The only logically coherent and scientifically valid function of money/currency is to record the measure of value and its divisions so that the value of portions of indivisible wealth may be negotiated.
As a record of value, the unit used to measure value must obey the mathematics of measure and the science of passive stability i.e. Passive BIBO Currency (Note: that stability is a requirement for measure). This value recording function colloquially understood as “providing liquidity” can be universally performed and accessed without any arbitrary limits or conditions using a standard technical specification and without any requirement for the unit to “circulate”.
The notion that money is an “object” that must “circulate” in order for value to be generated is a logical and scientific absurdity and represents the basis of the rationales being exploited to justify the actions being taken by authorities to deal with the current crisis. However, if the “circulation” model of money is not accurate then such actions cease to have legitimacy as they are based on a false model of reality...
Nationalize Money, Not Banks Herman Daly Emeritus Professor University of Maryland School of Public Policy
If our present banking system, in addition to fraudulent and corrupt, also seems “screwy” to you, it should.
Why should money, a public utility (serving the public as medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account), be largely the by-product of private lending and borrowing? Is that really an improvement over being a by-product of private gold mining, as it was under the gold standard?
The best way to sabotage a system is hobble it by tying together two of its separate parts, creating an unnecessary and obstructive connection.
Why should the public pay interest to the private banking sector to provide a medium of exchange that the government can provide at little or no cost? Why should seigniorage (profit to the issuer of fiat money) go largely to the private sector rather than entirely to the government (the commonwealth)?
"It's possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems."
Environmental film maker John D. Liu documents large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in China, Africa, South America and the Middle East, highlighting the enormous benefits to people and planet of undertaking these efforts globally.
Some interesting comments about economy and money in this video...
""The source of wealth is the functional eco systems.
The products and services that we derive from those are derivatives. It's impossible for the derivatives to be more valuable than the source - and yet, in our economy now, as it stands, the products and services have monetary values. But the source, the functional eco systems are zero.
So this cannot be true. It's false!
So we've created a global institution of economic institutions, an economic theory, based on a flaw in logic. So, if we carry that flaw in logic from generation to generation, we compound the mistake.
Wealth is being happy, living in nature, listening ti the birds, breathing clean air, not having chemical pollution throughout everything, not having these horrible problems.
So we need to redefine and re-value our belief systems. We need to understand that money is a belief system.
There is nothing wrong with money, it turns out. The problem is: what is money based on?
If money is based on functional eco systems, then the future will be beautiful. If money continues to be based on the production and consumption of goods and services, we turn everything into a desert!
What is the future for our children, and our children's children and our generations to come in the future?"
A world created and sustained by communities of people living debt-free, creative lives with a focus on life-long learning and balanced self-development.
TGL promotes local production and exchange in a number of different ways
Receiving money and sending money over the Web needs to be simpler. Pulling out your credit card or signing in to a payment website over and over again is not simple. Sending or receiving money over the Web needs to be as simple as sending or receiving an e-mail.
PaySwarm is an open standard for making payments on the web easier. The technology is being developed at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the same people that have made the Web what it is today.
The idea that the euro has "failed" is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do.
While the country’s future in the eurozone is more uncertain than ever, Volos, at the foot of Mt Pelion, is already turning away from the euro. This seaside community is side-stepping the crisis with its own alternative local currency - TEM (topiki enallaktiki monada). It is a rapidly-swelling social network that is breathing hope and dignity back into many embattled families.
Across Europe, too, the local currency movement is gaining momentum. Grigoriou has just returned from an alternative currency conference in Toulouse, where there were networks from Spain, Italy, France and Britain.
“Everyone seemed quite afraid about what might happen to them - especially the French. A lot of people are asking themselves if this is the answer to the troubled society we are living in. It’s an experiment that is becoming more and more interesting,” he says.
Farmers in Ireland are campaigning to hold the banks responsible for failures - not the citizens of the country.
Irish home owners are asked to pay a special tax to help overcome the crisis, but some 85 % of them are refusing to so so.
Is Ireland going to be the country that says No to the banks?
There are two videos linked in the article, Max Keiser discussing the Irish situation, and Webster Tarpley explaining how soverveign states are being attacked by financial jackals using sophisticated financial instruments...
"What can be done to encourage local people to spend their money locally? This is the question the founders of the Brixton Pound (B£) were seeking to answer when they launched a new local currency in September 2009....
The B£ originated from the work of a number of local volunteers inspired by the Transition Town movement and interested in the ‘local multiplier effect’ described by the New Economics Foundation. Their research suggested that spending money in a local independent shop has a greater economic value for the local area than spend in a multinational store such as a supermarket.
A local trader will go on to spend a higher proportion of his or her profits in the area in which they live, generating additional value for the local economy. Besides encouraging people to spend their money locally, the B£ project aimed to promote discussion about the meaning of currency and the ways in which we use it...."
