OCTOBER 7
1849 – DEATH OF EDGAR ALLEN POE, US WRITER, POET AND CRITIC, AUTHOR OF “THE GOLD BUG”
“But what makes ‘The Gold Bug’ highly valuable (a literary work of art), rather than merely entertaining (a humbug) is the fact that encrypted within it is a very sophisticated set of meditations on the subject of money. Specifically, ‘The Gold Bug’ concerns the transition from gold coins to paper money (the piece of parchment). In America, which was the first country to make widespread use of paper money, these very controversial developments took place in the 1830s and ’40s, that is, precisely when Poe was alive and writing all the works for which he would become famous, if not extravagantly wealthy….And so, everything that might be said about the power of paper money can also be said about coined money: both of them produce dissociative, illogical and unnatural effects. What’s so special about gold? As King Midas learned so tragically, you can’t eat it. Provided that they are inscribed with the right words, images and symbols, even bullets can be used as legal tender. Though the advent of paper money made visible a certain crisis, that crisis didn’t begin or wasn’t caused by paper money; it began or was caused by the advent of money itself, thousands of years ago.” http://www.notbored.org/gold-bug.html
OCTOBER 8
1946 – BIRTH OF DENNIS KUCINICH, FORMER CONGRESSMAN, OHIO
Author of the National Emergency Employment Defense [NEED] Act, introduced in 2010 and 2011. Among the bill’s provisions are: (a) make the Federal Reserve System more accountable by placing the Fed under the US Department of Treasury, (b) create government issued money to hire people to repair the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, and (c) eliminate fractional reserve lending – the practice that permits banks to lend many times more funds that they actually possess.
2008 – QUOTE BY ALAN GREENSPAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Here’s what he said just after the Glass Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 (just before the market crashed), of the rapid growth of money center banks… “I believe the general growth in large [financial] institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically — I should say, fully — hedged” -NYtimes.com, October 8, 2008
OCTOBER 9
1899 – BIRTH OF HENRY SIMONS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
“The mistake lies in fearing money and trusting debt.”
2002 – LOW POINT OF THE DOT.COM CRASH
The explosive rise of the Internet resulted in the explosive rise of speculative financial investments in Internet corporations (the “dot.com” industry). A huge bubble ensued when the financial industry seeking quick and massive profits blindly invested in these dot-com start-ups without carefully reviewing their business plans. The euphoria turned to depression when many of these start-ups failed to make a profit. When they collapsed, the market collapsed. The full mania mode of the financial industry imploded The NASDAQ Composite lost 78% of its value as it fell from 5046.86 to 1114.11 on October 9, 2002.
OCTOBER 10
1895 – DEATH OF SARAH E.V. EMERY, AUTHOR OF “SEVEN FINANCIAL CONSPIRACIES, WHICH HAVE ENSLAVED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”
Published in 1888, it was a devastating indictment of the “money power” addressed to the farmer and laborer. It reportedly sold 400,000 copies through the Farmers’ Alliance circles, significantly contributing to monetary literacy nationwide. Its impact was so threatening that former U.S. Secretary of Treasury John Sherman (of Ohio) responded to it via a letter in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Emery also lectured nationally on monetary issues and the People’s Party
OCTOBER 11
2013 – “SEQUESTERS, SHUTDOWNS AND DEFAULTS” BY STEPHEN ZARLENGA PUBLISHED
What citizens should know is that our country can pay off its debt as it comes due; can put millions of people back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; can provide debt-free federal support for cash-strapped State governments, and end the so called great recession by putting cash in the hands of all our citizens through a citizens dividend. This gives small businesses what they need most – customers with cash to spend on their goods and services. All these things are made possible by the HR 2990 bill introduced by Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsored by John Conyers.
The bill accomplishes this by adjusting our money system from one of “debt money created by banks” when they make loans, to one of “money by law” created as money, not as debt, by our government. That power is already vested in Congress by the Constitution; “The Congress shall have the Power To… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…” (Article 1, Section 8).
OCTOBER 12
1977 – PASSAGE OF THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT
Advocated by a movement of neighborhood activists across the nation, Congress passed the Act that outlawed “redlining” or ”blackballing,” the common practice by banking corporations to discriminate by race and income in loans to individuals and small businesses.
OCTOBER 13
1879 – DEATH OF HENRY CAREY, CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Carey was the major proponent in the Lincoln Administration of issuing debt-free US money, Greenbacks. In referencing the US economy under the Greenback system, he said, …”for the first time, too, in the history of the world, there has been presented a community in which nearly all business was done for cash, and in which debt has scarcely an existence…there has been a large and general diminution of the rate of interest…traders have therefore become more independent of the capitalist, while the country at large has become more independent of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of Europe.”
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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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