The UsuryFree Eye Opener

The UsuryFree Eye Opener is the electronic arm of the UsuryFree Network. It seeks active usuryfree creatives to help advance our mission of creating a usuryfree lifestyle for everyone on this planet. Our motto is 'peace and plenty before 2020.' The UsuryFree Eye Opener publishes not only articles related to the problems associated with our orthodox, usury-based 1/(s-i) system but also to the solutions as offered by active usuryfree creatives - and much more for your re-education.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Evidence of the Evils of Usury ...


The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

by Mary Pilon
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
provided by The Wall Street Journal

When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."

To be sure, Dr. Bisutti's case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.

But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as "good debt," because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.

Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can't make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.


Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.

Although Dr. Bisutti's debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying isn't. Emmanuel Tellez's mother is a laid-off factory worker, and $120 from her $300 unemployment checks is garnished to pay the federal PLUS student loan she took out for her son.

By the time Mr. Tellez graduated in 2008, he had $50,000 of his own debt in loans issued by SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. In December, he was laid off from his $29,000-a-year job in Boston and defaulted. Mr. Tellez says that when he signed up, the loan wasn't explained to him well, though he concedes he missed the fine print.

Loan terms, including interest rates, are disclosed "multiple times and in multiple ways," says Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, who says the company can't comment on individual accounts. Repayment tools and account information are accessible on Sallie Mae's Web site as well, she says.

Many borrowers say they are experiencing difficulties working out repayment and modification terms on their loans. Ms. Holler says that Sallie Mae works with borrowers individually to revamp loans. Although the U.S. Department of Education has expanded programs like income-based repayment, which effectively caps repayments for some borrowers, others might not qualify.

Heather Ehmke of Oakland, Calif., renegotiated the terms of her subprime mortgage after her home was foreclosed. But even after filing for bankruptcy, she says she couldn't get Sallie Mae, one of her lenders, to adjust the terms on her student loan. After 14 years with patches of deferment and forbearance, the loan has increased from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payments jumped from $230 to $816. Last month, her petition for undue hardship on the loans was dismissed.

Sallie Mae supports reforms that would allow student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good-faith effort to repay them, says Ms. Holler.

Dr. Bisutti says she loves her work, but regrets taking out so many student loans. She admits that she made mistakes in missing payments, deferring her loans and not being completely thorough with some of the paperwork, but was surprised at how quickly the debt spiraled.

She says she knew when she started medical school in 1999 that she would have to borrow heavily. But she reasoned that her future income as a doctor would make paying off the loans easy. While in school, her loans racked up interest with variable rates ranging from 3% to 11%.

She maxed out on federal loans, borrowing $152,000 over four years, and sought private loans from Sallie Mae to help make up the difference. She also took out two loans from Wells Fargo & Co. for $20,000 each. Each had a $2,000 origination fee. The total amount she borrowed at the time: $250,000.

In 2005, the bill for the Wells Fargo loans came due. Representatives from the bank called her father, Michael Bisutti, every day for two months demanding payment. Mr. Bisutti, who had co-signed on the loans, finally decided to cover the $550 monthly payments for a year.

Wells Fargo says it will stop calling consumers if they request it, says senior vice president Glen Herrick, who adds that the bank no longer imposes origination fees on its private loans.

Sallie Mae, meanwhile, called Mr. Bisutti's neighbor. The neighbor told Mr. Bisutti about the call. "Now they know [my dad's] daughter the doctor defaulted on her loans," Dr. Bisutti says.

Ms. Holler, the Sallie Mae spokeswoman, says that the company may contact a neighbor to verify an individual's address. But in those cases, she says, the details of the debt obligation aren't discussed.

Dr. Bisutti declined to authorize Sallie Mae to comment specifically on her case. "The overwhelming majority of medical-school graduates successfully repay their student loans," Ms. Holler says.

After completing her fellowship in 2007, Dr. Bisutti juggled other debts, including her credit-card balance, and was having trouble making her $1,000-a-month student-loan payments. That year, she defaulted on both her federal and private loans. That is when the "collection cost" fee of $53,870 was added on to her private loan.

Meanwhile, the variable interest rates continue to compound on her balance and fees. She recently applied for income-based repayment, but she still isn't sure if she will qualify. She makes $550-a-month payments to Wells Fargo for the two loans she hasn't defaulted on. By the time she is done, she will have paid the bank $128,000 -- over three times the $36,000 she received.

She recently entered a rehabilitation agreement on her defaulted federal loans, which now carry an additional $31,942 collection cost. She makes monthly payments on those loans -- now $209,399 -- for $990 a month, with only $100 of it going toward her original balance. The entire balance of her federal loans will be paid off in 351 months. Dr. Bisutti will be 70 years old.

The debt load keeps her up at night. Her damaged credit has prevented her from buying a home or a new car. She says she and her boyfriend of three years have put off marriage and having children because of the debt.

Dr. Bisutti told her 17-year-old niece the story of her debt as a cautionary tale "so the next generation of kids who want to get a higher education knows what they're getting into," she says. "I will likely have to deal with this debt for the rest of my life." (snip)

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/108846/the-555000-student-loan-burden?mod=edu-continuing_education

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Community Currency Magazine


“Community Currency Magazine”

Mark Herpel is the editor of Community Currency Magazine which is published online 6 times a year. Subscritions are free and industry ads are free.

The main website is: http://www.ccmag.net

Readers are invited to review these back issues of Community Currency Magazine in pdf format at these URLs:

September/October 2009

http://ccmag.net/PDF/Community_Currency_Magazine-sept-oct-2009.pdf

(See page 18 for the article “The Virtue of Giving Trumps The Vice of Greed”

(See page 30 about “The Fifth Annual UsuryFree Week”)

January/February 2010

http://ccmag.net/PDF/Community-Currency-Magazine-January-2010.pdf

(See page 6 about “Kennedy Hours”)

All back issued are posted from this link by pdf files:

http://www.ccmag.net/PDF-versions.html

Readers are invited to share the good news about “Community Currency Magazine” so that everyone will know that usuryfree living is possible in this 21st Century.

Labels: , ,

Monday, February 15, 2010

The UsuryFree Resolution


The Phi Curve otherwise known as the Fibonacci Series is named after its founder, Leonardo Bigollo Finonacci. The Phi Curve is a series of numbers defining the natural order of things in the universe. Phi (1.618033989) is a magical, mystical, unending number which creates a rapid spiraling energy. Perhaps the Phi Curve can be used to accelerate the UsuryFree Resolution – note it’s a ‘Resolution’ and not a ‘Revolution.’

Read more background details at the UsuryFree Cyberclasssroom: http://www.cyberclass.net/usuryfree.htm AND at The UsuryFree Eye Opener: http://usuryfree.blogspot.com

The Phi Curve:
1 + 2 = 3
2 + 3 = 5
3 + 5 = 8
5 + 8 = 13
8 + 13 = 21 etc.

Since the number 13 is within the spiraling Phi energy and prominent in the evolving pyramidal shape, some usuryfree creatives are adopting what they believe is the optimal strategy to advance the UsuryFree Resolution during these transitory times. They are valuing their one hour of time for basic, unskilled labour at $13.00 (Canadian funds).

This is above the minimum wage as legislated by the federal government. Any community launching a usuryfree time currency with their one hour of time valued at $13.00 (Canadian Funds) can quite easily multiply to find the value equivalent for more than one hour or divide to find the value equivalent for less then one hour.

Obviously, the value assigned to one hour of time may vary in different communities. Other communities prefer to have their one hour of time for basic, unskilled labour valued at $12.00 – since it is more easily divisible. There are already participating time-traders within different group who are trading and they are simply accepting each other’s time currency at par – regardless of the value assigned by any particular community.

At some future point, there may be consensus within the various communities – whether they use paper notes with a dollar equivalency or a time equivalency to agree on a simple, universal value where the minute is worth one unit and the hour is worth 60 units.

The visionary, usuryfree creatives view a usuryfree time currency as the optimal tool to facilitate trading between sovereign individuals as well as municipalities, provinces and countries in the shifting paradigm. This is because one hour of time has a value of sixty minutes everywhere on planet earth, thereby abolishing exchange rates that are currently in operation under the present economic paradigm.

There is also an understanding that we, the usuryfree creatives must create a universal network (database) on the Internet that will serve us locally, nationally and internationally. This network must be self-managed and without borders or a central structure. To be a participating trader calls for impeccable self-management, high integrity and keen responsibility.

Potentially and ultimately, each trader will assume responsibility of his/her own accounting. There ought to be no association, no registration fee, nor any annual subscription fee. Any traders who choose to advertise their products and/or services will pay a fair market fee for this service.

Trading agreements are to be negotiated between any two traders. The trading process must be free and unconditional and guided by the free market. During these transitory times various communities will choose to print paper notes of a usuryfree community currency in different denominations to facilitate trading. The printing costs of these paper notes can be financed by local participating businesses that willingly pay some federal dollars to advertise on the backs of the paper notes.

Indeed, there are signs everywhere that the usuryfree community currency movement is coming of age, as our orthodox money supply continues to diminish in value, and communities continue to suffer at the hands of the banking cartel. This usuryfree community currency movement was re-birthed in the early 1980’s when Michael Linton, from Courtenay, B.C. Canada created the first usuryfree trading software called the LETS (Local Employment Trading System).

The LETSystem permitted networks of traders within local communities to organize and operate as a perfected model of a usuryfree banking system – much like any casino bank where the chips never inflate and never lose their purchasing power.

All participants in a community were enrolled and their data is stored in a computer. Each trader was initially assigned an account number and a beginning balance of zero. A file was then created which listed a description of products and/or services offered and requested.

These items for exchange were negotiated for a ratio of any usuryfree community currency that was accepted as a complement with federal cash. All members used the telephone to record their trades and the local sysop (system operator) input the data into the LETS software program and each member received a monthly statement which closely resembled an ordinary bank account – minus the interest or usury.

