Ascending The Globe Series: Part 1(Pillar 2a section): A Revelation for Mankind By Edward D.R. James
Pillar Two: The People’s Power over Money and Credit—using Public Banks along with the Universal Single Payer system to Compensate Us All
September 17, 2017 marked the 230th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution—may all the heavens and earth join us, throughout the subsequent years, to celebrate this monumental event in human history. Within our Constitution dwells a passage (Article I, Section 8, paragraph 5) granting our Congress the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
THEREFORE, BY REFERENDUM OR BY REPRESENTATION, WE THE PEOPLE WILL EXERCISE OUR AUTHORITY TO CREATE, ISSUE, AND CONTROL THE MONETARY AND CREDIT SYSTEMS TO BE OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE. Our legislative process can raise this pillar to support a more perfect union among our peoples.
If you’ve ever thought that the creation and control of the entire money system should go back to the hands of people, then you would be in the company of greatness:
Father of the U.S. Constitution, President James Madison proclaimed, “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
Founding Father, President Thomas Jefferson declared, “I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”
In his autobiography, Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin published, “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME REASON FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.”
President Abraham Lincoln stated, “The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the BUYING POWER OF CONSUMERS…The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity…By the adoption of these principles…the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity.”
In Bill Still’s enlightening documentary “The Money Masters” (source of the above quotes), Bill narrates, “In the mid 1700’s, pre-revolution America was still relatively poor. There was a severe shortage of precious metal coins to trade for goods. So the early colonists were forced to experiment with printing their own home grown paper money…Colonial Scrip was just paper money, debt free money, printed in the public interest, and not backed by gold or silver coin. In other words it was a totally fiat currency…One day, officials at the Bank of England asked Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity of the colonies, without hesitation Benjamin Franklin replied, ‘…In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we have no interest to pay to no one.”[xxxvi]
Begrudgingly, the British Crown stripped from American hands their Colonial Scrip, fertilizing the seeds of revolution. In yet another pivotal moment, the documentary explained, “In 1861, Lincoln and his Secretary of Treasury, Salmon P. Chase went to New York to apply for the necessary loan (to win the Civil War). The money changers anxious to see the union fail offered loans at 24-36% interest, which Lincoln declined. Lincoln sent for an old friend, Cornel Dick Taylor of Chicago, and (assigned him to find solutions for) financing the war. Lincoln asked Taylor what he discovered, Taylor put it this way, ‘…just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes…and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.’—Colonel Dick Taylor (continued)—‘The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that expressed right by the Constitution.’ In 1862-1863, he printed $450 million (at no interest to the federal government) worth of the new bills, in order to distinguish them from other bank notes in circulation, he printed them in green ink on the back side. That’s why the notes were called ‘Green Backs’.”36
Bill quoted Historian, W. Cleon Skousen saying, “Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln’s brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution.” Bill continued, “The money changers wanted two things: the reinstitution of a central bank under their exclusive control and an American currency backed by gold. Their strategy was twofold. First of all, cause a series of panics to try to convince the American people only centralized control of the money supply could provide economic stability. And secondly, remove so much money from the system that most Americans would be so desperately poor that they either wouldn’t care, or would be too weak to oppose the bankers.” The film displayed a table regarding the amount of money in circulation during certain time periods. The table entitled ‘Post Civil War Depression’ (showed):
In Yr:1866 / Total Dollars:$1.8 billion / Per capita:$50.46
In Yr:1886 / Total Dollars:$0.4 billion / Per Capita:$6.67
In those 20 short years the banks removed roughly $1.4 billion from circulation and dramatically reduced the people’s livelihood by $43.79 Per Capita; and back in those days a dollar would’ve bought a lot more bread, than today. Midway through those years in 1877, panic quickly turned into riots from Pittsburg to Chicago. The documentary admitted, “Today economists try to sell the idea that recessions and depressions are a natural part of something they call the business cycle. The truth is our money supply is manipulated now just as it was before and after the Civil War. How did money become so scarce? Simple, bank loans were called in and no new ones were given, in addition silver coins were melted down.” 36
As the documentary noted, “They began a periodic fleecing of the flock, as they called it, by creating economic booms and followed by further depressions so that they could buy up thousands of homes and farms for pennies on the dollar. An excerpt of an 1891 document from the American Bankers Association (as printed in the Congressional Record of April 29, 1913), exposed a planned recession three years in advance which stated, ‘On Sept. 1st, 1894, we will not renew our loans under any consideration. On Sept. 1st we will demand our money. We will foreclose and become mortgagees in possession. We can take two-thirds of the farms west of the Mississippi, and thousands of them east of the Mississippi as well, at our own price…Then the farmers will become tenants as in England…”36
