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US National Debt Clock -- In Real Time

US National Debt Clock -- In Real Time

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MetaCurrency Project

Metacurrency project from TheTransitioner on Vimeo.

Law of Attraction widget from Meebo

Zeitgeist Addendum

Zeitgeist Addendum Creator and Director - Peter Joseph

Transforming Money - from Debt to Empowerment

http://www.seek2know.net/money2.html

This is an awesome link I found at
the Complementary Currency Resource Center - cc library

The Future of Money

Mexico conference on Future of Money... from TheTransitioner on Vimeo.

What are Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and What are their Purpose?

Definition

SDRs are defined in terms of a basket of major currencies used in international trade and finance. At present, the currencies in the basket are, by weight, the United States dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, and the pound sterling. Before the introduction of the euro in 1999, the Deutsche Mark and the French franc were included in the basket. The amounts of each currency making up one SDR are chosen in accordance with the relative importance of the currency in international trade and finance. The determination of the currencies in the SDR basket and their amounts is made by the IMF Executive Board every five years.

The exact amounts of each currency in the basket, and their approximate relative contributions to the value of an SDR, in the past were and currently are:^[1]

Purpose

SDRs are used as a unit of account by the IMF and several other international organizations. A few countries peg their currencies against SDRs, and it is also used to denominate some private international financial instruments. For example, the Warsaw convention, which regulates liability for international carriage of persons, luggage or goods by air uses SDRs to value the maximum liability of the carrier.

In Europe, the Euro is displacing the SDR as a basis to set values of various currencies, including Latvian lats. This is a result of the ERM II convergence criteria which now apply to states entering the European Union.

SDRs were originally created to replace Gold and Silver in large international transactions. Being that under a strict (international) gold standard, the quantity of gold worldwide is relatively fixed, and the economies of all participating IMF members as an aggregate are growing, a perceived need arose to increase the supply of the basic unit or standard proportionately. Thus SDRs, or "paper gold", are credits that nations with balance of trade surpluses can 'draw' upon nations with balance of trade deficits.

So-called "paper gold" is little more than an accounting transaction within a ledger of accounts, which eliminates the logistical and security problems of shipping gold back and forth across borders to settle national accounts.

Joseph Stiglitz has argued that usage by central banks of SDRs as foreign exchange reserve could be viewed as the prelude to the creation of a single world currency.^[2] It must be understood that Gold and Silver have filled the role as global currencies for several thousand years of recorded history, and that the SDR as a storage of value is not a normal fiat currency.

It has also been suggested that having holders of US dollars convert those dollars into SDRs would allow diversification away from the dollar without accelerating the decline of the value of the dollar.^[3][4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Drawing_Rights

Q. What are your reasons for thinking that "Islamic banking isn't Islamic"?

Nadine Marroushi interviewed Tarek El Diwany in London during Summer 2007.

A. "My point is a little more refined than that. I am saying that Islamic commercial banking is not Islamic, and this is because commercial banking is a combination of usury and misrepresentation. The practice of usury is obvious and involves the advancing of money now in return for more money later, while the misrepresentation is less obvious and involves the creation of money out of nothing. Most of the time, the money that commercial banks lend is money that they themselves have created. Since neither usury nor misrepresentation can be Islamised, and since the business model of commercial banking requires both, there cannot be such a thing as Islamic commercial banking. For the same reason, there cannot be such a thing as an Islamic central bank. Historically, the Muslim world has had neither commercial banks nor central banks, though of course it did have institutions that fulfilled permissible functions such as payment transfer. In our rush to create an Islamic banking and finance industry, we have forgotten to ensure that the money we are using is itself Islamic. Islamic finance cannot be practiced with money that is un-Islamic. We therefore need a very fundamental reform of the institutional framework in Islamic banking and finance, but unfortunately the industry is simply refusing to address the issue."

http://www.islamic-finance.com/item149_f.htm

Interest

The amount of money charged by a lender / paid by a borrower for the use of money over a given period of time is referred to as interest. Thus a man who borrows $100 for one year and repays the $100 plus an extra $10 to the lender, has paid $10 interest. Interest is often expressed as a percentage of the principal. Here the rate of interest would be 10% per year since $10/$100 = 10%.

