JANUARY 22
1561 – BIRTH OF SIR FRANCIS BACON, PHILOSOPHER, BRITISH LORD CHANCELLOR
“If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”
1719 – DEATH OF WILLIAM PATTERSON, CO-FOUNDER OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND
Patterson was an early Director of the bank, which was created in 1694. “The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.”
JANUARY 23
2013 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, “WHAT WOULD A TRILLION-DOLLAR COIN MEAN?” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA, DIRECTOR OF AMERICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE ON HUFFINGTON POST
“The emergence of the trillion-dollar coin idea is encouraging in that it recognizes that the federal government has the sovereign power to create its own money…U.S. Constitution Art. I, Sec. 8, Clause 5, “The Congress shall have Power… To coin Money and regulate the Value thereof…”
“The advantages of this sovereign power are several. The federal government could go far beyond merely avoiding a debt limit and could operate without deficit. It could pay off all existing debt, thus eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars of interest payments each year. This would free up revenue to provide desired and necessary services, creating millions of useful economy stimulating jobs — all debt free. This would include repair of degraded infrastructure, universal medical care, and universal education. The federal government could bail out states, many of which are deeply in trouble; and help resolve their pension problems. Again, all of this could be accomplished debt free…
“A trillion-dollar coin could avoid raising the debt limit, but it does not solve most of the problems facing our monetary and banking system. It leaves the same corrupt financial power structure in place. Bank issued debt used for money in our system remains in place — that is the source of current economic stress. It does nothing to reduce the interest burden of the existing federal and state debt. It does nothing about private debt such as housing, consumer, and student debt. It does nothing to get 47 million people off food stamps. It would not repair infrastructure or provide employment.
“The real solution to those problems was introduced into the 112th Congress by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, HR 2990. This bill puts the private Federal Reserve System under the U.S. Treasury, so that money creation in the U.S. becomes a function of government. The accounting privilege banks presently have to create money in the form of debt is ended by ending what is known as the fractional reserve system. New money is introduced into the economy by approved congressional government spending for infrastructure, health care and education.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zarlenga/trillion-dollar-coin_1_b_2522214.html
JANUARY 24
1811 – CHARTER OF FIRST BANK OF UNITED STATES NOT RENEWED
The federal government issued a 20-year charter in 1791 to create the first national private bank. This was unusual since at the time most corporate charters, or licenses, were issued by states. The Bank was the first private institution empowered by the U.S. federal government to create paper money — with all the power and profit that goes along with it. The bank’s paper money was accepted for taxes. Eighty percent of its shares were privately owned, among these 75% were foreign owned (mostly by the English and Dutch). The bank was modeled on the Bank of England. Within 2 months of its creation, it flooded the market with loans and banknotes and then sharply shifted course and called in many of its loans. The result was the first US securities market crash — what became known as the “Panic of 1792” – the first of many panics, recessions and depressions due to the private/corporate control of our money system. On January 24, 1811, the result was Congress voting to not renew the bank’s charter, thus dissolving the bank. During the first 50 years of the US, legislatures and courts routinely chose not to renew or revoke corporate charters, which were considered democratic instruments and used to control the actions of corporations.
1932 – DEATH OF PAUL WARBURG, US BANKER
Warburg guided the operations of the National Citizens League, an organization formed in 1911 with $5 million in contributions from the big New York banks (including those owned by Rockefeller and J.P Morgan) to establish an “educational fund.” The fund financed respected university professors to endorse the concept of creating a private central bank, what became the Federal Reserve Bank, created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act.
1939 – STATEMENT MADE BY ROBERT H. HEMPHILL, CREDIT MANAGER OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ATLANTA “We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible; but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied…”
JANUARY 25
1898 – SECOND INDIANAPOLIS MONETARY CONVENTION BEGINS
Billed as a grassroots effort for monetary reform, the second convention brought together nearly 500 representatives from 31 states. It was a follow-up gathering of major corporate leaders (including many bankers and economists representing leading corporations) to the first convention held a year earlier. Participants advocated for a privately run national central bank. Just as the proposed national central bank was misleading (to be privately controlled), the first and second Indianapolis Monetary Conventions were equally misleading. They were hardly “grassroots”, yet the image was useful when lobbying Congress and communicating with the public.
2014 – POSTED MUSIC VIDEO OF MONETARY REFORMER JOE BONGIOVANNI ON “WHY SHOULD GUV BORROW? WHO CONTROLS THE MONEY?”
“Public debt is the government borrowing money. The government of this country has the power to create all the money. And if you had the power to create the money and you said to me: ‘Here, you create the money, I’ll borrow it from you,’ people would think that you were insane. That’s basically the situation we have right now. The government that has the power to create the money, is giving that power to the private banks and the private banks now lend money to the government and pays interest on it and collects that from the taxpayers. That is unfair to the taxpayers. Because right now we have a totally corrupt government. Our government is totally corrupt, and it’s controlled by the bankers and the money powers.”
JANUARY 26
2007 – DEATH OF H.L. BIRUM, FINANCIAL COMMENTATOR
“The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they “create” the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their “Federal Reserve Notes” and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.”
JANUARY 27
1738 – BIRTH OF ROBERT YATES, POLITICIAN AND JUDGE
“I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.” — Brutus pseudonym, probably Robert Yates (1738-1801)
2009 – WILLIAM DUDLEY BECOMES 10TH PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE NEW YORK FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
“We don’t understand fully how large-scale asset purchase programs work to ease financial market conditions.”
[Note: That’s comforting Mr. Dudley. The head of THE most powerful of the regional reserve banks in the USA admits he doesn’t know the full financial impact of injecting trillions of dollars created by the Fed into the economy. Well, the evidence is in. Wall Street banks made out like bandits, while main street businesses and side street homeowners suffered.]
2010 — DEATH OF HOWARD ZINN, HISTORIAN ”The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, and the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson – that everything we do matters – is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think. When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.”
JANUARY 28
2013 – THE CHICAGO PLAN REVISITED, LIVE WEBCAST OF A THE DEBATE INVOLVING MICHAEL KUMHOF OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
“At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving Fisher (1936) claimed the following advantages for this plan: (1) Much better control of a major source of business cycle fluctuations, sudden increases and contractions of bank credit and of the supply of bank-created money. (2) Complete elimination of bank runs. (3) Dramatic reduction of the (net) public debt. (4) Dramatic reduction of private debt, as money creation no longer requires simultaneous debt creation. We study these claims by embedding a comprehensive and carefully calibrated model of the banking system in a DSGE model of the U.S. economy. We find support for all four of Fisher’s claims. Furthermore, output gains approach 10 percent, and steady state inflation can drop to zero without posing problems for the conduct of monetary policy.” – “The Chicago Plan Revisited,” IMF Working Paper Research Department, Prepared by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof
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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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