'What social benefit does humanity derive from gold bricks sitting in bank vaults? What social benefit does humanity derive by diverting tremendous amounts of resources into the mining of gold, just so that after the gold is mined it can sit in bank vaults, completely unappreciated for its aesthetic beauty. Those same resources could have been used to mine iron and make steel for the production of consumer goods. The argument might be made that humanity needs money to trade with, so therefore the social benefit is derived from the existence of a money. However, I would argue that is not true. Humanity needs a money that cannot be arbitrarily inflated and is created through the free enterprise system, but this does NOT necessitate that the money be backed by anything in particular. ...we can say that a “socially optimal” money should have the following characteristics, in addition to those already laid out by the Austrian School: #A socially optimal money should not precipitate the mass diversion of physical resources into the production of money. #A socially optimal money should be infinitely divisible to deal with deflation over the long term. #A socially optimal money is one in which the units of account are prevented from being inflated or co-opted by the state. Gold does not meet any of those characteristics. As we have seen from our past history, the state can easily co-opt a gold money supply and inflate the units of account. -- Bitcoin addresses all of gold’s shortcomings. Bitcoin is clearly a more “socially optimal” form of money than gold. Further, since Bitcoin is entirely digital, it can be transmitted across a wire transaction, thereby eliminating the need for expensive insurance and shipping costs. These costs needed to be accounted for under free banking, where banks would accept notes issued by other banks at a discount to cover the cost of transporting the gold between banks. With Bitcoin, this is not an issue. In fact, since Bitcoin is a global network, it would retain its full value between banks on differing continents! While I appreciate the gold standard and Herbener’s address to Congress, I think it is time we stop advocating for Roman era money and start advocating for a 21st century upgrade.'

'Casascius Bitcoins are physical coins you can hold - and each one is worth real digital bitcoins. The "private key" is on a card embedded inside the coin and is protected by a tamper-evident hologram. The hologram leaves behind a honeycomb pattern if it is peeled. If the hologram is intact, the bitcoin is good. The 8-character code you see on the outside of the coin is the first eight characters of the Bitcoin address assigned specifically to that coin.'

'On your territory, only you are permitted to produce money. But that is not sufficient. Because as long as money is a regular good that must be expensively produced, there is nothing in it for you except expenses. More importantly, then, you must use your monopoly position in order to lower the production cost and the quality of money as close as possible to zero. Instead of costly quality money such as gold or silver, you must see to it that worthless pieces of paper that can be produced at practically zero cost will become money. Because you can create paper money out of thin air, you can also create credit out of thin air. In fact, because you can create credit out of nothing (without any savings on your part), you can offer loans at cheaper rates than anyone else, even at an interest rate as low as zero (or even at a negative rate). With this ability, not only is your former dependency on banks and the banking industry eliminated; you can, moreover, make banks dependent on you, and you can forge a permanent alliance and complicity between banks and state. You don't even have to become involved in the business of investing the credit yourself. That task, and the risk involved in it, you can safely leave to commercial banks. What you, your central bank, need to do is only this: You create credit out of thin air and then loan this money, at below-market interest rates, to commercial banks. Instead of you paying interest to banks, banks now pay interest to you. And the banks in turn loan out your newly created easy credit to their business friends at somewhat higher but still submarket interest rates (to earn from the interest differential). In addition, to make the banks especially keen on working with you, you may permit the banks to create a certain amount of their own new credit (of checkbook money) in addition and on top of the credit that you have created (fractional-reserve banking).'

'The average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years, with the shortest life span being one month. Founded in 1694, the British pound Sterling is the oldest fiat currency in existence. At a ripe old age of 317 years it must be considered a highly successful fiat currency. However, success is relative. The British pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver, so it's worth less than 1/200 or 0.5% of its original value. In other words, the most successful long standing currency in existence has lost 99.5% of its value. Given the undeniable track record of currencies, it is clear that on a long enough timeline the survival rate of all fiat currencies drops to zero.' -- 'As you scroll through the currencies below, you’ll see some long-ago casualties. What’s shocking, though, is how many have occurred in our lifetime. You might count how many currencies have failed since you’ve been born.' -- http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/08/average-life-expectancy-for-fiat.html

'Finally, wealth created by productive hard work cannot simply be confiscated by the people who control the money supply. There is no understating how important this development is. Hard work and savings will actually be rewarded! Productive people everywhere should literally let out a sigh of relief upon realizing this fantastic fact. The only people who should be worried are bankers. They will not be able to continue snatching wealth from everyone by printing more money. Their giant scam now has a time limit—as bitcoin grows, they will shrink. They will have to learn how to actually produce wealth rather than steal it if they want to survive. Bitcoin is not a scam. Bitcoin is a solution to the giant scam that is central banking. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can be freed from banking tyranny.'

'...decentralisation has actually achieved defensibility against State confiscation since any other non-digital type of intrinsic value would be subject to confiscation via its centralised location. ...as the as the State-dominated monetary world inevitably expands, the value component assigned to a cryptocurrency for its survivability, or ultimate longevity, features may be greater than what the market assigns to its exchange value component. It may even be greater than what the market assigns to its value component for user-defined anonymity and untraceability. Without a world reserve fiat currency and the massive exponential debt from the centrally-planned monetary system, early leaders of Austrian economics probably would not have considered the disproportionate importance of mere survivability for a currency competitor. It was only slowly dawning on them that the power of the monetary monopoly was the most insidious monopoly of all and the most fiercely protected.'