Since the early 1980’s, the usuryfree community currency movement has evolved and now most communities prefer the more popular medium of exchange – paper notes. Let the UsuryFree Resolution grow and expand to become all inclusive so that everyone living on this planet can experience the reality of usuryfree living.

The UsuryFree Network offers consulting services to any group or network that is ready and anxious to launch a usuryfree community currency. Contact: The UsuryFree Network, P. O. Box 9333, Ottawa, Ontario K1G 3V1 Email: usuryfree@gmail.com

As Economy Stumbles, Local "Currencies" Gain Traction


By Kathryn Elizabeth Tuggle (Fox Business)

When Judith Lasker joined the Community Exchange program, a local currency organization in Lehigh Valley, Pa., she knew she was helping fellow members of her community. She just didn't realize how much.

Driving an older member of the Community Exchange to a physical therapy appointment one morning, Lasker was touched by her passenger's story of how the exchange had changed her life.

"She said simply that she would have been forced to give up her home if not for the program," Lasker said.

Community Exchange is just one example of local, hours-based "currencies" that are growing in popularity nationwide. Today, there are close to 100 types of local currencies operating in the United States.

While some currencies are true to their name and are backed by federal dollars, others are simply a record of hours worked by contributing “time bank” members. “Whenever you have a shortage of money, people look to invent their own medium of exchange,” said David Boyle, fellow of the New Economics Foundation and Author of "Money Matters."

The earliest local payment system on record began in the1930’s, which isn't surprising; historically, local currencies have been most popular during times of economic crisis, and the U.S. then was in the midst of the Great Depression.

Today, the Community Exchange hours system has 450 members, though similar systems work with just 50 or more members. When one member does something for another, they get credit for the amount of time spent helpng. Each member’s time is worth the same, whether they’re giving tax advice or cooking dinner.

Because there is no set standard for what a local currency should be, many times the grassroots effort to start a program doesn’t gain the momentum it needs. The average success rate for local currency is around 20%, according to a study done by Professor Ed Collom at the University of Southern Maine, which looked at 82 such currencies.

“It’s difficult to keep going, because of the scale on which they are organized,” said Boyle. “You’ve got local people organizing it, and inevitably the workload gets out of hand.” Boyle sid that in order for a local currency to thrive it must be imbedded with another type of endeavor, like a local business or the local government.

The Community Exchange is joined with the Lehigh Valley Hospital, which offers the organization a headquarters for its members database and a place to work, free of charge. Although this offers stability for the Exchange, there is still a danger of members not treating it as a formal system, Collom said. There’s always the risk of it turning into a network of “friendly favors.”

“Once you make friends, it’s like, 'Oh, don’t worry, I don’t need that hour and a half,' he said. “It’s sort of a catch-22, because once the program is successful, the relationships are formed and the program doesn’t need to exist anymore. But until the program gets off the ground, those connections can’t be made.”

Of course, even local currencies with tangible bills aren’t foolproof.

“Counterfeiting is always a possibility,” said Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Foundation and co-founder of BerkShares, the local currency in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts.

Counterfeiting has never happened before, thanks to security features on the bills, and the relatively small size of the circulation area, Witt said.

“If someone showed up with several fake 50s, it wouldn’t take long to figure out who they were,” Witt said.

Since 2006, BerkShares have been traded through 13 branches of 5 local banks. The exchange rate is 95 cents to every dollar. Accepted at just under 1,000 retailers in the region, $2.5 million of BerkShares have been issued from the bank, and $140,000 are currently in circulation.

Convincing local retailers to use the BerkShare hasn’t been tough, Witt said. Although there is a 5% discount to customers, it’s seen as a way to encourage citizens to shop locally. It also means merchants aren’t paying for processing of credit card fees, bounced checks, or waiting to collect on bills.

For merchants that accept BerkShares, there’s the possibility of having too great of a ratio of Berkshares to dollars. Should a merchant find they have too many to do business properly, they can go to a local bank and trade in their BerkShares for federal dollars.

With BerkShares, as with all local currencies, there are no coins allowed. Although local currencies are legal as long as there is an exchange rate with federal dollars so transactions can be recorded for tax purposes, coins are not allowed because they involve processing precious metals.

The main stumbling blocks for local currencies are maintenance and staff, Collom said. For BerkShares, grants to pay for printing of the currency and bank account setup was provided by a donor-directed fund at the Rudolph Steiner foundation in California.

The interest in local currencies will persist, even as the economy improves, Collom said, because local forms of payment tie into the “buy local” movement that has gained so much traction in recent years. “It all goes back to the idea of neighbors helping neighbors,” Collum said. “Whether they’re changing a lightbulb or helping their local florist stay in business, it's currency that can work.”

With the broader economy stil trying to find its feet, local currencies will continue to grow and flourish, according to Boyle.

“Typically, these things tend to happen in births of innovation and then its quiet again, and I think we are at the beginning of a birth at the moment,” he said.

This article was posted at this link at Fox Business:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/local-currencies-hit-miss

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Money As Debt II


By Tom J. Kennedy

'Money as Debt II’ is the new dual pack. It contains a copy of Money As Debt I and Money As Debt II - a total of 77 minutes. This dual pack was released in the summer of 2009.

Money As Debt I is a 47 minute DVD created by Paul Grignon from Gabriola, British Columbia, Canada. Money As Debt I was released in 2006.

I describe this dual pack Money as Debt II as colourful entertainment with an educational twist. The intent is to share these two DVDs with people and get them fully interested and halfway to an understanding of all topics related to 'money as debt.'

Paul has interspersed a series of historical banking quotations throughout these DVDs. He also uses cartoon characters in a very effective manner to explain 'What Is Money.' Then using these cartoon characters to relate a 'Goldsmith's Tale' that explains the history of gold as money and how the idea of interest or usury was conjured up by the goldsmiths who became greedy.

Finally, Paul presents a good explanation of 'The Money System Today' wherein he shows how money in our modern society really represents debt. He shows graphically how banks create money from the borrower's promissory note. He points out that the amount of money in circulation is equal to the total amount of debt. He also confirms that loans do not come from depositors' funds which is the misleading impression held by most people.

Paul gives a short history of usury and explains how there was a time in history when every religion opposed usury. He summarizes that the charging of interest or usury is a moral and practical problem in this 21st Century because the banks create the principal of any loan but they never create the interest or usury that is exacted and added to any loan payment. The design flaw of usury is amply illustrated for the evil function that it is.

Finally, Paul spends some time on proposals that will change the orthodox system of usury-based finance. He advocates the usuryfree LETS (Local Employment Trading System) software and illustrates paper notes of usuryfree time currency as usury-free debt money.
 
He shows an example of personalized money with the creator's picture on it. It visually makes the point that we can issue "personal and usuryfree debt money" without the involvement of banks. Paul recommends that local communities establish independent, local barter networks as the last, best defense against the New World Order's plans for a one world usury-based, electronic money supply where every transaction is tracked by the system. In summary, usuryfree community currencies are the optimal, emergency-preparedness model for any community.

In closing, Paul presents a permanent usuryfree money proposal that can be implemented by any level of government. Such a proposal would free us from the Economic Dictatorship that currently is the shadow behind all levels of government - municipal, provincial/state and federal.

Most people that I have shown these DVDs to say that they want (need) to see them more than once. I recommend this DVD set for anyone's library as it can be a great teaching tool to share with those who are ready and willing to learn what formal education neglects to teach.

The UsuryFree Network is promoting the DVD 'Money As Debt' as a fundraiser to raise money for the Sixth Annual UsuryFree Day celebrations on Saturday, November 13th, 2010. In fact, that week is designated as UsuryFree Week and usuryfree creatives in various communities are planning events to recognize that usuryfree living is possible and probable for those who make the choice to free themselves from the scourge of usury. More details about the events to celebrate UsuryFree Week will follow in the summer and fall of 2010.

The UsuryFree Network is marketing the 'Money As Debt II' DVD pack with a retail value of $25.00 (Canadian Funds) or its equivalency in any other national currency. This is payable in Canadian Funds or in the alternative $20.00 Canadian Funds and $5.00 usuryfree community currency. Any usuryfree community currency is accepted whether in Canada or the United States or elsewhere.

Readers are encouraged to buy an extra copy and gift it to any social, environmental or electoral reform group or organization as such groups need to know that unless the money-as-debt-plus-interest system is fundamentally reformed, no other reforms will ever succeed, at least not for long. Encourage these groups to view this entertaining explanation about money and then recommend it to their members and the public. Any further suggestions in this regard are welcomed and appreciated.

My pitch to social justice, environmental and electoral reform activists is that, without monetary reform, political reforms will not achieve the goals intended - fundamental power lies in money creation, not laws. And without electoral reform, monetary reform is not going to happen. In this way, I see the 'Money as Debt II” set of two DVDs helping to enlist a wide variety of social activists behind the demand for both electoral and monetary reform.

Enjoy this day!
Working with you for “peace and plenty” by 2002
I AM
Tom J. Kennedy otherwise known as 'Tommy UsuryFree Kennedy'
http://usuryfree.blogspot.com & http://sdi-usuryfree.blogspot.com
http://www.cyberclass.net/usuryfree.htm

PS: As an active UsuryFree Creative, I am available for contract to help any community organize a local usuryfree community currency. See details below.

Please forward payment (cash, cheque or money order) for your order to:
Tom J. Kennedy, The UsuryFree Network,
P. O. Box 9333, Ottawa, Ontario  K1G 3V1
Tel: 1.613.824.1793  Email: usuryfree@kos.net

Usury is the Greatest Crime on Earth---Leading to Most Others


Part V

1. Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society, because it is  the claim for an increase of wealth which is not really present at  all. It is trying to get something where there is nothing out of which  that something can be paid.

2. This action must therefore progressively and increasingly soak  up the wealth which men produce into the hands of those who  lend money, until at last all the wealth is so soaked up and the  process comes to an end.

