-Caveat Lector-
May I suggest that all who are disaffected by Socialism on the one hand,
and "vulture" (Pat Buchanan's phrase) or "loan shark" capitalism (which we
have in the US now) look into the system called Social Credit which was
originated in 1917 by C. H. Douglas. It is definitely not socialism and
"democratizes" all the elitist aspects of capitalism. Also, Pope Pius XI
wrote brilliantly on this subject in Quadragesima Anno in 1931, explaining
that Finance (loanshark) Capitalism which concentrates wealth in the hands
of the few -- sows the seeds of discontent (due to injustice) which
contributes to the workers turning in desperation to Socialism or Communism
-- where they find themselves in a worse trap. Pat Buchanan and Jerry Brown
understands this. William Buckley and the whole lot of "free market"
Republicans do not. Most Democrats are just closet socialists anyway, so
don't expect anything from them. Jim Condit Jr. The Social Credit website
is: http://www.scss.gil.com.au/ -- and the Michael Journal website is:
http://www.connection.com/~rysio/ ... here's a sample essay from
each:
WHAT IS SOCIAL CREDIT ABOUT?
SOCIAL CREDIT comprises interlocking concepts of economics and politics
which deal with the just relationship between Man and the Society he lives
in.
ECONOMICS
The progressive application of science and technology to all aspects of
production is increasingly capable of providing a sufficiency for all, with
ever fewer people employed in the process. Hence, in developed economies,
'unemployment' exists side by side with 'overproduction' and 'overcapacity'
- i.e. 'poverty amidst plenty' in all its manifestations.
Unlike orthodox economics, Social Credit identifies the major factor in
this situation as the Cultural Heritage, the accumulated knowledge derived
from generations of scientists, engineers and inventors which underpins the
mechanisation, robotisation and computerisation in industry, commerce and
agriculture. The effect of the cultural heritage is simultaneously to
provide an abundance of goods and services while depriving an increasing
proportion of the population of access to them through loss of income from
employment.
Unlike orthodox economics which advocates 'economic growth' to provide more
jobs, Social Credit recognises that the cultural heritage is an inheritance
common to all, with each individual a tenant-for-life and thereby entitled
to a dividend over and above his earnings. Collectively, such dividends
would help bridge the gap between purchasing power and prices which is the
root cause of 'recessions'.
To forestall any possibility of inflation, the National Dividend to
individuals as of right would be matched by a reduction in retail prices by
the mechanism of a Compensated Price. This is best visualised as a negative
VAT, or negative GST, or a negative Sales Tax, by which retail prices would
be reduced by an amount calculated under a correct formula, instead of
being increased as under current methods.
To finance both the National Dividend and the Compensated Price requires a
major correction in the current financial accounting system to ensure it
accurately reflects economic reality - i.e., abundance, instead of
distorting it as scarcity. In other words, to make financially possible
whatever is physically possibly and socially desirable. The techniques
involved in introducing these reforms are fully explained in available
literature.
POLITICS
These reforms require that a well-informed electorate are enabled to demand
the results they require by applying sufficient pressure on their
representatives under the sanction of dismissal if the results are not
achieved. This concept envisages the progressive replacement of party
politics by restoring the political initiative to the voters, e.g. through
a process of Direct Democracy or Initiated Referenda. This procedure
together with bodies such as Voters' Policy Associations would formulate
the results required, not the technical methods of achieving them.
Political parties represent particular interests and submit their party
manifestos, reflecting these interests, to the voters. Conflicting
arguments such as nationalisation, privatisation, or between more or less
taxation, serve to divide and rule the electorate on technicalities they
are not qualified to decide upon. By contrast, provided that the result
demanded is shown to be physically possible, the electorate could unite in
such a demand as 'End Poverty amidst Plenty'.
SUMMARY
Social Credit stands for optimum economic and political freedom for each
individual by ensuring (a) consumer control over production - i.e.,
economic democracy; (b) voter control over policy - i.e., political
democracy. Social Credit stands against the political party system; the
existing financial system; and the concentration of power over individuals,
whether economic or political, or in any other form. These concepts derive
from the published works of C.H. Douglas.
Where does money come from today?