In the first official venture capital raise for a direct investment in bitcoin, CoinLab secured $500,000 today from seed stage Silicon Valley firm Draper Associates and others, including Seattle angel investor Geoff Entress, former assistant...
"Based in Seattle, CoinLab is an emerging umbrella group for cultivating and launching innovative bitcoin projects. Until now, they have been relatively quiet regarding their initiatives but they are credited with releasing a comprehensive Bitcoin Primer in January 2012. The founders are startup entrepreneurs Peter Vessenes, Mike Koss, and Tihan Seale, each with a strong passion for the broad advancements enabled by a decentralized currency."
"Once written off by western capitalists as “voodoo economics”, Islamic finance is now in a state of rapid growth and has become a trillion (US) dollar industry, which is attracting the attention of many American and European investors."
"Yet it is also still widely questioned by western economists who remain doubtful that Islamic finance can really work on a global scale, alongside more conventional approaches to banking and finance."
"Some of its underlying precepts – in particular the fact that interest is strictly forbidden – mean that many experts still see Islamic banking as impracticable at best, and a threat to the stability of Western economies at worst."
(My comment:)
In Islam, just like in Christianity, interest is not allowed. But while the Christian Churches have relaxed the rules over the centuries, Islamic banking is still on the no-interest track set by the religion's founder...
“It’s difficult to see where labour strikers could find … sources of power. The big manufacturers have died and the main energy source – oil – flows well out of the reach of labour disturbance.
The result is that we are left sacrificing our livelihoods to keep champagne flowing in the City. We’re told upsetting the City risks wreaking interest-rate hell on our economy.
The reason? Because, in our post-industrial wasteland, Britons don’t make things; we buy them. And the fuel that keeps the consumer engine running is credit.
This financialised model that began with Thatcher and flourished under Labour has, however, created a new choke point. As the bankers found, much like those miners many years before, control over the economy’s fuel gives you power. That’s why banks can rig the market, ignore the government, and pay themselves huge bonuses in the midst of a recession.
However, this is only half the story. For every creditor there must be a debtor and both are necessary. While the creditors – the banks – have realised their power, the debtors – everyone else – haven’t..."
A group of scholars at the University of Wisconsin recently counted nearly 30,000 cooperatives in the United States operating at 73,000 locations. The vast majority are consumer cooperatives, with 343 ...
Once more the big banks are exposed in systematic fraudulent activity.
When Barclays agreed to a $450 million fine for trying to rig the Libor, its CEO offered the classic excuse: Everyone does it.
Once more the question remains: Will CEOs and CFOs, as well as traders, be prosecuted? Or will they depart with their multimillion dollar rewards intact, leaving shareholders to pay the tab for the hundreds of millions in fines?
A group of kids in a shelter for homeless children in New Delhi have a few lessons for the world's international bankers. They have invented a financial system of their own to save for a brighter future.
A decentralized, distributed electronic currency designed to address the grievances of the 99% and correct the excesses of the 1%.
My comment:
This is an indiegogo funding drive for the development of Freicoin, which is a version of Bitcoin with demurrage added. Demurrage is a periodic charge on extant coins, advocated by Silvio Gesell, which has the purpose to encourage spending the currency as it loses value over time.
Demurrage is however only one of the concepts Gesell bases his money (called Freigeld) on. Another central concept is that Gesellian Freigeld is quantity-adjusted to meet user base requirements. Bitcoin, and therefore also Freicoin, has no such adjustment mechanism, which means that the value of the currency vs. the things to be bought and sold with its help, is subject to change as the user base (and therefore demand for the currency) grows or shrinks.
What will banks of the 21st century look like? Well not like you think! According to Jem Bendell Rebuild21 speaker we need to rethink the concept of banks and currencies for a more sustainable 21st century.
Jem Bendell is a professor and the owner-director of Lifeworth Consulting, providing solutions for systemic change towards sustainable development.
More than $87,000 worth of the virtual currency known as Bitcoin was stolen after online bandits penetrated servers belonging to Bitcoinica, prompting its operators to temporarily shutter the trading platform to contain the damage....
12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada, and most of the world, is in debt. April 27, 2012 at the Public Banking in America Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
This video is a one-hour edit (Director's cut) of the original two hour video documentary which is available here: http://tinyurl.com/bq5nf8e ;
"Simple questions often get overlooked - questions like: where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does that mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when money and finance breaks down?"
"97% Owned reveals how money is at the root of our current social and economic crisis.
"It exposes the privatised, debt-based monetary system that gives banks the power to create money, shape the economy, cause crises and push house prices out of reach."
"The banking sector itself grew from (1980) 2,5 trillion dollars to 40 trillion dollars, by asset. In 1980 bank assets were worth 20 times the then global economy. By 2006 they were worth 75 times, according to the UN," says Sargon Nissan, former equity trader and economics researcher.
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