3. That is what has happened in the case of the modern World,  largely through unproductive expenditure on war, which expenditure  has been met by borrowing money and promising interest upon it  although the money was not producing any further wealth.

4. The modem World has therefore reached a limit in this process  and the future of usurious investment is in doubt.

Though these conclusions are perfectly clear, it is unfortunately  not possible to say that this or that is a way out of our difficulties;  that by this or that law we can stop usury in the future and can  go back to healthier conditions. Trade is still spread all over the  World. It is still impersonal and money continues to be lent out  at interest unproductively, with the recurring necessity of repaying  the debt and failing to keep up payments which have been promised.

Things will not get right again in this respect until society becomes  as simple as it used be, and we shall have to go through a pretty  bad time before we get back to that. What about that "holiday of  a lifetime, thanks to a bank loan", or "those presents, bought with a credit card", or "your new car, bought on installments", or "your  nice home, with the 25 year mortgage"? All Usury. Shocked? Think  about this: that it was calculated that as recently as 1989, the  average person was spending nearly 80% of his income, directly  or indirectly, on usurious payments. In other words our society is  in the grip of an evil that has been condemned from the earliest  recorded times.  Today it is in a form so refined that most people  do not even know it.

Does being anti-usury mean, therefore, that  we cannot own houses, or buy toys for children, or go on holiday   or do the
1001 things that all do regularly? Not at all. It is quite the  reverse, because in a system free of usury, prosperity grows and  expands to the benefit of all - except bankers, and Stock Exchange  swindlers, and loan sharks, and speculators. In other words, a  usury-free society is one in which 99% of the people gain at the  expense of the 1% who exploit; while a usury-dominated society  means working for the interests of the 1%, and suffering all kinds  of hardships to make ends meet.

What is this "national debt" of which we often hear, but know  little about? Has it ever occurred to you that it is found to be  unusual to have a national debt when you study history? Did  you know that from 1931 until 1974 Portugal had no national  debt at all because it followed, between those dates, a usury-free  system? The National Debt is largely government debt built up  over the centuries because of usury. At any given time some 90% or more of the debt is usurious. Take, for example, the  War loans raised by the British government during the First  World War to finance those battleships which were lost in the  Battle of Jutland in 1916 - eighty years on we are still paying  interest to the Rothschild Dynasty bankers who supplied most  of the 'money'. Or what about the fact that our taxes are still  paying a European banking family interest on a loan of a few thousand pounds to the government for a war fought in the  18th century? So if you have ever wondered why services  are being cut back, or why taxes, direct and indirect, are constantly  taking money out of your purse, or why there is no investment  capital available for small and medium sized businesses, look no  further. The answer lies in the fact of usury. But no
political figure,  and no journalist, and no "truth-seeker" is prepared to say the  word, because he knows it would be the end of his career.   Why? Because when you grasp the essential message of usury  - which involves the creation of money from nothing - and how  it works in the modern World, you will understand that booms  and depressions, and inflation and deflation, are not freak events,  but events that can be socially engineered and scientifically  predicted, caused by a handful of mega-financiers.

Why will no one speak out? Quite simply, fear.  Ask any of your  friendly bank managers over the age of 60, who remember the  times when the true meaning of usury was still known in certain  quarters, about the subject of usury, and you will see fear enter  the face of a man who only seconds earlier looked so powerful  across his leather-topped desk. Fear for career,
for his family and their future. Yes, the truth is known, but who is going to be  David against the Goliath that usury has become? Or do we have  to wait until Goliath falls over once his weight has become too  much to bear? In that case we will have to put society together  again - and how much pain, suffering, misery, and death will that  necessitate?  And will it even
be possible? Maybe all this is  exaggerated? Maybe the figures show differently? All right,  let's look at the figures. In 1980, according to Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Maurice Allais, the Foreign Exchange Market registered $94 trillion. That means in simple terms  - money making money, financialspeculation, usury. By 1986  this had risen to $193 trillion. So in just six years it has almost  doubled in volume. But then look in 1989, just three yearslater  - it has become $420 trillion. In other
words, in just nine  years - and you remember the 1980's, don't you, when it was  "time to get tough", andinstitute "austerity programs" to curb  public spending, and mortgage interest rates went up to 20%  - by that time the money markets, the focus of international  usury, had grown by well over 400%. Note, too, that the rate  of increase of speculation is growing ever
more rapidly.   Between 1980 and 1986 it grew by nearly 100%, yet in half that time - 1986-1989 - it has grown by over 200%.

Yet when we look at international trade during the same  nine-year period - that is, the distribution and exchange of  real goods and services - we find that they have grown  from $7.6 billion to just $12.4 billion - not even doubled. So  usury is growing both in volume and proportion, while real trade is declining in proportion.

The explanation is simple.

*Why bother going to the trouble to have a good idea,  plan it, test it, bring it to production, market it, sell and  transport it, when you can make vast sums, beyond your  wildest dreams, sitting in front of a computer screen and  playing the casino known as the currency and derivatives markets?*

*Home  Rule for BC adds that speculation in money is becoming  known as "stratospheric money", for a couple of reasons  - it moves around the World in a flash, and it is high up  out of the reach of the ordinary person*.

So who is  responsible?  The governments?

Yes, because they should  protect their people. But in today's system the Bank of  England, The Bundesbank, Banca Italia, and the Federal  Reserve, are no more under the control of their respective  governments than is the weather on Jupiter.

What proof?

Well, here are three examples.

*First, this in one of France's  largest newspapers, Le Figaro, 10 Feb 90, about the  German Bundesbank:*

"The mission of the German  Central Bank is a classical one, but its organisation is  unique. Its governing body, all-powerful, is not answerable to Parliament or to the government."

*Secondly, this, published by the Federal Reserve  system:*

"Congress set up the Federal Reserve in  1913. But Congress does not control it, and neither  does the President of the United States." Thirdly, this, from Italian television: "When the Bank of Italy raised  the interest rate in the country by 0.5%, the President  of Italy went on television to tell the people that the hike  had been against his wishes and those of his government,  and that the Bank was seeking its own good, not that of Italy." [Home Rule for BC adds a fourth example. The Canadian  government is allowed no voting member on the Board of  the Bank of Canada.]

*Clearly, the men who control the banks effectively control  the World - private individuals "creating" or "uncreating"  money as they see fit, following whatever suits their interests,  and without a thought for society as a whole.* Heads they  win, and tails you lose. Well, we?ve seen now several  ways that the central banks are just acting in the interest  of the Illuminati Banking dynasties, regardless of whether  they are fully private, semi-private or government owned.

*If the money is issued by a privately owned corporation,  its owners benefit by causing the money amount and its  value to fluctuate and causing the people to go into debt  and pay interest permanently through taxes*. Under the  present debt-usury system, the extra burden of usury  forces workers and businesses to demand more money  for the work and goods to pay their ever increasing debts  and taxes. This increase, in prices and wages and taxes,  is called "inflation". Illuminati Bankers, politicians and "economists" blame it on everything, but the real cause is the usury levied on money and debt by the Illuminati  Bankers. This "inflation" benefits the money-lenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so they can not finance or help the next generation who must then  borrow from the money-lenders and pay a large part of  their life's labor to the usurer. With an adequate  supply of interest-free money created by the sovereign Government, little borrowing would be required, and prices  would be established by people and goods, and not by  debts and usury.

*Major wars/financial panic/depression/famine traced to insidious influence of usury banking**

*President James Madison:*

"History shows that the money changers have used  every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means  possible to maintain control over governments by  controlling the money and the issuance of it."

*War Cycles, Peace Cycles.: Richard  Hoskins dropped a bomb on the literary world in 1985 with ** the publication of his book, "War Cycles, Peace Cycles."* http://www.richardhoskins.com

The book was so poignant and controversial that references to it were made in nearly every major newspaper from  coast to coast at the time, and its message was vilified  especially by the banking community. Efforts at first lambasting, then later suppressing this work (when it  became evident that the public was intrigued by its  message) were the order of the day when the book  first shocked readers in the mid 1980s. Since that time  the book has undergone numerous printings, with the  last print run in 1991 being snapped up by a large,  unidentified consortium which took the books off the market. Repeated attempts by this writer at locating a  copy of this seminal work came up short every time  until recently. Much to my surprise and delight I discovered  that another print run was made of Hoskins' classic book  in 2000, the first re-publication in nearly a decade. I  read every page voraciously and loved every morsel.  I felt compelled to share this information with Gold-Eagle readers since no other book I've encountered comes  close to isolating the root of our modern-day economic  problems than
this one, and none offer more practical  and effective solutions than Hoskins.

According to Hoskins, every major war, financial panic, economic depression, and famine in recorded history can be traced to  the insidious influence of usury banking. Moreover, these  devastating events recur with cyclical regularity that can be  charted and predicted. While natural, geo-cosmic influences  may account in part for these cyclical occurrences, Hoskins  maintains that they are mostly attributable to central banking influences. Starting with this premise, Hoskins takes the reader on a journey that winds its way through nearly 4,000  years of history to our present day all within the short space  of 300 pages. All along the way the presence of usury  banking makes its appearance. For instance, Hoskins points  out that history records the first known use of credit-or  IOUs-is created from nothing is found in the ancient ruins  of Babylon and perfected by the priests of Baal. The whole  concept of usury, or of lending money with interest, invented  at that time remains unchanged today. Hoskins boils it down  to lending 10 talents of money and demanding payment of  11 talents when there are only 10 talents in circulation.  Usury contracts drawn up then stated that the borrower  was to pay his debt in "talents" only, but the problem is  and always has been that the central bank-created money supply is always finite while compound interest is theoretically infinite. Little has changed since then, Hoskins  says, as today's high priests of finance are the world's  central banks sitting in their temples of mammon, the modern  progeny of the money-lending priests of Baal.

