web-of-debt

Many who rightly oppose of the ongoing theft of humanity's wealth by the global elites, foremost amongst them, the private bankers, are apparently unaware of just how fragile is the power of the private bankers. As Ellen Brown has shown in the The Web of Debt of 2007 (see web-site), any sovereign government, with the will to do so, could easily safeguard its national economy against the financial economic ravages that much of the world has endured for several centuries. Ellen Brown's The Public Bank Solution, only just released, shows how no sovereign country need ever suffer an economic recession. Order here. Kindle edition also available.
Also available from Amazon: Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of animal and human populations in print or on Kindle, The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition in print by Sheila Newman.

See also: The Crime of Alleviating Poverty: A Local Community Currency Battles the Central Bank of Kenya of 26 June 2013 by Ellen Brown, Depositors Beware: Bail-In Is Now Official EU Policy of 5 July 2013 also by Ellen Brown.

Whilst humanity will still have to deal with other serious challenges -- the devastation of the world's natural habitats, the overconsumption of the earth's finite non-renewable natural resources, the threat of global warming, and, of course, geo-political threats such as the United States' current proxy terrorist war against Syria -- our hope of being able to meet those challenges would be so much better if we didn't have financial crises, needlessly inflicted upon us by private bankers, hanging around our necks. The following has been copied from the Public Bank Solution (http://publicbanksolution) web-site:

WHAT WALL STREET DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Shock waves from one Wall Street scandal after another have completely disillusioned us with our banking system; yet we cannot do without banks. Nearly all money today is simply bank credit. Economies run on it, and it is created when banks make loans. The main flaw in the current model is that private profiteers have acquired control of the credit spigots. They can cut off the flow, direct it to their cronies, and manipulate it for personal gain at the expense of the producing economy. The benefits of bank credit can be maintained while eliminating these flaws, through a system of banks operated as public utilities, serving the public interest and returning their profits to the public. This book looks at the public bank alternative, and shows with examples from around the world and through history that it works admirably well, providing the key to sustained high performance for the economy and well-being for the people. Order here.

Reviews

Ellen Brown has written what will become one of THE most important books of our time. She eloquently educates us on how the democratization of money is the very foundation of a free society. Ellen brilliantly shows how money can be the current or currency that facilitates the spiritual experience of manifesting our collective intentions for a better world. Her book is an absolute game-changer and a must read for all those interested in having a world that works for everyone. Buy it, read it, and tell everyone you know to do the same.

-- Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money and Co-Founder of the Pachamama Alliance

This is a must read! Ellen Brown is the leader of the public banking movement and this masterful work is certain to become the go-to book for anyone interested in transcending the speculation-driven global financial system—and helping lay sound foundations for the fast-emerging New Economy.

-- Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do?, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and CoFounder of the Democracy Collaborative

Brown has done it again. The Public Bank Solution follows her Web of Debt, a brilliant analysis of privatized banking, how it has usurped the money creation power, and how we can get it back. Public banking is the antidote to corrupted, dysfunctional privatized banking, the way forward for sustainable long-term growth and prosperity. The Public Bank Solution explains an idea whose time has come.

-- Stephen Lendman, talk show host, author, How Wall Street Fleeces America

More reviews from amazon.com

The Public Banking Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity - Ellen Brown,

This review is from: The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity (Paperback)
Brown's book is another major contribution. It comes at a critical time. It follows her "Web of Debt." It's a classic. It's a brilliant analysis of privatized banking, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get it back.

"The Public Bank Solution" explains more. Money power in private hands assures speculation, booms, busts, inflation, deflation, instability, crises, recessions, depressions, deprivation and despair. Public banks work as intended. Inflation-free prosperity follows. It's a "practical, proven approach." It works the same way everywhere. History reflects it. It's the antidote to corrupted, dysfunctional privatized banking.

Brown's done it again. "The Public Bank Solution" is a major work. It's must reading. It explains an idea whose time has come. It's the way forward for sustainable longterm growth and prosperity. Besides peace, equity and justice, what better idea than that.

-- also by Stephen Lendman, 18 June 2013

Another fantastic book from Ellen Brown, June 17, 2013

This review is from: The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity (Paperback)
This is another fantastic book from Ellen Brown, and a superb sequel to her Web of Debt. It is a "must read" for everyone who realizes that we need to move on to something better than our present financial system. It shows us that there is another approach out there,a totally proven approach that serves people and the real economy rather than the banks,one that we ignore to our peril. We need a better-ordered society, and this books shows us the main step we must take to build it. At the same time it is a delightful read and a real education--full of fascinating information that frees us from the dismal NWO concocted, war-and-austerity, corporation-serving mindset.