The banks countered the Lincoln Greenbacks’ lure of making a comeback by repeatedly contracting the money supply. Today, over a hundred years later, a more complex crisis is laying siege upon us, at all levels of government, especially the individual states. For instance, prior to the Illinois legislators’ vote last July, WGN News, a local Chicago newscast interviewed Financial Expert, Terry Savage. Referring to the Wall St Journal’s article “Illinois Sinks”, Terry claimed that Illinois has:
-$14.6 billion in unpaid bills
-$250 billion in unfunded pensions debt
-$1.6 billion in higher education cuts (already-professors may be leaving)
-$2.3 billion of road projects in jeopardy (20,000 jobs were on the balance)
Terry Savage said, “People are leaving this state. More people had left Illinois than any other state for the third year in a row. Our growth is slowing. We have a slower growth than all of the surrounding states, except Iowa and we’re tied with them…Illinois is obligated to cut spending, raise taxes, or default on promises.”[xxxvii]
I suppose, if Rauner thinks that taking an oath as governor excuses him to a $15 billion bill backlog, to jeopardize Illinois into having a junk bond status, to adding $800 million of late payment interest penalties (according to Illinois Comptroller, Susana Mendoza), then he may prove to be another leader who walks the fine line between arrogance and negligence. Fortunately, the Illinois General Assembly did amass enough bipartisan votes to override Gov. Rauner’s vetoes and pass a balanced budget. By the estimate of state Senator Linda Holmes, that balanced budget dropped the bill backlog by up to $8 billion. Had the legislature not passed the budget, the bill backlog would have ballooned to $28 billion by the end of Rauner’s term. I’m not sure the good voters who backed Rauner, expected his business acumen to culminate into “playing chicken” with the General Assembly to bankrupt Illinois.
What’s particularly troubling is that Illinois is not the only state in the red. With little research you’ll find that most states, and nations for that matter, are sinking more times than they are swimming. As previously mentioned, the internet is saturated with predictions of the next economic collapse, having a laundry list of complex, potential triggers: quantitative easing blowback, underfunded pensions, retail store closures and dismal sales across numerous industries, tsunamis of underemployment, declining tax revenues from the wealthy and underemployed, budget deficits at the federal, state, and municipal levels, government debt-ceiling crisis, trade deficits, skyrocketing household, student, & commercial debts, housing bubble relapse, market manipulation, national healthcare crisis, infrastructure failures, polarized politics leading to potential government shutdowns, currency devaluation and impending hyperinflation, over-taxing the middle and low income classes while undercutting their buying power, government spending cuts and hyper-austerity, privatizing government assets, talks of secessions, wars and rumors of wars, so on and so forth. With all this propaganda of self-induced pandemonium, it’s as if we’re beginning the birth pangs of a new economic paradigm.
Before I get into the details of the Revelation Model’s second pillar, let’s go through a brief rundown of the obsolete system we currently inherit. The U.S. Treasury Dept. creates and sells bonds to centralized private banks (the FED) in exchange for money to pay for expenses on the federal budget, which our tax revenues alone could not completely cover. These bonds, however, are purchased with money the centralized private banks create out of thin air, by simply typing it into their computer. Why pay back the interest on the bond, when we could have issued the currency interest free? As the iconic American inventor, Thomas Edison postulated, “It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.”36
The debt is exacerbated by the compound effects of fractional reserve banking. Private Banks don’t loan out all their cash at hand. Depending on their reserve requirement, they loan out ten or more times the money than they actually have in their vault, or they have deposited in a Federal Reserve Bank. The private banks do this by considering its customers’ deposits as loanable amounts. The banks pool the amount of deposits together and, as financial intermediaries, are suppose to practice prudent lending; perhaps rewarding you with some of that whopping interest you see in your savings deposit today. The process feeds into itself so that “deposit” money snowballs into more loanable debt, which snowballs into more “deposit” money, which snowballs into bigger debt, and so on and so forth. When the banks issue loans, they clear these applications with the “underwriting of the day”, type it into their computer, then “Abracadabra” money is created. It’s no wonder why the shrewd banking Founder of the House of Rothschild, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, confessed, “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” 36
Private, public, or otherwise, all this debt adds up…until we all wake up one day, ten of trillions of dollars in debt later. Polarized—we find ourselves at each other’s throats, arguing about how to divvy up the bill, steeped in waist-high polluted waters, which are rising by the day. This current system is an experiment that has run its course. All things considered, it gave us the best it could, under the culture that ruled over it, and left us with a mixed bag of unresolved issues and emotions. The current experiment gave us advancements both positive and negative, and now it’s time for the people to grab the baton and run with a new system, a novel paradigm, subject to the will of the people.
