Brady wrote:I never post due to ignorance, but really like these threads here. Its a good example of how well informed debate with opposing beliefs can lead the middle man to more understanding.
A request though to Michael and Chud (if I may): Seems someone like me would be more swayed to unequivocally agree with you if you could propose a good system, rather than just pointing out flaws in the current one. Ideas?
Hi Brady, I know what you mean, there are a lot of interesting threads on RSF that are fun to read. I'm not going to try and create a new monetary system, but I can suggest a few things:
1) YOU need to educate yourself. I used to know nothing about this topic until a former EF member named EYE began talking about it and pointed me to three films that are listed in my signature with google vid links: Money as Debt, America: Freedom to Fascism, and The Money Masters. Watch them (in that order)!
2) Whatever system we have, honesty needs to be a high priority. The current system has a long history, thousands of years actually going back to Babylon, as simply a complex method of stealing by bankers who are in a position of advantage because of having knowledge of how to manipulate the system to their benefit, and also due to ignorance of simple facts by most of the people who participate in the system. Our current system is debt-based; the power to create money from nothing is a monopoly given to a privately owned, secretly operated, totally opaque central bank that practices something called fractional reserve banking, a completely dishonest system that uses inflation as a huge tax against the people for the sole benefit of the bankers; and whatever inflation doesn't squeeze out of us, loan interest eventually gets.
3) Because everything you do, and especially all your labor, is translated into money, economic freedom is paramount. Without an honest monetary system, we are all —to one extent or another— spending massive amounts of our lives working to pay off not only our own debts, but those of the government as well. As it stands, the average American works 5-6 months per year to pay their various taxes, and almost none of this money goes to pay for any government services. Almost all of it goes to pay interest on debt for money created by a private federal bank, when the Constitution of the US gives this power to Congress. In effect, we have become debt slaves to a private, central bank that need not exist.
I say it need not exist because for many years, the USA did not have:
— A private central bank. From the time of President Jackson in the mid-1830's until the midst of the Civil War in 1864 under Lincoln, the USA did not have a national bank at all, and it wasn't until 1913 that we got a private central bank. The un-constitutional law for the current one was created in secret by the world's richest bankers in 1910 and the legislation finally passed in a Christmas Eve Congressional coup in 1913 when only 11 members of the House of Representatives edit: Sentaors were present to vote on the Federal Reserve Act of 1913: not even a quorum! Everyone else was home for the holidays. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States expressly gives the Congress alone the authority to tax, coin and regulate money, and to borrow. This authority was un-constitutionally given away.
— An income tax. There was no income tax in the USA before 1913. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the United States expressly forbids direct taxes such as income taxes. The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times, before and after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, that wages are not subject to an income tax. Furthermore, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments are invalid as an insufficient number of states ratified them, which has been proven over and over again. Money collected for the federal income tax does not go directly to pay for any services of the federal government, but only pays for interest on the debt for money the Federal Reserve created, which the US Congress should have created debt-free.
So we already have examples of monetary systems in the history of the USA without private central banks, without income taxes, and without the massive wars and financial instability that were seen since the inception of the private Federal Reserve Bank, which go hand-in-hand with such banks around the world. In fact, were it not for private central banks loaning money to both sides of wars, requiring the victor to pay his and the loser's debts, we would not be able to borrow enough money for long-term conflicts or war-time economies, and neither would other nations.
The Constitution of the United States was written for the purpose of creating a limited federal government, with as little power as possible —reserving most power to the states and to the people as expressly stated in the 9th and 10th amendments— so that this power could not be misused and abused. Income tax and inflation tax provide an obscene amount of money, and therefore power, to the federal government and a beguiling temptation to all those in Washington, D.C. who hold the keys to power.