the essential power to create money or credit was not taken from the banks, only partially regulated, and like a cancer in remission, there was always the danger of a recurrence, and such was what happened during the 70s.

For, of course, as the country evolves into a 'democracy' with an economy and market based on a 'trust' system (even the pseudo-democracy we have today, but that most people believe is a true democracy), trust in the worth and use of credits earned and deposited in a bank with no real connection to any kind of 'hard' commodity such as gold and dependent on the 'rule of law' as enforced by the same democratic government, then there is simply no justification whatsoever for allowing a private business cartel to continue to control this great system, managing the nation's credit supply very competently (which is of course necessary for the rulers to ensure their parasitical skimming of the nation's wealth is efficiently done, don't get silly ideas about altruism in the banking cartel here), but then allowed to create new credit at interest, as allowing the charging of interest on money/credits created from nothing allows the system to become an endlessly spinning treadmill carrying wealth from the poor to the wealthy as new loans must constantly be made to replenish and expand the money/credit supply as old loans get paid back with their interest, and it becomes nothing less than insanity (or criminal conspiracy) when the somewhat-less-than-truly democratic government begins, when it faces a budgetary shortfall, to allow these private banks to create credit in the system, which it then 'borrows' from the private business at interest, running up huge national debts in the process, as they began doing for all of their needs during the 1970s. This gives these private businesses both an opportunity for great wealth not shared by non-bank-owning citizens, and a far greater power in the nation than the average voting citizens have, an inherent and major unfairness which is essentially, and profoundly, undemocratic - like it or not, in the world we live in wealth is power, and to leave the power to create, essentially, power-creating gold in private hands is nothing more than admitting those who create the gold control the country - it could be no other way.

And until we take back this power to create and control credit in our country, we are never going to be fully, or even partially, truly democratic. And that so few people understand this is a central reason we are losing our struggle today.

(Yes, of course there is a far better way to organise and manage our modern economy, based on a democratic credit system - you can start thinking about it if you like, but I will leave that discussion until the last section, with a more 'informed' by some other things I'll talk about first look at this and the other things we need to do to get our country back on the road to a true 'for the people' democracy.)

But for now - back to where we started:

But they tell us things are great in Canada .... (or at least any problems we have are beyond our control and being well-managed ..)

Actually, our national economic situation is about like this, which is not actually so great, but which you'll never hear in the corporate media which doesn't really want you thinking about things like this. Currently in Canada we have, as you ought to know if you're paying any attention at all, a 'national debt' of approximately a half trillion dollars, which we've had since approximately the mid- to later-90s. On this debt, since it started getting serious in the late 70s and early 80s, we've paid about a trillion dollars in interest (and you can double these figures if you add in provincial debt). To get a bit more perspective, knock off about 3 zeroes and bring that down to 'personal' size - imagine your best friend Bob had a half million dollar loan, which he'd been growing for something over 30 years, but which had been at the half million dollar mark for the last 20-plus years, and upon which he'd paid around a million dollars in interest during this time (Bob is not really a rich guy, as for the last 25 years or so, while he's been meeting his 'debt service' charges, he's been telling his family that they have to cut back on 'excessive' and 'wasteful' spending, more and more every year, to the point where any 'excesses' or 'waste' are long gone and they're cutting for the sake of cutting now, so now they are basically cut back to 'lower middle class' level, living paycheck to paycheck - old car, house needs repairs, no vacations, lots of kraft dinner and hamburger helper for supper, like that). And you further learn the rather shocking fact that during all of the time Bob was growing his debt, starting back in the 70s, he had had a special arrangement with the place he worked, and he could have borrowed a bit of money back then from the business - interest free (and actually debt-free as well, as the business had a policy of helping its employees with 'bonuses' from time to time)!! If Bob had done that, he'd have no debt today beyond small easily handleable normal monthly bills - but for some odd reason, Bob chose to go to commercial banks, and borrow at interest, and then borrow more to pay the interest when he had trouble meeting his financial obligations (you may recall a few years of usurious interest rates in the 80s that really goosed everyone's debt), and over time, borrowing to pay interest, Bob (or so he claims anyway) finally reached the half million debt level, which he has been chained to ever since, cutting back family expenses, paying interest, talking about 'paying down the debt' but never managing to actually do it... (not to mention the further shocking fact that during this time, Bob kept cutting back his work hours and reducing his income in the face of these crippling debts!!)

