Newsletter No. 21 - March 2009

Links to other Newsletters can be found here.

Introduction

This is another short-term update on progress towards getting monetary reform on to the G20 agenda for their meeting on 2nd April.

If you’re not terribly interested in monetary reform, please bear with me. The frequency of these newsletters and the concentration on that topic will ease up after the next three weeks or so.

1. Petitions

(i) The UK No 10 petition to the Prime Minister (mentioned in the last newsletter) is now supported by more than 200 signatories.

It needs many more by 2nd April to contribute powerfully to a growing international campaign for monetary reform. (Most people don't yet understand that the way the present money system works motivates almost everyone in the world to help to destroy the prospect of human survival beyond the end of this century.)

As I said in the last newsletter, please consider signing the petition even if you are not yet fully committed to supporting monetary reform, as it only asks for the subject to be discussed at this stage. It is also quick and easy to sign.

Please let anyone you think may be interested know about this and, if you’re a member of any network, please also let them know.

Please note that for practical purposes the deadline is 30th March, not 30th April, as the petition states. So there are two weeks left.

You can sign the petition at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/G20moneyreform

(ii) Similar petitions in Germany and France have been stimulated by our example:

Germany - www.freiwirte.de/resolution.htm

France - www.cyberacteurs.org/actions/lettre.php?id=382

Support in France and Belgium can also be found at http://aises-fr.org/citoyen.html and www.agoravox.fr/article.php3?id_article=51872.

2. Fred Harrison and Ross Ashcroft have just produced an excellent 8-minute film introducing my ideas with the title "It's Our Money Anyway". It was shot at my house and various locations in London, including outside Downing Street and the Bank of England.

This is how Fred describes the film:

"Governments say banks are too important to society to allow to go bust. What is the social component of the financial sector, and why isn't it held within the public domain if it's that important?

James Robertson, a doyen of the alternative economics movement, offers an answer. He links monetary to fiscal (tax shift) reform in our latest documentary."

You can see the film here - www.jamesrobertson.com/videoandaudio.htm.

Fred has been outstanding for his correct predictions of the present boom/bust crash - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Harrison_(Author). See also his website at www.renegadeeconomist.com.

His Renegade Economist channel on YouTube shows a series of short films (not much more than 6 minutes each) on the fundamental problems affecting the global economy - www.youtube.com/renegadeeconomist.

3. "Why should banks be given the incredible privilege of creating a nation’s wealth, for their own profit?" asks James Bruges in his great short article Pseudo-money in the latest issue of Resurgence at www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2747-Pseudo-Money.html.

(A sample copy of the issue can be downloaded from www.resurgence.org/subscribe/sample-download.html.)

Who decreed that we have to depend on commercial banks to create as profit-making debt almost the whole of the money supply we need, and why? God or Nature didn't decree it.

Ministers, legislators, finance ministries and central banks etc in all the G20 countries simply must not be allowed to continue avoiding these questions.

4.  What is "Quantitative Easing"? This term refers to the special authorisation now being given to the Bank of England to "print" new money out of thin air. The conventional wisdom normally throws up its hands in horror at the idea of our money supply being created as a public service.
 
So "quantitative easing" is presented as a one-off dose of a very special laxative designed in response to the present financial emergency to clear the constipation of the commercial banks after their gargantuan profit-making "credit" binge.

The hope is that this will be a successful last-ditch measure to persuade the commercial banks to resume their printing of the public money supply themselves out of thin air, and keep us dependent on them for creating it.

How crazy can the conventional wisdom get? Subject to the necessary safeguards to prevent political and electoral misuse and avoid inflation, getting the professionally independent Bank of England to create the amount of money we need, should be seen as a step towards a much better way for a 21st-century democracy to provide itself with its money supply.

5. Russia and the G20.

“The existing financial system, no matter how good it might be or how much some state may like it, is outdated. This is why I hope that the G20 summit in London on April 2nd will reach a consensus on key aspects of modernisation..". President Medvedev in Spain on 2nd March.

More at www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13637913.

6. Banking Secrecy and Tax Havens - www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/03/gordon-brown-tax-havens.

Gordon Brown and other G20 leaders must act seriously on this. See the Tax Justice Network's specific practical proposals at http://taxjustice.blogspot.com.

7. Michel Chossudovsky from Canada powerfully criticises President Obama's economic package as "leading to social havoc and the potential impoverishment of millions of people, largely serving the interests of Wall Street, the defence contractors and the oil conglomerates, and leading America into a spiralling public debt crisis. ...

The economic and social dislocations are potentially devastating... Meaningful policies cannot be achieved without radically reforming the workings of the international banking system. What is ultimately required is to disarm the financial establishment."

A full account is at www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12517.

8. Global Financial Meltdown: Forces beyond our control? Or the biggest Sting ever? This is another forceful blast from Canada in support for radical monetary reform, this one by Dave Patterson.

"If you turn off the television, and turn on your brain, and realise what a huge scam this whole thing really is, and the brazen theft of not only your money but the money of your children and grandchildren who will be paying these fraudulent debts for generations - then maybe you will find the strength and wisdom to do what is really necessary - stand up and say No More!!! - take control of your democracy, take back your money from those who are stealing it in front of your very faces, and send all of them to jail for the rest of their lives."

Full, illustrated text at www.rudemacedon.ca/greatest-sting-ever.html.

9. Marian Farrell of Transition Derry (http://transitionderry.ning.com) interviewed me by phone on 11th March on the significance of monetary reform for a more decentralised and greener way of financial, economic and social life. The recorded interview should shortly be available on their website (see above) and mine.

10. On 28th March, thousands will march through London as part of a global campaign to challenge the G20, ahead of their 2nd April summit on the global financial crisis. More information - www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk.

James Robertson
14th March, 2009