JANUARY 15
2014 – SPEECH BY INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) MANAGING DIRECTOR CHRISTINE LAGARDE AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON, DC
“Even for the advanced economies, however, the outlook [in 2014) is still subject to significant risks. With inflation running below many central banks’ targets, we see rising risks of deflation, which could prove disastrous for the recovery. If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively.”
The sword used by private central banks to slay the deflation “ogre” was out-of-thin-air money printing. While the Federal Reserve gradually wound down their Quantitative Easing (QE) program, other nations (Japan, China, and Russia) ramped theirs up.
JANUARY 16
1911 – ISSUANCE OF PAMPHLET SUGGESTING PLAN FOR NATIONAL PRIVATE CENTRAL BANK
US Senator Nelson Aldrich introduced a plan for creation of a national private central bank based on the conclusions developed by bankers who met secretly on Jekyll Island. GA. The Citizens League, later the National Citizens League, was formed to promote the plan. The establishment of the Federal Reserve System was the event result of the plan.
2009 – US GOVERNMENT AND FEDERAL RESERVE BAILS OUT BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION
The U.S. Treasury and the FDIC provides $118 billion of loans, securities, and other assets in exchange for preferred shares. The U.S. Treasury invested an additional $20 billion in the bank from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in exchange for preferred stock.
JANUARY 17
1706 – BIRTH OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the revolutionary war.”
“This effect of paper currency is not understood in England. And indeed the whole is a mystery to the politicians how we have been able to continue a war for four years without money and how we could pay with paper that had no previously fixed fund appropriated specifically to redeem it. This currency…is a wonderful machine.”
1863 – BIRTH OF LLOYD GEORGE, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, 1916-1922
“The international bankers swept statesmen, politicians, journalists and jurists all to one side and issued their order with the imperiousness of absolute monarchs.”
2002 – PUBLICATION OF “FUTURE OF MONEY” BY BERNARD LIETAER, BELGIAN AUTHOR, ECONOMISTS, PROFESSOR AND CIVIL ENGINEER
“Your money’s value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stock markets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the “real” economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises, which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system.”
JANUARY 18
1910 – BIRTH OF KENNETH BOULDING, ECONOMIST, PROFESSOR, PEACE ACTIVIST, QUAKER
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
JANUARY 19
2015 – NATIONAL HOLIDAY HONORING LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
King as born on January 15, 1929 but his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday on the third Monday of the month. A few King quotes:
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
Ignorance and stupidity of how money is created by banking corporations and private central banks must end. Now is not the time to be silent, but to educate and advocate for a democratic monetary system, or what others call “sovereign money.”
JANUARY 20
1859 – BIRTH OF CHARLES LINDBURGH, SR., REPUBLICAN US REPRESENTATIVE AND FATHER OF THE FAMOUS AVIATOR
“Ever since the Civil War Congress has allowed the bankers to control financial legislation. The membership of the Finance Committee in the Senate (now the Banking and Currency Committee) and the Committee on Banking and Currency in the House have been made up chiefly of bankers, their agents and their attorneys. These committees have controlled the nature of bills to be reported, the extent of them, and debates that were to be held on them when they were being considered in the Senate and the House.”
“This [Federal Reserve] Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the president signs this bill, the invisible government by the monetary power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed, the worst legislative crime of the ages perpetrated by this bank bill.”
JANUARY 21
2013 – POLAND RECEIVES $33.8 BILLION IN LOANS FROM INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)
“Poland has shown that very strong fundamentals and sound policies help strengthen a country’s resilience to crises. I think this is a key lesson that other countries can draw from Poland’s experience,” Julie Kozack, IMF mission chief for Poland said after the IMF’s Board decision, as quoted on IMF website. Less than 2 years later, on December 1, 2014, investor and economist Matthew Tymand in Forbes magazine comments on Poland’s recession: “Hopefully this coming recession lasts two to three years at most and is accompanied by a changing of the political guard. But, if Polish politics follow the trend of most of Europe…then it will look more like a lost generation (like Japan) and the likes of which the U.S. and parts of the E.U. are embarking upon. In this case the coming recession will last closer to ten years than two or three. Politics matter.”
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Why this calendar? Many people have questions about the root causes of our economic problems. Some questions involve money, banks and debt. How is money created? Why do banks control its quantity? How has the money system been used to liberate (not often) and oppress (most often) us? And how can the money system be “democratized” to rebuild our economy and society, create jobs and reduce debt? Our goal is to inform, intrigue and inspire through bite size weekly postings listing important events and quotes from prominent individuals (both past and present) on money, banking and how the money system can help people and the planet. We hope the sharing of bits of buried history will illuminate monetary and banking issues and empower you with others to create real economic and political justice. This calendar is a project of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini, Deb Jose and Greg Coleridge helped in its development. Please forward this to others and encourage them to subscribe. To subscribe/unsubscribe or to comment on any entry, email monetarycalendar@yahoo.com
To see the calendar year-to-date, go to https://monetarycalendar.wordpress.com/
A second historical calendar, the REAL Democracy History Calendar, in many ways complements this calendar. For information, go to https://realdemocracyhistorycalendar.wordpress.com/about/
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