Islamic Banking isn't Islamic

by Tarek El Diwany
Original Summer 2000; updated June 2003

An abridged version of this article was published in Banker Middle East during November 2002

These are all signs that something has gone badly wrong in this industry. But I'm not saying that it is all the fault of the people on the inside. The Western academic establishment is at least partly responsible for the way that the Islamic financiers are thinking. For example, because Brealey and Myers have written a standard text on corporate finance, they are probably as big a force in Islamic finance as Judge Taqi Usmani. It is awfully hard to escape from the value judgements that the overwhelming mass of usury-based finance books contain. That's why an educated Muslim in Islamic finance can ask his client a shocking question such as 'what cost of finance are you looking for?' without thinking twice. He's been taught by Brealey and Myers that fixed-rate finance plays a part in any 'good' financing structure and so off he goes in search of a way to do fixed-rate finance Islamically. The possibility that fixed-rate finance may be completely incompatible with Islam in the first place may not even occur.

http://www.islamic-finance.com/item100_f.htm

Islamic Banking: Steady in Shaky Times

Principles Based on Religious Law Insulate Industry From Worst of Financial Crisis
By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 31, 2008; Page A16

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- As big Western financial institutions have teetered one after the other in the crisis of recent weeks, another financial sector is gaining new confidence: Islamic banking.

Proponents of the ancient practice, which looks to sharia law for guidance and bans interest and trading in debt, have been promoting Islamic finance as a cure for the global financial meltdown.

This week, Kuwait's commerce minister, Ahmad Baqer, was quoted as saying that the global crisis will prompt more countries to use Islamic principles in running their economies. U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmet, visiting Jiddah, said experts at his agency have been learning the features of Islamic banking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004434.html

What is the Community Exchange System?

The Community Exchange System (CES) is a community-based, global trading network using a money other than our familiar national ones — an alternative, parallel, local, community or complementary currency system. In short, the CES is a new money system.

What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - A new, usury-free money and banking system for the commons, free of private control and manipulation.
Describe what makes your idea unique—different from all others in the field. - Complementary currencies are growing in popularity throughout the world but these are mostly stand-alone initiatives. The CES is the first global complementary currency network. It is an attempt to introduce a new, community-based but global money and banking system. It uses a money that is fundamentally different from our conventional national monies. This money does not 'exist' like conventional money and as such does not have to be 'created' and there is thus no need to 'have' it before anything can happen. CES 'money' is a retrospective record of what has already happened, not a barrier preventing things from happening. Although the CES is internet based it works for those who do not have computers through local-area 'branches'. Trading is streamlined as it is the sellers in the system who enter or get entered the transaction records. This eliminates the frustrations involved in getting paid: sending accounts, waiting for payment, debt collecting, bad debts etc. A seller can never not get paid. By placing the power of money control in the hands of sellers, the employer/employee relationship is turned upside down.

Tim Jenkin
Administrator
Community Exchange System
(NGO)

Project URL: http://www.community-exchange.org
Source: http://www.changemakers.net/node/9749

The Money Fix Trailer

A Film by Alan Rosenblith

Audio on TimeBanking from Marketplace Public Radio

February 27th, 2009
Story by Paul Rockower

Bridge to Tomorrow, Time Banking in Action

Bridge to Tomorrow - a film about timebanking aimed at the over 50s, although relevant to anyone interested in timebanking

What is Time Banking?

Jon Snow Interviews Professor Edgar Cahn. In this short clip Edgar explains the simple concept of Time Banking - Volunteering for the 21st Century

http://www.timebanks.org/
http://www.timebanking.org
http://www.communitychannel.org/you

Money as Debt

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States

Duncan - www.onebigtorrent.org

The Need for Monetary Reform by Stephen Zarlenga

Monetary reform is the critical missing element needed to move humanity back from the brink of nuclear disaster, away from a future dominated by fraud and warfare, toward a world of justice and beauty.

The power to create money is an awesome power – at times stronger than the Executive, Legislative or Judicial powers combined. It’s like having a “magic checkbook,” where checks can’t bounce. When controlled privately it can be used to gain riches, but more importantly it determines the direction of our society by deciding where the money goes – what gets funded and what does not. Will it be used to build and repair vital infrastructure such as Levees to protect major cities? Or will it go into warfare or real estate loans, creating asset price inflation - the real estate bubble.

http://www.monetary.org/need_for_monetary_reform.html

What is Riba? The Prohibition of Interest and Usury in Islam by Christine Benlafquih Jan 23, 2009

Islam provides guidelines for all aspects of life, including trade and economics. Of great importance to Muslims is the prohibition against interest and usury.

