The article examines our monetary system - the root cause of our current economic catastrophe - and proposes solutions.

::::::::

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.

For thousands of years, kings, priests, priest-kings and rulers of all stripes and colors have built and maintained their power and control though a few closely guarded secrets about money, land titles, wealth, natural resources, labor and the relationships between them. These "secrets" are maintained today, and are kept obscured, buried, under mountains of superficial data, statistics, mathematical formulas, and outright mumbo-jumbo that passes for "economics" in all of the major schools of modern economic thought. The biggest secret has been the deliberate deceptions about money – it's nature, origin, purpose, and destiny.

Here is the core of that secret: money is not gold, silver, platinum, metals, gems, paper, ink, or anything else of tangible value. These are all forms of wealth, not money. They are not the same thing. Wealth and money are two different things entirely. The deception is, was and will always be, that they are the same thing. In particular, gold and silver have been sold to us as "real money". By whom? Those who own or control much of the gold and silver, and always have – the bankers and financiers.

[Jesus well understood this simple fact when his righteous indignation at the prostitution of the Temple at Jerusalem by the "moneychangers" (bankers) rose to the sole forceful action on record. He drove the "moneychangers" from His Father's Temple. This is a powerful clue about the role the abuse of money plays in our world. We should heed it.]

The truth about money, in part, is that it is not a commodity like gold or silver, or other forms of wealth, goods, or services. Money is not something that can be found in nature, or the natural, tangible world.

In truth, money is a concept founded in law and social custom. It is an abstraction. It is a social creation that can and should be used by societies and economies for the highest and greatest good of its people. Please reread and ponder this all-important concept and allow it to sink in. It is not a new idea. Aristotle wrote about it, as did others in antiquity.

Do you realize the vast difference between this concept of money as a social tool for the exchanging of goods and services and the common definitions in use today? If you do you are one of a very small minority who know the truth. More importantly the creation and distribution, as well as the regulation of the value of money, is now almost completely a private enterprise rather than a government (social) power. Additionally, the creation of money is a very profitable monopoly granted to bankers by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. This money-monopoly essentially loans money into existence at usurious interest rates, usurping the money-creation powers granted to congress by our US Constitution: Article 1, Section 8.

Nearly all of the world's money (about 97%) now comes into existence by and through the process of private loans – private lenders loaning us (governments, corporations, private citizens) at compound interest something they did not have before they loaned it into existence. Think about this for a moment. It is literally and undeniably true.

Stated another way, money should be thought of as no more than a simple accounting entry – a debit or credit in a bank account, or debit or credit card account, except that it should bear absolutely no burden of interest, much less compound interest that can add up to far more than the original amount.

Yet banks charge interest on "loans" of money which are created out of nothing but the promissory note itself. This act of money creation is so outrageous that it "repels the mind" as renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith on observed. Banks are not now lending money that is theirs, or their depositors. They are lending money because it is created through the bookkeeping entry of making the loan.

There are many excellent resources one can study to better understand the ways money now comes into being, and who benefits (profits) and who pays or bears the burden. They will be listed at the end of this article and I highly recommend reading or viewing the books or videos.

For now it is important to understand that we now have an unsustainable system of private money creation for an enormous profit to the elite few, where we should have a non-profit system of money creation that is run for and by the people, or the people's duly elected representative governments.

Governments on all levels, federal, state, and municipal, are borrowing privately created money, and repaying two or three times the borrowed amount over time what they could and should be creating at no cost to themselves or their citizens.

This corrupt system works exactly like an enormous "Ponzi Scheme". If you have been following, or learning from, the current new stories of the Bernie Madoff "scandals", you should be familiar with the term, Ponzi Scheme. Still, few people actually understand the mechanic's of a "Ponzi Scheme" or fully comprehend what separates that form of complex fraud from a legitimate investment. In short, a Ponzi Scheme is a kind of "pyramid scheme" designed to enrich the early investors, those at the top of the pyramid, from the funds coming into the pyramid from new "investors" (victims) later. Little or no real product or valuable service is produced. Money is only transferred from new investors (victims) to earlier ones, so as to give the appearances of profitability.

Can you comprehend the tax savings that could be realized if all the interest on the national, state, or municipal debts could be erased? Can you not comprehend that there are tens and even hundreds of trillions of dollars in debts worldwide that are essentially the result of an international monetary Ponzi Scheme?

In more concrete terms, the responsibility of money and credit creation must be transferred back to the people – meaning the public sector – from the private domain that usurped it in 1913 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. Governments need not borrow the money they need for roads, bridges, and other public infrastructure. They have the constitutional and moral right to create that money and spend it into existence directly, eliminating the unnecessary middleman, the bankers.

It means that money should be created in the proper ratios and amounts needed to keep the wheels of real production moving. The real economy is the production of goods and services. The earth's God-given (Created) resources and land added to creative labor equals real production.

