I have 88 fans: Become a Fan. You'll get emails whenever I post articles on OpEdNews
on Twitter
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of 11 books. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com, http://EllenBrown.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In her latest book, "Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free," she shows how the power to create money has been usurped from the people and how we can get it back.
Thursday, January 26, 2012 America's Shadow Banking System, A Web of Financial Fraud (8 comments)
The Wall Street Journal reported on January 19th that the Obama Administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the "robo-signing" scandal. The scandal involves employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity of documents they had not really reviewed. Investigation reveals that it did not just ha
Sunday, January 15, 2012 Occupy the Neighborhood: How Counties Can Use Land Banks and Eminent Domain (5 comments)
Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest, and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 Saving the Post Office: The Models of Kiwibank and Japan Post (4 comments)
Claiming the Postal Service is bankrupt, critics are pushing legislation that would defuse the postal crisis by breaking the backs of the postal workers' unions and mandating widespread layoffs.
Friday, December 16, 2011 The Way to Occupy a Bank is to Own One (6 comments)
The campaign to "move your money" has gotten a groundswell of support. Having greater impact would be to "move our money" -- move our local government revenues out of Wall Street banks into our own publicly-owned banks.
Friday, December 9, 2011 Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine (18 comments)
On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion in below-market loans and guarantees to rescuing the financial system; and that these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 The European Central Bank Fiddles While Rome Burns (6 comments)
"To some people, the European Central Bank seems like a fire department that is letting the house burn down to teach the children not to play with matches." So wrote Jack Ewing in the New York Times last week . . . .
Saturday, November 19, 2011 Super Committee Deadlock: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose (9 comments)
Whether the super committee reaches agreement or not, the deficit hawks win. If they agree, either $1.2 trillion gets cut from the budget or taxes go up by that amount; and the committee co-chair has categorically stated taxes are not going up, so that means the budget will be cut.
Saturday, November 12, 2011 Time for an Economic Bill of Rights (40 comments)
Henry Ford said, "It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." We are beginning to understand, and Occupy Wall Street looks like the beginning of the revolution.
Saturday, October 22, 2011 Qe4: Forgive Student Debt (35 comments)
Among the demands of the Wall Street protesters is student debt forgiveness--a debt "jubilee." Occupy Philly has a "Student Loan Jubilee Working Group," and other groups are studying the issue. Commentators say debt forgiveness is impossible. Who would foot the bill? But there is one deep pocket that could pull it off--the Federal Reserve. . . . I
Friday, October 14, 2011 THE PUBLIC OPTION IN BANKING: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE GERMAN MODEL (18 comments)
Publicly-owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany's "economic miracle" after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.
Friday, September 16, 2011 California Legislature Passes Bill to Study State-owned Bank (7 comments)
AB 750, California's bill to study the feasibility of establishing a state-owned bank that would receive deposits of state funds, has passed both houses of the legislature and is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown awaiting his signature. It could be the governor's chance to restore the state to its former glory. . . .
Sunday, September 11, 2011 War--The Fiscal Stimulus of Last Resort (12 comments)
Protesters have been trying to stop the military juggernaut ever since the end of World War II, yet the war machine is more powerful and influential than ever. Why? The veiled powers pulling the strings no doubt have their own dark agenda, but why has our much-trumpeted system of political democracy not been able to stop them?
The answer may involve our individualistic, laissez-faire brand of capitalism . . . .
Saturday, September 3, 2011 North Dakota's Economic "Miracle"-- It's Not Oil (1 comments)
Many states have oil, but North Dakota has something no other states have -- its own state-owned bank. States that deposit their revenues and invest their capital in large Wall Street banks are giving this economic opportunity away.
Friday, August 19, 2011 S&P; and the Bilderbergers: All Part of the Plan? (15 comments)
The volatility in the market is unprecedented. Many economists have been pointing out that the panic after the S&P; downgrade resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. But on Tuesday, August 9, the market gained more points from its low than it lost on Monday. Why? A tug of war seemed to be going on between two titanic forces . . . .