The bankers, legalized forgers
The following article was written by Louis Even in 1936. The sums given
here are those of 1935. For example, the price of gold at $20 an ounce, the
$750 million borrowing of the federal government. These sums are much
bigger in 1987. But to help to understand Louis Even's reasoning, these
sums given in 1936 do not need to be charged.
>From Louis Even
How many people have taken the trouble, or even had the idea of asking
themselves this question: We are too used to taking things as they are or
as we find them. We do not possess an inquisitive mind.
Who stops a moment while walking on the city sidewalk to ask himself where
the cement, the asphalt, etc. comes from? We put on the switch and the
living room is lighted: where does it matter, as long as the current does
not fail too often! And in our complex world of today, who can claim to
master all subjects? The very word "to master" is exaggerated. Without this
end in mind, the intelligent person seeks to become familiar with various
subjects.
Consider the subject that is our concern here, money. We use it all the
time, less so ever since its circulation has often been curtailed, but even
in face of this capicious flow, is there one person in a hundred who has
taken the trouble to trace its trajectory right up to its source? Even less
thought is given to this matter because of the general impression that the
government creates money. Is not coining and printing a prerogative of the
sovereign State! The individuals who wish to coin money do not get far, in
spite of their infinite precautions: the State whose rights they usurp is
quick in putting them behind bars. Then why this question: where does money
come from?
A counter-question will orient us in the right direction: if the State has
the exclusive right to create money, why does is always lack money? Why
must it limit spending, lay off good public servants, cancel public works
of an urgent nature, when neither men nor nor materials nor machines are
lacking?
The gold standard
Now this is indeed something to reflect on. - But, the son of my neighbour
who is a brilliant young man in his second year of philosophy class, will
remark, money is made of gold and silver if one discounts the vulgar coins
of the poor. Even then silver money is subordinated to that of gold; we
know, and gold does not grow like couch grass, not even like a melon crop
which requires attentive care.
-Very well said, my dear young man, but then if one is unable to dig up
gold from the earth which hides it so avariously, the poor human beings on
the surface will die of hunger and of wheat, and of their fields full of
wheat, and of their flocks which themselves do not wait for gold before
grazing the grass of the meadows; in front of their beautiful forests and
their deserted coal mines! Come now! Man's idolatry of the golden calf
won't go that far... Nevertheless, one has to admit that it does go a long
way.
By the way, my little philosopher, I was reading the other day, in article
that quotes from official statistics and gives me the impression of being
knowledgeable in these matters, that, all told, we have in Canada (in 1935)
only $78 million in gold, at $20 an ounce, which would give $130 million at
the new price, and yet there is more than $2,500 million in deposit in the
banks. Is that the gold standard? The amount of gold has no changed
noticeably, but the total amount of money experiences noticeable ups and
downs, even violent ones like the depression of 1930. The gold standard?
-Yes, but there is money, and there are bank notes, based on gold at least
in a certain proportion.
-Certainly, and there is even another kind of money which you have not
named that is much more used than the other, which does not depend on you
or me, nor on the government, but on a small group of legalized forgers,
feared, defended, and protected by those who should be defending and
protecting the people, and this is money which is the rub of the entire
situation, its manipulation carries a lot of weight; its abundance bring on
eras of prosperity which are termed "booms" because they arise suddenly and
reach unexplainable heights during normal conditions; its constraint
paralyzes people, creates unemployment and poverty while waiting for
revolutions.
Is this perhaps exaggerated? Make a little comparison between these years
(1935) and those that preceeded them. Do we not have the same machines, and
even more perfected ones than in 1928 and 1929? The same scientific
methods, and even ones more developed since then? The same army of workers,
with the same hearts and the same talents, perhaps even more numerous and
more impatient to work? What one remarks is that the circulation of money
was reduced by one third in a matter of a few months.
What is this you say, the quantity of money increases and decreases? Cer
tainly. Not so much the quantity of gold, of metallic money, of paper
money, but mostly this non-material money, a simple inscription in the
ledgers of the banker, who create this money, this "bookkeeping" money
which is much more important that the other, as it is used in 95% of all
commercial transactions.