-- S Hudson, 17 June 2013

An Answer to Wall Street's "Too Big to Fail"

This review is from: The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity (Paperback)
Ellen Brown's latest book harnesses the knowledge about the inner workings of national monetary policy that readers of Web of Debt, her first book, would expect. But this book sweeps the world's experience, diving deep into history and cultures, sharing a variety of responses to the self-defeating game being played out on Wall Street. If you've ever wondered why money has to be so scarce and hard-won for those very things we care most about, read this book. It clearly doesn't have to be this way. Public banking, or banking in the public interest, is an important counterbalance to today's winner-take-all monetary mentality. Brown doesn't suggest that another kind of banking is the only needed solution, but she surely provides inspiring possibilities for Americans re-envisioning finance at the most fundamental level. It's the sort of thinking that can only be done outside an American blind-spot, induced by the Washington Consensus owned by those in power. Brown's legal mind pays attention to the details, and she welcomes us to a quiet and thoughtful evolution, powered by knowledge of how money works and why.

-- Gard Diamond, 22 June 2013

In her talk to the New Wall Street meeting of 16 March, Ellen Brown Chairman and President of the Public Banking Institute and author of Web of Debt (2007) shows that financial crisis faced by much of the industrialised economies has been caused by their governments having surrendered to private banking corporations the right to create money.

Ellen Brown - From Scarcity to Abundance: Re-imagining Money

Above broadcast from YouTube also broadcast from Global Research TV on 25 April 2012

James Corbett interviews Ellen Brown - Finance Capital vs. Public Banking
by grtv

Above broadcast from YouTube also broadcast from Global Research TV on 22 October 2011

See also: articles by Ellen Brown on Global Research and The Corbett Report.

The ESM is a permanent rescue facility slated to replace the temporary European Financial Stability Facility and European Financial Stabilization Mechanism as soon as Member States representing 90% of the capital commitments have ratified it, something that is expected to happen in July 2012. A December 2011 youtube video titled “The shocking truth of the pending EU collapse!”, originally posted in German, gives such a revealing look at the ESM that it is worth quoting here at length. It states:
[Article 30]: “Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, the Managing Director and staff members shall be immune from legal process with respect to acts performed by them . . . and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.” First published by Global Research April 19, 2012.

by Ellen Brown

The ESM is a permanent rescue facility slated to replace the temporary European Financial Stability Facility and European Financial Stabilization Mechanism as soon as Member States representing 90% of the capital commitments have ratified it, something that is expected to happen in July 2012. A December 2011 youtube video titled “The shocking truth of the pending EU collapse!”, originally posted in German, gives such a revealing look at the ESM that it is worth quoting here at length. It states:
[Article 30]: “Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, the Managing Director and staff members shall be immune from legal process with respect to acts performed by them . . . and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.” First published by Global Research April 19, 2012.

The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers. 

In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress.  But to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the bailout was a one-time affair.  Paulson’s plea for a permanent bailout fund—the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP—was opposed by Congress and ultimately rejected.

By December 2011, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion Euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone’s permission.  And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was passed in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press.  The ESM imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers  on the hook for whatever the ESM’s Eurocrat overseers demand.

The bankers’ coup has triumphed in Europe seemingly without a fight.  The ESM is cheered by Eurozone governments, their creditors, and “the market” alike, because it means investors will keep buying sovereign debt.  All is sacrificed to the demands of the creditors, because where else can the money be had to float the crippling debts of the Eurozone governments?

There is another alternative to debt slavery to the banks.  But first, a closer look at the nefarious underbelly of the ESM and Goldman’s silent takeover of the ECB . . . .

The Dark Side of the ESM

The ESM is a permanent rescue facility slated to replace the temporary European Financial Stability Facility and European Financial Stabilization Mechanism as soon as Member States representing 90% of the capital commitments have ratified it, something that is expected to happen in July 2012.  A December 2011 youtube video titled “The shocking truth of the pending EU collapse!”, originally posted in German, gives such a revealing look at the ESM that it is worth quoting here at length.  It states:

The EU is planning a new treaty called the European Stability Mechanism, or ESM:  a treaty of debt. . . . The authorized capital stock shall be 700 billion euros.  Question: why 700 billion?  [Probable answer: it simply mimicked the $700 billion the U.S. Congress bought into in 2008.] . . . .

[Article 9]: “. . . ESM Members hereby irrevocably and unconditionally undertake to pay on demand any capital call made on them . . . within seven days of receipt of such demand.”  . . . If the ESM needs money, we have seven days to pay. . . . But what does “irrevocably and unconditionally” mean?  What if we have a new parliament, one that does not want to transfer money to the ESM?  . . . .

