Greens for Monetary Reform

Monetary Violence

An extraordinarily efficient form of violence

by Rita Jacobs GPMI

Violence can come in many forms. The framers of the Constitution discussed at length what they called "domestic violence." Domestic violence in the Constitution refers to violence that comes from within a country as opposed to a violent attack of some kind by a foreign country. The World Health Organization (WHO), in its approach toward violence prevention, defines violence as:

The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

My purpose in writing this article is to explain how most of us are all victims of institutionalized monetary violence — that comes not from some foreign adversary, but arises within our own country.

Here is how the WHO describes collective violence:

Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence.

To understand what monetary violence is, we first need to understand the meaning of "monetary." It simply means pertaining to money or currency. A monetary system is a system by which a government provides money in a country's economy. Note that it is the government's role to provide the money that is used as a medium of exchange in a country. Our Constitution recognized this and gave to Congress the authority to "coin" money.

The definition of violence above includes as a source of violence not only physical force, but also power. Obviously, money can be a source of great power. And the ability to pass laws is a great power. We see it every day as it plays out in the politics of our government. I can find no disagreement that money can be a source of great power and influence. Our monetary system has created institutionalized monetary violence. The monetary system itself is a source of widespread violence that permeates all of the societal problems in this country. It has resulted in injury, death, psychological harm and deprivation to the majority of citizens in our country – and globally for that matter.

Imagine a monetary system where the government does not create its own money, but instead passes laws that give the authority to create money to a small group of individuals. These individuals are not allowed to keep the money, but are allowed to loan it out and collect interest on it. And in so doing, they are also allowed to choose the recipients of the loans they make. The laws are passed at a time when these individuals have financial interests in the largest corporations, and have formed a cabal that seeks to further their own interests and is now able to do so through legalized usury. Usury is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. This is the monetary system that we currently have.

So, Congress, with its great political power passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 which granted the power of money creation to a network of private banks. Through their legal authority to create new money and choose where to loan it as interest, the banks control public policy that influences where new money is invested. Congress, eager to get campaign contributions from the wealthy corporations and banks, does not pass legislation that keeps money out of politics. So where has this put us, and what kind of violence do we have?

Here are a number of examples of actions taken by the banks that contribute to the growth of collective violence against the people:

1. The banks created the great depression by manipulating the amount of money in circulation. This was documented decades later. People lost their farms and homes, were forced to move to new locations, and suffered much hardship and scarcity.
2. Money has been concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy individuals as bankers assist large corporations in continuing to carry out their businesses without regard to harm to the planet and people.
3. Banks enable the purchase of new investment products that are unregulated by the government and cause financial losses to individual investors.
4. The concentration of more wealth by the already wealthy has created the largest inequality of wealth in the history of the nation.
5. Banks enabled the growth of the weapon industry. Financing wars is very profitable for the bankers, and thus military weapons have become the largest export business in the US. The US often supplies weapons to both sides of a conflict.
6. The ability to make campaign contributions has developed into legalized bribery to the extent that lawmakers pay no attention to the opinions and expectations of their constituents.

The above actions have contributed to increasing homelessness; the worst health care system among the developed nations; a decline in life expectancy; stagnant wages; increase in incarceration; a decline in the birth rate; a growing national debt that is no longer sustainable; higher education costs that are beyond the ability of young people to pay without suffering for decades in debt bondage; a rise in the rate of suicides; unaffordable housing costs; and the deaths of millions of people killed in the wars instigated by the empire. The military budget has been increased with regularity in an effort to gain control for the empire of the resources in foreign countries. Despite the fact that the empire is now crumbling, banks continue funding the businesses that engage in resource wars and cause climate change.

For anyone who understands the effects of the monetary system, it is not difficult to understand that Congress inflicts domestic violence by retaining a monetary system that systematically benefits only the few who benefit from its privileges and power while inflicting collective domestic violence on remaining citizens of each of the states.

United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 4

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Our government should be protecting us from the collective domestic violence that it created and continues to be inflicted upon the citizens of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

10 Good Reasons for Monetary Reform

by Howard Switzer GPTN

The current monetary system affects the economy, and society, in numerous negative ways and must be changed if we are to live in a peaceful world.