Make no mistake, if we do not explore the creation of our new economy, the establishment will fill the void with their next rigged financial system; hand tailored to garb and girdle their status quo. Who knows what their new merry-go-round of madness will look like? Maybe they’ll revoke our ability to take cash out of our own accounts, preventing any potential run on the banks. Maybe they’ll issue a mandate for us to turn in all our cash and precious metals, as President FDR did with gold. Maybe they’ll push negative interest rates, add, and bump up other fees; so we pay them for holding our hard earned money hostage. Maybe they’ll launch FEDCOIN, or the FED’s version of BITCOIN; giving the illusion of a sleek, new monetary system. Maybe they’ll combo all of this and concede to universal basic income; only as a contrivance to remain sitting in the seat of power.
If we go back to the gold standard, then beware of the golden rule: “He who has the most gold—rules”. Haven’t we already—“been there and done that?” Should gold resume the object of man, then we condemn ourselves to re-live centuries of transgression and war idolizing a failed game. Making matters worse, the manipulation of gold has already spilled over from physical to digital. In December 2016 Reuters reported, “Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a mere $60 million to settle in a U.S. gold price-fixing case (not claiming responsibility of course)…Investors sued Deutsche Bank, Barclays Plc, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale in 2014, claiming that they conspired to fix gold prices from 2004 to 2013.” In early June of last year, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed and settled charges against former trader, David Liew, for engaging in numerous acts of spoofing, and manipulating the gold and silver futures market. The CFTC stated that, “Liew coordinated this trading with another precious metals trader at another large financial institution. The intent of triggering the customer stop-loss orders was to allow the traders to buy precious metals futures contracts at artificially low prices or sell precious metals futures contracts at artificially high prices.” These market manipulations occurred during the time, former Congressman Ron Paul, was mocked for attempting to pass a bill that would completely audit and assay the gold in Fort Knox; giving assurance to the people that all the gold was still there. CNN Money reported, in June 2011, that the Treasury Department and Government Accountability Office audits the gold based on sample sizes (not the complete lot as then Congressman Ron Paul adhered to).
Albert Einstein said it best, “You cannot solve the problems of the world with the same thinking that created it”.
ERGO THE REVELATION MODEL WILL OPEN PUBLICLY OWNED AND OPERATED BANKS TO EXERCISE OUR AUTHORITY TO CREATE, ISSUE, AND CONTROL THE MONETARY AND CREDIT SYSTEMS.
Although it’s not required, we will provide the option for private banks to convert into public banks. This Great Transition will certainly honor the banks right to remain private, but they must follow the same regulations as the public banks, or else it will be deemed as noncompliant and will be paid far less, or deemed as insolvent and will undergo procedures similar to the protocols of insolvency used today.
Economics Professor and longtime advocate of public banks, Richard Wolff, often refers to North Dakota’s thriving public state bank, called the Bank of North Dakota, launched almost a hundred years ago, in 1919. Mr. Wolff stated that those who promoted the bank “wanted the money that flowed into the state, county, and city governments of North Dakota, to be deposited in the people’s banks. Any interest earned on that should be folded back into the coffers of the state, to help the state do the things it does for its people. And moreover, the state should favor North Dakotans who need money for their personal needs, for their small businesses, and so on.” Since their profits don’t go to the hands of private shareholders, in 2011, there were enough profits to rebate $70 million to the state of North Dakota; which could go towards the needs of their residents, or lower their taxes.
