Latest News

WEEKEND COMMENT: FACING ECONOMIC REALITIES

2009-07-03

(Image: the Fifth Scenario)

There is a fourth although dangerous scenario:

Walking away from the “Global Meltdown” and looking to other, proven alternatives.

From one Toby Birch, Guernsey, 1815:

“As weary troops returned (to Guernsey) from the Napoleonic Wars ending in 1815, they encountered a land racked with debt, high prices and a crumbling infrastructure, whose flood defenses were about to be overwhelmed . . . While 1815 brought an end to the conflict on the battlefront, . . . severe austerity ensued on the home front. The application of the Gold Standard meant that loans issued over many years were then recalled to balance the ratio of money to precious metals. This led to economic gridlock as labor and materials were abundant, but much-needed projects could not be funded for want of cash.
“This led to a period of so-called ‘poverty amongst plenty’ . . . The situation seemed insoluble; existing borrowing costs were consuming 80% of the island’s revenues. What was already an unsustainable debt burden would need to be doubled to fund the two most essential infrastructure projects.
This was when a committee of States members was formed . . .The committee realized that if the Guernsey States issued their own money to fund the project, rather than borrowing from an English bank, there would be no interest to pay. This would lead to substantial savings, because as anyone with a mortgage understands, the debtor ends up paying at least double the amount borrowed over the long-term.”
To prevent any unwanted inflation of the money supply, the Guernsey States issued the notes with a date due, and on that date the bearer was paid in gold. The money came from rents on the finished infrastructure, supplemented with a tax on liquor. Birch goes on:
“The end result of the Guernsey Experiment was spectacular – new roads, sea defenses and public buildings were established, fostering widespread trade and prosperity. Full employment was achieved, no deficits resulted and prices were stable, all without a penny paid in interest. What started as a trial led to a string of construction projects, which still stand and function to this day. Money was used in its purest form: as a convenient mechanism for oiling the wheels of commerce and development.”
35 years earlier, American colonial leader Benjamin Franklin issued a ‘Colonial Scrip’ which did everything the Guernsey scrip did and all the colonists used, interest-free, tax-free. The Banking Act of 1776 banned ‘Colonial Scrip’ and on the Fourth of July, 1776 the American colonies declared their independence from a financial tyranny.
Abraham Lincoln, in the face of interest at thirty-nine percent on the money needed to conduct the North’s side of the war, created the Greenback Dollar and put it into use from 1861 to 1865.
The London Times: “If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost.
“It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world.
“The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America.
“That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
Paradise seems always to have been disguised and kept only for the few:
After the Civil War it became evident that the 'Greenback Dollar' would remain in circulation, Lincoln was assassinated and the ‘Greenbacks’ taken out of circulation. ..."
“The struggle that was to rid the country of human slavery of the black race, however, was also to fasten upon the whole nation an economic or money slavery, which has endured to the present time.” - Lincoln Money Martyred . By Dr. R. E. Search
The next attempt at interest-free money was made startlingly, by Adolph Hitler who created a debt and interest free currency and in just four years, from 1933 to 1937 – from complete and utter bankruptcy and zero credit from any bank in the world, became the most powerful economy in Europe.
He employed every able German in the country and paid them with “Guernsey” style money.
The next person to introduce ‘free’ currency was John Fitzgerald Kennedy who, on June 4, 1963, introduced Silver Certificates of which $4,292,893,825 of cash money; free of debt and free of interest was issued
It was a sufficient amount to allow the nation to operate without the private Federal Reserve.
Just 5 months later, JFK was shot by the "crazed lone nut" Lee Harvey Oswald.
Almost immediately after Kennedy's death, the US Silver Certificates were pulled out of circulation and destroyed except for samples in the hands of collectors and the United States went back to the privately-owned-and-for-profit Federal Reserve system.
The Fifth Scenario is pictured above.