Here is a summary, dug up from Positive Money’s archive, of the problematic aspects of our current monetary system in ten points. Each of these points, on their own, constitutes a good reason for monetary reform. None of this is really complicated but the system uses complexity and funds distractions to keep it hidden and out of the public conversation about change. It is apparently okay to chop at the branches (the corporate profit centers) but never at the root of the problem.

1. Money is created as debt

Today, money comes into existence by debt creation when commercial banks borrow from central banks and when governments, producers or consumers borrow from commercial banks. Thus, the money supply of the economy can only be maintained if the private or public economic actors get into debt. Economic growth requires a proportionate increase in the money supply in order to avoid deflation that would paralyze business, but an increase in the quantity of money involves a simultaneous increase in debt. This way, economic actors run into danger of excessive indebtedness and bankruptcy.

It is not necessary to say that over-indebtedness causes serious problems for societies and individuals in the face of the ongoing debt crisis. It began as a debt crisis of private homeowners in the United States and then transformed into a debt crisis of commercial banks and insurance companies before being absorbed by national treasuries and so turned into a sovereign debt crisis. Reductions in national expenditure required to pay off public debt often lead to social unrest and are inequitable, because they impose burdens on citizens who did not profit equally from debt creation.

2. The money supply is under private control

Only a small fraction of the money circulating in public has been created by central banks. Central banks issue coins and banknotes which in most countries account for just between 3 % and 15 % of the money supply. The rest is created by commercial banks in an electronic form as account money when granting loans to customers or buying securities and goods. In fact, all money, whether cash or account money, is brought into circulation by commercial banks.

Therefore, commercial banks de facto control the money supply. Commercial banks principally bear the credit risk for the loans they grant, which should induce them to carefully examine the creditworthiness of their customers. However, commercial banks decide which customers are granted loans and which investments are made according to their interest in maximizing their own profits. Whether an investment is socially desirable is definitively not the decisive criterion for commercial banks. This way, investments serving the common good but not being profitable enough are not supported by the banking system and have to be financed by government spending that depends on tax revenues and public debt creation.

Instead of financing long-term investments in the interest of society as a whole, commercial banks with their credit business support short-term financial speculation and over the last two decades have actually established a gigantic global casino beyond any public control.

3. Bank deposits are not secure

Bank deposits refer to account money which in contrast to cash is not legal tender although it is handled as if it were legal tender. Account money is a substitute for money, just a promise from the bank to disburse the corresponding amount of money in legal tender if requested by the customer. In the present fractional reserve banking system, usually only a very small proportion of account money is backed by legal tender. Banks hold only a few percent of their deposits as cash and reserves at the central bank.

That is the reason why banks are reliant on the trust of their customers. In the case of a bank run, when too many customers demand cash at the same time, they would run out of cash and such a shortage of liquidity can lead to sudden bankruptcy. Hence deposit insurance systems have been established to avoid the loss of bank deposits. In the case of chain reactions and large-scale bankruptcy as in 2008, however, government bailouts of commercial banks may be necessary, eventually with the assistance of the central bank as lender of last resort.

4. The money supply is pro-cyclical

Commercial banks grant loans by creating account money in order to maximize their interest revenues. The more money they issue, the higher their profits – as long as the debtors are able to pay. In times of economic growth, banks most willingly grant loans so as to profit from the boom, while in times of economic decline they restrict granting of credit in order to reduce their risks.

This is how commercial banks induce an oversupply of money in booms and an undersupply of money in recessions, thus amplifying business cycles as well as financial market fluctuations and creating asset bubbles in real estate and commodities. Such asset bubbles may cause heavy damages to society and to the banking system itself when they burst. Again, the 2008 mortgage-triggered banking crisis after the burst of the US real estate bubble is the most illustrative example.

5. The money supply fosters inflation

Besides its pro-cyclical character in the short term, in the long term the money creation of commercial banks induces an oversupply of money that leads to consumer price inflation as well as asset price inflation. An oversupply of money arises if the increase in the quantity of the money in circulation exceeds the growth of the production of goods and services.

The long-term oversupply of money results not only from traditional granting of credit to governments, corporations and individuals but also from credit-leveraged financial speculation of hedge funds and investment banks. Due to inflation, consumers usually face an annual loss of purchasing power, which means that they have to increase their nominal income in order to maintain their level of consumption.