“Number two” Mr. Wolff continued, “the bank pays very low salaries relative to what other bankers get. For example, the top two officials of the Bank of North Dakota get $232,000 a year and $135,000 a year…they are paid as public employees…Last point, as a public bank, it has a different bottom-line. It doesn’t maximize profit for shareholders. For example, an interesting program it has long had, is a partnership in assisting community expansion quoting [the bank] to ‘provide loans at below market interest rate to businesses if and only if those businesses create at least one job for every $100,000 loan made to them.’ Wow a bank that links its loans to job creation…in a conservative state…isn’t it interesting that they hold on to their public, not private, bank…There’s a lesson there, somewhere…[there are] 20 other states with some kind of legislation planned to possibly go in that direction and establish state banks…” Since Mr. Wolff’s statement, we can include to this growing list of public bank sanctuaries: Washington, D.C. and the City of Los Angeles.
Mother Jones published an article in March 2017 reporting that “officials in Philadelphia and Oakland, California, are taking a hard look at the idea, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, has done a feasibility study that concluded a city-run bank would benefit the community, socially and economically. If done right, the report found, the bank would create a ‘robust local lending climate’ and bring in millions of dollars per year in revenue.” The article went on to say that “there are already successful public banks in France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere…Moreover, from 1910 to 1966, US post offices operated as de facto public banks where people could deposit and borrow small sums.” Public Banks have been around for over a hundred years and has proven worthy of expansion, which the Revelation Model will ratify. In addition, the RM will aim to employ the best practices for newer currency systems and technologies.
As I alluded to earlier, it may be possible for the RM to use a cryptocurrency much like Bitcoin’s block-chain technology, as a public ledger system, backed by the SDR Inventory Network of a nation’s Resource Oriented Economy. That statement is so important that it does bear repeating, since pegging a nation’s currency to the stability of the quantity and quality valuations of its resources may quell the forces of hyperinflation—perhaps in time replacing the GDP and GNP entirely. Of course, this will be tested side by side to our current economy for decades, maybe longer, before a nation’s people would be confident enough to bring its activation to a vote; thereby backing up that currency to the full faith and credit of that nation’s people.
Again, one of the purposes of the RM is to pursue an economic system that can verifiably be of the people, by the people, and for the people; that we can validate any possible influence and negative impact on the system due to the “invisible hand” of the private banks, the corporatocracy, or any dark, sinister force we have yet to encounter. The block-chain technology would offer an interesting method to do exactly that, to both secure individual privacy on one hand, and accurately audit transactions on the other. We will also implement layers of back-up systems, which the cyber community can chime-in on. We’ll be able to discuss these matters, put it to a vote, and implement them on to the testing models that we will develop.
Another goal for the RM is to reform aspects of the current system proven to be ongoing sources of failures, entry points, and loopholes; where laws and business practices can easily cross the line onto unfettered greed. Traditionally interest rates pay lenders, and return on investment (ROI) rates pay investors for a potential loss of capital they would have otherwise used on other investment opportunities. Yet in hindsight, we’ve experienced the growth of income and equity mainly as a function of abusing the growth from interest via debt, or abusing the growth from profit via unethical business practices. Rather than continuing to bury ourselves under a mountain of interest, debt, and the spoils of exploitation; the Revelation Model will convert interest and ROI rates to instead prioritize the continual growth rate in the quality of life. This ultimately puts an end to the fantasy of a continual growth of income via the continual growth in debt. To support our liberation from debt, all banks will issue loans at zero percent interest; no more lending to others at prime rates, no above prime, and no secondary interest rates. By implementing and controlling the process of peer-reviewed best practices, the risk or cost of opportunity (the primary reason behind interest rates) will approach zero as our standards of living and technology ascend higher and higher.
If we want to assure that our demands for change become tangible, we as a collective, must exact our political will—far beyond the follow through. We cannot just elect our leaders, and be done it—as we know all too well the agonies of apathy. Remember, it was the Republican President Lincoln who urged congress to pass a bill issuing Greenbacks. How fitting would it be for another Republican President to urge Congress to pass a bill issuing the currency necessary to explore the pillars described in the Revelation Model, and at the very least reforming our campaign finance system? Or will the Democrats, or another political party, initiate and lead to align the interest of the people with the integrity of a fair system for distributing wealth and compensation. Will they pursue the pillars of this framework for the people, or will they box us out, and let the “Corporatocracy” fill the void with their next Oppressive System (OS) version 666? Who among our leaders will be the Champion of the People? To whoever pursues any public office—Let their endorsement of the Revelation Model be the measure of their honesty!