'...even in the worst-case scenario where a government decides to back its currency with Bitcoin and all Bitcoin reserves flow to a central bank, Bitcoin’s power is its non-uniqueness. Change a few parameters of the cryptographic functions and you have an identical replacement for Bitcoin. Despite the demonstrated beneficence of a gold monetary standard, it’s all too easy to centralize reserves and “cheat” the system for political gain. Bitcoin, though it behaves economically very similarly to gold, is by nature institutionally much more robust, because it is more replaceable. There are clear reasons to prefer gold over silver, or one physical commodity over another, but there are not necessarily any such reasons to prefer one cryptocurrency over another. This very fact makes it very easy to “escape” should the cryptography of a series of currencies be compromised, or should a government attempt to monopolize or centralize reserves.'

'This is the reason why Bitcoins are valuable. There is no service like it anywhere. #You can get started with them instantly. #You do not have to identify yourself. #You can use them from any location. #You can send them to any location. #You can fund them with any currency. #You can spend them immediately. #Your transactions are private. #There are no taxes on transactions. #Transaction fees are so small as to be irrelevant, and if you are a miner, you get the fees back from other users. All of these features and more make Bitcoin a tool with a very high level of utility. Bitcoins are scarce, and you need them if you want to make purchases without the onerous and illegitimate predations of the State. No one who uses Bitcoin is going to accept GoldMoney as ‘digital currency like Bitcoin’. This does not, obviously, invalidate the immutable, irrefutable idea that the best money is gold. All it means is that on the internet, if you want to spend money, the best way to do it is Bitcoin.'

'Cypherpunk Fellow Traveler on the “Open-Transactions Financial Crypto System and Bitcoin Integration”. Traveler gives an intro to where this system came from from, motivations behind it, history. How to look at this system and what it does. Accounts transfers, Vouchers, Checks, Digital Cash, Basket Currencies, the Integrated Stock Exchange type Market features. And drum roll… Integration with Bitcoin… to fulfill the other need for Bitcoin: Anonymous and Instant transaction settlement.' -- Part 2: http://agoristradio.com/?p=246 -- “A bitcoin *is* backed in value, it's backed in real value, it’s backed in the unique properties it has… they cannot be confiscated, counterfeited, or shut down. People can still sit on gold and use bitcoin for transferring while they are doing some kind of untraceable thing…”

'There is no government out there demanding that people transact in Bitcoins. There is no government out there telling people that they must accept Bitcoins in payment of debts. There is no government out there controlling the issue of Bitcoins. The only forces that are giving Bitcoins the value they have are free people deciding on their own that Bitcoins do indeed have value as a store of wealth and as a trade facilitator. The markets have decided that the time and labor that went into producing the Bitcoin software, along with the properties of the software itself, have real value in the real world. Whether Bitcoins are currently experiencing a bubble in prices or not is immaterial to their efficacy as a currency unit. They have value because the market says they have value. And because they have value, and because they are divisible, fungible, and scarce, they ARE free market money.'

'Thirteen Money Metaphors and their Uses and Misuses: #Money as time-to-deadline/non-renewable fuel #Money as building/growth material #Money as a lever: ...thinking of your money as a way to move more money. #Money as water: though this is about flows, sources and sinks, it is subtly different from the commodity/supply chain metaphor, since it has natural origins. Think in terms of dams, rainwater, artesian wells, money “frozen up” in old families as glaciers/polar ice caps, and so on. This is probably the best way to think about money culturally and socially. -- The metaphors you use determine your money personality, and how much you will be able to do with it. To get to the next level of money, you probably need to think with the metaphors appropriate to that level. Think too far above your league, and you’ll be reduced to daydreaming. Stick to your own level of metaphors, and you’ll never move anywhere.'

'...in a modern economy, anyone can save in anything. Retiring in 2030? You can put your entire retirement portfolio in 2030 pork-belly futures. If you don't want to spend your entire old age gnawing on pork bellies, you can trade these for other goods. So it's clear why the whole world needs one standard for Internet packets. It's also clear why it might want one standard for payments. It's not as clear why it needs a standard commodity (or security) of saving. Probably the easiest way to understand monetary standardization is to consider only the problem of restandardization: selecting a new standard when the existing standard collapses...finding the most overvalued good...this will become the standard trade: money, which is the bubble that never has to pop.' -- Hyperinflation: 'The new purchasing power comes from the exploding portfolios of gold's "early adopters." ...the broader global economy (still on the dollar standard for most prices) experiences a gold-driven wealth effect.'

'...it is not value that is intrinsic to gold, but only the physical prop­erties that are valued by acting men.'

'Own much?' -- None dare call it COMMUNISM.

'It is very sad how much knowledge has been drained from the Western world regarding money, and in only a century or so. Prior to the current, mercantilist, central banking economy, there was a whole intricately developed private money system, complete with gold, silver, warehouse notes and Real Bills ("Bills of Exchange"). The powers-that-be behind the explosion of government-centric central banking in the 20th century have not only reduced this system to a dim memory, they have industriously scrubbed its existence from history books and educational texts. Today powerfully educated academics and financial magnates alike have no idea of how the world operated only a century since. The mechanisms of public banking and state involvement at all levels of finance seem normal to them. It is really incredible that not more than 10 or 12 decades ago there was a world-spanning private money-economy that the current system has supplanted – and ruinously so.'

'Maybe many lambaste money, in part, because some of them haven't earned it.'

'Dominant Social Theme: Gold provides hope for the world. Let the government get out of the way. The proper function for the authorities is merely to set the standard and then leave it alone. -- Money is being argued about again, which is a good thing. But as usual (it seems to us) the argument is being framed in terms of what "ought" to be done. This is a kind of promotion, a dominant social theme, whether or not one wishes to admit it. Of course in the current day, government is a given—a necessary reality that until recently has been accepted with the same stuporous acquiescence as one tolerates bodily functions. But we will predict that acceptance of this most fundamental of all memes is beginning to shift. As the truth-telling of the Internet continues to have an impact, government mendacity is increasingly exposed and its logical fallacies are revealed, along with its false promotions. No, nothing SHOULD be done. That's the whole point. Money is private! Let the market work.'