[Article 10]: “The Board of Governors may decide to change the authorized capital and amend Article 8 . . . accordingly.”  Question:  . . . 700 billion is just the beginning?  The ESM can stock up the fund as much as it wants to, any time it wants to?  And we would then be required under Article 9 to irrevocably and unconditionally pay up?

[Article 27, lines 2-3]: “The ESM, its property, funding, and assets . . . shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process . . . .”  Question:  So the ESM program can sue us, but we can’t challenge it in court?

[Article 27, line 4]: “The property, funding and assets of the ESM shall . . . be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation, or any other form of seizure, taking or foreclosure by executive, judicial, administrative or legislative action.”  Question: . . . [T]his means that neither our governments, nor our legislatures, nor any of our democratic laws have any effect on the ESM organization?  That’s a pretty powerful treaty!

[Article 30]:  “Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, the Managing Director and staff members shall be immune from legal process with respect to acts performed by them . . . and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.”   Question:  So anyone involved in the ESM is off the hook?  They can’t be held accountable for anything? . . . The treaty establishes a new intergovernmental organization to which we are required to transfer unlimited assets within seven days if it so requests, an organization that can sue us but is immune from all forms of prosecution and whose managers enjoy the same immunity.  There are no independent reviewers and no existing laws apply?  Governments cannot take action against it?  Europe’s national budgets in the hands of one single unelected intergovernmental organization?  Is that the future of Europe?  Is that the new EU – a Europe devoid of sovereign democracies?

The Goldman Squid Captures the ECB

Last November, without fanfare and barely noticed in the press, former Goldman exec Mario Draghi replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the ECB.  Draghi wasted no time doing for the banks what the ECB has refused to do for its member governments—lavish money on them at very cheap rates.  French blogger Simon Thorpe reports:

On the 21st of December, the ECB “lent” 489 billion euros to European Banks at the extremely generous rate of just 1% over 3 years.  I say “lent”, but in reality, they just ran the printing presses. The ECB doesn’t have the money to lend. It’s Quantitative Easing again.

The money was gobbled up virtually instantaneously by a total of 523 banks. It’s complete madness. The ECB hopes that the banks will do something useful with it – like lending the money to the Greeks, who are currently paying 18% to the bond markets to get money. But there are absolutely no strings attached. If the banks decide to pay bonuses with the money, that’s fine. Or they might just shift all the money to tax havens.

At 18% interest, debt doubles in just four years.  It is this onerous interest burden, not the debt itself, that is crippling Greece and other debtor nations.  Thorpe proposes the obvious solution:

Why not lend the money to the Greek government directly? Or to the Portuguese government, currently having to borrow money at 11.9%? Or the Hungarian government, currently paying 8.53%. Or the Irish government, currently paying 8.51%? Or the Italian government, who are having to pay 7.06%?

The stock objection to that alternative is that Article 123 of the Lisbon Treaty prevents the ECB from lending to governments.  But Thorpe reasons:

My understanding is that Article 123 is there to prevent elected governments from abusing Central Banks by ordering them to print money to finance excessive spending. That, we are told, is why the ECB has to be independent from governments. OK. But what we have now is a million times worse. The ECB is now completely in the hands of the banking sector. “We want half a billion of really cheap money!!” they say.  OK, no problem. Mario is here to fix that. And no need to consult anyone. By the time the ECB makes the announcement, the money has already disappeared.

At least if the ECB was working under the supervision of elected governments, we would have some influence when we elect those governments. But the bunch that now has their grubby hands on the instruments of power are now totally out of control.

Goldman Sachs and the financial technocrats have taken over the European ship.  Democracy has gone out the window, all in the name of keeping the central bank independent from the “abuses” of government.  Yet the government is the people—or it should be.  A democratically elected government represents the people.  Europeans are being hoodwinked into relinquishing their cherished democracy to a rogue band of financial pirates, and the rest of the world is not far behind.

Rather than ratifying the draconian ESM treaty, Europeans would be better advised to reverse article 123 of the Lisbon treaty.  Then the ECB could issue credit directly to its member governments.  Alternatively, Eurozone governments could re-establish their economic sovereignty by reviving their publicly-owned central banks and using them to issue the credit of the nation for the benefit of the nation, effectively interest-free.  This is not a new idea but has been used historically to very good effect, e.g. in Australia through the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and in Canada through the Bank of Canada.

Today the issuance of money and credit has become the private right of vampire rentiers, who are using it to squeeze the lifeblood out of economies.  This right needs to be returned to sovereign governments.  Credit should be a public utility, dispensed and managed for the benefit of the people.

To add your signature to a letter to parliamentarians blocking ratification of the ESM, click here. 

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.  In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com.