This means the ideal money supply must always equal the value of the goods (products and produce) and services (labor – physical or intellectual) in a given economic area. It is unnatural for people to want to do productive work not to find it due to a lack of money available to pay them. It is unnatural for people with business and organizational skills to have to close businesses or fail to create them because of a lack of money, or "capital" - a very misunderstood word. (Capital is properly defined as surplus goods and services, or the money that represents them, that can be reinvested to increase true production or productive capacity. It is not, or should not be thought of as, money obtained through bank credit, or bank loans.)

The key idea here is that money is really no more or less than an accounting tool that should be used to grease the wheels of commerce. It should be thought of as a social or economic tool to facilitate the creation and balanced distribution of wealth – the goods and services that come from creative labors upon the land and its natural resources.

Money that increases productive capacity should be loaned into existence without interest by governments of, by and for the people, for the benefit of the people – the public sector. The savings to the taxpaying citizens would be enormous, as would the benefits to society in increased employment, goods, and services.

Money and credit that increases productive capacity should be created by our legitimate governments – the only bodies or entities that collectively represent all of the electorate.

The proper role of private banks is the storage of wealth, not its creation. Loans that are made by banks should be made from existing money, not created by accounting entries as it is now. Venture, or risk capital, can and should be loaned by private banks for risky projects, or those that do not directly increase productive output or capacity.

This means we must reform our banking system from top to bottom, and redefine money as a social tool that, properly used rather then misused, can move our society and civilization forward toward new heights of achievement for all. Only reforms that shift money-creation from the private for-profit sector to the non-profit public sector can save our world from the convulsions of economic disaster and doom that are looming on our horizons, and all of the ripple-effects an economic collapse would cause.

We need new and fresh thinking on what is, or should be, community or public, and individual or private responsibilities and enterprises. We need to place limits on corporate growth, acquisitions and mergers. No private or corporate entity should ever be allowed to get "too big to fail". The concept of "monopoly capitalism" is Orwellian nonsense, or "doublespeak". All monopolies are to be feared and despised. They are all destructive of, and fatal to, healthy competition and the legitimate operations of "free-markets". This goes for banking and finance, energy, fuels, oil and gasoline, heavy industries, steel and metals fabrications.

It should be a mandate that any private or corporate enterprise that is too big to fail is too big to exist except as a government enterprise that has the backing of the entire populace – or, if legal, a duly elected majority of the same.

There must be fresh new discussion and debate on what goods and services are properly in the public domain and which should be private. A rule of thumb I would advocate is that all natural monopolies should be public services, and not granted to private individuals or corporations as government sponsored monopolies.

The people across the USA and the world must take back their community obligations, rights and responsibilities. We must become our brother's keepers. We must take back our power over our money and our debts.

A oppressive and destructive totalitarian world government run by the "Ponzi-Schemers" of our world awaits our failure to act swiftly and properly.

I pray to our Creator that we can find the wisdom and courage to do the right and necessary things to avert our current disastrous course. The hope of humanity hangs in the balance.

**********************

These issues are all more fully explored in the sources cited below. However, the quickest road to a full understanding might be to read the works of Ellen H Brown or Richard C Cook. Googling either would prove rewarding with the proper follow up.

For Ellen H Brown I would start here: http://www.webofdebt.com Her book, Web of Debt, is a singular achievement in demystifying the complexities that surround money.

For Richard Cook I would suggest this website: click here ; or this article: click here

In highlighting these two authors, I in no way intend to minimize the enormous contributions to our proper understanding of money made by those listed below or by the dozens time and space prohibit from citing. Each has made an important contribution to the cause of monetary reform, or more properly to the creation of a new paradigm about money and its role in our lives and in the development of civilization on our planet Earth.

Recommended reading or viewing:

Books: 1. Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown; 2. The Lost Science of Money, by Stephen Zarlenga; 3. Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley; 4. The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin; 5. How the World Really Works, by Alan B Jones; 6. When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten; The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.

Videos and Websites: www.Webofdebt.com ; www.Monetary.org ; www.chrismartenson.com ; www.moneyasdebt.net ; www.themoneymasters.com; The Monopoly Men: click here

Authors Bio:
I'm a retired educator, businessman and amateur philosopher who has spent much of his spare time trying to figure out what is so wrong with our world. Why the dramatic separation between the rich and poor, haves and have-nots? Why the repeated wars? Why the poverty, hunger and starvation in so many places? Why are we alive now, in this time and place?

Being a prolific reader of non-fiction, I think I have found some answers, and hope to share some of the insights my life's journey has provided.

One maxim has proved most useful: Qui Bono? (Who benefits?) Put another way, much that is difficult to understand about our world is clarified by "following the money" and observing the channels in which it flows. Most especially useful is to perceive its source and understand what it really is, and isn't.

Your comments and feedback, positive or negative are appreciated.