'...now, in Britain, a further protest has been made. A bill has been introduced to support full-reserve banking. The gentleman who has done the introducing is Douglas Carswell and the idea that such a bill could be introduce in Britain – where many of the most powerful elite families congregate – is absolutely astounding. We are truly living in miraculous times. And yet it is perfectly possible that intellectual war being generated by the Internet has only just begun. The concepts of honest money – mentioned numerous times in the introduction to this bill – have only now begun to percolate once again. All across the West people are beginning to rediscover the intellectual heritage of humankind. The Anglo-American power elite has tended to downplay anything that did not directly enhance or support its goal of world domination, but much is being recovered now. It is from our point of view for the moment an unstoppable tide.' -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGr-OuXihg

'...we do believe in gold and silver as money – private money. In a private money system, absent government control, even the biggest holders of gold and silver would not be able to manipulate the market. The ratio between gold and silver, once tampered with, would sound the alarm as well. This kind of ancient money system has worked well, so far as we can tell, on and off for thousands of years. Our preference, therefore, is a scenario in which governments can come to no agreement on what money is or how much it is worth. This would leave it up to the market itself to decide – and there would then be no predetermined prices or price ratios to distort the market... Given digital technology and its infinite divisibility, there is no reason why a single additional ounce of gold (or silver) would need to be mined to produce a workable, free-market system.'

'This is the future of banking. Like during the 16th Reformation you either evolve or die.' -- Uh-oh. The internet is here.

Pay-walled. Recommended. -- When a pyramid scheme nears its inevitable end... "...the public insist on being handed the empty bag because they think they're going to make money, they want in on the game, everyone else has been making money, they feel left out so they insist on buying these things at the peak, and they are the ones who lose everything."

'Real bill circulation will start spontaneously after the total prostration of the world's banking system. Yes, there is life after the sudden death of the banking system. People are not going to commit collective suicide at the altar of fiat currencies. People want to live. They will use whatever little gold is available to them to trade by drawing real bills against the production and distribution of goods they want to consume. It will be a repetition of the miracle at the end of the Middle Ages, when the bill of exchange was invented in Italian city-states such as Florence, Venice and Genoa. It will happen again. The world will do very well with real bills and without banks... When contract law will once again reach the level of highest respect, and promises to pay gold can once again be believed, banks may once again be in vogue. When that day dawns, the best earning assets of the new banks will be real bills drawn on consumer goods in most urgent demand maturing into gold coins.'

'What are young adults thinking about money and value? How can we create new systems of wealth generation and abundance? What does the future hold for banks and other financial institutions in the wake of massive peer to peer exchange?'

'Chartalism is a monetary standard in which government-issued tokens are used as the unit of money. In such a system, fiat money is created by government spending. Taxation is employed to reclaim the money and control the total amount of fiat money in existence[1]. Reclaiming most of this issued money via taxation is essential to maintaining its value in exchange. Modern Chartalism theory states that under a fiat money system, net currency is created by government through deficit spending. Because the issued currency is not tied to or backed by a commodity, currency can only be created when the government spends. Government may, or may not, ask for that currency back in taxes. The demand to hold and acquire this government issued currency is driven by taxes levied by the state – which typically can only be paid in the state-issued fiat currency. ...proponents of chartalism argue that a fiat system is preferable because it allows for government deficit spending for fiscal stimulus...'

'The govt is not a household or a state. It does not finance spending via revenues or debt issuance. The US govt, as a monopoly supplier of currency in a floating exchange rate system simply spends. The USA does not finance spending via the bond markets. The USA issues bonds as a form of controlling the Fed Funds rate. -- #1. We tax in order to create demand for the currency. In addition, it controls aggregate demand or effectively, the money supply #2. The bond market is a monetary tool. NOT a fiscal financing tool. #3. Foreigners do not fund our spending. #4. Money must be created before govt bond auctions can occur and before taxes can be enforced. Otherwise, there is no currency in the system to tax and no money to raise via auctions. This is just basic logic in terms of the way the current system works. It can be no other way. #5. Households, states, Europe and the gold standard are not remotely similar to the modern monetary system in which the Federal govt of the USA functions.'

'Both parties want the central bank abolished. It is important to understand this crucial difference between the gold standard advocated by the Austrians and the gold standard that is advocated by bankers. The Austrians want a 100% reserve gold backed system of private currencies. A 100% reserve system means the banks essentially act like warehouses. They hold the people’s money and charge a nominal fee for this service. They don’t actually create money through lending like they do now. Inflation in a 100% reserve gold system can only occur if the supply of gold is increased, which requires a large amount of time and effort on the part of gold miners. In a greenback system, inflation is caused by government simply running a printing press and then spending that newly printed money into the economy. If government can’t control its borrowing now, it is ridiculous to think it will be able to control its printing under a greenback system.'

'...making markets for scarce things is the result of having a kind of money that is released in a scarce way. This is a better way of saying it: for all these people’s understanding of open source and programmes, they refuse to acknowledge that the money we use is also a programme, that it is a closed source programme. ...the money we use is an operating system that was invented during the Renaissance, and it was invented for a top down scarcity model of media and culture and technology and everything. Now we’ve got a decentralised technological system with computers all over the place and people creating value all over the place, but we’re still using a 13th century money system. ...we need to now develop an economic platform capable of dealing with the distributed decentralised value-creation economy.'

'James Turk shares his thoughts on the future of money and the role GoldMoney's digital gold currency can play.'

