RE-POSTED: SIX-PART VIDEO: Credit as a Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis"
This is a six-part professional-quality video that is over two hours in length. Each part consists of a lecture by Richard C. Cook on the economic crisis and its solution. The video was made on March 16, 2009, in the Maryland Room of the Prince George’s County Library, Hyattsville, MD. This is among the most in-depth critiques of our debt-based monetary system ever made. The video concludes with a program of reform based on the draft American Monetary Act, implementation of a Greenback-type currency, and a citizens’ dividend/basic income guarantee. The material is deeply rooted in the history of American public finance and the author’s experience of 21 years as a U.S Treasury Department analyst. His recommendations would replace the existing financial system, which mainly serves the interests of the financial oligarchy, with a new monetary system that would serve the needs of “We the People” and our producing economy. It would also replace Federal Reserve Notes with a new system of United States currency.
YouTube link: watch?v=Q3p48upXJaA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Many thanks to Lori at Dandelion Salad for getting the series reposted to YouTube when Google went out of the video business. Thanks Lo!
Link to Dandelion Salad site: credit-as-a-public-utility-the-solution-to-the-economic-crisis-by-richard-c-cook-videos
Click “Donate” button on homepage to place order for the 39-page script – $5.95.
Synposis
Part One of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“Our Early Political Leaders Warned Us Against the Banking Interests”
Early U.S. statesmen, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson worked to free the nation from control by the bankers who had been behind the establishment of the First and Second Banks of the United States. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln implemented a true democratic currency by spending Greenbacks directly into circulation without borrowing from the banks. These measures allowed the U.S. to develop for much of the 19th century largely free from bankers’ control. By the end of the century, this had changed, and the bankers were taking over.
Part Two of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“The Federal Reserve System: The Bankers Take Over”
President Lincoln’s Greenback system worked but was undermined and replaced by the financiers who got Congress to pass the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, then the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The United States now became a nation dominated by the financial elite, the banks, and a debt-based monetary system. Consequently, the 20th Century was one of constant cycles of inflation and deflation resulting in the economic chaos we see today.
Part Three of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“The Collapse of the Financial System”
The collapse we are seeing today began in the financial system, not the producing economy. The crisis started with the housing bubble which the Federal Reserve created by cutting interest rates and then brought own by raising them. The trigger of the 2008 bank meltdown was refusal by European banks to purchase any more “toxic” U.S. debt based on mortgages and sold as securities. Now, with the decline in equity values, the burden of debt in our economy has grown even larger. Thus a renewal of bank lending will not solve the problem, while the economic stimulus program of the Obama administration is likewise insufficient to restore economic health.
Part Four of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“What is Credit and Who Should Control It?”
Fractional reserve banking is the process by which banks create credit out of thin air. But despite abuses of the system, credit is still a crucial part of modern economics. An enlightened concept of governance would view credit as a public utility. This means that government must take back the control of credit from the private financiers.
Part Five of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“The Gap Between Prices and Income”
One of the most important and least understood concepts in modern economics is the existence of a gap between prices and purchasing power. This gap results when a portion of prices must be set aside as business and private savings. The money is then used by the financial system for lending and speculation. Keynesian economics takes control of some of the savings through government deficit spending but is still a compromise with control of the economy by the financiers. In fact Keynesian economics has helped cause the collapsing debt pyramid. A better system would be to provide consumers with a National Dividend as a way to monetize the continuous appreciation of the producing economy.
Part Six of Six Parts: Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis
“The Greenback and National Dividend Solutions”
The U.S. should convert to a system where the money supply is created by the federal government by being spent into circulation without government borrowing or taxation as was done with the Greenbacks. The Federal Reserve should no longer be a bank of issue. Additionally, a National Dividend should be paid directly to the people. The “Cook Plan” calls for the initial distribution of vouchers in the amount of $1,000 a month plus a new system of community savings banks. Greenbacks combined with a National Dividend will create a non-inflationary democratic currency and transform the economy of the United States.
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In January 1986 Cook became the first NASA official to testify publicly on the space agency's prior knowledge of flaws in the solid rocket booster O-ring joints that destroyed Challenger and took the lives of its seven astronauts. He told his story in the book Challenger Revealed, published in 2007. Publisher's Weekly wrote of the book: "Easily the most informative and important book on the disaster."
I enjoyed the presentation and I hope it gets wide viewing. I particularly appreciate Richard Cook’s effort to integrate his own development of Douglass social credit with the greenback theory of Stephan Zarlenga’s American Monetary Institute.
Credit as a “public utility” is a brilliant insight that provides an easy way for people to understand the social nature of money & credit.
I have a disagreement with the historical overview in the first video regarding the role of Populism and William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896. As I consider the cause of monetary reform a true Populist endeavor, I think it is important to get the historical facts straight. Those of us who call for popular control of the monetary system are Populists, descendants of the 19th Century movement that championed the same cause.
Richard asserts the the Populists took over the Democratic Party and that Bryan was essentially a Populist candidate, representing the Populist agenda. This is not true. The definitive account of the Populist movement in the US is provided by Lawrence Goodwyn in his 1976 book, “Democratic Promise, The Populist Moment in America”, Oxford U. Press.
William Jennings Bryan was not a Populist and did not deign to grace the July, 1896 St Louis nominating convention of the People’s Party with his presence. He was nominated earlier as the Democratic candidate for president when he delivered his famous “cross of gold” speech. The People’s Party sought to promote its agenda within the Democratic Party in the “fusion” politics of the day. The Democratic Party took over the People’s Party, not the other way around, and the greenback platform, the monetary reform agenda that was the core of the Peoples Party platform, was displaced by the “free silver” agenda that Bryan and the Democrats advocated.
Bryan’s VP running mate in 1896 was Arthur Sewall, an eastern national banker and railroad magnate. One is known by the company one keeps, as Obama is known by his affiliation with Timothy Geithner and other private monetary monopolists.
William Jennings Bryan was an opportunist who used his oratorical gift to win over the Populist constituency. When the Peoples Party sought to fuse its agenda with the Democratic Party, it collapsed because the greenbackism that was its core identity was abandoned in the name of “free silver” that was ersatz monetary reform at best.
Furthermore, as Secretary of State in the Wilson administration, Bryan was instrumental in allaying the doubts surrounding the 1913 legislation that established the private financial monopoly. He argued in favor of the Federal Reserve and helped to get it passed.
Those of us who advocate creating a public monetary utility from a private monopoly are Populists. We should be familiar with our own history and honor our antecedents. William Jennings Bryan is not among them.
Comment by Joseph Danison on April 1, 2009[...] Richard C. Cook » Blog Archive » SIX-PART VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE … [...]
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