Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Alternative Monetary Systems

“Banking was conceived in equity and was born in sin. The bankers own the Earth, take it away from them and leave them the power to create money and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take that power away from them and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear. And they ought to disappear for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and to pay the cost of your own slavery, then let them continue to create money” Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England 1928 - 1941, reputed to be the second most wealthiest man in England at the time.

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it". Frederic Bastiat, political economist, 1801-1850.

“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later, is the people versus the banks” Lord Acton, historian, 1834-1902.


While the established banking cartel slowly bankrupts us all - except those on the inside or those that are part of their immediate mechanism - it is high time to consider repatriating the concept of money back to the people.

For too long the banking cartels have ripped us off, getting us unwittingly involved in all sorts of ponzi schemes and through their growing hegemony, holding governments worldwide to ransom through un-repayable debt and then forcing the onus of that debt repayment on us through higher taxes both direct and indirect. This brings the cut-backs to social services, redundancies and poverty all of which are rampant today. It’s time to wake up and take our monetary system back!

As a number of alternative economic models have been aired, some already being established and others up and running in small communities, I thought it would be a good time to look at just a few of these, some of which do not entirely use physical money as such but employ people’s time as collateral. Links to appropriate websites are included for those interested to find out more.

The present monetary system was designed to fail from the outset. Those that created it - the Illuminati families - had that end game in mind as this would be a way to absorb the world and all its wealth and impoverish the masses to the point of slavery or death. Therefore it is the present monetary system itself which needs to go along with its creators. None of the schemes outlined here would be, in any way, acceptable to the banking cartels of today as they eliminate their ability to profit and gain power over us all - and that’s just what we want!


Mathematically Perfected Economy

“If the American people ever allow banks to issue their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation [by having to maintain a vital circulation by perpetually re-borrowing principal and interest as subsequent sums of debt, increased perpetually so much as periodic interest], the banks and [bank owned] corporations which will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson.

The Mathematically Perfected Economy is the brainchild of Mike Montagne, a software engineer, mathematician and former advisor to the Ford and Reagan administrations. His proffered Mathematically Perfected Economy (MPE), was heeded by neither president, and for obvious reasons, as their's wasn’t the choice to make as long as the Federal Reserve, as a privately-run executive arm of the global banking cartel, was busy calling the shots and as it still is today.

The principal tenet of MPE is, in Mike Montagne’s own words, “the abolition of interest as it cannot be justified by falsified debts to purported banking systems (which never give up lawful consideration in their purported creation of money, and which merely publish evidence of our promissory obligations to each other); advocating a restoration of the natural disposition of promissory obligations; and proving a singular solution for 1) circulatory inflation, circulatory deflation, and maldisposition, 2) systemic manipulation of the cost or value of money or property, and 3) inherent, irreversible, and therefore terminal multiplication of falsified indebtedness, subjected without warrant to the ever unjustifiable imposition of interest.”

An illustration of how the system could work is as follows.

A young couple buy a £200,000 house from you, but they have to demonstrate their certified credit-worthiness. What the MPE then does is determine whether the couple can afford to pay the £166.66 per month payments on the £200,000 home on the basis of a hundred year life span. With no interest to pay and dealing directly with the vendor, thus eliminating the middle man of the central banking system, they can easily afford these modest monthly payments. They are merely repaying the principal over a time span that they consume of the related property. (The theory is that debtors pay as they consume or have use for that commodity).

In this method the couple are not getting anything for nothing, they are merely avoiding a third party imposing interest and multiplying their debts forever that would continually impoverish them and at the same time provide, what is really, illicit income (interest) for the bank.

MPE is a scheduled repayment of principal - and principal only. Natural debt still exists as in this case of the £200,000 home and this debt would be represented as a £200,000 note issued through a Common Monetary Foundry (CMF). As part of the MPE scheme this is a branch of government - but one which is essentially owned by the people of the country - is non-profit making being basically a computer system which keeps track of all transactions and is very cheap to run. As the £166.66 per month payments are deducted from the principal, that money is then retired from circulation.

In Montagne’s own concise words “the circulation (payments) are retired: The lifespan and volume of currency are synchronized with the lifespan and remaining value of the related property. When the debtor pays as they consume, that very circulation that they pay out of circulation no longer represents anything of value, and must be retired from circulation accordingly (although it could be re-used in other, later instances of debt)”.

The remaining money in circulation is that which is still owing on the house. This is the very set of principles and the only set of principles which ensure the immutable value of money across its lifespan. It is a perpetual 1:1:1 relationship between remaining value, remaining ‘obligation’, and currency in circulation. The other most crucial part of this system is that interest is eliminated.

The debt is purely beneficial because in this instance it allows the builder of the house business and it ensures the circulation of money is going to be regulated in that the value of every pound received from the building of the house will be sustained forever. This brings no inflation or deflation and also the elimination of the artificial multiplication of indebtedness into terminal failure. (Which is the point at which the global economy now stands).

We must always remember that the concept of money is one in which that money is purely a promissary note for goods and services rendered, it is the medium that enables the exchange of those goods and services and the amount of money in circulation should be only as much as is required to facilitate that process and should not be artificially escalated by a third party from which to make profit for their own scurrilous use.
See http://perfecteconomy.com


Time Banking

“Market economics values what is scarce - not the real work of society which is caring, loving, being a citizen, a neighbour and a human being”. Dr. Edgar Cahn, founder of the international time banking movement.