The Ottawa government has a mint where it coins pieces of metal. According
to information given by Member of Parliament Ried by the Honourable
Dunning, Minister of Finance, last May 6 (1936), the printing of dollar
bills per day; at full capacity, it would be 10,000 bills per day (Hansard
of the House of Commons, page 2790). At full capacity and at 300 days a
year, this would amount to $3,000,000 per year, $18,000,000 in six years,
the deposits in the Canadian banks increased, not by $18 million, but by
$1,400 million. By what magic?
A bottle of ink. A pen
And a banker's ledger
It is very simple. Bookkeeping money does not require any metal, foundry,
or punch: all that is needed is a bottle of ink, a pen and a banker's
ledger.
At the present moment when the federal government creates with much labour,
with a return rate of 50%, its half a million dollars each year, it, the
sovereign, borrows $750 million from the creators of bookkeeping money
(Hansard, page 3991).
But there is not even $400 million in legal money in Canada? Never mind
about that, there is still ink in the banker'' bottle and these writings
are quite profitable to him; at the same time they mortgage the nation and
make us slaves of a private banking system. Do not go and suggest that the
government, the sovereign State, should instead have this privilege of
creating all necessary money, the material or bookkeeping type. The
Minister of Finance has himself declared right in the House, "the printing
press for money has never made a country richer". It is far better, they
would have us believe, to print obligations, chains of servitude towards
the bankers and let these themselves create the money.
The are our official and recognized forgers. Ignorant people, bow down and
kiss respectfully the gold chains that bind and will bind your children in
perpetual slavery.
But what is this bookkeeping money which you focus your attention upon?
An example will explain it. I will borrow it from one of these monthly
bulletins published by the banks and in which, ever since a study movement
of the money problem is forming and growing among the public, are distilled
big doses of chloroform.
A shoe manufacturer wishes to borrow $50,000. He goes to the bank. His case
is studied. This man knows how to run his factory, to maintain and increase
his number of customers. His case is good. The bank grants him the loan, of
course along with guarantees. Will the banker take $50,000 from his vault
and pass them to the borrower? Not so; hi will simply open an account and
place at his credit $50,000. After all, is this not as good as had the
banker passed him the sum and then he had deposited it immediately with
freedom to withdraw the amounts needed by means of cheques?
Absolutely new deposit
The minute after the banker makes this inscription, there is in Canada
$50,000 more than before. Indeed, no other deposit has been diminished;
this is an absolutely new deposit without money coming from any other
source. This is the magical wand by which the $50,000 came about, which did
not exist before, and which will be used to pay for the leather, the
machines, the employees.
The shoe manufacturer will put this money in circulation, however, hi will
have to repay it in three, four or six months time, whatever the
arrangements. To repay hi will sell his products, and the money taken out
of circulation will be given back to the bank: $50,000 plus the interest.
In the same measure that he repays this bookkeeping money, it disappears.
Loans and reimbursements go on every day, at different places and with
different customers. If the total amount of loans surpasses the total
amount of reimbursements, the quantity of money in circulation increases.
If the reimbursements return faster due to a constraint in credits, the
quantity of money decreases. This explains why it dropped by a third from
1929 to 1932.
Prerogative of the sovereign
Only the banks have this privilege, which should be the prerogative of the
sovereign, in our case the federal State. Let our shoe manufacturer go to,
let us say, Mr. Dubois, a former who has sold his farm. Mr. Dubois will
examine his case and exact the same guarantees as the banker, then hi will
loan him $50,000. But he will not have created anything. The $50,000 will
henceforth be in the shoe manufacturer's account but substracted from from
Mr. Dubois' account.
I know a certain Mr. Logic will tell me that the bank is obliged to answer
to all the requests for legal money (material money, metallic or in bills)
and therefore these reserves are needed. But, Mr. Logic knows, and knew
well before me, that with a reserve of $10,000, a banker can lend $100,000,
as experience has shown him that requests for legal money amount to less
than 10%. The story of the goldsmith who became a banker, which is a true
story, explains this elasticity, the creator, controller and master of
money.