Sunday, August 7, 2011 The Market Has Spoken: Austerity Is Bad for Business (31 comments)
It used to be that when the Fed Chairman spoke, the market listened; but the Chairman has lost his mystique. Now when the market speaks, politicians listen. Hopefully they heard what the market just said: government cutbacks are bad for business. The government needs to spend more, not less. Fortunately, there are viable ways to do this while still balancing the budget.
Sunday, July 31, 2011 Forget Compromise: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional (65 comments)
The debt ceiling crisis can be averted by enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, which mandates the government to pay its debts already incurred, including pensions. That means Social Security, which IS an "entitlement," in the original sense of the word. We're entitled to it because we've paid for it with taxes.
Saturday, July 16, 2011 Why Banks Aren't Lending: The Silent Liquidity Squeeze (20 comments)
Details about the excess reserves of Federal Reserve Banks. Explains what factors seem to be causing a constriction of credit in spite there being excess reserves. Contrasts what is not working in FED policy with what is working with the Banking sector of North Dakota
Monday, July 11, 2011 Why QE2 Failed: The Money Went Offshore (3 comments)
Describes why Banks have not been lending and what they have been doing with all the QE1 & QE2 money which the FED provided them. Offers solutions to bringing down the national debt and fixing the economy.
Saturday, July 2, 2011 How the Bailout Killed Local Lending -- And How Some States Hope to Bring It Back (7 comments)
The Wall Street bailout was supposed to keep credit flowing to Main Street, but it has wound up having the opposite effect. Local businesses have traditionally been the main engines for increasing employment, and they need bank credit for their working capital; but today credit to local businesses has collapsed nearly everywhere. That's why 14 states are now considering state-owned banks to get credit flowing again.
Thursday, June 23, 2011 THE MILITARY AS A JOBS PROGRAM: THERE ARE MORE EFFICIENT WAYS TO STIMULATE AN ECONOMY (5 comments)
The military is the nation's largest and most firmly entrenched entitlement program, one that takes half of every tax dollar. The reason massive military spending is considered the most "obvious" way to produce a fiscal stimulus is simply that it is the only form of direct government spending that gets a pass from the deficit hawks.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 THE GLOBAL DEBT CRISIS: HOW WE GOT IN IT AND HOW TO GET OUT (14 comments)
Contrary to popular belief, particularly amid the continuing financial crisis, most of our money today is not created by governments. It is created by private banks as loans. There are more sustainable ways to run a banking and credit system. It merely requires taxpayers to take back their money - and their power - from private banks.
Sunday, May 29, 2011 INVITING CHAOS: playing chicken with the debt ceiling (2 comments)
A game of Russian roulette is being played with the national debt ceiling. Fire the wrong chamber of the gun, and the result could be the second Great Depression. We have been frightened into believing that government debt is a bad thing, but nearly all money today originates as debt. The public debt is the people's money, and today the people are coming up short.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 INFLATION FEARS: REAL OR HYSTERIA? (11 comments)
Far from inflation being the problem, the money supply has shrunk and we are in a deflationary bind. The money supply needs to be pumped back up to generate jobs and productivity; and in the system we have today, that is done by issuing bonds, or debt.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 CHENEY WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING: DEFICITS DON'T MATTER (13 comments)
"Deficit terrorists" are gutting governments and forcing the privatization of public assets, all in the name of "deficit reduction." But deficits aren't actually a bad thing. In today's monetary scheme, in which most money comes from debt, debt and deficits are actually necessary to have a stable money supply. The public debt is the people's money.
Thursday, April 14, 2011 Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking? (59 comments)
If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and health care continue to be free.