Hoskins refers continually to the ancient common law prohibition  against usury while painting his sordid picture of the history of the effects of usury upon any given nation. He catalogs an extensive list of biblical references that strictly condemn the  lending (or borrowing) of money at interest: "Thou shalt not lend  upon usury to thy brother." (Deuteronomy 23:19); "He that by  usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather  it for him that will pity the poor." (Proverbs 28:8); "The
borrower  is servant to the lender." (Proverbs 22:7); "Owe no man anything but to love one another." (Romans 13:8). Had people throughout  history heeded these warnings about avoiding taking on debt  with interest attached to it, untold wars, revolutions, conquests,  famines, and financial panics could have been averted, Hoskins  contends. One of the first consequences of a usury-based financial  system, according to Hoskins, is heavy taxation. Hoskins contends  that "The only thing that has kept the usury system operating through the ages is taxation."

Why are usury and giving false measure forbidden (productive and unproductive)?

·  It causes the never ending alternation  of inflation and deflation  created when credit money is expanded or contracted for non-productive use.   It causes people to fight to catch up to inflation. It increases the burden of debt when it is allowed to contract.  The "inflation" benefits the private money-lenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so they can not finance or help the next generation who must then borrow from the money-lenders and pay a large part of their life's labor to the usurer. When the savings are gone and people are in debt, then credit and currency are contracted to increase the purchasing power that people must earn and pay to their creditors.


· It makes people & companies compete for money instead of competing for markets and resources.


·    It encourages greed and fear of scarcity (in fact, the job of the central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity) and the direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.  Money is created when banks lend it into existence. When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough World to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000. 
 


·    It creates losers and winners, just like gambling and lotteries.  Some have to default on their loan in order for others to get the money needed to pay off that interest. Increased interest costs automatically determine a larger proportion of necessary bankruptcies. So when the bank verifies your "creditworthiness," it is really checking whether you are capable of competing and winning against other players - able to extract the second  $100,000 that was never created. And if you fail in that game, you lose your house or whatever other collateral you had to put up.



·    It influences the unemployment rate and creates unemployment.
 


·    It encourages hoarding and creates Tyrants who want to control  the issue of money on which they can demand interest for ever.  Today's official monetary system has almost nothing to do with the  real economy. Just to give you an idea, 1995 statistics indicate that  the volume of currency exchanged on the global level is $1.3 trillion  per day. This is 30 times more than the daily gross domestic product (GDP) of all of the developed countries (OECD) together. The annual GDP of the United States is turned in the market every three days! Of  that volume, only 2 or 3 percent has to do with real trade or investment; the remainder takes place in the speculative global cyber-casino. This means that the real economy has become relegated to a mere frosting on the speculative cake, an exact reversal of how it was just two decades ago.

·   It creates monetary crises. For one thing, power has shifted irrevocably away from governments toward the financial markets. When a government does something not to the liking of the market - like the British in '91, the French in '94 or the Mexicans in '95 - nobody sits down at the table and says "you shouldn't do this." A monetary crisis simply manifests in that currency. So a few hundred people, who are not elected by anybody and have no collective responsibility whatsoever, decide what your pension fund is worth - among other things.


·    It creates crashes. George Soros, who's made part of his living doing what I used to do - speculating in currencies - concluded, "Instability is cumulative, so that eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured." Joel Kurtzman, ex-editor at the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse due to speculative frenzy. Just to see how this could happen: all the OECD Central Banks' reserves together represent about $640 billion. So in a crisis situation, if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours. 
 


·    It encourages people to store value in money and let the money grow instead of working, and it concentrates the wealth into the hands of the issuer of money, i.e. the Banking Dynasties. In a non-interest money system where money would be created and issued by the sovereign government debt-free and interest-free, people would only use money as a medium of exchange and not as a store for value. That would create work, because it would encourage circulation, and it would invert the short-term incentive system. Instead of cutting trees down to put the money in the bank and make the money grow with interest, you would want to invest your money in living trees or in installing insulation in your house.
 


·     It encourages harmful economic activities with discounted cash flows.  That means that under our current system it makes sense to cut down trees and put the money in the bank; the money in the bank will grow faster than trees. It makes sense to "save" money by building poorly insulated houses because the discounted cost of the extra energy over the lifetime of the house is cheaper than insulating. We can, however, design a monetary system that does the opposite; it actually creates  long-term thinking through what is called a "demurrage charge." T In  other words, we create a negative rather than a positive interest rate. What would that do? If I gave you a $100 bill and told you that a month  from now you're going to have to pay $1 to keep the money valid, what  would you do? I suppose I would try to invest it in something else. You  got it. You know the expression, "Money is like manure; it's only good  when it's spread out." In the Gesell system, people would only use money  as a medium of exchange, but not as a store for value. That would create  work, because it would encourage circulation, and it would invert the  short-term incentive system. Instead of cutting trees down to put the  money in the bank, you would want to invest your money in living trees  or installing insulation in your house.


·    It reduces the quality of life. There are many examples in the past of  interest-free societies in ancient Egypt, Mandarin China, Saxon Europe,  Saracen Islamic empire, 1935 Germany, etc. Recent studies have revealed  that the quality of life for the common laborer in Europe was the highest  in the 12th to 13th centuries; perhaps even higher than today. When  you can't keep savings in the form of money, you invest them in  something that will produce value in the future. So this form of money  created an extraordinary boom. 



·    It creates inequalities and breakdown in communities, which create  tensions that result in violence and wars. 
 


·    It encourages wars. The private owners of the central banks  provide loans for wars and collect huge amounts of interest.


·    It works to concentrate wealth towards an elite group of multinational  investors. Trade treaties, the IMF and World Bank were aimed at  defrauding Third World countries so that the markets and banks of  the First World countries could survive via economic expansion and  debt transference. Most of the World’s countries have a lower standard  of living than 20 years ago!


·    It’s a giant pyramid scheme with the Illuminati Banking dynasties  at the top, then the World's Masses at the  bottom! Nations borrow Special Drawing Right (SDR) from the International  Monetary Fund in order to pay interest on their mounting debts. With  these SDR's produced at no cost, the IMF charges more interest. This,  contrary to bold claims, does not alleviate poverty or further any development.

.     It creates a steady flow of wealth from borrowing nations to the  money changers who now control the IMF and the World Bank. The  permanent debt of Third World Countries is constantly being increased  to provide temporary relief from the poverty being caused by previous  borrowing. These repayments already exceed the amount of new loans.   By 1992 Africa's debt had reached $290 billion dollars, which is two and  a half times greater than it was in 1980. A noble attempt to repay it has  caused increased infant mortality and unemployment, plus deteriorating  schools, and general health and welfare problems. If a country cannot  pay, its natural resources and other assets are sold off the pay the  interest to the Illuminati Bankers. As World resources continue to be  sucked into this insatiable black hole of greed, if allowed to continue  the entire World will face a similar fate. As one Prominent Brazilian  Politician put it. "The Third World War has already started. It is a  silent war. Not, for that reason, any less sinister. The war is tearing  down Brazil, Latin America, and practically all the Third World.   Instead of soldiers dying, there are children. It is a war over the  Third World debt, one which has as its main weapon, interest, a  weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than  a laser beam." It is estimated the IMF has produced $30 billion  dollars worth of SDR's so far. In the United States SDR's are  already accepted as legal money, and all other member nations  are being pressured to follow suit. With SDR's being partially  backed by gold, a World gold standard is sneaking its way in  through the back door, which comes with no objection from the  money changers who now hold two-thirds of the Worlds gold  and can use this to structure the Worlds economy to their further  advantage.


·     It encourages lies, deceptions, fake-terror and propaganda by  the Illuminati Bankers who want to protect their cash cow.   To  maintain and move forward with their cash cow, they have to project  deceptive fronts of capitalism, democracy, religion and anti-Semitism  behind which they carry out their plans (Orwellian tactics from the  book “1984”). G. Edward Griffin explains (details later in several  sections of this book) how the owners of the privately controlled  central bank known as the US Federal Reserve use their power to  create money tax-free and use their unauditable profits to acquire  control over the power centers of society, i.e. those groups and  institutions through which individuals live and act and rely on for  their information. They are buying control over the organizations,  groups and institutions that control people, politicians, political  parties, television networks, cable networks, newspapers, magazines,  publishing houses, wire services, motion picture studios, universities,  labor unions, church organizations, trade associations, tax-exempt  foundations, multi-national corporations, boy scouts, girl scouts, you  name it, and particularly over those organizations that represent  opposition to themselves. This process has gone on not only to a  marked degree in America and in the other industrialized nations  of the World, but it has gone on in the underdeveloped nations to  such a degree that we would say the process is now complete. They  own these countries already. The money goes to the politicians of  those countries, to their governments and the money is spent to strengthen their power structures, their ability to control their  populations. They create a well-equipped army (note the $30 billion  for hiring mercenaries to train the new armies in Afghanistan and  Iraq), a better bureaucracy, for total control of their subjects. That's  where the money's being spent.
 
Horace Greely 1811-1872: "While boasting of our noble deeds, we  are careful to control the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system,  we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more  refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."
 
If the money is issued by a privately owned corporation, its owners  benefit by causing the money amount and its value to fluctuate and  causing the people to go into debt and pay interest permanently  through taxes. Under the present debt-usury system, the extra  burden of usury forces workers and businesses to demand more  money for the work and goods to pay their ever increasing debts  and taxes. This increase, in prices and wages and taxes, is called  "inflation". Illuminati Bankers, politicians and "economists" blame  it on everything, but the real cause is the usury levied on money  and debt by the Illuminati Bankers. This "inflation" benefits the  money-lenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so  they can not finance or help the next generation who must then  borrow from the money-lenders and pay a large part of their life's  labor to the usurer. With an adequate supply of interest-free money  created by the sovereign Government, little borrowing would be required,  and prices would be established by people and goods, and not by  debts and usury.
 
