Money

Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style

July 1, 2017 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Educate! Japan, Money

By Ellen Brown for Web Of Debt Blog - If the Federal Reserve raises the fed funds rate to 3.5% and sells its federal securities into the market, as it is proposing to do, by 2026 the projected tab will be $830 billion annually. That’s nearly $1 trillion owed by the taxpayers every year, just for interest. Personal income taxes are at record highs, ringing in at $550 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2017, or $1.6 trillion annually. But even at those high levels, handing over $830 billion to bondholders will wipe out over half the annual personal income tax take. Yet what is the alternative? Japan seems to have found one. While the US government is busy driving up its “sovereign” debt and the interest owed on it, Japan has been canceling its debt at the rate of $720 billion (¥80tn) per year. How? By selling the debt to its own central bank, which returns the interest to the government. While most central banks have ended their quantitative easing programs and are planning to sell their federal securities, the Bank of Japan continues to aggressively buy its government’s debt. An interest-free debt owed to oneself that is rolled over from year to year is effectively void – a debt “jubilee.” As noted by fund manager Eric Lonergan in a February 2017 article: The Bank of Japan is in the process of owning most of the outstanding government debt of Japan (it currently owns around 40%).

How Greece Became A Guinea Pig For A Cashless And Controlled Society

June 27, 2017 Michael Nevradakis, www.transcend.org Educate! Greece, Money

By Michael Nevradakis for MintPress News - 21 Jun 2017 – Day by day, we’re moving towards a brave new world where every transaction is tracked, every purchase is recorded, the habits and preferences of everyone noted and analyzed. What I am describing is the “cashless society,” where plastic and electronic money are king, while banknotes and coins are abolished. “Progress” is, after all, deemed to be a great thing. In a recent discussion, I observed on an online message board regarding gentrification in my former neighborhood of residence in Queens, New York, the closure of yet another longtime local business was met by one user with a virtual shrug: “Who needs stores when you have Amazon?” This last quote is, of course, indicative of the brick-and-mortar store, at least in its familiar form. In December 2016, Amazon launched a checkout-free convenience store in Seattle—largely free of employees, but also free of cash transactions, as purchases are automatically charged to one’s Amazon account. “Progress” is therefore cast as the abolition of currency, and the elimination of even more jobs, all in the name of technological progress and the “convenience” of saving a few minutes of waiting at the checkout counter.

Move Your Money To The New Economy

June 22, 2017 Staff, www.neweconomy.net Create! Banks, Money, New Economy

By Staff of New Economy Coalition - Banking Alternatives: Unlike Wall St. banks, which work to maximize profits for shareholders at the expense of communities and the environment, Community Development Credit Unions, as well as many other progressive credit unions, CDFIs, and community banks, offer a local alternative rooted in the well-being of their communities. Here are some places to learn more about values-aligned banking alternatives. Invest In the New Economy: Within NEC’s membership there are dozens of amazing organizations that can help you put your savings or investments to use in building the New Economy. Here are just a few. Reinvest in Our Power: Reinvest In Our Power is an emerging national network of reinvestment campaigns and grassroots organizations, that are working together to freeze dirty investments, move the money, and resource community-led solutions at the frontlines. Through a financial cooperative of regional loan funds, governed by the grassroots organizations, this project shifts both capital and decision-making out of corporate control, and puts it in service of people and the planet. Sachie, NEC staff organizer, serves as project coordinator for the network.

How To Cut Infrastructure Costs In Half

January 31, 2017 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Create! Infrastructure, Money

By Ellen Brown for The Web of Debt Blog - President Donald Trump has promised to rebuild America’s airports, bridges, tunnels, roads and other infrastructure, something both Democrats and Republicans agree should be done. The country needs a full $3 trillion in infrastructure over the next decade. The $1 trillion plan revealed by Trump’s economic advisers relies heavily on public-private partnerships, and private equity firms are lining up for these plumbing investments. In the typical private equity water deal, for example, higher user rates help the firms earn annual returns of anywhere from 8 to 18 percent – more even than a regular for-profit water company might expect. But the price tag can come as a rude surprise for local ratepayers.

Agriculture To Demonetisation: Made In Washington

January 7, 2017 Colin Todhunter, www.countercurrents.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, India, Money, Washington

By Colin Todhunter for Counter Currents - We don’t have to dig too deep to see where Modi feels at home. Describing itself as a major ‘global communications, stakeholder engagement and business strategy’ company, APCO Worldwide is a lobby agency with firm links to (part of) the Wall Street/US establishment and functions to serve its global agenda. Modi turned to APCO to help transform his image and turn him into electable pro-corporate PM material. It also helped Modi get the message out that what he achieved in Gujarat as Chief Minister was a miracle of economic neoliberalism, although the actual reality is really quite different. In APCO’s India brochure, there is the claim that India’s resilience in weathering the global downturn...

Demonetisation: Bhasmasur’s Dance Of Death

January 2, 2017 Vijaya Kumar Marla, www.countercurrents.org Educate! India, Money

By Vijaya Kumar Marla for Counter Currents - As per mythology, one demon king, Bhasmasur had undertaken tapas to attract the attention of Shiva. His tapas was so powerful that earth and heaven were shaken and pleased with his devotion, Parameshwar appeared before him. Bhasmasur asked for a boon from Shiva, that he should have the power to destroy anything he lays his hands up on. Having promised, Parmeshwar had no option but to grant it. This demon king wanted to test whether the boon really works and so, he chased the Lord himself to put his hand up on his head. Bhasmasur had left a trail of death and destruction in his wake.

Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Revolution In Banking?

September 20, 2016 Ellen Brown, www.counterpunch.org Create! Banking, Currency, Digital, Money

By Ellen Brown for Counter Punch - Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse). But Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, puts a more positive spin on it.

Stark New Evidence On How Money Shapes America’s Elections

August 16, 2016 Lynn Parramore, www.ineteconomics.org Educate! Elections, Money

By Lynn Parramore for INET - Outrage over how big money influences American politics has been boiling over this political season, energizing the campaigns of GOP nominee Donald Trump and former Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders alike. Citizens have long suspected that “We the People” increasingly means “We the Rich” at election time. Yet surprisingly, two generations of social scientists have insisted that wallets don’t matter that much in American politics. Elections are really about giving the people what they want. Money, they claim, has negligible impact on elections.

Trump’s “Reckless” Proposal Echoes Franklin And Lincoln

May 16, 2016 Ellen Brown, Chris Hedges, www.ellenbrown.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Money

By Ellen Brown for Web of Debt - “Reckless,” “alarming,” “disastrous,” “swashbuckling,” “playing with fire,” “crazy talk,” “lost in a forest of nonsense”: these are a few of the labels applied by media commentators to Donald Trump’s latest proposal for dealing with the federal debt. On Monday, May 9th, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate said on CNN, “You print the money.” The remark was in response to a firestorm created the previous week, when Trump was asked if the US should pay its debt in full or possibly negotiate partial repayment.

War On Savings: Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, And Push To Go Cashless

April 13, 2016 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Educate! Finance and Economy, Money, Panama Papers

By Ellen Brown for Web of Debt - The bombshell publication of the “Panama Papers,” leaked from a Panama law firm specializing in shell companies, has triggered both outrage and skepticism. In an April 3 article titled “Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak,” UK blogger Craig Murray writes that the whistleblower no doubt had good intentions; but he made the mistake of leaking his 11.5 million documents to the corporate-controlled Western media, which released only those few documents incriminating opponents of Western financial interests.

Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

February 27, 2016 Matthew Evangelista, www.warresisters.org Resist! Money, Wars and Militarism

By Matthew Evangelista for War Registers League - Each year, War Resisters League analyzes federal funds outlays as presented in detailed tables in "Analytical Perspectives" of the Budget of the United States Government. Our analysis is based on federal funds, which do not include trust funds -- such as Social Security -- that are raised separately from income taxes for specific purposes. What you pay (or don't pay) by April 18, 2016 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget.

Nonprofits: Beware The Hand That Feeds

January 26, 2016 Auset Marian Lewis, www.telesurtv.net Educate! Funding, Money, Nonprofits

By Auset Marian Lewis for Tele Sur - Injustice is not happenstance. It’s systemic. Police shoot more unarmed black men than white because the slave system put a target on their backs centuries ago that has never been erased. Racism is in America’s DNA. It is a systemic problem built into the American culture ever since black people were counted as chattel and fed from a pig’s trough. Every American institution from prisons to politics, from Yale to Mizzou is laced with the inextricable venom of the slave system. The American system is so infected with racial injustice that even programs funded to mitigate systemic social and economic problems become fruit of the poisonous tree.

European Nations Such As Sweden And Denmark Are ‘Eradicating Cash’

December 30, 2015 Michael Snyder, www.theeconomiccollapseblog.com Educate! Denmark, Europe, Local Currency, Money, Sweden

By Michael Snyder for The Economic Collapse - Did you know that 95 percent of all retail sales in Sweden are cashless? And did you know that the government of Denmark has a stated goal of “eradicating cash” by the year 2030? All over the world, we are seeing a relentless march toward a cashless society, and nowhere is this more true than in northern Europe. In Sweden, hundreds of bank branches no longer accept or dispense cash, and thousands of ATM machines have been permanently removed. At this point, bills and coins only account for just 2 percent of the Swedish economy, and many stores no longer take cash at all. The notion of a truly “cashless society” was once considered to be science fiction, but now we are being told that it is “inevitable”...

Harper’s Article Exposes Who Controls America

December 28, 2015 Eric Zuesse, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Foreign Policy, Money, United States

By Eric Zuesse for ICH - December 18, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - There can be little doubt now: America’s decades-long catastrophic failures to make significant progress in eliminating even a single one of the numerous jihadist groups around the world is due to the American government’s secret under-the-table crucial ongoing assistance to those groups, and this American-government support has intentionally encouraged recent terrorist events especially in Syria, Libya, and other countries that had been allied with Russia — but which might be flipped ‘our’ way, by those jihadists. In such countries (America’s ‘enemies’), the U.S. government calls the jihadist groups ‘moderates’ and ‘pro-democracy.’

Reinventing Banking: From Russia To Iceland To Ecuador

December 14, 2015 Ellen Brown, www.maxkeiser.com Create! Banking, Development, Money

By Ellen Brown for Max Keiser - Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items: In Russia, vulnerability to Western sanctions has led to proposals for a banking system that is not only independent of the West but is based on different design principles. In Iceland, the booms and busts culminating in the banking crisis of 2008-09 have prompted lawmakers to consider a plan to remove the power to create money from private banks...

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