Saturday, April 2, 2011 The World's Largest Publicly-owned Bank: How It Could Save Japan (2 comments)
The Japanese government can afford its enormous debt because it owns the bank that is its principal creditor. But competitors are attempting to force Japan Post Bank's privatization. If they succeed, they could propel the country into debt servitude along with other credit-strapped nations.
Monday, March 28, 2011 KEEPING THE STATE'S MONEY IN THE STATE: AN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION TO THE BUDGET CRISIS (9 comments)
Eight states now have bills pending either to form state-owned banks or to do feasibility studies to determine their potential. State-owned banks could be a win-win for everyone interested in a thriving local economy.
Monday, March 7, 2011 How Wisconsin Could Turn Austerity into Prosperity -- Own a Bank (4 comments)
As states struggle to meet their budgets, public pensions are on the chopping block; but they needn't be. States can keep their pension funds intact and leverage them into many times that sum in loans, just as Wall Street banks do. They can do this by forming their own banks, following the lead of North Dakota, the only state either to have its own bank or to have a major budget surplus.
Monday, January 24, 2011 WASHINGTON STATE JOINS MOVEMENT FOR PUBLIC BANKING (8 comments)
Bills were introduced on January 18 in both the House and Senate of the Washington State Legislature that add Washington to the growing number of states now actively moving to create public banking facilities.
Thursday, January 13, 2011 The Fed has Spoken: There will be no bailout of Main St (8 comments)
When the banks were in trouble 2 years ago, the Fed came up with $12.3 trillion to bail them out. Now the states and cities are in trouble. The total deficit is less than 1% of that amount. Still, Fed Chairman Bernanke says he won't do it because he "has no mandate". Who does the Fed work for, America or the Banks? Could there be a starker demonstration?
Friday, December 24, 2010 AUSTERITY FAILS IN EUROLAND: TIME FOR SOME "DEFICIT EASING" (2 comments)
The Greek bailout was supposed to be an isolated case, a test of the EU's ability to quarantine an infected member, preventing it from spreading "debt contagion." But that was before Ireland failed . . . .
Thursday, December 2, 2010 IS QE2 THE ROAD TO ZIMBABWE-STYLE HYPERINFLATION? NOT LIKELY (5 comments)
Unlike Zimbabwe, the U.S. can easily get the currency it needs without being beholden to anyone. But wouldn't that dilute the value of the currency? No.
Saturday, November 20, 2010 WHAT'S REALLY BEHIND QE2? (5 comments)
The deficit hawks are circling, hovering over QE2, calling it just another inflationary bank bailout. But unlike QE1, QE2 is not about saving the banks. It's about funding the federal deficit without increasing the interest tab, something that may be necessary in this gridlocked political climate just to keep the government functioning.
Saturday, November 6, 2010 FORECLOSUREGATE COULD FORCE BANK NATIONALIZATION (12 comments)
For two years, politicians have danced around the nationalization issue, but ForeclosureGate may be the last straw. The megabanks are too big to fail, but they aren't too big to reorganize as federal institutions serving the public interest.
Saturday, October 30, 2010 HOW CHINA BUYS OUR DEBT WHILE BURYING ITS OWN (4 comments)
China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books -- which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. . . .
Saturday, October 30, 2010 Time For A New Theory Of Money (11 comments)
By understanding that money is simply credit, we unleash it as a powerful tool for our communities.
Saturday, October 9, 2010 FORECLOSUREGATE (16 comments)
By most reports, it would appear that the voluntary suspension of foreclosures is underway to review simple, careless procedural errors. Errors which the conscientious banks are hastening to correct. Even Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times characterizes the problem as "flawed paperwork." But those errors go far deeper than mere sloppiness. They are concealing a massive fraud.
Saturday, September 18, 2010 BASEL III: Tightening the Noose on Credit (3 comments)
If the big banks that brought you the current credit crisis can already meet the new requirements, what exactly does Basel III achieve, beyond shaking down their smaller competitors?
