DECEMBER 24
1294 – PAPACY OF POPE BONIFACE VIII BEGINS
Benedetto Gaetani became Pope of the Catholic Church on Christmas Eve, 1294. He instituted the first Christian “Jubilee” in 1300. Jubilee has both Jewish and Christian roots. According to Wikipedia, “The concept of the Jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the Biblical Book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.” It was also common for land to be returned. Pope Boniface VIII conditioned the forgiving of sins and debt on personal confessions and pilgrimages to sacred sites (i.e. basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome) at least once a day for a specified time.
DECEMBER 25
2017 YEARS AGO – CELEBRATED BIRTH DATE OF JESUS
In his book, Money and its True Function, author FR Burch said, “As long as Christ confined his teachings to the realm of morality and righteousness, He was undisturbed; it was not till He assailed the established economic system and ‘cast out’ the profiteers and ‘overthrew the tables of the money changers,’ that He was doomed. The following day He was questioned, betrayed on the second tried on the third and on the fourth crucified.”
1833 – BIRTH OF MARK “BRICK” POMEROY, NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER, CURRENCY REFORMER AND ORGANIZER OF “GREENBACK CLUBS”
At the national Greenback Party convention in 1876, Pomeroy was named chairman of a committee to coordinate the activities of local Greenback clubs across the country. The clubs served as forums for monetary education and mobilization on behalf of the Greenback Party. During his leadership, Pomeroy claimed almost 6000 clubs had been chartered: the most in Missouri, followed by Illinois. Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas and New York.
1983 – DEATH OF ROBERT H. HEMPHILL, CREDIT MANAGER, ATLANTA FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
“This is a staggering thought. 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.
2014 – “LINKING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO MONETARY REFORM” BY NICK EGNATZ ARTICLE POSTED
“Social Justice is the struggle to make society work for the vast majority of people. The comprehensive monetary reform of the NEED Act is the necessary first step on the path to realization of this struggle. The following ten points are the major social issues in which I will try to link social justice with monetary reform.”
http://www.alpheus.org/linking-social-justice-to-monetary-reform/
DECEMBER 26
2017 – “BOXING DAY”
An annual holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth nations. Traditionally, it was when servants or employees would receive gifts from their bosses or employers in “Christmas boxes.” Granting business corporations the power to create and distribute money has been the ultimate financial gift that keeps on giving every time banks create a loan “out of thin air” as debt. The lack of awareness in mainstream society of this current monetary reality and alternatives proposals to democratize money creation boxes, or limits, us as self-governing people to use the authority granted to our government to create our own money to distribute funds where we, not banks, believe are most needed.
DECEMBER 27
1945 – IMF AND WORLD BANK “ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT” ENTERED INFO FORCE
The original International Monetary Fund Articles of Agreement were adopted at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, NH on July 22, 1944. They were entered into force on this date. Both institutions have used their “money power” of loan making to dictate financial and economic conditions on governments around the world.
DECEMBER 28
1856 – BIRTH OF WOODROW WILSON, 28TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES
“The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm
1947 – BIRTH OF SPENCER BACHUS, CONGRESSPERSON, ALABAMA, REPUBLICAN CHAIR OF THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”
2013 — DEATH OF MARGRIT KENNEDY, AUTHOR OF OCCUPY MONEY
“At present, we’re stuck in the near vertical part of the exponential growth curve of money assets and debt. In nature the organism harboring this diseased growth would be on the verge of death. Can we even grasp that we’ve lost control — that we don’t rule this system, but it rules us? We need a transition process in which the creative power of money issuance is transferred to new institution that will use this power to benefit society, thereby ending the continuation of our compulsive, boundless expansion of money and debt. Only via a transition of this sort can we initiate a peaceful, evolutionary process that will lead us out of the crisis.”
DECEMBER 29
1809 – BIRTH OF WILLIAM GLADSTONE, CHIEF BRITISH FINANCE MINISTER AND FOUR-TIME BRITISH PRIME MINISTER
“From the time I took office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I began to learn that the State held, in the face of the Bank and the City, an essentially false position as to finance. The Government itself was not to be a substantive power, but was to leave the Money Power supreme and unquestioned.”
[Note: the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the equivalent to the role of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the Treasury in other nations.]
DECEMBER 30
2008 – FEDERAL RESERVE ANNOUNCES BAIL OUT PLAN
The Federal Reserve Board announces that it expects to begin to purchase up to $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Fannie Mae received $116 billion, Freddie Mac $71 billion.
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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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