The financial system that the World has evolved on is the privately  owned Bank of England USURY model and it is not sustainable. It  creates nearly all money as debt. Such money only exists as long  as someone is willing and able to pay interest on it. It disappears,  wholly or partially, in recurring financial crises. Such a system  requires that new debt must be created faster than principal and  interest payments fall due on old debt. A sustainable financial system  would enable the real economy to be maintained decade after  decade and century after century at its full employment potential  without recurring inflation and recession. By this standard, a financial  system that creates money only through the creation of debt is  inherently unsustainable. When a bank makes a loan, the principal  amount of the loan is added to the borrower's bank balance. The  borrower, however, has promised to repay the loan plus interest  even though the loan has created only the amount of money  required to repay the principal-but not the amount of the interest.

Therefore unless indebtedness continually grows it is impossible  for all loans to be repaid as they come due. Furthermore, during  the life of a loan some of the money will be saved and re-lent by  individual bond purchasers, by savings banks, insurance  companies etc. These loans do not create new money, but they  do create debt. While we use only one mechanism-bank loans-to  create money, we use several mechanisms to create debt, thus  making it inevitable that debt will grow faster than the money with  which to pay it. Recurring cycles of inflation, recession, and  depression are a nearly inevitable consequence. If, in the attempt  to arrest the price inflation resulting from an excessive rate of debt  formation, the monetary authorities raise the rate of interest, the  result is likely to be a financial panic. This in turn may result in a sharp  cutback in borrowing. Monetary authorities respond to bail out the  system by increasing bank reserves. Governments may also respond  by increasing the public debt-risking both inflation and growing  government deficits. Let's keep something in mind while reading  this folks, increasing the money supply is not in and of itself a bad  thing. However, the way the Fed does it is ridiculous. First of all every  dollar introduced into the economy is based on debt! New money  cannot be created unless new debt is created. Second of all, the  Fed year after year increases the money supply greater than the  output of the economy.
 
Let's say the economy grows by 3% in one year. The money supply should then grow by 3% in order to not have  deflation. Does the government increase the money supply by 3%?


Nope, it increases the money supply by 4-6%. That extra 1-3% is  money that comes right out of your monetary assets’ purchasing  power, a hidden tax. This is why there has been a total of 1500%  inflation since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913. Keep  in mind this is LONG TERM inflation I am talking about. Not short term  inflation, which can be caused by market forces. I think short term  inflation is a smokescreen for the cause of long term inflation as they  can easily be confused by the common man. 
 
Laurence Ball, assistant professor of economics at Princeton University  and a visiting scholar in the Research Department of the Philadelphia Fed: While economists disagree about many issues, there is near  unanimity about this one: continuing inflation occurs when the rate of  growth of the money supply consistently exceeds the rate of growth  of output (of the economy). From: What causes inflation? 

http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/hineline/econ520/ball.pdf

Money  loses its value when it is created and put into circulation (spent) faster  than the growth in productivity in the local economy (versus just  being created and held as a reserve).
 
Churchill to Lord Robert Boothby: "Germany's unforgivable crime  before the second World war," Churchill said," was her attempt to  extricate her economic power from the World's trading system and  to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny World  finance its opportunity to profit.", quoted in the Foreword, 2nd Ed.   Sydney Rogerson, Propaganda in the Next War 2001, orig. 1938. 
[A bit like what Iran will be doing soon with its bourse] 
 
A few pence lent out at usury some twenty centuries ago would  amount now, at compound interest, to more wealth than there is  in the whole World, which is a sufficient proof that usury is unjust  and, as a permanent trade method, impossible. The large proportion  of usurious payments which are now being made on account of the  impersonal and indirect character of nearly all transactions, is beginning  to lay such a burden upon the World as a whole that there is danger  of a breakdown as the loans were made for unproductive purposes  (such as wars) and created no new wealth. If you keep on taking  wealth as though from an increase, when really there is no increase  out of which that wealth can come, the process must sooner or later,  come to an end. It is as though you were to claim a hundred bushels  of apples every year from an orchard after the orchard had ceased  to bear, or as though you were to claim a daily supply of water from  a spring which had dried up. The man who would have to pay the  apples would have to get them as best he could, but by the time the  claim was being made on all the orchards of the World, by the time  that usury was asking a million bushels of apples a year, though  only half a million were being produced, there would be a jam. The  interest would not be forthcoming, and the machinery for collecting  it would stop working. Long before it actually stopped of course,  people would find increasing difficulty in getting their interest and  increasing trouble would appear in all the commercial World.
 
Now that is exactly what is beginning to happen after about two  centuries of usury and one century of unrestricted usury. So far we  have got out of it by all manner of makeshifts. Those who have borrowed the money and have promised to pay, say, 5 per cent., are allowed to change and to pay only 2.5 per cent. Or, by the process of debasing currency, which I described earlier in this book, the value of the money is changed, so that a man who has been set down to pay, say, a hundred sheep a year, is really only paying 30 or 50 sheep a year. A more drastic method is the method of writing off loans altogether simply saying: "I simply cannot get my interest, so I must stop asking for it." That is what happens when a Government goes bankrupt, as the Government of Germany had done. If you look at the usury created by the Great War (1914), you will see this kind of thing going on all sides. The Governments that were fighting borrowed money from individuals and promised to pay interest upon it. Most of that money was not used productively: It was used for buying wheat and metal, and machinery and the rest, but the wheat was not used to feed workmen who were producing more wealth. It was used to feed soldiers who were producing no wealth, and so were the ships and the metal and the machinery, etc. Therefore when the individuals who had lent the money began collecting from the Government interest upon what they had lent they were asking every year for wealth which simply was not there, and the Governments have got out of their promise to pay a usurious interest in all sorts of ways - some by repudiating, that is, saying that they would not pay (the Russians have done that), others by debasing currency in various degrees. The English Government has cut down what it promised to pay to about half, and by taxing this it has further reduced it to rather less than a third. The French Government, by inflation and by taxation have reduced it much more - to less than a fourth, or perhaps more like a sixth or an eighth. The Germans have reduced it by inflation to pretty well nothing, which is the same really as repudiating the debt altogether. So what we see in a general survey is this:
 

1. Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society, because it is  the claim for an increase of wealth which is not really present at  all. It is trying to get something where there is nothing out of which  that something can be paid.

2. This action must therefore progressively and increasingly soak  up the wealth which men produce into the hands of those who  lend money, until at last all the wealth is so soaked up and the  process comes to an end.

3. That is what has happened in the case of the modern World,  largely through unproductive expenditure on war, which expenditure  has been met by borrowing money and promising interest upon it  although the money was not producing any further wealth.

4. The modem World has therefore reached a limit in this process  and the future of usurious investment is in doubt.
 
Though these conclusions are perfectly clear, it is unfortunately  not possible to say that this or that is a way out of our difficulties;  that by this or that law we can stop usury in the future and can  go back to healthier conditions. Trade is still spread all over the  World. It is still impersonal and money continues to be lent out  at interest unproductively, with the recurring necessity of repaying  the debt and failing to keep up payments which have been promised.

 
Things will not get right again in this respect until society becomes  as simple as it used be, and we shall have to go through a pretty  bad time before we get back to that. What about that "holiday of  a lifetime, thanks to a bank loan", or "those presents, bought with a credit card", or "your new car, bought on installments", or "your  nice home, with the 25 year mortgage"? All Usury. Shocked? Think  about this: that it was calculated that as recently as 1989, the  average person was spending nearly 80% of his income, directly  or indirectly, on usurious payments. In other words our society is  in the grip of an evil that has been condemned from the earliest  recorded times.  Today it is in a form so refined that most people  do not even know it. Does being anti-usury mean, therefore, that  we cannot own houses, or buy toys for children, or go on holiday   or do the 1001 things that all do regularly? Not at all. It is quite the  reverse, because in a system free of usury, prosperity grows and  expands to the benefit of all - except bankers, and Stock Exchange  swindlers, and loan sharks, and speculators. In other words, a  usury-free society is one in which 99% of the people gain at the  expense of the 1% who exploit; while a usury-dominated society  means working for the interests of the 1%, and suffering all kinds  of hardships to make ends meet.


What is this "national debt" of which we often hear, but know  little about? Has it ever occurred to you that it is found to be  unusual to have a national debt when you study history? Did  you know that from 1931 until 1974 Portugal had no national  debt at all because it followed, between those dates, a usury-free  system? The National Debt is largely government debt built up  over the centuries because of usury. At any given time some  90% or more of the debt is usurious. Take, for example, the  War loans raised by the British government during the First  World War to finance those battleships which were lost in the  Battle of Jutland in 1916 - eighty years on we are still paying  interest to the Rothschild Dynasty bankers who supplied most  of the 'money'. Or what about the fact that our taxes are still  paying a European banking family interest on a loan of a few  thousand pounds to the government for a war fought in the  18th century? So if you have ever wondered why services  are being cut back, or why taxes, direct and indirect, are constantly  taking money out of your purse, or why there is no investment  capital available for small and medium sized businesses, look no  further. The answer lies in the fact of usury. But no political figure,  and no journalist, and no "truth-seeker" is prepared to say the  word, because he knows it would be the end of his career.   Why? Because when you grasp the essential message of usury  - which involves the creation of money from nothing - and how  it works in the modern World, you will understand that booms  and depressions, and inflation and deflation, are not freak events,  but events that can be socially engineered and scientifically  predicted, caused by a handful of mega-financiers. 

Why will no one speak out? Quite simply, fear.  Ask any of your  friendly bank managers over the age of 60, who remember the  times when the true meaning of usury was still known in certain  quarters, about the subject of usury, and you will see fear enter  the face of a man who only seconds earlier looked so powerful  across his leather-topped desk. Fear for career, for his family and their future. Yes, the truth is known, but who is going to be  David against the Goliath that usury has become? Or do we have  to wait until Goliath falls over once his weight has become too  much to bear? In that case we will have to put society together  again - and how much pain, suffering, misery, and death will that  necessitate?  And will it even be possible? Maybe all this is  exaggerated? Maybe the figures show differently? All right,  let's look at the figures. In 1980, according to Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Maurice Allais, the Foreign Exchange  Market registered $94 trillion. That means in simple terms  - money making money, financialspeculation, usury. By 1986  this had risen to $193 trillion. So in just six years it has almost  doubled in volume. But then look in 1989, just three yearslater  - it has become $420 trillion. In other words, in just nine  years - and you remember the 1980's, don't you, when it was  "time to get tough", andinstitute "austerity programs" to curb  public spending, and mortgage interest rates went up to 20%  - by that time the money markets, the focus of international  usury, had grown by well over 400%. Note, too, that the rate  of increase of speculation is growing ever more rapidly.   Between 1980 and 1986 it grew by nearly 100%, yet in half  that time - 1986-1989 - it has grown by over 200%.