Muslims refer to the interest or usury applied to loans, credit purchases or other kinds of deferred payments as riba. Riba is regarded as unethical and unfair to the borrower, and is clearly forbidden in Islam.
Definition of Riba

The Arabic word riba linguistically means “an addition to, or an increase of, a thing over and above its original size or amount.” In the Qur’an, the term riba signifies an unlawful and forced addition to the payback value of money or goods lent from one person to another.

http://islamic-law.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_riba

The facts about Usury by Sahib Mustaqim Bleher

At times of economic hardship, when every good idea fails, just because "the money can't be found", when a decline in services is explained with the need "to reduce the deficit", when business can't afford new investment because of the "high cost of borrowing", when mortgage rates have gone up so much that it becomes diffcult to maintain a decent living standard, many small savers still think that high interest rates mean at least that they get the most out of their savings. The truth is, they pay more than they get.

According to most governments the only ways to control the deficit are to raise taxes or to cut government spending. However, considering that the deficit continues to grow simply because of the exorbitant amounts of compound interest added to the original debt, one of the most effective ways to reduce the deficit would be to reduce interest rates.

Lower interest rates = lower deficit

In fact, at zero interest, the debt would not grow at all, and the large amounts of money spent in servicing the debt could be used to pay it off.

Now consider what the Qur'ân has to say on the subject of usury, that is lending money at interest:

Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the devil by his touch has driven to madness. That is because they say: Trade is like usury: but Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury.... Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity, for He loves not any ungrateful sinner.... O you who believe, fear Allah and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if you are indeed believers. If you do it not, take notice of war from Allah and His messenger, but if you repent you shall have your capital sums; deal not unjustly, and you shall not be dealt with unjustly. And if the debtor is in difficulty, grant him time til it is easy for him to repay. But if you remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if you only knew. [Surah al Baqarah, verse 275-280 ].

How urgently is this message needed in a world where the "debt crisis" threatens to destroy and annihilate our civilization, were open warfare is increasingly the consequence of the anxiety and suffering that spring from third world debt. Politicians have seldom looked at money-lending at interest as the cause of widespread poverty in the midst of plenty, because whilst this practice was once forbidden by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, it has become universally accepted in the modern world of secularism. It has been argued that money is a "producer good" and that the lender should receive a share of the extra wealth that these goods produce. Yet this is illogical on several points. The only true producer of wealth (i.e. goods and services) is Labour when it is applied to either Land or Capital. Unlike Land, Money is infinite when not artificially restricted, which it often is. Money is man-made out of nothing and at tiny real cost. This credit creation confers enormous economic power and influence on those usually private institutions who have secured for themselves monopoly rights in this money issue.

That private banks create money out of nothing is a fact too little known amongst the public. Our national debt stands at over 200 billion pounds, and that of other industrialized countries is of similar magnitude. Have you ever asked yourself who is that fabulous lender who always seems to have all the money which the government does not have? Whom does the nation owe the national debt? The truth is that when banks create money (as cheque-money or blips on computer screens) they lend what they have not got to reap where they did not sow. Their loans are not backed by any real wealth on their behalf. Nor do they lend out depositors' money (or when did the bank last tell you that you can't take out money from your account, because it has been lent to someone else?). When you give your house or business as guarantee for their money, this money is not backed by gold, silver or tangible wealth. It is an empty promise except for the fact that the government, with the central bank as lender of the last resort, is ready to bail out the banks should a run on their money occur. Bank-created credit is based on the nation's capacity to produce and consume in the sense that whilst it is not issued nor backed by the government, the government - being the largest debtor - guarantees a certain return in debt service payments from its revenue. An increasing part of local and national government taxation today is raised for the purpose of servicing the interest payments on local and national government debt. So whether you personally borrow or not, you pay the interest on that fictitious money. Likewise, when you take a bank loan, you pay at least twice: you give a guarantee of real wealth in case of default, and you pay a penalty (as interest) for accepting money as a loan which costs the lender nothing and did not exist until it was created as a loan to you. Heads you lose, tails you lose again...

As should be evident by now, to base an economy on interest is a pretty stupid way of servicing a nation's need to produce, consume and trade. It results in the evils of inflation, unemployment, decline of services, trading war, and finally, shooting-wars. Using interest rates as a means to control the problems of a nation's economy is futile, as these problems were created by interest in the first place. Only when a government creates its own money supply free of charge to the nation to facilitate production, consumption and trade, instead of authorising private banks to create the nation's money and then holding the nation at ransom by breaking its back under the ensuing interest debt, only when we get back to a system where the usurer is not being rewarded for taking advantage of others' difficulties, will we achieve real prosperity.