Thursday, September 9, 2010 How to Reverse a Deflation: Helicopter Ben Needs to Drop Some Money on Main Street (3 comments)
The Fed is proposing another round of "quantitative easing," although the first round failed to reverse deflation. It failed because the money went into the coffers of banks, which failed to lend it on. To reverse deflation, the money needs to be funneled directly to state and local economies.
Friday, August 20, 2010 HOMEOWNERS' REBELLION: COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF? (22 comments)
Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles--and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.
Friday, August 6, 2010 WHAT A GOVERNMENT CAN DO WITH ITS OWN BANK: THE REMARKABLE MODEL OF THE COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA (3 comments)
Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan, just won the Democratic nomination for governor of his state, making a state-owned Bank of Michigan a real possibility. Bernero is one of at least a dozen candidates promoting that solution to the states' economic woes. It is an innovative idea, with little precedent in the United States. Fortunately other precedents are available from other countries . . .
Sunday, July 25, 2010 Why "Sovereign Debt" is an Oxymoron
Last week, a Chinese rating agency downgraded U.S. debt from triple A and number one globally, to "double A with a negative outlook" and only thirteenth worldwide. The downgrade renewed fears that the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece will soon reach America. That is the concern, but the U.S. is distinguished from Greece in that its debt is denominated in its own currency, over which it has sovereign control.
Thursday, July 15, 2010 HOW BROKERS BECAME BOOKIES: THE INSIDIOUS TRANSFORMATION OF MARKETS INTO CASINOS (1 comments)
Our forebears considered gambling to be immoral and made it a crime. Derivative trading was originally considered an illegal form of gambling. Perhaps it is time to reinstate the gambling laws, board up the derivatives casinos, and return the stock market to what it was designed to be: a means of funneling the capital of investors into productive businesses.
Friday, July 2, 2010 Deficit Terrorism as Class Warfare -- and How We Can Even the Score (2 comments)
Wall Street banks have been saved from bankruptcy by governments that are now going bankrupt themselves; but the banks are not returning the favor. Instead, they are engaged in a class war, insisting that the squeezed middle class be even further squeezed to balance over-stressed government budgets. All the perks are going to Wall Street, while Main Street slips into debt slavery.
Friday, June 18, 2010 DEFICIT TERRORISTS STRIKE IN BRITAIN -- USA NEXT? (1 comments)
Last week, Britain's new government said it would abandon the previous government's stimulus program and introduce the austerity measures required to pay down its estimated $1 trillion in debts. That means cutting public spending, laying off workers, reducing consumption, and increasing unemployment and bankruptcies. It also means shrinking the money supply, since virtually all "money" today originates as loans or debt.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Banks Profit from Near-zero Interest Rates: Another Reason for States to Own Their Own Banks (3 comments)
While individuals, businesses and governments suffer from a credit crisis created on Wall Street, the banks responsible for the crisis are tapping into nearly-interest-free credit lines and using the money to speculate or to make commercial loans at much higher rates. By forming their own banks, states too can tap into very low interest rates, and can buffer themselves from another Lehman-style credit collapse.
Saturday, May 8, 2010 STOCK MARKET COLLAPSE: MORE GOLDMAN MARKET RIGGING? (33 comments)
Goldman and Wall Street reign. Congress appears helpless to discipline the big banks, just as the European Central Bank appears helpless to prevent the collapse of the European Union. . . . Or are they?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Derivatives Come to the Movies (1 comments)
s if attacks from paparazzi and star-crazed fans weren't enough, Hollywood stars may soon have a literal price put on their heads by investors in the Cantor Exchange, a real-money trading platform where people can bet on the gross profits of upcoming movies.
Monday, April 26, 2010 COMPUTERIZED FRONT RUNNING: ANOTHER GOLDMAN-DOMINATED FRAUD
While the SEC is busy investigating Goldman Sachs, it might want to look into another Goldman-dominated fraud: computerized front running using high-frequency trading programs.