No longer will the private banks wield the power over money; defeating the terror of keeping us “on the hook”. Instead we will transfer the reigns of this power over money onto the people. We will navigate this transition in a responsible way. The promise to pay our debts, particularly to government bond holders, will be restructured to reaffirm an ancient covenant; one that supersedes any and all hierarchy of creditors. A covenant exists, divinely encoded in our DNA, to secure the posterity and prosperity of our entire human race. This Great Transition will be done compassionately, holding society’s promise to take care of one another by allowing people to keep and maintain their homes, cars, and to provide healthcare, education, training, and job placement; especially to those of industries most in need of our mercy.
If you are an employee of an organization that will undergo the most retraining such as private banks—rest assure as you’ll have the freedom to stay in your current private bank, or transfer over to a publicly owned bank, or transition your work schedule to receive free education, training, and job placement into a different field, all together. Remember, with the public Supply-Demand-Resupply Inventory Network, we can compensate the supply-side to pick up these newly trained workers. This will be done with no loss of income, as the items you’ve traditionally purchased every month to maintain your current lifestyle and household, including allowances for repairs, replacements, and handling accidental and emergency situations, will have been registered into the public SDR Inventory Network, and guarantees you will continue to receive them.
You are already witnessing a similar trend for online stores to auto charge recurring orders. Amazon has offered deeper discounts on items you select as automatic reorders, some on a monthly basis. Big box stores like Petsmart and others has offered free shipping and further discounts for the same type of automatic reorders. This burgeoning trend, when applied through the RM, will be more robust to encompass all of your needs. These goods and services will always be due to you month after month, as you undergo the transformation of retraining and job placement. As always, you will have the choice to change items, request additional quantities, postpone deliveries, all the liberties you have today. This Great Transition extends to all peoples, all across the globe, in all sectors of the economy, whether your organization is private, public, NGO, charitable, religious, or otherwise. This is what the Revelation Model considers to be a compassionate transition in restructuring the payoff of debt; a promise it will keep as a socially-divine covenant.
Now as the title of this second pillar suggests…the Universal Single Payer (USP) system will pay everything and everyone. By having the authority to control money via the Public Banks, manage our resources via the SDR Inventory Network, and distribute them through a model I will explain in a future video, the Universal Single Payer will fairly and democratically compensate us all. The idea of a single payer system is already gaining ground in the healthcare industry. It’s only a matter of time before people awaken and expand this notion to encompass the entire economic universe; inclusive to all entities: private, public, and otherwise.
More than 1,000 physicians were surveyed last year by the Chicago Medical Society. It concluded that, “66.8% have a ‘generally favorable’ view of a single-payer financing health care system.”[xxxviii] According to a June 2017 YouGov poll, “44% of all Americans favor a single payer health care system”; well above the 31% who oppose it. Around the same time, another national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center claimed, “60% say the federal government is responsible for ensuring health care coverage for all Americans…Among [the 60%], more now say it should be provided through a single health insurance system run by the government…Among Democrats, 52% now say health insurance should be provided through a single national insurance system run by the government.”[xxxix]
It’s no secret, I agree with Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime proponent of the single payer and infamous, political rock star, who has proclaimed (using his voice), “healthcare is a right, not a privilege”. The deft Senator Elizabeth Warren, in a June 2017 interview with The Wall Street Journal, has admitted, “Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single-payer.” The dynamo from Hawaii, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, also supports universal healthcare, aka Medicare for All. Indeed more and more people are pushing for a single payer healthcare system for all Americans, and rightfully so. Surprisingly, I was quite encouraged as this Pew Research report continued, “…most Republicans (57%) say the government ‘should continue programs like Medicare and Medicaid for seniors and the very poor’…just [a meager] 9% of Republicans say the government should not be involved in providing health insurance at all.”39
This positive shift in the public sentiment to welcome the single payer, however, is not without pushback. Those who have reservations, unsurprisingly, are afraid that we will ration out the medical care, and end up waiting in long lines. The funds are drying up so they think we’re forced to concentrate our resources on keeping Medicare alive only for seniors. Under the current, obsolete economic system alone, then certainly, these concerns are not without merit. Ergo, I believe the solution must entail more than singing the typical Democratic song of cutting the military budget and hiking up taxes on the rich—to accomplish our objectives for healthcare, education, job creation, and the distribution of wealth.
ULTIMATELY, THE SOLUTION MUST RESIDE IN ASCENDING THE GLOBAL CULTURE AND STRUCTURE OF OUR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS.
(Continue on…)