Yet when we look at international trade during the same  nine-year period - that is, the distribution and exchange of  real goods and services - we find that they have grown  from $7.6 billion to just $12.4 billion - not even doubled. So  usury is growing both in volume and proportion, while real  trade is declining in proportion.
 
The explanation is simple. 

Why bother going to the trouble to have a good idea,  plan it, test it, bring it to production, market it, sell and  transport it, when you can make vast sums, beyond your  wildest dreams, sitting in front of a computer screen and  playing the casino known as the currency and derivatives markets?
 
Home  Rule for BC adds that speculation in money is becoming  known as "stratospheric money", for a couple of reasons  - it moves around the World in a flash, and it is high up  out of the reach of the ordinary person.
 
So who is  responsible?  The governments? 
 
Yes, because they should  protect their people. But in today's system the Bank of  England, The Bundesbank, Banca Italia, and the Federal  Reserve, are no more under the control of their respective  governments than is the weather on Jupiter.
 
What proof? 
 
Well, here are three examples.
 
First, this in one of France's  largest newspapers, Le Figaro, 10 Feb 90, about the  German Bundesbank:
 
"The mission of the German  Central Bank is a classical one, but its organisation is  unique. Its governing body, all-powerful, is not  answerable to Parliament or to the government."  
 
Secondly, this, published by the Federal Reserve  system:
 
"Congress set up the Federal Reserve in  1913. But Congress does not control it, and neither  does the President of the United States." Thirdly, this,  from Italian television: "When the Bank of Italy raised  the interest rate in the country by 0.5%, the President  of Italy went on television to tell the people that the hike  had been against his wishes and those of his government,  and that the Bank was seeking its own good, not that of  Italy." [Home Rule for BC adds a fourth example. The Canadian  government is allowed no voting member on the Board of  the Bank of Canada.]

Clearly, the men who control the banks effectively control  the World - private individuals "creating" or "uncreating"  money as they see fit, following whatever suits their interests,  and without a thought for society as a whole. Heads they  win, and tails you lose. Well, we’ve seen now several  ways that the central banks are just acting in the interest  of the Illuminati Banking dynasties, regardless of whether  they are fully private, semi-private or government owned.

If the money is issued by a privately owned corporation,  its owners benefit by causing the money amount and its  value to fluctuate and causing the people to go into debt  and pay interest permanently through taxes."

Usury is the Greatest Crime on Earth---Leading to Most Others


Part IV

*Why are usury and giving false measure forbidden (productive and unproductive)?*

·     It causes the never ending alternation  of inflation and deflation  created when credit money is expanded or contracted for non-productive use. It causes people to fight to catch up to inflation. It increases the burden of debt when it is allowed to contract.  The "inflation" benefits the private money-lenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so they can not finance or help the next generation who must then borrow from the money-lenders and pay a large part of their life's labor to the usurer. When the savings are gone and people are in debt, then credit and currency are contracted to increase the purchasing power that people must earn and pay to their creditors.

·      It makes people & companies compete for money instead of competing for markets and resources.*

·      It encourages greed and fear of scarcity (in fact, the job of the central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity) and the direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.  Money is created when banks lend it into existence. When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough World to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000.

·      It creates losers and winners, just like gambling and lotteries. Some have to default on their loan in order for others to get the money needed to pay off that interest. Increased interest costs automatically determine a larger proportion of necessary bankruptcies. So when the bank verifies your "creditworthiness," it is really checking whether you are capable of competing and winning against other players - able to extract the second  $100,000 that was never created. And if you fail in that game, you
lose your house or whatever other collateral you had to put up.

·      It influences the unemployment rate and creates unemploymet.

·      It encourages hoarding and creates Tyrants who want to control  the issue of money on which they can demand interest for ever. Today's official monetary system has almost nothing to do with the real economy. Just to give you an idea, 1995 statistics indicate that  the volume of currency exchanged on the global level is $1.3 trillion  per day. This is 30 times more than the daily gross domestic product (GDP) of all of the developed countries (OECD) together. The annual GDP of the United States is turned in the market every three days! Of  that volume, only 2 or 3 percent has to do with real trade or investment; the remainder takes place in the speculative global cyber-casino. This means that the real economy has become relegated to a mere frosting on the speculative cake, an exact reversal of how it was just two decades ago.

·      It creates monetary crises. For one thing, power has shifted irrevocably away from governments toward the financial markets. When a government does something not to the liking of the market - like the British in '91, the French in '94 or the Mexicans in '95 - nobody sits down at the table and says "you shouldn't do this." A monetary crisis simply manifests in that currency. So a few hundred people, who are not elected by anybody and have no collective responsibility whatsoever, decide what your pension fund is worth - among other things.

·      It creates crashes. George Soros, who's made part of his living doing what I used to do - speculating in currencies - concluded, "Instability is cumulative, so that eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured." Joel Kurtzman, ex-editor at the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse due to speculative frenzy. Just to see how this could happen: all the OECD Central Banks' reserves together represent about $640 billion. So in a crisis situation, if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours.

·       It encourages people to store value in money and let the money grow instead of working, and it concentrates the wealth into the hands of the issuer of money, i.e. the Banking Dynasties. In a non-interest money system where money would be created and issued by the sovereign government debt-free and interest-free, people would only use money as a medium of exchange and not as a store for value. That would create work, because it would encourage circulation, and it would invert the short-term incentive system. Instead of cutting trees down to put the money in the bank and make the money grow with interest, you would want to invest your money in living trees or in installing insulation in your house.

·       It encourages harmful economic activities with discounted cash flows. That means that under our current system it makes sense to cut down trees and put the money in the bank; the money in the bank will grow faster than trees. It makes sense to "save" money by building poorly insulated houses because the discounted cost of the extra energy over the lifetime of the house is cheaper than insulating. We can, however, design a monetary system that does the opposite; it actually creates  long-term thinking through what is called a "demurrage charge." T In  other words, we create a negative rather than a positive interest rate. What would that do? If I gave you a $100 bill and told you that a month  from now you're going to have to pay $1 to keep the money valid, what  would you do? I suppose I would try to invest it in something else. You  got it. You know the expression, "Money is like manure; it's only good  when it's spread out." In the Gesell system, people would only use money  as a medium of exchange, but not as a store for value. That would create  work, because it would encourage circulation, and it would invert the  short-term incentive system. Instead of cutting trees down to put the  money in the bank, you would want to invest your money in living trees  or installing insulation in your house.

·    It reduces the quality of life. There are many examples in the past of  interest-free societies in ancient Egypt, Mandarin China, Saxon Europe,  Saracen Islamic empire, 1935 Germany, etc. Recent studies have revealed  that the quality of life for the common laborer in Europe was the highest  in the 12th to 13th centuries; perhaps even higher than today. When  you can't keep savings in the form of money, you invest them in something that will produce value in the future. So this form of money
created an extraordinary boom.

·     It creates inequalities and breakdown in communities, which create  tensions that result in violence and wars.

·     It encourages wars. The private owners of the central banks provide loans for wars and collect huge amounts of interest.

·     It works to concentrate wealth towards an elite group of multinational  investors. Trade treaties, the IMF and World Bank were aimed at  defrauding Third World countries so that the markets and banks of  the First World countries could survive via economic expansion and  debt transference. Most of the World?s countries have a lower standard  of living than 20 years ago!

·     It's a giant pyramid scheme with the Illuminati Banking dynasties  at the top, then the World's Masses at the  bottom!* Nations borrow Special Drawing Right (SDR) from the International  Monetary Fund in order to pay interest on their mounting debts. With  these SDR's produced at no cost, the IMF charges more interest. This,  contrary to bold claims, does not alleviate poverty or further any development.

.    It creates a steady flow of wealth from borrowing nations to the money changers who now control the IMF and the World Bank. The  permanent debt of Third World Countries is constantly being increased  to provide temporary relief from the poverty being caused by previous  borrowing. These repayments already exceed the amount of new loans.   By 1992 Africa's debt had reached $290 billion dollars, which is two and  a half times greater than it was in 1980. A noble attempt to repay it has  caused increased infant mortality and unemployment, plus deteriorating  schools, and general health and welfare problems. If a country cannot  pay, its natural resources and other assets are sold off the pay the  interest to the Illuminati Bankers. As World resources continue to be  sucked into this insatiable black hole of greed, if allowed to continue  the entire World will face a
similar fate. As one Prominent Brazilian  Politician put it. "The Third World War has already started. It is a  silent war. Not, for that reason, any less sinister. The war is tearing  down Brazil, Latin America, and practically all the Third World. Instead of soldiers dying, there are children. It is a war over the  Third World debt, one which has as its main weapon, interest, a  weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than  a laser beam." It is estimated the IMF has produced $30 billion
dollars worth of SDR's so far. In the United States SDR's are  already accepted as legal money, and all other member nations  are being pressured to follow suit. With SDR's being partially  backed by gold, a World gold standard is sneaking its way in  through the back door, which comes with no objection from the  money changers who now hold two-thirds of the Worlds gold  and can use this to structure the Worlds economy to their further advantage.