'Did this unique artistic project transcend society? Do yall feel ‘inspired’ by this project? Was it ‘brilliant’? Do u h8 society/consumerism? Do people and tweens only care about money? Should they have ‘manned up’ and put $100 bills in the tree? Should they have done this in a black neighborhood? Is some ‘generic white neighborhood in Chicago’ representative of humanity/society? Do u think black people were arrested if they took a dollar from this money tree?'

'Physical cash is not the actual value, it is only a transfer mechanism. YOU have to trust your government that your physical cash is BACKED with real value. (Whether that is gold, or silver, or “their full faith and credit” or whatever they claim that their currency is backed with.) Digital cash is ALSO NOT actual value, it is ONLY a transfer mechanism. YOU have to trust the issuer of that cash, and the contract he used to issue it, [has backed it] with real value. And that is why Open-Transactions is designed as best possible to distribute risk across multiple issuers (through basket currencies) as well as distributing risk in other ways (across multiple transaction servers, etc). In OT, anyone can issue a currency. But the users still decide what they want to trade and who they want to trust. -- With Bitcoin you can’t choose to issue a currency based on gold, or silver, or based on a basket of dollars, bitcoins, and gold. You are restricted to one backing: computing power.'

'A solid, easy-to-use, CRYPTO and DIGITAL CASH LIBRARY. #UNTRACEABLE DIGITAL CASH: Once cash is withdrawn, the server has no way of tracking it or linking it back to its next deposit. #ANONYMOUS, NUMBERED ACCOUNTS, secured by public key cryptography. Your PGP key is your account, and the hash of it is your User ID. No other information is stored. #ANYONE AN ISSUER. Any user can design and issue his own currency: Simply upload the currency contract to any server. Anyone else with a copy of that contract can open an asset account in the new currency type. The currency contract is just an XML file with your digital signature on it. Hashing that file produces the currency ID, which is therefore unique and consistent across all servers. It’s impossible to change any details of the contract, including the URL, the signature, or the public key, without entirely changing the contract’s ID. #SEPARATION OF POWERS. The entities operating the servers are not actually issuing any currencies.'

'100 trillion Mark Note, Nov. 3 1923'

Challenging the accepted history/theory that fixed weights were the standard of value for money metals and arguing instead coins were simply credit money tokens. -- 'The value of a credit depends not on the existence of any gold or silver or other property behind it, but solely on the “solvency” of the debtor, and that depends solely on whether, when the debt becomes due, he in his turn has sufficient credits on others to set off against his debts. If the debtor neither possesses nor can acquire credits which can be offset against his debts, then the possession of those debts is of no value to the creditors who own them. It is by selling, I repeat, and by selling alone—whether it be by the sale of property or the sale of the use of our talents or of our land—that we acquire the credits by which we liberate ourselves from debt, and it is by his selling power that a prudent banker estimates his client’s value as a debtor.' -- Also mention of tally sticks, aes rude and tablets.

'Death in the Morning examines the standardization of precious metal with the touchstone in the ancient world.'

'...incessant credit stimulation has so distorted Western economies that even after two years, these economies have not yet returned to a point where banks and other investors can tell the difference between a legitimate opportunity and one that has been kept alive by various forms of governmental chicanery. This is why "stimulus" and "bailouts" are ultimately so counter-productive. They actually retard economic recovery. For monetarists – and other types of non-free-market economic-oriented journalists inhabiting the mainstream media the inability of banks to lend and the subsequent shrinkage of the money supply is cause for alarm. It is actually the most natural thing in the world. What many economists and financial journalists are calling for in the midst of a downturn is for the printing presses to reignite and for yet more faux-money to enter the economy in order to reinflate.'

'The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call “the economy”. What’s more, origins matter. The violence may be invisible, but it remains inscribed in the very logic of our economic common sense, in the apparently self-evident nature of institutions that simply would never and could never exist outside of the monopoly of violence – but also, the systematic threat of violence – maintained by the contemporary state. “Societies” are really states, the logic of states is that of conquest, the logic of conquest is ultimately identical to that of slavery. [I]n the hands of state apologists, this becomes transformed into a notion of a more benevolent “social debt”.'

'Jacques de Meulles, had no funds to pay colonial officials and troops. (The intendant was what could be called the top bureaucrat in the colony, second only to the governor who represented the king.) In June 1685, he decided to issue his own credit notes. Because good paper was rare, he collected the playing cards in the colony and, with his seal and signature, issued them in various denominations as paper money. By an ordinance, the cards became legal tender and merchants had to accept them. The cards were very useful but prices started increasing as people realized that there were more and more of them in circulation. It is perhaps just a coincidence, but it is certainly fitting that inflationary paper money, which is often called "funny money," appeared on this continent as playing cards with a bureaucrat's signature on them.'

On legal tender: '"The question was: Why would anyone except a piece of paper in exchange for his goods and services? And the answer was: Because if you didn't, the Emperor would kill you!" -- If the money is good, why do you need to force the people to use it?'

'In economics, endogenous money refers to the theory that money comes into existence as it is needed by the real economy and that banking system reserves are enlarged or drained as needed to accommodate the demand for lending at the prevailing interest rates. Basically, so long as the banks can find profitable lending while borrowing at the discount rate set by the Federal Reserve then the creation of banking system reserves necessary to support the lending will be automatically supplied by the central bank through Open market operations. The causality of money creation is the reverse of the money multiplier theory of control. It is thus said that the money supply is endogenously determined within an economy, rather than being driven by external forces such as the creation of "high powered government money". The mainstream economic theory of money creation is via the money multiplier, which is rejected by endogenous money theorists.'

