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THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH: April, 2009

Each month, BuzzFlash is privileged to have nationally syndicated progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann review a progressive book or DVD exclusively for BuzzFlash. See other progressive premiums at BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

Thom Hartmann's Review for April, 2009:

Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free

“Economics is a dry and forbidding subject that has been made intentionally complex by banking interests intent on concealing what is really going on. It is a subject that sorely needs lightening up, with imagery, metaphors, characters and a plot.” writes Ellen Brown in the introduction to her masterpiece book “Web of Debt.”

And it’s a mission she sets for herself and then accomplishes in the book.

For example, most constitutionally literate Americans know that our Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, says:

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
“To borrow money on the credit of the United States
“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof
“To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States”

But most Americans don’t realize that the way this has been construed since 1913 is that the only “Money” the United States government creates are our coins. They are actual draws against the US treasury, issued by the US Treasury, and redeemable by the US Treasury. All of our paper money – and the trillions of dollars in circulation not as paper but as digits in computers all around the world – are created by a private corporation and loaned at interest to our nation to use as money. [Although but ever since the 1960s, when Wright Patman tried to get the Fed nationalized, it has rebated the interest to the government except for its costs. Last year it rebated 85% of its profits. But the law doesn’t require it.] This private corporation is known as the Federal Reserve, although it is not federal, and it has no reserves.

Although its chairman is appointed by the US President, and it was brought into being as a private corporation by an act of congress (as are all federally-chartered corporations; “normal” corporations like those traded on the NYSE or the small businesses in your town are brought into being by state corporate charters), the Fed is actually owned by its 12 member banks, which, in turn, are owned by their member banks – all for-profit corporations – which are owned by private stockholders, and according to Senator Bernie Sanders, about a third of the stockholders don’t even live in the United States.

Another thing most Americans don’t realize is that it’s not our government that “creates money” – it’s banks. Private banks. For-profit banks. When a bank lends money, it literally creates money out of thin air. And, ironically, it creates enough money for the principle [principal] to be repaid, but not the interest. The result of this is that our fractional banking system resembles a game of musical chairs: When the music stops, there won’t be enough chairs (money) for everybody, and those stuck with the bill for the interest will be out of the game.

This is a system that has produced a lot of billionaires, and a lot of interesting conspiracy theories. From 1862 to 1971, for example, the Treasury Department also produced United States Notes (the $2 bill was exclusively a US Note, issued during JFK’s presidency) which were at various times traded parallel with Federal Reserve Notes. Today they’ve all been withdrawn from circulation and destroyed, other than the few you can find for sale on eBay and from rare coin and bill shops. With the end of the United States Notes, the Treasury ceased to be in the money business, that being now entirely (other than our coins, a tiny fraction of the US denominated money in circulation) now the business of the Federal Reserve and its member banks.

The consequence of all this has been a low-level variation on a monetary Ponzi Scheme, and a number of economists (and Ellen Brown) as well as a number of US Presidents over the years (most recently JFK) have called for the Fed to be bought or nationalized by the Treasury Department and the US Government to go back to producing our nation’s money in a way that doesn’t require profitable interest, and thus doesn’t produce musical-chairs losers (users of credit) along with the many winners it makes among the bankers.

It’s frankly difficult to find a good book that will help a person become literate about our modern money supply. Most that are accurate are hopelessly dense and written for graduate students in economics. Most that are highly readable and written for the average Joe or Jane are thick with bizarre conspiracy theories that often involve or imply “international Jews” or “international communists” as representing a hidden cabal determined to rule the world and reduce America to poverty.

In fact, it’s a “conspiracy” that’s right out there in the open. Banks literally have the power to create money out of thin air, and, lacking such strong regulation that they essentially become public utilities, they make their owners very rich and often crash nations’ economic systems by their speculative excesses.

There are alternatives, which have been used in the US in the past and other nations in the present. Ellen Brown has translated a dense subject into a readable and fascinating story.

You can see an overview of it in her chapters:

Section I
THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD: FROM GOLD TO FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES

Section II
THE BANKERS CAPTURE THE MONEY MACHINE

Section III
ENSLAVED BY DEBT: THE BANKERS' NET SPREADS OVER THE GLOBE

Section IV
THE DEBT SPIDER CAPTURES AMERICA

Section V
THE MAGIC SLIPPERS: TAKING BACK THE MONEY POWER

Section VI
VANQUISHING THE DEBT SPIDER: A BANKING SYSTEM THAT SERVES THE PEOPLE

Web of Debt by Ellen Brown not only demystifies money, but provides some thought-provoking and realistic solutions to our nation’s dangerous dependence on a for-profit banking system that is every bit as much sucking the financial lifeblood out of our nation as our for-profit health care system is sucking the lifeblood out of our bodies. Buy it, read it, and get active!

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.

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