Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

stockholmer

(3,751 posts)
Thu May 10, 2012, 01:12 PM May 2012

12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada & most of the world is in debt. + more

Last edited Thu May 10, 2012, 02:44 PM - Edit history (1)



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. For more information see http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Money As Debt - Parts 1, 2, and 3 (animated films by Canadian Paul Grignon about the banking system)







------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.moneyasdebt.net/

Where does Money Come From?

The simple answer to the title question is DEBT. Whether paper cash or numbers on a computer screen, all money (except coins) is “evidence of debt”.What is "cash” and where does it come from? Cash can be the familiar paper stuff, or it can be credit at the national central bank which banks use to settle accounts between banks. “Credit cash” at the central bank is always convertible to “paper cash” upon demand. So, where does cash come from? Is it just printed by the government as we are shown on TV? NO. Cash is created out of thin air by the central bank of the country (which is often privately owned). The central bank can just have it printed for the cost of printing, by the government or privately. The central bank then uses this cash it creates out of thin air to buy interest-bearing public debt in the form of government bonds.

Government debt is perpetual and thus interest paid on it is perpetual. Therefore a good definition of cash might be: evidence of public debt on which taxpayers will be paying interest forever. So what is credit? Everything else that isn’t cash. Take for example your bank account. Your bank account tells you how much cash the bank OWES you if you demand it. It isn’t cash itself. All those numbers in bank accounts are just “promises to pay cash”, nothing more than IOUs created by banks. However, we typically think of these bank IOUs, or “checkbook money” as “money”. Little wonder. This checkbook money, especially in electronic form, is much more convenient and secure than paper money. Therefore we can transact all of our business with these promises to pay cash instead of cash itself.

So… are there more promises to pay cash than there is cash to fulfill them? You bet. That is because banks usually make what they call “LOANS” by promising, rather than providing, cash. With a base of “cash” usually much less than 8% of the total they will “loan”, banks create their so-called "loans" as “promises”. How? It is astonishingly simple. You, the so-called borrower, sign a document that promises to pay the bank X amount of money over time plus interest on the outstanding balance. Your promise is backed by the collateral you agree to forfeit and the effort you will expend to earn the money. Your promise to the bank is an ASSET to the bank. To balance its books, the bank creates a matching LIABILITY. The bank promises the borrower X amount of “cash” on demand.

The “loan money” that the bank puts in the borrower’s account is not “cash”. It is an IOU. It need never be cash unless the borrower demands cash. And, because we accept these IOUs as money itself, and do almost all of our business trading these convenient and secure IOUs instead of inconvenient and risky cash, banks can safely issue many more IOU’s than there is cash to back them up. Perhaps the simplest and most "magical" feature of this system is "net" transactions. Only the net differences of transactions between banks need to be paid in cash. In theory, if all the banks are getting as much bank credit coming in as is being withdrawn, all the IOUs balance each other out at the end of the day leaving a net difference of zero. No cash required at all, from anyone! In practice, banks are competing. Winners can demand losers pay in cash. But that amount is still only a small proportion of the whole amount of credit issued.

The exception to all this is coins. They don't begin as debt. The government Mint stamps them and the government sells them at face value to the banks, no returns. But coins are an insignificantly small part of today's money supply. The significant thing about coins is that most people’s understanding of money has not yet developed much beyond the idea of coins, simple POSITIVE tokens of value. They fail to see how we have been ensnared by a money system based on NEGATIVE shackles of debt. The current system pretends to be “money” but is, in truth, a financial black hole sucking us all in to seemingly inescapable control by our so-called “creditors. The truth we need to see is that WE are the real creditors, because it is WE who produce the real value in the world, not the banks.

snip

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Debunking Money Creation

Damon Vrabel ran a short-term blog for around 9 months, and appeared on many televison networks and shows (including Current TV, CNBC, Press TV and Max Keiser), before becoming frustrated and shutting it down.


his blog:
Council on Renewal

http://csper.wordpress.com /

his website

http://www.csper.org /

-------------------------------------


Debunking Money Series - Parts 1 to 5

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5
---------------------------------------------------

Renaissance 2.0 Series

http://csper.org/renaissance-20.html

-----------------------------------------------------------
Lesson 1
Revisiting American History

Documents the conversion of the US into a monolithic financial empire as the Federal Reserve Act created a monopolized cartel of private interests, "Wall Street," that controls all money in the system.



-------------------------------------------------------
Lesson 2
Revisiting Economics 101 - Debt

Discusses the power of debt-based money, embodied in the bond market, and its ability to exert total top-down power and control over the empire. Our system is not a free market.




--------------------------------------------------

Lesson 3
Revisiting Civics 101 - Ownership

Describes how the media projects a false picture in terms of who controls the US. This lesson illustrates the real power structure, which is modeled after the corporate governance system.



------------------------------------------------
Lesson 4.1

Part 1 - The Culture of Empire

Addresses our wealth illusion, freedom illusion, exponential growth, inflation/deflation, and bankruptcies.



-----------------------------------------------

Lesson 4.2

Part 2 - The Culture of Empire

Focuses on the issue of scale. As the debt-based empire grows, the scale of our system grows causing all sorts of problems related to the loss of meaning, community, freedom, and agency.



-----------------------------------------------------

Lesson 4.3

Part 3 - The Culture of Empire

The velocity of money is a standard economic concept, but economists ignore the issue of human velocity caused by the system, which results in the loss of rest, joy, delight, and deeper issues



-----------------------------------------------

Lesson 4.4

Part 4 - The Culture of Empire

Focuses on the rise of narcissism, increasing pathology and oppression, and how the financial empire eventually replaces government



-------------------------------------------------

Lesson 5.1

Part 1 - The Emerging Global Empire

Explains the strategic global transition we're in as the financial institutions take us through a global restructuring, similar to how the individual states were restructured into the financial empire in lesson 1.



----------------------------------------------

Lesson 5.2

Part 2 - The Emerging Global Empire

More on the restructuring process and the single, integrated, corporate government the elite is trying to create.



-------------------------------------------

Lesson 6.1

Brightening the Future

Discusses the powerful monetary vortex that governs our lives day to day; explains the truth about inflation, leverage, and derivatives; and introduces the solution to the vortex.



----------------------------------------------------

Lesson 6.2

Part 2 - Brightening the Future

Discusses how the left vs. right political framework is not the place to find solutions to the vortex because it only fuels the vortex further. Explains what fascism really is.




----------------------------------------------------

Lesson 6.3


Part 3 - Brightening the Future

Discusses how to fix the problem and help launch the next Enlightenment to ensure humanity moves into Renaissance 2.0 vs. the next Dark Ages.


7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada & most of the world is in debt. + more (Original Post) stockholmer May 2012 OP
Excellent job Victoria ! yesphan May 2012 #1
I'll watch this later tnlurker May 2012 #2
Thanks for this post. DocMac May 2012 #3
New Age woo. provis99 May 2012 #4
Could you please de-clutter this page of everything else and just provide links? alp227 May 2012 #5
all I posted was simple text and YouTube links stockholmer May 2012 #6
Too much of that content at once can crash some computers. alp227 May 2012 #7

alp227

(32,025 posts)
5. Could you please de-clutter this page of everything else and just provide links?
Sun May 20, 2012, 11:18 PM
May 2012

Thank you, not everyone has broadband or lots of RAM. Meanwhile, I first learned about Grant's speech from CBC News article "Ontario girl's online banking speech goes viral".

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»Video & Multimedia»12-year old Victoria Gran...