JUNE 25
2007 – STATEMENT BY SHEILA BAIR, FORMER HEAD OF THE FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
“There are strong reasons for believing that banks left to their own devices would maintain less capital — not more — than would be prudent. The fact is, banks do benefit from implicit and explicit government safety nets…In short, regulators can’t leave capital decisions totally to the banks.” Bair cautioned against lowering capital requirements (the amount of money banks have to hold compared to their loans)
JUNE 26
1009 BC – BIRTH OF KING SOLOMON, SON OF DAVID
The rich rules over The poor, and The borrower is The slave of The lender. Proverbs (of Solomon) 7:22
JUNE 27
1836 – STATEMENT BY JOHN C. CALHOUN, FORMER US VICE-PRESIDENT
“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.”
JUNE 28
1836 – DEATH OF JAMES MADISON, 4TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Madison signed into law a bank bill in 1816 creating the Second National Bank of the United States. Chartered for 20 years, the bank amassed economic power, which led to the successful efforts of President Andrew Jackson to abolish it in 1836.
JUNE 29
1795 – DEATH OF JOHN JAY, FIRST CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE US SUPREME COURT
“Those who own the country ought to govern it.”
1858 – DEATH OF EDWARD KELLOGG, BUSINESSMAN AND ECONOMIST. HIS IDEAS INFLUENCED THE POLICIES OF THE POPULIST AND GREENBACK PARTIES
“Legal value belongs to anything which represents actual value, or capital. Its existence depends upon actual value. The worth of things of legal value depends upon their capability to be exchanged for things of actual value. Since money is our monetary system is created as debt, the ‘legal value’ of money includes both the principal debt and interest — which exceeds the ‘actual value’ of a nation’s real wealth or claims on collateral at any point in time. The only means to close this gap and cover interest payments is to create additional collateral (goods and services) via economic growth. Of course, this additional debt-based money used to pay the previous interest has its own interest. Thus the downward debt cycle never ends until it collapses.
JUNE 30
1812 – FIRST US TREASURY NOTES AUTHORIZED BY THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
Treasury notes are promise to pay notes to borrowers to raise revenue. The US needed funds to fund the War of 1812. Rather than print US money (such as “Continentals” – an interest- and debt-free money issued by the Continental Congress to pay for the Revolutionary War), the US government followed a different course – to issue notes to borrowers with promises to pay the principal with interest at a later date. The original interest rate was 5.4%. Wars cause indebtedness. Bankers tend to like wars since they tend to create financial dependency of nations to bankers. Thomas Edison would later say about Treasury bonds, “If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good…”
1997 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE “BEYOND GREED AND SCARCITY” BY BERNARD LIETAER IN YES MAGAZINE
“While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money – using markets and resources to do so. Greed and fear of scarcity are being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity.”
2005 – PUBLICATION OF “A MATTER OF INTEREST” BY WILLIAM HIXSON, CANADIAN ECONOMIST
“The very idea of a government that can create money for itself, allowing banks to create money that the government then borrows, and pays interest on, is so preposterous that it staggers the imagination. Either everyone in government in charge of the procedure is lacking in intelligence or they have been bought and paid for by those who profit from their skullduggery and their infidelity to the public interest.”
JUNE (not certain of exact date)
1992- UPDATED PUBLICATION OF MODERN MONEY MECHANICS BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CHICAGO
“The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. Banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments…This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered several centuries ago…At one time, bankers were merely middlemen. They made a profit by accepting gold and coins for safekeeping and lending them to borrowers. But they soon found that the receipts (bank notes or IOUs) they issued were being used as if they were a means of payment. “These receipts were acceptable as if they were money since whoever held them could go to the banker and exchange them for metallic money…Then bankers discovered…that they could make loans merely by giving borrowers their promises to pay (bank notes). In this way banks began to create money…More notes (IOUs) could be issued than the gold and coin on hand, because only a portion of the notes outstanding would be presented for payment at any one time…Demand deposits (checks) are the modern counterpart of bank notes. It was a small step from printing notes to making book entries to the credit of borrowers, which the borrowers in turn, could ‘spend’ by writing checks.”
JULY 1
1944 – BRETTON WOODS CONFERENCE BEGINS
The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, known as the Bretton Woods Conference was a meeting of 44 Allied nations in New Hampshire, where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were created. Participant nations agreed to fix their currencies to a set value of gold. Debtor nations were to be helped with payments. The actual program was the use of loans (to be paid back with interest) to create political and economic dependence to loaning countries and their bankers. Agreements to receive further loans were often conditioned on “Structural Adjustment Programs” which called for privatization/corporatization of public services, wage cuts and perversion of economies to service debt payments.
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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 the original 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. It is currently 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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