JULY 15
2012 – PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE, “ASSET HOLES: US ‘LEADERSHIP IN MONEY, CREDIT, CAFR SURPLUS TRILLIONS” BY CARL HERMAN
“The great news is that economic solutions are obvious:
Monetary reform: the US doesn’t have a money supply, but its Orwellian opposite of a ‘debt supply.’ Banks and the Fed create what we use for money as debts, then charge the 99% interest for its use. Monetary reform has government transparency (yes, unimaginable without total Occupy victory) to create debt-free money for direct payment of public goods and services. This has game-changing triple benefits of full-employment as government becomes the employer of last resort, optimal infrastructure, and falling prices because infrastructure contribute more to productivity than cost.”
JULY 16
1979 – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF SAN FRANCISCO AD FOR COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS IN “COMPUTERWORLD MAGAZINE”
“Some people still think we’re a branch of the Government. We’re not.”
[Note: You can’t get any clearer or more succinct than this!]
JULY 17
1862 – PASSAGE OF POSTAGE CURRENCY ACT
The act authorized the issuance of 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent notes – which were needed to substitute for gold, silver and copper coins, which were hoarded. This fractional currency US debt-free notes, sold in perforated sheets like stamps, were redeemable by the US Post Offices at face value in postage stamps until 1876.
JULY 18
BIRTH OF STEPHEN ZARLENGA, DIRECTOR, AMERICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE, AUTHOR OF “THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY”
“We propose that ultimately the monetary power should be constituted as a fourth branch of government, like the executive, judicial and legislative branches. We have concluded that the nature of man and society requires four, not three, branches of government.” “True monetary reform must take a better path. AMI’s research indicates that money, properly defined, is a legal institution of society and government; not a commodity or economic good of the markets; that if money is a legal institution, then the control of monetary systems can be rightfully viewed as a proper function of government; much as the law courts are.” “When society loses control over its money system, it loses any control it might have had over its destiny.”
JULY 19
1844 – PASSAGE OF BANK CHARTER ACT BY BRITISH PARLIAMENT
The Act curtailed and eventually ended the right of banks to issue banknotes. The right to issue paper money became the sole authority of the Bank of England. NOTE: They could still create money via lending (fractional reserve lending).
2013 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE, THE PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE DIALECTIC, OR: MONEY AS PART OF THE COMMONS” BY ANTHONY MIGCHELS
“Surely it’s a no-brainer to say that the Government at this stage must urgently retake the monopoly on currency from the Money Power. The US Government pays 450 billion per year in interest payments to international banks and other Governments to service its National Debt. With the BIS now openly calling for higher interest rates it will quickly get much worse. Government money allows for a reasonable financing of the State and is the very least monetary reform should aim for.
But to say something is better is not to say something is ideal. And Government money can be designed in good and bad ways. The good ways decentralize power, the bad ways centralize power…”
2015 – ARTICLE “THE FEDERAL RESERVE – WHICH CREATED QUANTITATIVE EASING – ADMITS QE DOESN’T WORK.”
Stephen Williamson, the Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, writes in a new Fed white paper published on July 9 the following:
“There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed inflation and real economic activity. Indeed, casual evidence suggests that QE has been ineffective in increasing inflation.
“Thus, the Fed’s forward guidance experiments after the Great Recession would seem to have done more to sow confusion than to clarify the Fed’s policy rule.”
JULY 20
1903 – DEATH OF POPE LEO XIII
“On the one hand there is the party which holds the power because it holds the wealth, which has in its grasp all labor and all trade, which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is powerfully represented in the councils of State itself. On the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sore and suffering. Rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless under a different form but with the same guilt, still practiced by avaricious and grasping men…so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself.”
– Statement on usury, 1898
JULY 21
1899 – BIRTH OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY, AUTHOR
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
From The Sun Also Rises
[The same may be true of our nation today.]
1911 — DEATH OF MARSHALL MCLUHAN, CANDADIAN PHILOSOPHER OF COMMUNICATION THEORY
“Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”
Exactly. The general public is unwilling or unable to believe that the vast majority of the money of our nation isn’t created by our public government, but by private financial entities out of thin air as debt.
2011 – REPORT BY US SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS ON AUDIT OF THE US FEDERAL RESERVE
“The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. ‘This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.’ “
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/the-fed-audit
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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/
create real democracy 