·      It encourages lies, deceptions, fake-terror and propaganda by the Illuminati Bankers who want to protect their cash cow.  To  maintain and move forward with their cash cow, they have to project  deceptive fronts of capitalism, democracy, religion and anti-Semitism  behind which they carry out their plans (Orwellian tactics from the  book "1984"). G. Edward
Griffin explains (details later in several  sections of this book) how the owners of the privately controlled  central bank known as the US Federal Reserve use their power to  create money tax-free and use their unauditable profits to acquire  control over the power centers of society, i.e. those groups and  institutions through which individuals live and act and rely on
for  their information. They are buying control over the organizations, groups and institutions that control people, politicians, political parties, television networks, cable networks, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, wire services, motion picture studios, universities, labor unions, church organizations, trade associations, tax-exempt foundations, multi-national corporations, boy scouts, girl scouts, you  name it, and particularly over those organizations that represent  opposition to
themselves.

This process has gone on not only to a  marked degree in America and in the other industrialized nations  of the World, but it has gone on in the underdeveloped nations to  such a degree that we would say the process is now complete. They  own these countries already. The money goes to the politicians of  those countries, to their governments and the money is spent to strengthen their power structures, their ability to control their populations. They create a well-equipped army (note the $30 billion  for hiring mercenaries to train the new armies in Afghanistan and  Iraq), a better bureaucracy, for total control of their subjects. That's  where the money's being spent.

Horace Greely 1811-1872: "While boasting of our noble deeds, we  are careful to control the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system,  we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more  refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."

If the money is issued by a privately owned corporation, its owners  benefit by causing the money amount and its value to fluctuate and  causing the people to go into debt and pay interest permanently through taxes. Under the present debt-usury system, the extra  burden of usury forces workers and businesses to demand more  money for the work and goods to pay their ever increasing debts  and taxes. This increase, in prices and wages and taxes, is called  "inflation". Illuminati Bankers, politicians and "economists" blame  it on everything, but the real cause is the usury levied on money and debt by the Illuminati Bankers. This "inflation" benefits the money-lenders since it wipes out savings of one generation so  they can not finance or help the next generation who must then  borrow from the money-lenders and pay a large part of their life's  labor to the usurer. With an adequate supply of interest-free money  created by the sovereign Government, little borrowing would be required,  and prices would be established by people and goods, and not by  debts and usury.

The financial system that the World has evolved on is the privately  owned Bank of England USURY model and it is not sustainable. It  creates nearly all money as debt. Such money only exists as long  as someone is willing and able to pay interest on it. It disappears,  wholly or partially, in recurring financial crises. Such a system  requires that new debt must be
created faster than principal and  interest payments fall due on old debt. A sustainable financial system  would enable the real economy to be maintained decade after  decade and century after century at its full employment potential  without recurring inflation and recession. By this standard, a financial  system that creates money only through the creation of debt is
inherently unsustainable. When a bank makes a loan, the principal  amount of the loan is added to the borrower's bank balance. The  borrower, however, has promised to repay the loan plus interest  even though the loan has created only the amount of money  required to repay the principal-but not the amount of the interest.

Therefore unless indebtedness continually grows it is impossible  for all loans to be repaid as they come due. Furthermore, during  the life of a loan some of the money will be saved and re-lent by  individual bond purchasers, by savings banks, insurance  companies etc. These loans do not create new money, but they  do create debt. While we use only one mechanism-bank loans-to  create money, we use several mechanisms to create debt, thus making it inevitable that debt will grow faster than the money with  which to pay it. Recurring cycles of inflation, recession, and  depression are a nearly inevitable consequence. If, in the attempt  to arrest the price inflation resulting from an excessive rate of debt  formation, the monetary
authorities raise the rate of interest, the  result is likely to be a financial panic. This in turn may result in a sharp  cutback in borrowing.

Monetary authorities respond to bail out the  system by increasing bank reserves. Governments may also respond  by increasing the public debt-risking both inflation and growing  government deficits. Let's keep something in mind while reading  this folks, increasing the money supply is not in and of itself a bad  thing. However, the way the Fed does it is ridiculous. First of all every  dollar introduced into the economy is based on debt! New money  cannot be created unless new debt is created. Second of all, the  Fed year after year increases the money supply greater than the output of the economy.

Let's say the economy grows by 3% in one year. The money supply should then grow by 3% in order to not have  deflation. Does the government increase the money supply by 3%?

Nope, it increases the money supply by 4-6%. That extra 1-3% is  money that comes right out of your monetary assets? purchasing  power, a hidden tax. This is why there has been a total of 1500%  inflation since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913. Keep  in mind this is LONG TERM inflation I am talking about. Not short term  inflation, which can be caused by market forces. I think short term  inflation is a smokescreen for the cause of long term inflation as they  can easily be confused by the common man.

Laurence Ball, assistant professor of economics at Princeton University  and a visiting scholar in the Research Department of the Philadelphia Fed: While economists disagree about many issues, there is near  unanimity about this one: continuing inflation occurs when the rate of  growth of the money supply consistently exceeds the rate of growth  of output (of the economy). From: What causes inflation?  http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/hineline/econ520/ball.pdf

Money  loses its value when it is created and put into circulation (spent) faster  than the growth in productivity in the local economy (versus just  being created and held as a reserve).

Churchill to Lord Robert Boothby: "Germany's unforgivable crime  before the second World war," Churchill said," was her attempt to  extricate her economic power from the World's trading system and  to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny World  finance its opportunity to profit.", quoted in the Foreword, 2nd Ed.   Sydney Rogerson, *Propaganda in
the Next War* 2001, orig. 1938. [A bit like what Iran will be doing soon with its bourse]

A few pence lent out at usury some twenty centuries ago would  amount now, at compound interest, to more wealth than there is  in the whole World, which is a sufficient proof that usury is unjust  and, as a permanent trade method, impossible. The large proportion  of usurious payments which are now being made on account of the  impersonal and indirect character of nearly all transactions, is beginning  to lay such a burden upon the World as a whole that there is danger  of a breakdown as the loans were made for unproductive purposes  (such as wars) and created no new wealth. If you keep on taking  wealth as though from an increase, when really there is no increase  out of which that wealth can come, the process must sooner or later,  come to an end. It is as though you were to claim a hundred bushels of apples every year from an orchard after the orchard had ceased  to bear, or as though you were to claim a daily supply of water from  a spring which had dried up. The man who would have to pay the  apples would have to get them as best he could, but by the time the  claim was being made on all the orchards of the World, by the time  that usury was asking a million bushels of apples a year, though  only half a million were being produced, there would be a jam. The  interest would not be forthcoming, and the machinery for collecting  it would stop working. Long before it actually stopped of course,  people would find increasing difficulty in getting their interest and  increasing trouble would appear in all the commercial World.

Now that is exactly what is beginning to happen after about two  centuries of usury and one century of unrestricted usury. So far we  have got out of it by all manner of makeshifts. Those who have borrowed the money and have promised to pay, say, 5 per cent., are allowed to change and to pay only 2.5 per cent. Or, by the process of debasing currency, which I described earlier
in this book, the value of the money is changed, so that a man who has been set down to pay, say, a hundred sheep a year, is really only paying 30 or 50 sheep a year. A more drastic method is the method of writing off loans altogether simply saying: "I simply cannot get my interest, so I must stop asking for it." That is what happens when a Government goes bankrupt, as the
Government of Germany had done. If you look at the usury created by the Great War (1914), you will see this kind of thing going on all sides. The Governments that were fighting borrowed money from individuals and promised to pay interest upon it.

Most of that money was not used productively: It was used for buying wheat and metal, and machinery and the rest, but the
wheat was not used to feed workmen who were producing more wealth. It was used to feed soldiers who were producing no wealth, and so were the ships and the metal and the machinery, etc. Therefore when the individuals who had lent the money began collecting from the Government interest upon what they had lent they were asking every year for wealth which simply was not there, and the Governments have got out of their promise to pay a usurious interest in all sorts of ways - some by repudiating, that is, saying that they would not pay (the Russians have done that), others by debasing currency in various degrees. The English Government has cut down what it promised to pay to about half, and by taxing this it has further reduced it to rather less than a third. The French Government, by inflation and by taxation have reduced it much more - to less than a fourth, or perhaps more like a sixth or an eighth. The Germans have reduced it by inflation to pretty well nothing, which is the same really as repudiating the debt altogether.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Usury is the Greatest Crime on Earth---Leading to Most Others


PART III

From Usury by Wilfrid Price:

I hope  that I have proved beyond all possible doubt  that  the system of is fraudulent;  that the people produce the real wealth through their farms, workshops,  factories, offices, transport, etc., i.e., the goods  and services in the shops and warehouses, yet  we have a parasitic group of banks and financial  houses that create money based on all this  real wealth and load the communities with huge cheating debts created out of empty air. Does  it require much imagination to see that this usury cripples the economy of the World as  a whole? Technically advanced nations are continually held up from carrying out worthwhile projects though there is plenty of man-power, materials and equipment to do so. Can anyone argue that, if a thing is physically possible then it automatically should be financially possible?

However, the environment is being destroyed, especially in the Third World. Does anybody doubt that being able to create money out of nothing, as well as knowing everyone’s financial state gives the big banks tremendous power? I hope the evidence I have given in this paper added to natural deduction should make every reader certain about it. There is evidence that the banks are heading towards a World totalitarian state which is probably why they helped the political totalitarians, Lenin and Hitler, to succeed. The Bankers have had some hundreds of years to learn how to hold on to power. They do it by their ability to keep in the background -to be the “power behind the throne” in fact, though it has to be demonstrated to people in high places at times. They back opposing political factions and they get their agents into businesses, political parties, religious bodies, organisations like the Bilderberg Club, CFR, PNAC, Masons, trade unions, in fact in any sizeable body.
In the British Parliamentary system the three parties have been well penetrated. Nobody who thinks would deny that the
Tories are controlled by the City, but there is reason to believe that the same has happened with the Liberal Democrats and the
Labour Party. The banks hold “Bilderberger” meetings, so-called because they first took place at the Bilderberger Hotel in
Holland. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and others in the Labour Party have attended them.

