Of the People, By the People, and For the People → Washingtons Blog
Of the People, By the People, and For the People - Washingtons Blog

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Of the People, By the People, and For the People


There are 3 important - but seemingly unrelated - trends:

  • The banks have been given hundreds of billions of dollars, but refuse to lend to people
  • Investors are so afraid of losing money, that they are buying short-term treasuries with negative return
  • Many thousands of people in developed countries are making small loans online to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries. The percentage of borrowers who repay the loans is very high

Banks are ripping off our money, and giving us nothing in return. People who have saved money don't know what to do with it, and are so desperate that they will pay the government to hold it temporarily. The microcredit movement has proven that small loans can be made and tracked online. The guy who invented the idea behind microcredit lending won a Nobel prize for doing so.

The financial elite are ruining our countries, stealing our money and robbing us of our future.

In the same way that we need to "be the media" - since the mainstream press censors the truth and serves as the stenographer for those in power - let's "be the financial system" as well. We could charge 1% interest: its much lower than the banks, and its much higher than the negative returns on short-term treasury bills.

Why not set up our own system of lending and borrowing? Let's create a financial system ourselves that really works. One of the people, by the people and for the people.

The big banks are broke anyway. They owe more than they can possibly pay on derivatives and other bad investments. The sooner we create our own financial system, the less painful will the transition be to a post-Wall Street world, and the sooner we can start to "free up liquidity" and to re-build a sustainable economy.

8 comments:

  1. Hear, hear! That's exactly the kind of economy the crash is going to force on us sooner or later anyway. Small. Sustainable. And preferably local. When the real crash comes and forces us back to a pre-industrial lifestyle, those small loans to small local businesses are going to be essential. Support the farmer down the road who needs a plow and a mule to pull it, or the family doctor who needs to set up his home office.

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  2. This assumes that we as Americans are going to trust each other. Our whole system is based on mutual distrust. Americans don't trust each other. It's easier to trust someone in Africa or India with $100 of spare cash then it is to trust the guy across the street or even a family member with $1000.

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  3. I've found there is an easier choice, small local community banks who still have A ratings , have money and are lending money. A month ago I switched to a local bank and had approved a 50K equity line. I agree the big banks are unworthy of our money and should be let fail. Falling back to local everything is going to happen and then your idea of small loans people to people would have an impact.

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  4. Yes! I was wondering that, too. Why don't we create our own system of lending and borrowing? You can start it, illuminate us George Washington, you are a guru in this area :)!
    Thank you

    EnergeticHeart
    see my profile on www.goldring.wetpaint.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is being done in the UK. The Totnes Pound is a local currency created by and for the benefit of the local community which, by the way is the true purpose of money.

    There is no reason why Americans cannot start their own currency and begin using it straight away.

    This would mean getting rid of all your Federal Reserve Notes for another currency, and then to start using that currency immediately for all your transactions.

    The best money is made of gold and other precious metals. In order to launch a currency, we would need to raise many hundreds of millions of dollars to buy and mint our own denominations of gold and silver coins. This should be done through a 'money bomb' process; though in this case, it would be more like a 'money implosion' where people are abandoning the Federal Reserve Note in favor of real money. The new currency would then be distributed to all the people who invested in this money implosion according to how much they put in to the system.

    Once there are tens of millions of people using this currency ,all sorts of ancillary services would grow around it, like wire transfer etc. The internet will make the setting up and running of these services trivial.

    What would this currency look like? The smallest gold coin, if it were about the size of a dime would be worth $66 then we would create smaller denominations in silver, and going up, bigger coins up to one ounce, like the Kruggerand.

    There is no reason why americans should not do this, and since it is now inevitable that the dollar is going to be destroyed completely, it is imperative that you get out of the dollar sooner rather than later. Grouping together to launch an alternative currency has advantages other than the preservation of your wealth as an individual. If you read this blog, you already know what they are.

    What should not be done is a beggars gambit of collecting money to pursue the Federal Reserve in court. The only thing that will destroy the Federal Reserve system and all the problems that flow from it is the launch of a new replacement currency that explodes onto the scene and becomes the de-facto currency of the USA.

    Any reliance on courts, 'civil society' and the democratic process are doomed to failure. The Congress is largely ignorant of how money and the Federal Reserve works and those that are not ignorant are complicit in the fraud. And then there is Ron Paul, separate from those two groups. But I digress; only a revolutionary action of this type will preserve america and its principles, wrest control of the country from the banksters and preserve the wealth of the people.

    The alternative is the total debasement of the dollar, preceded by hyper-inflation, and the launch of a fiat world currency with the Amero as the american component.

    This solution may or may not work. What is important however, is that people think and act in new, unexpected ways. The old ways of solving problems do not and will not work. Only focussed, well executed, original and oblique strategies are going to solve this problem. The sooner we start, the better.

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  6. American Open Currency Standard has already started an alternative silver currency to challenge the FRN's. Check it out at www.opencurrency.com, and we also have the Free Lakota Bank to safely store/deposit/withdraw your silver as well!

    If anybody is interested in ordering silver through AOCS, or in helping spread this new currency in your local community as a currency officer, please contact me and I look forward to hearing from you!

    Gabe Sukenik
    gsukenik@opencurrency.com

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  7. Thinking aloud, opencurrency is a fascinating project, but I wonder how someone would go and buy a coke with this money. That is the purpose of money, to enable you to do your daily transactions from a loaf of bread to a Fender Stratocaster and up.

    Unless these currencies come in denominations that allow this, they will not be practical for small transactions. Also, if there is not an organized, viral style campaign to spread these currencies, with or without a range of denominations, they will all be shut down by the banksters like the Liberty Dollar was (except maybe the Lakota, since they are a sovereign nation).

    In any case, all these efforts are worth trying, and all add to the overall effect of increasing awareness that Federal Reserve Notes are not money.

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  8. Irdial-

    You're gonna love all the base 50 fractionals that Liberty Dollar is ginning up. We're gonna have a lot more 5s, 10s, and 20s, and I think they are going to make a regular $1 copper. The currency IS getting out there, the next step is getting more stores to accept it. The AOCS has gone a long way in doing that.

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