Comment: Ingo Bischoff: 'There is a difference between "cash currency", which the FED creates by monetizing Federal debt, and "deposit currency" which the banking system creates by bringing loans on its books. Because Federal debt is payed off with taxpayers' "cash currency" earned by working, "cash currency" has a "productivity factor" to back it. Contrary, the "deposit currency" has nothing but "troubled asset backed loans" to support its value. For the banking system to obtain "cash currency", it had to turn over treasury paper to the FED in the past. All this changed in 2008 with the passing of TARP. The FED was authorized from then on to also monetize "troubled asset backed debt". The banks no longer needed treasury paper to obtain "cash currency". They could get it by turning over "bad loans". The value of "Cash currency" is now being diluted by heavy doses of worthless "deposit currency", thereby hollowing out the value of any individual savings and investments left.'

'Syndicated talk radio host and documentary filmmaker Alex Jones joins us on Economics 101 to discuss the cashless society. We discuss the looming reality of the scientific control grid and how people can fruitfully resist it.' -- "Once the cashless grid is in place then the bankers can completely abandon any connection to reality." -- Gold is money and nothing else.

'Money is at the intersection of nearly every aspect of modern life. Most of us take the monetary system for granted, but it has a profound and largely misunderstood influence on our lives. THE MONEY FIX is a feature-length documentary exploring our society’s relationship with the almighty dollar. THE MONEY FIX examines economic patterning in both the human and the natural worlds, and through this lens we learn how we can empower ourselves by redesigning the lifeblood of the economy at the community level. The film documents three types of alternative money systems, all of which help solve economic problems for the communities in which they operate.' -- Good stuff.

"Kwedit is not credit." -- No, it's debt, you sick f*cks! -- 'Kwedit Promise gives you digital content and virtual goods *now* in exchange for Promises to pay for them later. When you’re ready to pay back your Promises, you can use any of the methods provided by Kwedit Direct. Partial or late payments will lower your Kwedit Score and you may no longer be eligible to use Kwedit.'

'Convicted fraudster Darius Guppy offers a provocative personal view: "Governments do not control the single most important mechanism when it comes to their economies: the production and distribution of money. That role has been diverted to the banks, which manufacture money out of nothing and charge interest on that conjured-up money. ...while money is indeed created and destroyed in vast amounts every second of the day, the interest on that money remains un-destroyed and accumulates within the system – and at a compounded rate, moreover. It is a simple and devastatingly effective swindle, but largely invisible because it has become so deeply embedded in our culture. The consequences of that swindle – the desperate need for economic growth; the environmental and cultural despoliation it engenders – require some radical thinking one encounters nowhere in any of today’s political parties."'

'People in 19th century Europe would look to America and say "what kind of place is this?" So, China is going to have situations like that. -- Once you give politicians the monopoly money right, then they can do what they please. Look at what Roosevelt did in 1933, and what Nixon did when he abandoned gold. If I had my way people could use whatever they wanted as money. If you and I make a deal and I offer you seashells for whatever and you accept them then fine, that's what we use for money. Eventually the great mass will figure out what they want to use for money and they will do so. You know only until 80 or 90 years ago in the UK, you could use all kinds of money, many different kinds of money. Bank issued money, guineas, but then when the depression came, British politicians passed a law making it an act of treason to use anything except paper pounds sterling, paper money as legal tender. Britain has been a basket case since.'

'Fiat currencies are in trouble all over the world, and by extension central banking as a dominant social theme is losing credibility. It is in fact an indefensible financial mechanism. The idea that a group of individuals, no matter how wise or experienced, can set the price of money is ludicrous. Price-fixing simply does not work, so why should it work for money stuff itself? -- People are angry in America and increasingly in Europe. Their anger will increase if fiat money becomes dearer. And their anger will increase if fiat money becomes less dear, initiating price inflation. Central bankers actively seek to be known for their intelligent and conservative manipulations of currency. They want credit for their strategic efforts. In the next decade they will not have to try too hard to be noticed. They may find, after all, they do not like the attention.'

'"Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…" said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this—this so-called 'money'—really matters at all." "It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless." --- According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, "Oh my God, he's right. It's all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it's all a lie!"'

'Wherever fiat money travels it brings tremendous euphoria in its wake, though only to begin with. Cities are energized with false booms. Farm children flock to the urban environment to take jobs in factories producing ephemeral goods or work at useless government jobs - that are created from tax revenues during the boom time. Initially, because fiat money inevitably has a relationship to government, much of the perfection of society is attributed to a wise, fair-minded bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, by the way, believes it. -- But today, dear reader, we would propose that the West, and the entire globe, is living through a fiat money collapse. Economies all over the world have been inflated to their fullest and people can buy no more useless gadgets and work at no more superfluous jobs. Too many useful endeavors have been marginalized and phony ones have been elevated. An implosion is taking place. The world is reverting to a kind of mathematical practicality.'

Nobody knows.

'A video to send to those who think the free market produced all the recent economic catastrophes...' -- That which is not seen: http://jim.com/econ

Brown: "People themselves create money when they take out loans. The money is extinguished when the loan is paid back, as in a community currency system. The public bank is more like a court than an "issuer" of money. This is actually the system we have now, but the middlemen are private banks, which have been allowed to pretend they are lending pre-existing money. This gives them not only unwarranted power but serious liability when they can't balance their books because of defaults, toxic assets, etc.; and because they're always siphoning profits out of the system, it has become an unsustainable ponzi scheme. In a publicly-owned banking system, the interest would return to the public, making it mathematically sound and sustainable." -- DB: "The only caveat we would have is that the playing field be level and that the public banks not benefit from any implicit backing of the government." -- That's why you need a land value tax to decentralize a central bank/government.