Anyway, I can't imagine you would ever say that Bob was doing a great job of managing his financial situation - and the situation is exactly parallel in Canada, with the government taking on huge debt completely unnecessarily, then cutting back everything it could for the last 25 years in the name of 'austerity', whilst cutting taxes every year for the wealthiest people in the country, and never actually managing to pay down the debt at all (whilst maintaining one sacred budgetary items - the 'service charges' on 'the debt' are the single budget item not subject to scrutiny or austerity measures or serious planning about how to reduce them, so right off the top of our government budget, we are handing over $50-60 billion dollars every year to banks and 'investors' - every penny of it, and the accumulated couple of trillion dollars, *not* spent on social programs or infrastructure wanted and needed by the actual citizens of the country paying those billions in taxes). Now let me put it to you - this could be seen in a lot of ways, but 'great national financial management' is surely not one of them. (It is, of course, pretty great for the "investors" who hold the half trillion of debt, and keep getting the government to sell off 'public property' at bargain prices to (you guessed it) - 'pay down the debt!!!' - but we don't actually get that 'clarification' when the media tells us how great our economy is doing. It's doing great for the wealthy elite, as they get passed more and more profitable government infrastructure at bargain prices, and their taxes keep going down - but it should be obvious it's not really been that great for Canadians overall (if you haven't been, you should have been checking out a bit of Mel Hurtig, probably our greatest actual 'for the people' financial watchdog; this book The Truth about Canada , provides probably the most recent best summary of the very dire straits we are in financially (watch one of his talks based on the book here). Linda McQuaig has also written many books clearly explaining how the economy might be doing great for the predatory elite, but as a kind of zero-sum game, the greater the wealth the elite are claiming, the less there is for the rest of us to create or maintain a decent economy - any 'progressive' reading this should know of her and Mel, if you haven't heard of them, check out Linda's books, and get to your library or book store and start reading, to get some information on how well Canada is NOT doing, for 'we the people'. (I might note again - Mel and Linda are another two of our 'true' public intellectuals trying to engage Canadians in the kind of real debate we need to be having - and as such, well, when was the last time you heard either on the CBC, or read them in the corporate press? Pretty much never - all they allow in the corporate media are people lying about these things, telling us how Austerity is Great!!! and etc)

It's one of those perspective things, maybe a bit 'Stockholm Syndrome' involvement - to me, and to most sane, financially at-least-somewhat-literate people, having a huge debt that is eating a significant part of your income every year, for the past 30 years, and is still pretty much the same level as it was when it started 30 years ago, and in the name of which you have cut back your family's lifestyle significantly, and continue to 'look for inefficiencies' (which can be identified as anything beyond the basic necessities of life) to further cut in the name of 'austerity') - would be a pretty clear indication your finances are in pretty bad shape, not being managed well at all, and not 'fine' at all, nothing to be sanguine about, quite the opposite, really, as after a long life of hard work, you should be enjoying your 'mature' years with a comfortable life, more comfort rather than less, less work rather than more, more security and comfort, etc. Of course for the banks or other loan sharks who are getting all the interest etc, things are looking pretty good indeed as the golden goose keeps laying. So when they say things are 'fine' economically, you need to imagine a bit of a smirk, as they speak out of both sides of their mouth - things are certainly fine for the people holding all the debt and slowly but surely getting control of all your property, but they're not really all that fine for you. For the last 30 years, we've been kind of like the simple country mark of cartoons, waving and smiling at the con as he leaves town with all our money, which we're going to find out about as soon as he's over the hill, at which time the smiles turn to tears, and it's too late to do anything about it. Or you might think of the happy Germans in the mid-1930s at what great things that really smart Mr Hitler was doing for their country. When the awakening comes, it is not a happy one. And that's a pretty accurate parallel to what is going on in Canada - they're taking apart our once-almost-democracy and handing all the wealth over to the banks, and this is progressing well, which is pretty great for them. As far as Hitler's great legacy of the massive destruction of WWII, don't think massive destruction isn't heading our way too - when the environment collapses, as it is surely on the way to doing if we don't start taking some very positive steps to stop destroying it, WWII might well look like a small conflagration compared to what we will face. And is that really great for you? They're just laughing in your faces at what gullible naifs Canadians are, laughing companionably with the sophisticated cons who are robbing them blind. Going to be a hell of a hangover whenever wakeup day comes, though.