Since the ability to gain compensation for the loss of purchasing power by increasing one’s nominal income varies among individuals, inflation causes a redistribution of purchasing power to the disadvantage of those individuals who are not in the position to effectively advocate for their own interests.

6. The privilege of creating money is a subsidy to the banking sector

Since money is debt, it carries interest. Therefore, interest has to be paid on all the money in circulation and virtually nobody can escape paying interest. Interest is primarily paid by customers who take loans from commercial banks and thereby ensure the money supply. Secondly, everybody who pays taxes and buys goods and services makes a contribution to the interest payment of the original borrower, because taxes have to be raised partly in order to finance the interest payments on sovereign debt. Furthermore, corporations and individuals providing goods and services must include the costs of their loans in their prices.

This way, by using money, society pays an enormous subsidy to the commercial banks, though the banks pass on a part of this subsidy to their customers as interest payments on deposits. Interest is a subsidy to the banks because the account money they create is handled as legal tender. The magnitude of the subsidy society pays to the banks is reflected in the disproportionately high salaries and premiums of bankers as well as in the disproportionately large banking sector.

7. Money as debt contributes to growth pressure

Money created as debt carries interest and thereby contributes to a twofold growth pressure on the monetary system and on the real economy. When customers repay their loans to the commercial banks, the banks write off the returned amount of money and the amount of money in circulation correspondingly decreases. However, debtors need more money than they have borrowed because they also must pay interest on their loans. Even if the debtors replace their old loans with new ones, they need additional income for interest payments and must therefore realize profits. Business overall cannot be profitable unless the quantity of money continuously increases. This leads to the dynamics of growth which is a core characteristic of our economic system.

The increase in the quantity of interest-bearing money exerts monetary growth pressure on the real economy and the growth of the real economy simultaneously exerts an anti-deflationary growth pressure on the money supply. Because of this twofold growth pressure, our economy is a kind of Ponzi scheme, since it cannot work properly without growing and therefore repeatedly falls into crises.

Furthermore, the growth of the real economy, which is primarily forced by the monetary system, involves an excessive exploitation of natural resources and is a hindrance to sustainable development. Financial indebtedness thus leads to ecological indebtedness towards nature, which impoverishes mankind. Our current monetary system is just not compatible with a finite world.

8. Interest charged on newly created money fosters wealth concentration

Interest is commonly seen as a lending charge for using the money of someone else. Not only the customers who borrow money from banks but also the banks which hold customer deposits pay interest. When commercial banks create money by granting loans, they credit customer accounts and thereby expand the total of bank deposits.

Since accounts usually carry interest, the banks spend a part of their interest revenues for interest payments to the account holders. Now, bank deposits and loans are not equally distributed among the customers. Some have mainly loans on which they pay interest whereas others mainly have deposits on which they earn interest. Because in general poorer people have more loans than deposits and richer people have more deposits than loans, interest payments are in total a transfer of money from the poorer to the richer people, especially to the few super-rich. Interest charged on newly created money thus fosters wealth concentration.

This concentration of wealth favors, to a great extent, the commercial banks which both make investments themselves and also earn the amount resulting from the considerable interest spread between borrowing and lending rates. Moreover, interest is added regularly to the initial investment and thus carries interest itself turning into compound interest and generating an exponential growth of monetary assets.

However, monetary assets do not grow in value by themselves since they are per se not productive. Value-increasing interest on monetary assets can only be generated through human labor; and human labor is permanently under monetary pressure to increase its productivity and lower its costs to satisfy the demands of exponentially growing compound interest. Interest charged on newly created money is therefore a value transfer that favors capital investments to the disadvantage of labor income.

9. The monetary system is unstable

There is clear empirical evidence showing that the monetary system suffers from structural instability arising from the mechanisms described above. The financial crisis that started in 2008 and is continuing, if not even worsening, is not a unique phenomenon.

In the last decades, numerous crises related to the monetary system have occurred around the world. Between 1970 and 2010 a total of 425 financial crises affecting member states of the International Monetary Fund was officially recorded: 145 banking crises, 208 monetary crashes and 72 sovereign-debt crises.[1] The multitude of financial crises and their contagious effect on different national economies plainly demonstrate their structural-systemic character. The present monetary system inevitably evokes crises in finance and consequently in the real economy.