'North Korean banks on Wednesday formally began a currency exchange aimed at wiping out much of the private savings people have accumulated through market activities. North Korea said Monday that new currency would be issued this week and said it would accept only a strict limit – amounting to around the equivalent of $40 – on the amount of old currency it would accept in exchange. The rest of the money would be scrapped in an apparent effort to make people more dependent on the government.'

'Reluctant to risk their lives by visiting a bank, many subscribers transferred money to each other by passing on the serial numbers of scratch cards charged with credit, like gift vouchers. Recipients simply add the credit to their account or sell it on to shops that sell the numbers at a slight discount from the original. This impromptu market has turned mobile-phone credit into a quasi-currency, undermining the traditional informal hawala banking system. -- Criminal rings are among the parallel currency’s busiest users. Kidnap gangs ask for ransom to be paid by text messages listing a hundred or more numbers of high-value phone cards. Prostitutes get regular customers to send monthly retainers to their phones, earning them the nickname “scratch-card concubines”, while corrupt government officials ask citizens for $50 in phone credit to perform minor tasks.'

'A revolution involves five crucial elements: (1) a new view of sovereignty; (2) a new view of authority; (3) a new view of law; (4) a new view of sanctions; (5) a new view of the future. Any revolution that does not involve all five is more of a coup than a revolution: a substitution of new rulers for old, not a change in the system. -- The battles for the hearts and minds of men are being fought today in all five areas. Points three through five are still up for grabs. These are intensely ethical issues. They are intensely religious. They will not be decided by technology. There is no group and no worldview that has a clear advantage in these three areas. But the outcome of the battle over points one and two is going to be decided in terms of digits: the digits of the Internet and the digits known as money. In both areas, the existing Establishments of the world are under attack. I am convinced they are going to lose. We will simply walk away from the system.' -- Starve the state.

'Central banking—and the subsequent mopping up efforts that occur cyclically—is a good example of one of the elite's most important dominant social themes. Without money, other promotions are rendered moot. Why is central banking obviously a power elite promotion? Because it is unworkable, destructive, a contradiction in terms, and yet a program when implemented that creates enormous wealth for a handful of people along with bestowing tremendous control on the same players. You cannot put a few fairly elderly people in a room together, ask them to fix the price and quantity of paper money using unworkable econometric projects and have anything good come of it. It is what it is: price fixing. Central banking is a PROMOTION. It exists despite all its contradictions. It is taught in schools, despite the economic illiteracy of the concept, and commented on in the media. It is institutionalized in government. Central banking is a contradiction in terms. It is a Big Lie.' -- READ THIS

'James Robertson talks frankly about democratising our money supply. Money as debt is not sustainable.' -- Proposes replacing taxes on production with a tax on land and also redistributing a citizen's income.

'Economists continually try and sell the public the idea that recessions or depressions are a natural part of what they call the "business cycle". This timeline below will prove that is simply not the case. Recessions and depressions only occur because the Central Bankers manipulate the money supply, to ensure more and more is in their hands and less and less is in the hands of the people. Central Bankers developed out of money changers and it is with these people we pick the story up in 48 B.C. below.'

'Banking is a con that is, not coincidentally, just a little too complicated for the average person to grasp unless they really try... If everyone understood what really goes on, who are the winners and who are the losers, it would be outlawed in an instant. The newest game by the banks is carbon emissions trading. The plan is to manufacture emission credit certificates out of thin air, trade them between big financial companies, and compel the rest of us pay for them by producing real goods and services. The new financial slavery. Carbon emission permits are the latest paper currency, brought to you by the same crowd who profited from the world’s largest financial bubble. Same structure, same modus operandi, same beneficiaries, same exaggerations, half-truths, and tricky government statistics. Banks want carbon trading. They do not make a profit from a carbon tax, which would be fairer and simpler. Governments are not offering a carbon tax, only cap and trade. Ever wondered why?'

'Greens and bankers make strange bedfellows. The bankers know where the Greens are coming from, but the Greens need to find out why bankers, “the paper aristocracy”, are so keen to save the planet. It’s an unholy alliance. Carbon credits are a fiat currency, the market will have the same players and similar rules: governments decree everyone must pay tax in dollars and… trade in carbon credits. The units are worthless without government backing. It’s a “free market” but at the point of a gun. Once we let this system in there is no easy way to back out. The vested interests are already massive. Last year alone $126 billion dollars was traded in carbon markets according to the World Bank. Projections are in the trillions. Literally. It will be the largest commodity market in the world—which is all the more ironic given that there is no commodity to back it—we don’t trade carbon, we trade the right to air that could have had more carbon in it.' -- OBVIOUS FRAUD IS OBVIOUS

POINTING FINGER IS POINTING... AT GOVERNMENT -- Soros: '"Banks are actually getting hidden subsidies of enormous amounts because of their ability to borrow at effectively zero, and buy 10-year government bonds at 3.5 per cent. So those earnings are not the achievement of risk-takers. These are gifts, hidden gifts, from the Government, so I don't think those monies should be used to pay bonuses. So there's a resentment which I think is justified." -- #Why are banks making such huge profits now? Because markets are active again. Interest rates are at a historic low so banks borrow cheap and lend high. Governments have issued debt, companies have raised capital and got involved in deals again while currency markets have fluctuated. Banks love volatility – that's how they can charge their fat fees.' -- Bonuses are symptoms not the cause! Cut the cancer out at its root: Stop the government/Bank of England from price-fixing money and force the banks to book their losses.