Interests not created
One thing to remark in passing, that the banker creates the capital he
lends but he does not create the interests he demands. Where is one to take
it? From the manufacture's profit you will say. Yes, but the money will
nevertheless come from one source or another that does not have to power to
create it. Bankers do not want shoes or other products as interests but
money, money which they alone can create and which they alone can create
and which they do not create. Thus the necessity for new loans.
It is the same thing for governments. They borrow from the banks capital
created by the latter, and occupy themselves to take it from the public so
as to reimburse to the banks, a sum equal to this capital plus the
interest. When the public is drained and cannot even serve to pay the
interest, the government borrows once again; to repay the previous
obligations, they take one more onerous ones, and one wonders why the debt
keeps growing!
What must we conclude from this?
"Those who hold and control money govern credit and determine its
allotment, for that reason supplying so to speak, the life-blood to the
entire economic body which they hold the life in their hands, so that no
one dare breathe against their will" (Pius XI).
Severe, but how true these words of the Pope! A little further on in the
same encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno", can be found this remark which no
person will dare contradict:
"The whole economic life has become hard, cruel and relentless".
The pound of flesh
These are findings that are painful. The banking system which has led us
from crisis to crisis, each one more severe than the preceding one, does
not want to desist from its privileges. Yet it is not the one which repairs
the ruins. It wants the privileges and rejects the responsibilities. I have
never known of a case of the unemployed and those indigent being invite to
line up at the wicket counters of the banks. On the contrary, when the
treasury of the municipalities, of the provinces, and of the federal
government are used up and the people drained out of money can no longer
contribute, the representatives of the banks urge to limit spending, to
distribute less money to the workers, but never to meddle with the interest
rate, to the pound of flesh on which the banker feed himself.
Louis Even
Clarification
These criticisms should not be taken as directed against employees of
banks: not even against bank managers and inspectors. They are but workers
like you and me, from whom is required complex precision, irreproachable
integrity, proper dress, constant courtesy, and perfect obedience. It is
the system that is at fault, and the bank employees are the first ones to
suffer the consequences. This statement does not exonerate such big shots
of the type Holt, Gordon, Flavelle and others who call the tunes.
L.E.
On Sunday, December 20, 1998 6:19 PM, nurev [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Robert Gold wrote:
> >
> > Hi Joshua 2.
> >
> > Sorry to write you off list but I have a hard time writing on list for
> > a variety of reasons.
> >
> > You mentioned a few times that you are an anti-capitalist and
> > anti-socialist.
> >
> > Could you either on or off list explain what kind of system you believe
> > in.(By the way, I respect the way you aproach things in general, and am
> > very curious what system you believe in.)
> >
> > tibor
>
> Dear Tibor,
>
> Hod voyd? Quite frankly, it doesn't exist. But something approaching it
> could be described as a form of mixed economy. A synthesis of the better
> aspects of Socialism and Capitalism or anything else for that matter.
>
> If you get beyond the ideology of both major systems and look at what
> they actually do ( have done ), you can pick and choose from both. The
> very first place to look is among the Elites of both systems. The
> Capitalists Elites love the security socialism. But only for themselves.
> The Socialist Elites love the wealth that capitalist projects produce.
> But there is really not enough for both greed and need.
>
> I can't present you with a finished product but I know the raw materials
> necessary to build a composite system for now and the near future.
>
> Elitism - is why we have never had an equitable social system since the
> dawn of agriculture. Permanent elites MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ESTABLISH
> THEMSELVES. Rotate often through democratic control.
>
> Accumulation and centralization of wealth ( and economic power ) is why
> societies disintegrate into crime, violence and revolution.
>
> Ownership of the means of production has been in the hands of the State
> under ( Elite led ) Socialism, and in private Elite hands under
Capitalism.
> There is no reason why workers shouldn't own their means of production.
No
> reason that is except that ambitious thieves don't want to give up the
> goose that manufactures golden eggs.
>
> A few simple thoughts on a complex issue.
>
> Joshua2
>
> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
> ==========
> CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting
propagandic
> screeds are not allowed. Substance-not soapboxing! These are sordid
matters
> and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and
outright
> frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor
effects
> spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
> gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to
readers;
> be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
> nazi's need not apply.
>
> Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
>
> ========================================================================
> To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
> SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Om
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