And it's not only nationally - as a mature, prosperous hard-working country, what in the hell is going on with things like this - Half of Canadians living paycheck to paycheck, or almost 1,000,000 Canadians rely on food banks, food bank use growing every year (!!!! - this is absolutely fucking shameful, and we ought to be really fucking angry - but you get a story like this every few months, and almost no reaction - obviously the corporate media is keeping a lid on things like this, while encouraging everyone to get hysterical about imaginary 'rape culture' or Rob Ford patting someone on the bum) - but really, to avoid a long ramble, it's pretty blind to believe our country is well managed economically, at least in terms of what is good for 'we the people'.

Just briefly, here are a few of the main problems resulting from letting a private cartel control our great credit-accounting system for their personal benefit, rather than having it controlled by our government, as any democracy of a truly sovereign country run by informed, intelligent, engaged citizens looking out for *their* welfare would do with this highly important aspect of a modern society, with the objective of a stable and fair and sustainable economy for all of us:

• Debt - national and personal - As talked about in the last chapter, part of 'managing' the great credit-accounting system involves creating new 'credit' as the economy expands - but the private cartel charges *interest* on this 'credit' they sell as 'money' they have just created out of thin air, the same way a game scorer creates points for the ball game out of thin air when she hits some computer keys and they appear on the scoreboard, or the 'credit' appears in your account - or - in the government account when the banks 'buy' government bonds. And THEN the government pays 'interest' on bonds the bank has just created 'money' for out of thin air!! - and which the government could, and should, create itself, interest free, through the bank of Canada. Just think of how insane it is that 'our' democratic government would allow a private business cartel to *create* money, which it then borrows, running up huge debts and then claiming poverty as an excuse to deconstruct the 'democracy' - while of course any truly sovereign government would arrogate to itself exclusively this great power to create and control the credit-money, and do so interest free, for the benefit of all citizens. (this does not mean irresponsible creation of credit, as defenders of the status quo like to tut-tut, indeed, it is the private cartel which engages in vast irresponsible money creation for speculation, and fuelling asset-inflation bubbles, etc - remember, the premise here is an engaged, informed public controlling the democracy, and the engaged, informed public would not act so irresponsibly with its own economy)
• Systemic inflation: When you pay interest on your entire money-credit supply each year (bank cartel-created credit is ~95+% of the Cdn 'money supply'), inflation is systemic, inflation which of course is a serious threat to the average citizen, but of no consequence to those controlling the system. It's really perfect in every way for the bankers, and perverse in every way for 'we the people' on the treadmill, borrowing money, then borrowing more to pay the interest, etc etc, and the inflation slowly eating away our ability to pay so we turn more and more property over to them - a highly advanced parasite we really must get rid of before returning to any kind of health.
• Those controlling the money-credit also control the type of society we have - the capitalist labour-exploiting business will get all the loans it wants, any group of workers wishing to start a 'socialist' type worker coop will be denied loans. Likewise any media operations - business-friendly ventures will get money, anyone wishing to have an editorial perspective opposing and exposing such things will not be funded. And etc - political parties willing to work for business will get money, those wishing to work for workers will do without. And of course, depressions can be created by limiting the money supply, which means people lose jobs, small businesspeople lose their businesses, people lose their property - all of which is claimed by the banks (and those owning the banks) when 'debts' cannot be paid. Complete control of society - to those who control the modern money system. I.e. -
• Booms and busts - when profit, including property accumulation, is the motive of the management of the money supply, then economic instability is a good thing - both booms and busts, which are seriously detrimental to normal working people but nothing more than another business day to those controlling the economy, are great profit opportunities for those 'in the know'. Speculation and asset-inflation bubbles are good for business, bad for workers, who suffer loss of income, inflation, loss of jobs, loss of property, loss of pensions, and reduced quality of life across the board from this kind of economic instability.
• In a social sense, a society where people are forced to fight for economic survival is a much less friendly and caring and nurturing society than one which is based on looking after all of its citizens well. Petty thievery, simmering anger, incivility, road rage, gang proliferation, and a general disregard for the welfare of others are signs of a society focused on material accumulation, or just scratching for enough money to live - and all completely because we allow the credit-money system to be controlled by people who have internalized such values, or lack thereof, in their personal predator lives.