'We remember the finger pointing that took place recently between Republicans and Democrats in the states regarding who was to blame for the latest financial crisis. It was said as it has been said before, that lack of proper regulation was at the heart of the debacle. But regulations have only one constant: They change over time whereas central banking money stimulation remains same. #Conclusion: It is the ability to print huge amounts of unnecessary money, thus distorting the entire economic system that is responsible for the current global difficulties. A private gold and silver standard, market-based, would provide the solution, not further tinkering with various structures. In fact, absent central banking monetary stimulation, the banking industry itself would subside and become far less important in the scheme of things. Then Western leaders wouldn't have to pay so much attention to it.' -- Simple common sense

Hilarious! "If you are part of the aristocracy on Wall St and you are creating fiat currency—at will—in a fractional banking system, you have the ability to declare—by fiat—that dog poop is a billion dollars. So you can pick up dog poop from the street and you can say, 'This dog poop is worth a billion dollars—and I can prove it because I can sell it to Citigroup and they're going to give me a billion dollars of their fiat fractional reserve monetary unit, in exchange.' Now the problem is the average American looks out of their front yard and sees lots and lots of dog poop and they think they're billionaires. But what they don't understand is—they don't work for Goldman Sachs. Once they figure that out and say, 'You know what, I don't work for Goldman Sachs and that dog poop is actually just dog poop,' then you might see a revolt. But until then, they live in a delusionary world where their dog poop is worth the same as Goldman Sachs' dog poop—and that's just not true."

'"If you don't trust [G]old, do you trust the logic of taking a beautiful pine tree, worth about $4,000 - $5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp and then paper, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars?" -- Yet, such is the logic of the paperbugs. They believe confidence in men is eternal and more reliable than nature. Hasn't history exposed the folly of such beliefs over and over? Gold is money not because any one individual calls it that but because people and societies over the past few thousand years have figured out that it functions well in this role for multiple reasons. The main reason is basic: people in power are not to be trusted! Why is the collective wisdom of millions of people and hundreds of societies less valuable than the decree of a few scheming bankstaz and their paid-for bureaucratic bozos?'

'[The] movement toward abstraction has important advantages for complex societies, because abstractions can be deployed with a much smaller investment of resources than it takes to mobilize the concrete realities that back them up. ...economic abstractions keep functioning only so long as actual goods and services exist to be bought and sold, and it’s only in the pipe dreams of economists that the abstractions guarantee the presence of the goods and services. Vico argued that this trap is a central driving force behind the decline and fall of civilizations; the movement toward abstraction goes so far that the concrete realities are neglected. In the end the realities trickle away unnoticed, until a shock of some kind strikes the tower of abstractions built atop the void the realities once filled, and the whole structure tumbles to the ground. -- An economy of hallucinated wealth depends utterly on the willingness of all participants to pretend that the hallucinations have real value.'

'Bernanke: "After 1918, when the war ended, nations around the world made extensive efforts to reconstitute the gold standard, believing that it would be a key element in the return to normal functioning of the international economic system. Great Britain was among the first of the major countries to return to the gold standard, in 1925, and by 1929 the great majority of the world's nations had done so. Unlike the gold standard before World War I, however, the gold standard as reconstituted in the 1920s proved to be both unstable and destabilizing." -- He's lying through his teeth! Great Britain never returned to the "classical" gold standard after 1914! In 1929, NONE of the countries that had left the "classical" gold standard returned to it! NONE ever would! Sure, he admits that the post-WWI "gold standard" did not work well, but he does not state the true reason why! The British pound, the German mark, the Italian lira, et cetera were all just fiat in disguise!' -- Great quotes

'...the flow of energy through a system increases the complexity of the system... One consequence of [the industrial revolution was the] swift and unprecedented surge in complexity [and] the triumph of money over all other systems of exchange. When the vast majority of workers at every income level labored at tasks so specialized that their efforts only produced value when combined with those of hundreds or thousands of other workers, money provided the only way they could receive a return on their labor. Social networks of exchange – household economies, customary local exchanges, church and fraternal networks – shattered under the strain, and were replaced by purely economic relationships – wage labor, shopping, public assistance – that could be denominated entirely in cash. The last three centuries of social and economic history are largely a chronicle of the results. ...the centrality of money is actually a unique feature of an economic era defined by cheap abundant energy.'

'...economists have consistently treated the one thing in their field that can easily and consistently be measured with numbers – money – as though it was the one thing that matters. It’s easy to see how seductive this habit can be, since it seems to allow everything to be measured on a common scale; the problem, of course, is that everything that can’t be flattened out into that common scale gets mislaid, and as often as not these mislaid factors prove to be decisive. -- Money is so convenient as a way of measuring wealth that very often it ends up eclipsing wealth, and this is why most economists nowadays, even when they think they’re talking about wealth, are actually talking about money. This becomes especially problematic when, as so often happens, they start attributing to wealth characteristics that are only true of money. This habit of thought pervades contemporary economics.' -- Debt != Money !=Wealth

AWESOME money as debt explainer -- 'One day a thoughtful man went to see Fabian [the banker]. "This interest charge is wrong", he said. "For every $100 you issue, you are asking $105 in return. The extra $5 can never be paid since it doesn't exist. The man continued, "Surely you should issue 105, i.e. 100 to me and 5 to you to spend. This way there would be 105 in circulation, and the debt can be repaid." Fabian listened quietly and finally said, "Financial economics is a deep subject, my boy, it takes years of study. Let me worry about these matters, and you look after yours. You must become more efficient, increase your production, cut down on your expenses and become a better businessman. I am always willing to help in these matters."' -- (All the while thinking, 'Oh, but you will pay that 5%: You'll pay with your assets; you'll pay with your labor; with your future labor; with the labor of your sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters – for you are all now my debt slaves.')