There is also the “Trilateral” association between Bankers and governments, and one or two others. In short, in the Western states there is not real democracy, but plutocracies disguised as democracies and all going towards a World totalitarian system.

There is a policy to combat this evil. It is called Social Credit; this contends that every country should have full control over its own money system with the creation of credit solely exercised by public bodies responsible to the elected governments of each country.

In 1910 US government debt stood at about $1 billion or about $12 per citizen. Now, its about $15 trillion (all levels of government) or about $50,000 per citizen owed to the private owners of the Federal Reserve Bank. Government and corporate debt is inherited.

Therefore, whenever we pay taxes or buy corporate products, we pay homage to the owners of the private central banks because part of the money goes to pay interest to them.

The total amount owed by consumers, businesses, governments and financial institutions totaled $34.4 trillion at the end of 2003, according to the Federal Reserve. The economy produced $11.3 trillion of output. That makes the nation's debt triple its gross domestic product. In 1933, debt was about 2 1/2 times GDP, according to a study by the Gabelli Mathers mutual fund. When this pyramid collapses, we would suddenly be in a very different World. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Now, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours.

Richard Maybury:

“Washington...has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the World, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.

More on Usury: Everything We Need to Know About Usury But Were Afraid to Find Out

REMEMBER, REAL OR FIAT MONEY DOES NOT CREATE GOODS & SERVICES. WORK CREATES GOODS & SERVICES!!!

Usury is forbidden to Christianity.

The Islamic equivalent is "Riba." Riba is forbidden to both the giver and taker.

Judaism forbids usury among Jews but preaches usury against the non-Jews.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild was prepared by his father to become a Rabbi. Ferociously, he deployed the teachings of unearned profit instead to multiply an embezzled fortune into the House of Rothschild - precursor to the modern,  World-wide network of central banks. The money changers of Christ's famous episode at the over-run Temple, practiced this ethic of unearned profit, and unfair trade. Fittingly, usury has been called, an abomination that makes desolation.  Hence the great historic, social, and religious significance of usury. The Jews forbade  the practice of usury within their own community, while they permitted it to be practiced against outsiders. This is one of the many instances of the Pharisees having altered the revelations in open rebellion against God.

Under today’s usury system, new debt always exceeds the new money no matter how much or how little is borrowed, the total debt increasingly outstrips the amount of money available to pay the debt. The people can never, ever get  out of debt! An example will show the viciousness of this usury-debt system with  its "built in" shortage of money. If $60,000 IS BORROWED at 14% for 30 years,  $255,931.20 MUST BE PAID BACK. However, and this is the fatal flaw in a usury  system, the only new money created and put into circulation is the amount of the  loan, $60,000. The money to pay the interest is NOT created, and therefore was  NOT added to "money in circulation." There is therefore no way all debtors can  pay off the money lenders. As they pay the principal and interest, the money in  circulation disappears. All they can do is struggle against each other, borrowing  more and more from the money lenders each generation. The money lenders  (Illuminati Bankers), who produce nothing of value, slowly, then more rapidly,  gain a death grip on the land, building, and present and future earnings of the  whole working population.

Thomas A. Edison (New York Times, 6th December 1921):

"People who  will not turn a shovel of dirt on the project, nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money, from the United States, than will the people, who  supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about  interest (usury) ... But here is the point: If the nation can issue a dollar  bond, it can also issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good,  makes the bill good, also. The difference, between the bond and the bill, is  that the bond lets the money-broker collect twice the amount of the bond,  and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by  the Constitution, pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way.

"It is absurd, to say that our country can issue bonds, and cannot issue currency.  Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the  people. If the currency issued by the people were no good, then the bonds  would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation, when the Government, to  insure the national wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest  charges, at the hands of men, who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest  is the invention of Satan." "If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue  a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good...    It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not  $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one fattens the  usurer, and the other helps the people."

US Constitution:

"Congress shall have the power to coin money and  regulate the value thereof." This was written in the hope that it would  prevent "love of money" from destroying the Republic. "No State shall  enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marquee  and reprisal; coin money; emit letters of credit; make anything but gold  and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder,  ‘ex post facto’ law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant many title of nobility." - (Article I, Section 10)

We shall see how subversion of Article I has brought on us misfortune of Proverb 22:7, i.e. the borrowers have become the servants to the lenders. Note that throughout history, people with hidden agendas have always  tried to confuse usury with trading and slavery  with business.

T. David Horton, Chairman of the Executive Council of the Defenders of the American Constitution, able Lawyer and keen student of basic  American history:

"Under the Constitution, the Congress has responsibility  of issuing the nation’s money and regulating its value Art. 1, Sec 8, Cl. 5 enable the Congress to resume its Constitutional responsibilities to  regulate our nation's money by liberating our economy from the swindle  of the debt-money manipulators by the issuance of national currency in  debt fee form ... We have a certain amount of non-interest bearing  money in circulation, all of our fractional currency, pennies, nickels, dimes,  quarters, and half dollars. They are manufactured in our mints, and are  paid into circulation, circulate freely, and provide the government with a  valuable source of revenue. From 1966 through 1970 the amount of  seignorage paid into the treasury by the mints amounted to in excess of  4 billion dollars; the profit ratio on this type of currency is 6 to 1, or currency  6 times the cost of production. The cost ratio for the private Federal Reserve Notes is 600 to 1; however, during these same four years, 1986  through 1970, 50 billion dollars in Federal Reserve Notes were manufactured  by the bureau of printing and engraving and turned over to the banks;  not one cent in seignorage was paid over to the Treasury. Our Debt  money system compels the government to spend more than it takes in, because this is the only way we can keep the economy going..."

Why is USURY FORBIDDEN? (Latin usus meaning "used" and the  word usuria which means demanding in return for a loan a greater  amount than was borrowed) There have been many leading figures  in history who have condemned usury and the power that goes  with it. Besides those quoted, there were Benjamin Franklyn,  Lord Acton, Ruskin, Dr Temple, (former Archbishop of Canterbury),  Augustus John, (the painter), Dr M.A. Phillips,(creator of M&B 693),  Professor Soddy, (the atomic physicist), and others.

It often helps us  to understand something if we examine origins. Throughout recorded  history the practice of usury, along with the practice of giving false  measure, has been condemned. Aristotle and Plato in ancient Greece denounced it as well as prophets in the Old Testament  and early Christians. Yeshua-Joshua, it should be remembered, drove usurers out of the Temple in Jerusalem and this played a  part in bringing about his apparent crucifixion by the Roman Pharisee King Pailatoos (Pilates). Buddhists have condemned it and the Quran does so as well (and probably other religious and non-religious  books). While the old usurers at least lent their own money, the modern ones, the Bankers, are able to create it out of nothing.

St. Thomas Aquinas, the leading theologian of the Catholic  Church, argued charging of interest is wrong because it applies  to "double charging", charging for both the thing and the use of the thing. Aquinas said that a lender charges for the loan by requiring the loan to be paid back, in other words, the payback  for the loan is the charge for the loan. Any further charge is a  charge for using the loan. Aquinas said this would morally wrong in the same way as if one sold a bottle of wine, charged for the bottle of wine, and then charged for the person using the wine to actually drink it (which is the de-facto transaction when you take the  loan and buy something with it).

Usury (in the original sense of any interest) is scriptually and doctrinally  forbidden in many religions. Judaism forbids a Jew to lend at interest to another Jew.  It's forbidden in Islam. The most recent Catholic teaching on usury is by Pope Benedict XIV in his Vix Pervenit: - from 1745 which strictly forbids the practice, though given the modern day Catholic Church's own bank and investments in the banking industry, the prohibition has to be regarded as a dead letter. While Jewish law forbids  the charging of interest to another Jew, Jews are not forbidden to charge interest on transactions to non-Jews. Throughout history, the interest attached to loans by Jews to non-Jews is widely considered to  have been a central issue in causing a perception of usury, and contributing to a climate of anti-Semitism. Allegations of usury have  been one factor leading to forceful confiscations of property and discrimination against Jews in business practice.

Ethnic-based distinctions surrounding the application of interest charges are often perceived as pronounced, discriminatory and unjust, and can inflame existing ethnic divisions. Usury and giving false measure has been denounced by almost every  major spiritual leader and philosopher of the past three thousand years. Plato, Aristotle, Cato (De Re Rustica), Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Aquinas, Yeshua-Joshua, Moses and Muhammad are just a few.

Biblical Injunctions Against Usury (sample):

Exodus 22:25 “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by  thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon  him usury.”

Leviticus 25:36 “Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy  God; that thy brother may live with thee.”

Leviticus 25:37 “Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor  lend him thy victuals for increase.”

Deuteronomy 23:19 “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury.”

Deut. 23:20: “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but  unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the LORD thy  God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land  whither thou goest to possess it.”

Deut. 28:44-45: "The stranger that is within thee shall get up  above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low. He shall  lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be the head,  and thou shalt be the tail."

Proverbs 22.7: "The rich [usurers] rule over the poor, and the  borrower is servant to the lender." Prophet Solomon’s words

Rev. 12:9: ?”t's the same fatal bite of that old Serpent the Devil  and Satan which deceiveth the whole World.”

Matthew 25:27 “Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money  to the exchanges, and then at my coming I should have received  mine own with usury.”

Nehemiah 5:7 “Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the  nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every  one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them.”

“Nehemiah 5:10 “I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury.”

Psalm 15:5 “He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh  reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.”

Proverbs 28:8 “He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his  substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.”

“Isaiah 24:2 “And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;  as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of  usury to him.”

Jeremiah 15:10 “Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a  man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have  neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.”

Ezekiel 18:8 “He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath  taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity,  hath executed true judgment between man and man.”

Ezekiel 18:13 “Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase:  shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations;  he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.”

Ezekiel 18:17 “That hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgments, hath  walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father,  he shall surely live.”

Ezekiel 22:12 “In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy  neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.”