Friday, April 2, 2010 CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN: The Government Is Now in the Banking Business (7 comments)
Under the student loan bill slipped into the health care bill, the federal government will be lending to students directly, saving billions of dollars and eliminating decades of corruption and exploitation.
Saturday, March 20, 2010 The Growing Movement for State-owned Banks (8 comments)
As the states' credit crisis deepens, four states have initiated bills for state-owned banks, and candidates in seven states have now included that solution in their platforms.
Thursday, March 4, 2010 IMF-STYLE AUSTERITY COMES TO AMERICA
In addition to mandatory private health insurance premiums, we may soon be hit with a "mandatory savings" tax and other belt-tightening measures urged by the President's new budget task force. These radical austerity measures are not only unnecessary but will actually make matters worse. The push for "fiscal responsibility" is based on bad economics.
Sunday, February 28, 2010 Attack of the GMOs: GMO Alfalfa Will Make Organic Dairy Impossible (7 comments)
The USDA and Secretary Vilsack, in collaboration with Monsanto, are about to lift a court-ordered ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa. This GMO would have disastrous effects on US and global agriculture. Genetically engineered alfalfa would be the first perennial GM crop, and would result in a huge increase of toxic RoundUp in the environment.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Growing Number of Candidates Campaigning for State-owned Banks (7 comments)
While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks.
Monday, January 25, 2010 Funding Public Health Care with a Publicly Owned Bank: How Canada Did It (1 comments)
The Massachusetts gubernatorial upset means the President may have to start over with his health care bill. The good news is that there's still a chance for the public option the voters thought they would be getting. How to fund it? The way Canada did -- with credit issued by the government's own central bank.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Compulsory Private Health Insurance: Just Another Bailout for the Financial Sector? (8 comments)
Rather than making health care affordable, the current bills focus on how to force people either to buy health insurance if they don't have it, or to pay more for it if they do. The bills are another bailout for the financial sector at the expense of the squeezed middle class.
Thursday, December 17, 2009 EU/IMF Revolt: Greece, Iceland, Latvia May Lead the Way (4 comments)
Europe's small, debt-strapped countries could follow the lead of Argentina and simply walk away from their debts. That would shift the burden to the creditor countries, which could solve the problem merely by a change in accounting rules.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 Lessons from the Japanese: Time to Stop Borrowing Money and Start Printing It (9 comments)
Japan may be the canary in the coal mine for the out-of-control deficit spending policies of the U.S. government. Japan is in a serious deflationary crisis because it borrowed money from banks that printed it rather than printing its own.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 MAKING WALL STREET PAY ITS FAIR SHARE (4 comments)
Wall Street's speculative traders have managed to trade in practically the only products left on the planet that are not subject to a sales tax. The fact that trades in “financial products” remain untaxed suggests a tidy way the public could recover some of its bailout money.
Monday, November 2, 2009 Cut Wall Street Out! How States Can Finance Their Own Economic Recovery (4 comments)
President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses. Only one state reports net job GAINS; and it has done it by generating its own credit, cutting Wall Street out.
Thursday, October 15, 2009 Reviving the Local Economy with Publicly-owned Banks (9 comments)
The credit crunch is getting worse on Main Street, despite a Wall Street bailout now in the trillions of dollars. The Fed may have played all its cards, but state and local governments still hold a few aces. Some local politicians are looking into the feasibility of opening their own publicly-owned banks, providing them with their own credit machines.
Friday, October 2, 2009 THE IMF CATAPULTS FROM SHUNNED AGENCY TO GLOBAL CENTRAL BANK (9 comments)
A year ago, nobody wanted to know the IMF. Last week, the G20 suddenly promoted it to global central banker and global collection agency for the banking industry. The end result will be to lock not only third world countries but the U.S. more firmly into debt to a global banking cartel.