Islam, often laughed at for sticking to its principles and not "moving with the times", has never given in to the demands of the money-lenders to change its tough stance on interest. Naturally, Islam has increasingly been attacked by the financial interests behind today's media and politics. Looking at the evidence with an open mind, however, it should not take you long to realise that Islam makes sense, and interest doesn't.

http://www.mustaqim.co.uk/usury.htm

Fractional Reserve Banking by Vladimir Z. Nuri

Fractional Reserve Banking as Economic Parasitism by Vladimir Z. Nuri

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Business money world

HOW THE FED CREATES MONEY

We've been talking about how the privately owned Federal Reserve can produce money from thin air. Here's how it's done.

1. The purchase of bonds is approved by the Federal Open Market Committee.

2. The Fed buys the bonds which it pays for with electronic credits made to the sellers bank. These credits are based on nothing.

3. The receiving banks then use these credits as reserves from which they can loan out ten times the amount.

To reduce the amount of money in the economy they simply reverse the process.

The Fed sells bonds to the public and money is drawn from the purchasers bank to pay for them.

Each million withdrawn lowers the banks ability to loan by 10 million.

The Federal bank in this way has overall control of the US money supply, as each country's central bank does in the same way. The bankers, through the magic of fractional reserve banking have been delegated the right to create 90% of the money supply. This control makes a mockery of any elected government. It places so called leaders behind a toy steering wheel, like the plastic ones, set up to amuse small children.

(quoted from http://www.xat.org/xat/worldbank.html)

The World Bank and the IMF

THE WORLD CENTRAL BANK (1948 - Present)


In Washington, the headquarters of both the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) face each other on the same street. What are these organisations, and who controls them?

To find out we need to look back to just after WWI. At this point the money changers were attempting to consolidate the central banks under the guise of peacemaking. To stop future wars they put forward the formation of a world central bank named the Bank of International Settlements, a world court called the World Court in the Hague, and a world executive for legislation called the League of Nations.

In his 1966 book entitled Tragedy and Hope, president Clinton's mentor Carroll Quigley writes about this.

"The powers of financial capitalism had [a] far-reaching [plan], nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.

Each central bank... Sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
Carroll Quigley, Professor, Georgetown University

They got 2 out of 3. The league of nations failed largely owing to the suspicions of the people and while opposition concentrated on this, the other two proposals snuck their way through.

It would take another war to wear the public resistance down. Wall street invested heavily to rebuild Germany, as the Chase bank had propped up the Russian revolution.

Now the Chase merged with the Warburg's Manhattan Bank to form the Chase Manhattan which would later merge with the Chemical Bank to become the largest bank on Wall Street.

In 1944 the US approved its full participation in the IMF and the World Bank. By 1945 the second League of Nations was approved under the new name 'The United Nations'. The war had dissolved all opposition. The methods used in the National Banking Act of 1864 and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 were now simply used on a Global scale.

The Federal Reserve Act allowing the creation of Federal Reserve notes is mirrored by the IMF's authority to produce money called Special Drawing Rights (SDR's). 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.

We have gone from the goldsmith's fraud being reproduced on a national scale through the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, to a Global level with the IMF and the World Bank. Unless we together stop giving these exchange units their power by our collective faith in them, the future will probably see the Intergalactic Bank and the Federation of Planets Reserve set up in much the same way.

This radical transfer of power has taken place with absolutely no mandate from the people.

Nations borrow Special Drawing Right 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 just 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.

As world resources continue to be sucked into this insatiable black hole of greed, if allowed to continue the entire world will face a simular fate.

As one prominent Brazilian politician, Luis Ignacio Silva,ðput it.

"Without being radical or overly bold, I will tell you that the Third World War has already started - a silent war, not for that reason any the less sinister. This war is tearing down Brazil, Latin America and practically all the Third World. Instead of soldiers dying there are children, instead of millions of wounded there are millions of unemployed; instead of destruction of bridges there is the tearing down of factories, schools, hospitals, and entire economies . . . It is a war by the United States against the Latin American continent and the Third World. It is a war over the foreign debt, one which has as its main weapon interest, a weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than a laser beam . ."1

If a group or organisation had used its hard earned money to help these developing nations, then we might sympathise that there should be a real effort to repay these loans. But the money used was created from fractional reserve banking. The money loaned to the Third World came from the 90% the banks allow themselves to loan on the 10% they actually held. It didn't exist, it was created from nothing, and now people are suffering and dying in an effort to pay it back.

This has gone beyond clever financing, it's whole sale murder and it's time we stopped it. We can!

If you haven't already, read XAT3 to see how.


1. Luis Ignacio Silva, at the Havana Debt Conference in August 1985, quoted by Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt p 238