'The US dollar IS our debt to each other and to the world. The US dollar is backed by all the goods and services WITHIN the United States. Legal tender laws say it is so. The dollar currently buys many things outside of the United States, but there is no law that says it always will. The only law protecting dollar holders all over the world says that their dollars can be exchanged INSIDE the US. So when Ben Bernanke issued $500 billion in swaps to 14 different foreign central banks in 2008, each one of those dollars became a new claim against us, the US. It is here in the US that those dollars are legal tender. No where else. No where else in the world is anyone required by law to accept those dollars for real goods and services. -- [Though there's acceptance by agreement i.e., Bretton Woods or by threat of force eg. Iraq] -- When new dollars are created through the credit system, they are backed by expanding asset values and by the debtor's promise to work them off.'

'Greenspan thought that he could conduct the financial system in the same way as the gold standard would operate. "I [Greenspan] think that you will find … that the most effective central banks in this fiat money period tend to be successful largely because we tend to replicate that which would have probably have occurred under a commodity standard in general." -- In other words, we need to remove government from the money supply, unless, of course, I and people like me are in control. Greenspan's position brings to mind a Jewish tradition about King Solomon; he thought that the restrictions imposed in Deuteronomy (17: 16–17) on kings about wives and horses did not apply to him. As the wisest of men, Solomon believed he knew the reasons for these restrictions, so he could avoid the temptations that the rules guarded against and take more wives and horses than allowed. His overweening arrogance led to disaster, and Greenspan fell victim to the same syndrome.' -- Disgrace by doublethink

'...we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call "the economy". Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places, slavery is seen as a consequence of war. Sometimes most slaves actually are war captives, sometimes they are not, but almost invariably, war is seen as the foundation and justification of the institution. If you surrender in war, what you surrender is your life; your conqueror has the right to kill you, and often will. If he chooses not to, you literally owe your life to him; a debt conceived as absolute, infinite, irredeemable. He can in principle extract anything he wants, and all debts – obligations – you may owe to others (your friends, family, former political allegiances), or that others owe you, are seen as being absolutely negated. Your debt to your owner is all that now exists.'

'The Brixton Pound (B£) is a local currency which offers a practical way for local people to vote with our wallets for a strong and diverse Brixton economy. It will be a complementary currency, working alongside (not replacing) pounds sterling, for use by independent local businesses and individuals trading within Brixton. Brixton will be the third Transition Town to have its own currency, following the Totnes Pound in Devon and Lewes Pound in Sussex both of which have been very successful and received national media coverage. Brixton will be the first part of London to have its own currency and the first urban area in the UK.' -- Awesome. Pretty soon, a locale without its own currency won't be worth living/investing in.

'The Decline of the West (The Downfall of the Occident) is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler ...according to its theories we are now living in the winter time of the Faustian civilization where the populace constantly strives for the unattainable—making the western man a proud but tragic figure, for while he strives and creates he secretly knows the actual goal will never be reached. -- Freedom, to Spengler, is a negative concept, simply entailing the repudiation of any tradition. Democracy and plutocracy are equivalent in Spengler's argument. The "tragic comedy of the world-improvers and freedom-teachers" is that they are simply assisting money to be more effective. The ideologies espoused by candidates, whether Socialism or Liberalism, are set in motion by, and ultimately serve, only money. "Free" press does not spread free opinion—it generates opinion. The only force which can counter money, in Spengler's estimation, is blood.'

"When I lived with money, I was always lacking. Money represents lack. Money represents things in the past (debt) and things in the future (credit), but money never represents what is present."

"A comprehensive & innovative proposal for a new system of sustainable economics." -- This is the one.

'Money as Debt II Explores the baffling, fraudulent and destructive arithmetic of the money system that holds us hostage to a forever growing DEBT...and how we might evolve beyond it into a new era.'

On money. Government or Digital Gold.

'... a fixed fiat system will not be able to prevent governments from the issue of bonds, which is of itself a dubious practice in ordinary circumstances... However, if a country is running an overall current account deficit, under the fixed fiat system, the country will find that money is flowing out of the country, and that there is a process of deflation taking place. This deflation will make the purchasing power of the currency increase, and will therefore make the goods and services of the country more attractive, as the currency will provide more goods and services per unit. This will mean that a current account imbalance, as soon as it appears, will start to correct itself. ...governments will not be able to hide irresponsible policy behind a wall of monetary policy. The current account balance between countries will become main the determinant of the relationship between their currencies.'

'...when money dominates a society, so does the world of finance, and the amount of money being traded for money can exceed by several orders of magnitude the amount of money being traded for goods and services. What makes this problematic is that the rules governing money are not the same as those governing other goods and services. Unlike goods and services that have their own value, money is only worth what it can buy; unlike goods and services that must be produced by labor from resources, money can be conjured from thin air by dozens of different kinds of financial alchemy, or by the momentary whim of a government. Nor does the amount of money in circulation have to have anything at all to do with the amount of other goods and services available. All these differences mean that the economy of money can very easily slip out of balance with the economy of nonfinancial goods and services.'

Hypothetical illustration: 'Production has been stimulated to some extent by lowering the reserve requirement [by 50%]; but production cannot be increased nearly as fast as credit can be. So as a result of increasing the credit supply, most prices have practically doubled. Twice the credit does not "do twice the work" as before, because each monetary unit now does, so to speak, only half the work it did before.' -- On credit inflation: '...a fractional-reserve gold system must periodically bring about business and political pressure for a further reduction of the fractional reserve required [where] a central bank, a government and a public opinion eager to keep expanding credit to start a "full employment" boom or to keep it going brings about what is known as the business cycle, that periodic oscillation of boom and bust that socialists and communists attribute, not to the monetary and credit system and central banking, but to some inherent tendency in the capitalist system itself.'