I sent personally addressed copies of the letter below to some of the 40 billionaires who joined with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in pledging to donate half their fortunes to charity. It seems to me that getting the idea of creating government money without taking debt, (greenbacks) to use for a large new stimulus greenbacks, may finally reach a receptive audience through them, if the idea should actually reach any of them. I urge duplication of this text, or action of any others who might join in trying to prevail upon Buffett, Gates, Ellison and the others.
Mr. E. Normously Richman
C/O Your Foundation
123 Wall and K Street
Anytown, State xxxxx
Dear Mr. :
I understand you pledged to donate half of your wealth to charity. I commend you in the highest degree for setting that example. I'm writing to ask you to consider using your prominence in a manner to break out of political gridlock and unemployment of millions of our fellow Americans.
The federal government transfers, through entitlements and other social welfare programs, far more money per year to help the needy than even the forty of you billionaires can donate. The Crash of 2007 --2010 destroyed so many jobs and credit -- qualifying assets that our engine of domestic consumption is unable to power re-employment of millions and deleveraging of personal debt.
There is an historic practice that could be used to jump start our economy, if you chose to raise its salience to our government. It is the idea of creating government money without taking debt ("Greenbacks.") This practice could be simultaneously a compromise between Republicans who detest increasing deficits and those Democrats who insist that further stimulus is needed. It was authorized by the Congressional revolutionaries of 1776 and the Republicans of the Civil War era. Greenbacks enabled our government to survive, prevail, create and maintain the powerful nation we are today. Greenbacks could be created mainly only as directly deposited credit and used in controlled, targeted "reflation" of employment and for other needs. Have greenbacks awarded as grants to smaller private businesses to subsidize new full time hires. A small successful program like this, the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, was part of the stimulus act. A House bill to create such Greenbacks (the NEED Act) languishes in committee.
Please consider at least assigning an advisor of yours to do a little research on this. Two good sources are The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga, and The Web of Debt by Ellen Brown. Only bankers of megabanks and their propagandists would, I think, loudly oppose such a jump start. They will treat it as taboo, a proposal to engage in mortal sin, with the hell of hyperinflation surely to follow. But applied to the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, with currency sovereignty, hyperinflation is largely a scare story.
The favor of a reply is requested.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Cogan, Ph.D.
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