Monday, September 7, 2009 Economic 9-11: Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed? (8 comments)
The disastrous collapse of Lehman Brothers on 9-11-08 was the catalyst that changed the rules of the game for the big Wall Street financial players. The banks would henceforth be bailed out by the taxpayers, no matter what the cost. Was the Lehman bankruptcy the result of "market forces" or was it engineered? If the bank was pushed over the brink by invisible hands, whose hands were they and what goal was being served?
Saturday, August 29, 2009 THE MERCURY MISCHIEF: As Obama Warns of Hazards, the FDA Approves Mercury Dental Fillings (5 comments)
The government seems to be speaking out of both sides of its mouth, as the President preaches one thing and the FDA does another. If we are going to have “smarter medicine that really works,” we need to get politics, lobbies and cronyism out of science.
Thursday, August 6, 2009 The Public Option In Banking: How We Can Beat Wall Street At Its Own Game (17 comments)
President Obama has repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to create some competition for the insurance companies and keep them honest. We the people need to call for a public option in banking, in order to create some competition for the private banks and keep them honest.
Thursday, July 23, 2009 How California Could Turn Its IOUs into Dollars (8 comments)
California has over $17 billion on deposit in banks that have refused to honor its IOUs, forcing legislators to accept crippling budget cuts. These austerity measures are unnecessary. If the state were to deposit its money in its own state-owned bank, it could have enough credit to solve its budget crisis with funds to spare.
Monday, July 13, 2009 Toward a Solution to the Debt Crisis in California: The State Could Walk Away and Create Its Own Credit Machine (5 comments)
Four Wall Street banks, which received $15-25 billion each from the taxpayers, have rejected California's IOUs because the State is supposedly a bad credit risk. The bailed out banks would seem to have a duty to lend a helping hand, but they say they don't want to delay an agreement on further austerity measures. State legislators are not bowing quickly to the pressure, but what is the alternative?
Thursday, July 9, 2009 California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes (6 comments)
All eyes are on California as it attempts to solve its $26 billion budget crisis. State legislators are caught between the rock of tax ceilings and the hard place of debt limits. What to do? How about setting up a state-owned bank and using its state revenues as "reserves"? The bank could then do what any bank does: fan those reserves into many times their face value in loans.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 BIG BROTHER IN BASEL: BIS FINANCIAL STABILITY BOARD UNDERMINES NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY (33 comments)
The Report on Financial Regulatory Reform issued on June 17 includes a recommendation that the Financial Stability Board strengthen and institutionalize its mandate. The new global Big Brother is based in Switzerland in the Bank for International Settlements, a controversial institution that raises red flags among the wary . . .
Thursday, June 18, 2009 The Retreat of the Shadow Lenders: Why Deflation and Not Inflation Is the Order of the Day (13 comments)
While contrarians are screaming "hyperinflation!", the money supply is actually shrinking. This is because most money today comes into existence as bank loans, and lending has shrunk substantially. That means the Fed needs to "monetize" debt just to fill the breach.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Out of the Ashes of GM: The Phoenix of Renewable Energy (1 comments)
Prophetically, GM named one of its now-extinct brands the Firebird. Like the fabled Firebird, GM could be reborn as something else. We now own a car company. To finance its transformation into something better, we just need to own a bank.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 The Weimar Hyperinflation: Time to get out the wheelbarrows? (10 comments)
Worried commentators are predicting a massive hyperinflation of the sort suffered by Weimar Germany in 1923, but there is something puzzling in the data. The British government is already funding more of its budget by merely printing money than Weimar Germany did at the height of its hyperinflation, yet the pound is holding its own. Something else must have been going on in Weimar Germany . . . .
Thursday, April 9, 2009 Revive Lincoln's Monetary Policy: An open letter to President Obama (11 comments)
The world was transfixed on that remarkable day in January when you gazed upon Abraham Lincoln's likeness at the Lincoln Memorial and searched for wisdom to navigate these difficult times. But you may not be aware of another form of slavery from which Lincoln tried to free his countrymen, one we are still battling today . . .