By complete contrast to MPE and as a system best suited to local communities, the Time Bank has already made an impact in local areas and does away with the need for physical money within the confines of the exchange of services offered by its participants.

In this system people come together by offering their time and skills, for the benefit of others, and thus depositing that time on the basis of one hour equals one time credit. That time credit is ‘deposited’ in the bank and can be ‘spent’ by having someone else within the system provide you with a necessary service in return.

This system does not replace a market economy in which actual money is a pre-requisite to drive transactions, but exists in its own right as a non-market economy which purely operates within a local group of family, friends, neighbours and community. Such a system would - and is - of benefit to impoverished communities where communal help on a mutual basis, without the necessity for physical money, can help to revive that community and at the same time re-create a sense of inclusion and worth to its members enabling them to receive basic services and in return putting the onus on the recipient to reciprocate a service thereby creating a sense of worth in that person and helping to bring cohesion to that community in terms of friendship and support.

For the retired or unemployed the opportunity to constructively spend some time in aiding someone else in their local community, provides a sense of purpose and achievement, rather than just sitting at home all day and feeling isolated, and the accrual of time credits come in useful when that person is in need of acquiring help from someone in the local community. Because it is an organised system, there’s isn’t the embarrassment that might be felt in asking a neighbour for assistance if that neighbour is part of the scheme - that is what they have enrolled for.

One such example is the Rushey Green Time Bank in south east London who have produced a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_nW__d0Yr4 which clearly illustrates the immense benefits to the people of Rushey Green of this system. Also see:
http://crossakiel.com/articles/42-what-is-time-banking.html
http://www.timebanking.org/what-is.html
http://www.timebanking.org/


The Lawful Bank

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

The basis of the Lawful Bank is founded on The Alternative Monetary System (TAMS), where the banking and monetary system is owned and controlled by its users/members. It brings the control of the monetary supply back to the people and the nations and takes it away from the middle men - the grasping banking cartels that are responsible for the current economic collapse and their rape of the wealth of citizens and nations.

The TAMS system provides a way to abolish the illegally-generated national debt mountains of this country - and indeed the world, and replace them with streams of positive financial liquidity in the hands of the people.

The draft charter is as follows.

The Alternative Monetary System (TAMS) is the hub of a network of autonomous branches, each owned by members of their local communities. No one member can have an interest in more than 3 branches. It is this extensive network of autonomous community based branches that controls the operation of the hub and not the other way around - thus ensuring that the hub functions for the benefit of all users/members and that control of the system can never fall into the hands of a small minority. Any attempts by any individual to influence more than 3 branches will result in a life-long ban as a branch director.
All branches are profit centres... that is, they are run by their board directors with the aim of making a profit.

Revenues come from earning a range of fees from a variety of services, including providing loans and insurance.

The system provides interest free loans... and the branches charge a fee to arrange same.

Borrowers must pay a fee of 10% of the loan value.
If borrowers do not have the 10% fee – they may make arrangements to borrow the fee from other members, and will be required to pay 10% interest to the lending member and a fee to the Branch.
Anybody can start a branch. Individuals who wish to do so must comply with the start-up rules and find 11 other members to form a board of directors whose job it is to uphold the integrity and honesty of their branch and operate their branch in complete compliance with the rules. Directors of branches are required to act as guarantors.


The benefits that TAMS offers will be:
- Interest-free loans for home purchase, businesses, car purchase and other household goods and community projects - only an arrangement fee applies in each of these cases
- Higher interest payments on deposit accounts which are achieved through direct loans to other members
- A large network of community branches
- A positive credit system. Every £1 a depositor makes will entitle that member to £10 credit in their account. This £10 is a credit to that member and not a liability to the bank plus interest as under the present system. This provides streams of credit to the system and not debt.

Founder of The Lawful Bank, Roger Hayes is currently recruiting would-be members to this revolutionary people’s bank and details of how to get involved can be found at http://lawfulbank.com/


Local Currency Systems

Of course there are a number of alternative monetary systems already in use around the world which can work in tandem with the established systems and here I highlight just one - The Lewes Pound - formed in 2008 (I missed it by three years having moved from Lewes in East Sussex to my current location on the Isle of Wight in 2005!).

The Lewes Pound

This is essentially a voucher or token, bought with pounds Sterling, that can be traded locally alongside the standard currency. In this way the Lewes Pound circulates within the town community benefiting local businesses and augmenting the concept of localism. It also has the benefit of minimising credit card transaction costs to retailers.

As their website points out, there’s nothing unique about their system, in fact Lewes had its own currency between 1789 and 1895 and complementary currencies, on a local basis, are in use in many places across the globe and in the UK, Totnes in Devon the Totnes Pound is in its third stage of development.

The three key points that make such an initiative common sense in todays economic climate are according the Lewes Pound website:
- Money spent locally stays within the community, being re-used many times over building resilience in the local economy.
- Such a local monetary system induces people to use their local shops where the currency tokens are used, keeping them loyal to local businesses and shops and cutting down the desire to travel distances to source the same goods, preventing unecessary journeys and fuel wastage.
- All this invites local social cohesion, strengthening the links between local people and their traders.

For more information see http://www.thelewespound.org/how.html