10. The monetary system violates moral and ethical values

An ethical value is something that is seen as valuable from a general perspective after careful consideration. Ethical values embody the most rational and most important values of society. Hence, society is badly arranged if its monetary values are in an indissoluble conflict with its ethical values and these ethical values are permanently suppressed because of monetary values.

Since the monetary system largely shapes the economy and the economy broadly forms society, ethical values not contributing to the profitability of capital are systematically neglected in today’s policy making. This way, our current monetary system violates ethical values such as stability, justice and sustainability – values that are essential for a livable society. A monetary system that violates these values is quite unreasonable and should be reformed as soon as possible.

Woe is Canada

by Jarod Brock

Globalist Elites Are Attempting to Install An Unelected Central Bankster as the Prime Minister of Canada An article from Canadian, Jarod Brock

The establishment isn’t even pretending to care about democracy anymore, Canada is in economic ruins.

39% of Canadians now say they are insolvent.

50% of Canadians say they are less than $200 away from not being able to pay their bills.

The government only has a few options if they want to keep the Great Canadian housing bubble afloat:

1. Turn up the money printer and pump more debt into the system (which will create more inflation and crush millions of Canadians — but will make parasitic real estate investors gleeful.)

2. Keep bringing in millions of completely unqualified Indian “students” to max out rental demand and suppress domestic wages. (And collapse the food banks.)

A moral leader would let the price of shelter and the cost-of-living return to sanity, but the establishment doesn’t let moral people run countries anymore.

Case in point: Canada.

Friends, the globalist central bankster cabal isn’t even pretending to not run the world anymore. Here’s what might be thundering down on the “great” white north this spring:

1. Trudeau officially finishes as Prime Minister. This goes without saying. He’s already announced his intention to resign once a new leader is chosen. (Chosen, not elected.)

2. Central banker Mark Carney becomes the unelected Prime Minister. Because almost no one else can afford to risk the $350,000 the corrupt Liberals are charging as a barrier-blocking entry fee.

3. Carney declares an emergency. Here’s what’s on the menu of possible pretexts:

• U.S. “invasion” worries
• The planned trucker rally 2.0
• A health scare
• Terrorist attack
• Economic shock or revelation

4. The emergency extends Carney’s Prime Ministership until as late as September 20, 2026. Giving him time to “fix” the mess (which he absolutely won’t) while campaigning (which he absolutely will.)

5. Carney uses the crisis as an opportunity to write a bailout cheque for Sagen. Sagen is the largest insurer of mortgages in Canada… bigger than CMHC… which is conveniently owned by Carney’s company, Brookfield.

6. Meanwhile, the WEF/Davos cabal will pump billions into his “I’m not Trudeau/we’re a new Liberal party” re-election campaign.

In cahoots, Canada’s corporatist media will shower him with praise.
Jon Stewart was shilling for Carney on The Daily Show just yesterday.
If Carney’s smart he may also (temporarily?) scrap the carbon tax to appease Alberta and undermine the only real specific promise power-voracious Pierre Poilievre has made this entire campaign.

7. Win/win

Even if Carney still loses to the Cons, the globalist imperialist corporatists remain firmly in control of Canada because the Cons are, well, still cons.

Carney sets himself up as the dignified opposition and wins in 4 years when the Cons inevitably (GUARANTEED) don’t fix the economy for the bottom 90+%.

But never ever ever forget:

As a central bankster, Mark Carney added $162 billion to Canada’s national debt and £500 billion to the UK’s national debt… over C$1 trillion combined… because he is a corporate sociopath who works to enslave workers to elite private globalist bank shareholders. Taxpayers are now paying over $40 billion per year in interest FOREVER because of this evil man. He should be in jail.

What Canadians should do:

Vote for ANYONE besides the Cons and Lib-NDP.
The Lib-NDP coalition has proven themselves homicidal to the national interest, but the Conservatives are run by Pierre Poilievre, a lifelong politician who’s taken more than $4 million in taxpayer money and owns a real estate investment company.

2025 is going to be insane!

Canadians need to stop playing the establishment’s ruinous game, use their brains, and grow a moral backbone.