MAY 14
2013 – ARTICLE, “MONEY HAS BEEN PRIVATIZED BY STEALTH” BY BEN DYSON
“It’s common knowledge that printing your own £10 notes at home is frowned upon by Her Majesty’s police. Yet there’s a small collection of companies that are authorized to create – and spend – more new money than the counterfeiters have ever been able to print. In industry jargon, these companies are called “monetary and financial institutions”, but you probably know them by their street name: “banks”.
The money that they create, effectively out of nothing, isn’t the paper money that bears the logo of the government-owned Bank of England. It’s the electronic money that flashes up on the screen when you check your balance at an ATM. This electronic money currently represents over 97% of all the money in the economy. Only 3% of money is still in that old-fashioned form of real cash that can be touched.”
MAY 15
1915 – BIRTH OF PAUL SAMUELSON, ECONOMIST (FIRST AMERICAN TO WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS)
“Few understand that all our money arises out of debt and IOU operations. The banking system as a whole can do what each small bank cannot do: it can expand its loans and investments many times the new reserves of cash created for it, even though each small bank is lending out only a fraction of its deposits.” Economics, An Introductory Analysis by Professor Paul A. Samuelson. (Best selling college economics textbook of all time, c1948.)
1931 – “QUADRAGESSIMO ANNO” LETTER ISSUED BY POPE PIUS XI
The Pope discusses the ethical implications of economic and social order in this letter, warning of the dangers of unrestrained capitalism.
“Economic dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by the few who hold the money and completely control it, control credit and the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul of economics that no one can breathe against their will.”
MAY 16
1876 – SECOND GREENBACK NATIONAL CONVENTION OPENS IN INDIANAPOLIS
May 16–18, 1876 — Academy of Music, Indianapolis, Indiana. There were 239 delegates present from 17 states. Peter Cooper was nominated for President of the Greenback Party (calling for the creation of debt-free national money) with 352 votes to 119 for three other contenders.
1912 – PUJO COMMITTEE HEARINGS BEGIN
A special subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency Committee began hearings under its Chairman, Arsene P. Pujo. Its purpose was to investigate the powers of the nation’s “money trust.” Its final report, issued in 1913, concluded that the power over the nation’s money and credit was concentrated in a small group of Wall Street bankers. The report created a climate for reform. Unfortunately one of the reforms advocated for was the misnamed Federal Reserve Act, which provided the appearance that finances would become a public function.
MAY 17
1901 – FINANCIAL PANIC
The Financial Panic of 1901 was the first stock market crash. This was caused in part by several powerful investors trying to gain control of the Northern Pacific Railway. During the afternoon of May 17, 1901 the market started to decline sharply. Investors on the floor of the New York stock Exchange began to panic. An overwhelming yell of “Sell, sell, sell” could be heard; only fueling the panic. This cornering of stock caused a panic among many small investors resulting in the ruin of thousands of small investors.
1930 – BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS ESTABLISHED
This is the central bank of all central banks, established as an international financial institution to “foster international monetary and financial cooperation.” Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS serves to strengthen the international private banking system, not national economies. The BIS advocates the establishment of a global currency, building on the International Monetary Fund “Special Drawing Rights” – a quasi currency, which has a value, based on a basket of 4 major currencies (the dollar, euro, pound and yen).
2002 – TALK BY WILLIAM HUMMEL, AUTHOR, MONETARY RESEARCHER
“Banks are not ordinary intermediaries, like non-banks, they also borrow, but they do not lend the deposits they acquire. They lend by crediting the borrowers account with a new deposit… The accounts of other depositors remain intact and their deposits fully available for withdrawal. Thus a bank loan increases the total of bank deposits, which means an increase in the money supply.”
MAY 18
1846 – STATE OF IOWA CONSTITUTION ADOPTED
Article VIII of the original constitution states:
“Municipal corporations. Section 4. No political or municipal corporation shall become a stockholder in any banking corporation, directly or indirectly.
Banking associations. Section 5. No Act of the General Assembly, authorizing or creating corporations or associations with banking powers, nor amendments thereto shall take effect, or in any manner be in force, until the same shall have been submitted separately, to the people, at a general or special election, as provided by law, to be held not less than three months after the passage of the Act, and shall have been approved by a majority of all the electors voting for and against it at such election.”
1920 – SECRET MEETING BY BANKERS TO REDUCE THE MONEY SUPPLY, WHICH RESULTED IN 5 MILLION UNEMPLOYED
Testimony in 1938 before the House Committee on Banking and Currency by Senator Robert Owen, a co-sponsor of the Federal Reserve Act:
“I wrote into the bill which was introduced by me in the Senate on June 26, 1913, a provision that the powers of the System should be employed to promote a stable price level, which meant a dollar of stable purchasing, debt-paying power. It was stricken out. The powerful money interests got control of the Federal Reserve Board through Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Albert Strauss, and Mr. Adolph C. Miller and they were able to have that secret meeting of May 18, 1920, and bring about a contraction of credit so violent it threw five million people out of employment.
In 1920 that Reserve Board deliberately caused the Panic of 1921. The same people, unrestrained in the stock market, expanding credit to a great excess between 1926 and 1929, raised the price of stocks to a fantastic point where they could not possibly earn dividends, and when the people realized this, they tried to get out, resulting in the Crash of October 24, 1929.”
MAY 19
1977 – QUOTE BY BIRTH OF EARL OF CAITHNESS (MALCOLM IAN SINCLAIR), MEMBER OF THE UK HOUSE OF LORDS
“The next government must grasp the nettle, accept their responsibility for controlling the money supply and change from our debt-based monetary system. My Lords, will they? If they do not, our monetary system will break us and the sorry legacy we are already leaving our children will be a disaster.”
MAY 20
1851- BIRTH OF CHARLES MACUNE, HEAD OF SOUTHERN FARMERS’ ALLIANCE AND ORIGINATOR OF THE POPULIST “SUB-TREASURY PLAN”
The “Sub-Treasury Plan,” developed by the southern Populist Macune, was an ingenious proposal to circumvent banking corporations, merchants and landlords by farmers to avoid debt at high interest, which often resulted in the loss of their farms. The proposal called for farmers to store their harvest in federal warehouses when prices for their commodities were low. Farmers would leverage those commodities for loans (up to 80% of the market value in federal notes) to support themselves until prices rose. The proposal was especially useful to southern farmers with non-perishable crops (i.e. cotton). The farmer had one year to sell the crop and then pay back the note and 1% interest.
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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 Create Real Democracy. Adele Looney, Phyllis Titus, Donna Schall, Leah Davis, Alice Francini, Deb Jose and Greg Coleridge helped in its development. It’s updated by Greg Coleridge. 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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