Saturday, March 28, 2009 Thinking Positively: How "Quantitative Easing" May Be Harnessed for the Public Good (31 comments)
Nervous pundits are predicting the end of American life as we know it, after Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that he would be dropping ANOTHER trillion dollars in helicopter money. But cautions aside, its new "quantitative easing" policy at least has the potential to serve the government and the people it represents.
Monday, March 2, 2009 Cash-starved States Need to Play the Banking Game: North Dakota Shows How (8 comments)
Forty-six of fifty states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years. One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction North Dakota. What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank.
Saturday, February 21, 2009 Monetize This! A better way to fund the stimulus package (25 comments)
Funding the government's budget shortfall has usually been left to private lenders; but those loans are drying up, and servicing them is proving expensive. Both this interest burden and the need to continually attract new lenders could be avoided by tapping into the government's credit line at its own central bank . . . .
Thursday, January 22, 2009 Mysterious Prison Buses in the Desert (26 comments)
Prison buses are driving around empty in the Tucson area. Are Wackenhut and the DHS preparing for civil unrest?
Saturday, January 10, 2009 Credit Where Credit Is Due: The Direct Approach to Fixing the Credit Crisis (32 comments)
Last fall, Congress committed an unprecedented $700 billion in taxpayer money to reversing the credit crisis, and the Federal Reserve has already fanned that into $8.5 trillion in loans and commitments. But the bank bailout has proven to be no more than a boondoggle for a handful of lucky Wall Street banks, without getting credit flowing again. What went wrong and what WILL get credit flowing again? . . .
Monday, December 29, 2008 Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul: The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme Called Fractional Reserve Banking (109 comments)
Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done, but his Ponzi scheme was small compared to one that has been perpetrated for hundreds of years by the banking system itself. What distinguishes the legal scheme known as "fractional reserve" lending from the illegal schemes of Madoff and his ilk is that the bankers' scheme is protected by government charter and backstopped with government funds.
Friday, December 19, 2008 GROUND ZERO ON WALL STREET: FED FUNDS AND T-BILLS HIT 0% INTEREST (14 comments)
The federal funds rate and the interest on 3-month Treasury bills both just hit ZERO percent. This means banks and the government are borrowing money for free. Yet demand for the T-bills was four times the available supply! Who is clamoring to buy the debt of the world's most insolvent debtor for no return at all, and why?
Monday, December 8, 2008 Sustainable Government: Banking for a "New" New Deal (22 comments)
Obama has started his version of Roosevelt's "fireside chats." He has said he plans to create 2.5 million new jobs by 2011 and kick-start the economy by building roads and bridges, modernizing schools, and creating technology and infrastructure for renewable energy. These are excellent ideas, but what will they be funded with - more government debt? There is another alternative . . .
Sunday, November 30, 2008 "Oops, We Meant $7 TRILLION!" What Hank and Ben Are Up to and How They Plan to Pay for It All (27 comments)
The $700 billion that was arm-twisted from Congress in October was just the camel's nose under the tent. The Paulson/Bernanke team is now prepared to pay $7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system. Prepared to pay how? Congress has not raised its debt ceiling to that level, and the Fed doesn't have the funds on its books . . .
Monday, November 3, 2008 All Is Well in Stepfordville: More on the Pre-election Chicanery of the Plunge Protection Team (17 comments)
It was another surreal week on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising a thousand points while the economy continued to sink into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. More evidence of the Plunge Protection Team at work? The election was only days away . . .
Saturday, October 25, 2008 The not-so-invisible hand: How the plunge protection team killed the free market (8 comments)
October 24 marks the 79th anniversary of the October 1929 stock market crash. Many feared a repeat of this disaster on Friday, October 24, 2008; but remarkably, disaster was averted. How? Suspicious observers saw the hand of the Plunge Protection Team pulling strings behind the scenes . . .
