Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Economics, Monetary Reform By Nick Egnatz
There is certainly much to like in Jill Stein’s Power to the People Plan, yet it will fail to create the “deep system change” it calls for unless it endorses Monetary Reform (Greening the Dollar) in the Green Party Platform, voted on and adopted by the Green Party National Committee.
“Deep system change” requires a decisive end to the bank creation of money. Putting the power to create our money with our Congress, as the Constitution states, is the only way forward to democracy.
“Deep system change” starts with comprehensive monetary reform. The problem with our monetary system is that banks create almost all of what we use for money as debt when they make loans. As the loans are paid, this money is extinguished. Of necessity it requires individuals and our different levels of government to remain in debt, at levels that can never be repaid, or there simply won’t be enough money in the system. Aristotle examined money systems and concluded that “Money exists by law” and not by banker’s fiat. It is the responsibility of the federal government to create and spend into existence, debt-free, an adequate money supply for the needs of the nation and its people. How can the People Have Power, if we continue to allow the bank’s to create our money?
The Current Green Party Platform refers to the comprehensive monetary reform that had been developed by the American Monetary Institute called the American Monetary Act. In 2011 Congressman Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsor John Conyers put it into legislative form before the Congress as the National Employment Defense Act (NEED Act).
The 3 Necessary Monetary Reforms of the NEED Act:
1. Makes the Federal Reserve System part of our government, exactly what most people mistakenly believe it is now.
2. Decisively ends all bank creation of money as debt. Banks will only loan money that already exists, exactly what most citizens mistakenly believe they do now.
3. Our federal government creates new US Money for the needs of the nation and its people, as determined by Congress, in non inflation/deflationary amounts.
The NEED Act:
· Implements the American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Infrastructure Report Card, creating an estimated 10 million new, good-paying jobs.
· Bails out the American people with a Citizen’s Dividend, that should be $10,000 for each citizen, ending the Depression.
· Bails out small businesses by giving them customers with money in their pockets for their goods and services, not more loans.
· Commits to funding healthcare and education.
· Gives 25% of all newly created money directly to State governments.
· Provides interest free financing to local governments for streets, sewers, schools, libraries, etc., allowing them to save the exorbitant interest they now must pay for improving the physical structure of their communities.
The NEED Act is not an anti banking measure. It nationalizes money creation, not banks. Let the banks serve the nation’s people, exactly the way that almost all of us mistakenly think they do now — by loaning money that already exists. Money for bank loans will come from our revitalized citizens and from the creation within the Treasury Department of a Revolving Fund to be lent to banks. The NEED Act provides a seamless transition to a democratic money system.
All three reforms must be done or the Money Power will remain with banks.
- The Bank of England was nationalized in 1946 (Reform #1). But because bank creation of money was not stopped (Reform #2), private banks still create 97% of the UK ‘s money.
- Jackson and Van Buren revoked the Second Bank of the U.S. ‘s charter, effectively ending most bank created money at the time (Reform #2). Misunderstanding the true nature of money, they failed to create and spend, debt-free money into existence (Reform #3), bringing on the Panic of 1837.
- Debt-free Greenbacks (Reform #3 of) were created under Lincoln to fight the Civil War and save the nation. Because bank creation of money (Reform #2) was not decisively stopped, the bankers eventually got the upper hand and quashed the Greenbacks.
Thus all 3 of the NEED Act’s reforms are necessary to change our monetary system from a banker’s debt money system to a democratic system. Creating public banks is a false reform that does nothing to change the system.
The Green Party was founded on the principle that our society must be able to live in harmony with our Mother Earth. A monetary system that by its nature allows banks to determine what projects our money is created for and requires people and nations to become debt slaves is anathema to this principle. I urge Greens to support their own Party Platform by vigorously endorsing the NEED Act as the cornerstone in building a harmonious, sustainable, equitable and peaceful country.
Nick Egnatz
Munster, Indiana
Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam veteran. He has been actively protesting our government’s crimes of empire in both person and print for some years now and was named “Citizen of the Year” for Northwest Indiana in 2006 for his peace activism by the National Association of Social Workers.
Linking Social Justice to Monetary Reform gives an easily understandable treatment of a subject that many bankers and economists would prefer you not understand.
Contact Nick at OccupyNick@yahoo.com
The essential elements of the NEED Act as contained in the Green Party’s platform appeared to be well understood by Jill Stein when she was in the audience when I spoke about it in New York City in 2013.