OpEdNews - Article: What We Must Do to Fix the Economic Crisis

The first thing we, as a nation and a world, must do to fix the economic crisis is to correctly perceive the nature and gravity of the problem. This might seem obvious at first blush, yet it is not widely or generally known exactly what has caused the financial meltdown. The few of us who actually understand the causes of the problem are dismayed and disheartened at the lack of comprehension that is nearly universally displayed, even by the supposedly best economic thinkers of our world, including Nobel Prize winners, and the Heads of Economics Departments at the best universities in the world.

We are told repeatedly in various ways that "no one knows' the causes of the economic meltdown, or what measures it will take to correct it. So first the Bush administration, and now the incoming Obama economic team, point us to the deficit spending tactics of the "New Deal" past as solutions. They are not. Financial Bailouts and economic stimulus packages will not work, except as a most short-term band-aid. Such short-sighted proposals only highlight the failure to comprehend the true nature of the problem. Or perhaps the truth is too overwhelming to face. Or perhaps the decades and centuries of myths, misinformation and deception about certain economic and monetary realities have blunted our ability to comprehend the plain truth. Or maybe some combination is at work.

Only a few of the hundreds or thousands of prominent books and articles proposed as solutions even come close to apprehending the real underlying cause of the world's financial and monetary disease, and for the most part the ones that are revealing the truth are unpopular, banned or blacklisted by mainstream media and publishers, widely debunked and ridiculed.

What is this widely scorned truth of the basic cause of our money and financial problems?

It is that no less than the entire worldwide system of money creation and distribution itself is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Moreover, the flawed system was deliberately advanced and maintained over the centuries and even millenniums past and into the present day by a small group of very wicked and designing persons for the purposes of exercising financial power and control over others, even over the entire world in the form of their envisioned New World Economic Order – a vision that, although giving lip service to democratic forms, reserves the real power of monetary control to themselves and their inner circle of wealthy elites.

There really is a kind of "conspiracy" for a small group of wealthy and powerful men and women to rule the world for the benefit of this small group of controlling power elites, and to do so through the control of the world's money and banking systems.

It is at this revelation that the vast majority of minds rebel, and the onslaught of denial, ridicule and accusations begins. This truth is so shocking and laden with negative implications that it is usually rejected out of hand, and without further examination. So nothing approaching serious consideration or public debate of the issue is ever reached. Derision and ridicule are so much easier than serious thought. The entire issue is ignored by the mainstream media of all genre.

It's just another "conspiracy theory" and the authors of such tall tales is a "conspiracy theorist". "Tinfoil Hat" stuff, and so on, go the chants or derision. "Nothing to see here", the authorities tell us, "move along" - recalling the Jedi mind control we saw in "Star Wars". All the talking heads and pundits on TV would be telling us if there was some real problem with our monetary system, wouldn't they?

And so our disastrous financial and monetary problems continue, as they surely must until serious thinking, discussion and debate replace ridicule as our way of dealing with (or of avoiding dealing with) this most serious of all the problems humanity has ever faced. It could lead to our destruction as a civilization or even of our extinction as a species.

The problems underlying our financial system are that severe. Moreover, the consequences of decades and centuries of abuse of monetary policy are imminent. We will either solve the problem or reap the harvest of our failure to solve it. That harvest will not be a pleasing one, for us or for generations to follow.

So... what needs to be done?

We have to completely overhaul and transform our dying financial system into one that is vital and sustainable. This means creating a monetary system that serves the public good, instead of the good of the few who now monopolize the monetary system for their own benefit. The power to create and regulate the value of money must be taken out of private hands and returned to the public domain.

"Qui bono" is always the key question to get to the root of all social, political and economic problems. "Who benefits?" The flip side of the coin is "who suffers", or "who pays?" Another key is to "follow the money". That is especially true when talking about money problems, or those of monetary policy within a society or a government.

The essence of the problem is that most people go from birth to death without understanding money, or its role in a society or an economy. The extent of most people's concerns about money is how to get more of it, with as little effort as possible, Everyone understands that money "buys things", or that one exchanges money for goods and services one desires. Yet that is about all they understand. Few people have any real understanding of where money comes from, or how it is created, or enters the economy, and where it goes from there, or who benefits the most or the least from the way things work now, or who benefits the least.

We all know the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer," but do we all understand how and why? I submit that few people really do, or how a few fundamental shifts in consciousness (paradigm shifts) could level the playing field considerably, saving millions and even billions from poverty and deprivation, even death.

Now I will attempt to state the problem another way, so that hopefully, it is easier to understand. I intend to be blunt.

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