And the biggest capitalist game of all: Think of this great trick, great scam, that has been going on for at least a couple of hundred years. We (banker-predators-uber-cons) convince people that paper money is the same as gold. We, of course, create the stuff, and understanding well it is not 'gold' at all but just paper, use a good portion of the paper money to buy 'real' property, houses, factories, gold and jewels, etc. At a time of our choosing, when the peasants have worked and worked and saved and saved, creating what they touchingly call a 'middle class', we destroy confidence in the paper money somehow - speculation, a big boom-bust, maybe a bank run or something, as the people don't understand that there is never more than a fraction of the 'dollars' in the economy available in 'hard currency' form - and then we take a whole bunch more of their property when they can't honor debts, or lose their jobs or whatever. The people whose 'wealth' is based on the paper money (mostly little people, worked all their life to get some savings and a house in the middle class) are now back to square one, no savings no job, maybe no house, while the ones who traded that money for real property during the 'build up to bust period' are advanced to the next level of power. Repeat every few years, to keep the hard-working peasants at the bottom of the pile, and the cleverest fraudsters continually moving higher (as the less clever fraudsters, or those grown old and lazy and not alert enough, get pushed back down). Works every time.

David Harvey ( ~36 min ): "...when Ronald Reagan came to power, what did he do? He started a huge arms race - which was deficit financed ... and close to the end of the Reagan administration, his budget director, David Stockman, said, well, our plan was to run up the debt in such a way that in order to retire the debt we could get rid of all the social programs we didn't like and cut all of the environmental regulations which industry doesn't like ... and that of course was what they set about doing ... and the debt was an excuse to do that it was an excuse to set about a class assault on social programs and environmental regulation ... and Bush did the same with unfunded wars and tax breaks, and the assault on social programs is what they are doing right now ... "

None of these things are necessary in any way, any more than allowing a bloodsucking parasite to continue controlling your body when modern medical treatments are readily available that can easily kill the parasite and return you to health. All it requires is an understanding of what is going on, and to stop voting for the politicians who enable these parasites. Which we'll have more to say about later - but first we need to get on for a look at the third major leg of the pretend society which enables the cons to keep conning as successfully as they have - the corporate press.

I left this for the end, as for a 45-minute encapsulation of how the banks have been controlling world events for the last couple of hundred years, beginning (in this film) with the War of 1812 (some things going on here I'll wager you've never heard on the CBC, and never will as long as the bankers are controlling it) and on through the carnage of the last couple of decades in the mid-east - All wars are bankers' wars.

Wakey wakey time.

George Monbiot - Keynes is innocent: the toxic spawn of Bretton Woods was no plan of his - corollary message - if you want to understand what is going on economically (or any other truly useful information), the CBC is pretty much the last place you want to be listening to .... but that's what we're going to look at in more detail in the next couple of chapters ....

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on to I-3d. Pretend 'Great Benevolent God' Capitalism
or back to Democratic Revolution Handbook - Home

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