Month: December 2012

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You Are Playing in a Game with No Rules


Dave Hodges – Activist Post Dec 28, 2012

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control and from 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. China established gun control in 1935 and from 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million people, Jews included, and many others, who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

We sit in the aftermath of Sandy Hook debating what to do about the murder of innocent men, women and children in America’s gun free zones.

There are some politicians, two in Arizona, who want to protect our children while they attend schools. ( Click Here )Arizona State Attorney General, Tom Horne, has unveiled a plan in which each school campus in my home state would be required to have at least one armed staff member. In my opinion that is not enough, but at least it is a productive start.

Hypothetically, can anyone argue that schools would be the safest place in America if 10 staff members on each campus were trained and armed? The question is rhetorical because the answer is obvious.

Horne’s idea is not new. In fact, he is copying what my friend, former Arizona State Senator Jack Harper proposed four years ago. Harper’s idea was soundly defeated and continued to leave Arizona’s students defenseless. I call Harper a friend because he was helpful in helping me save my community of 2000 rural residents from having their homes stolen by the State of Arizona without a plan in place to pay one dime in compensation. Why was this done to us? Because my community sits near a planned CANAMEX Highway, as well as the fact that we sit on the state’s largest underground water aquifer. We are in the way; the powers that be wanted us gone, and they did not want to pay anything for the planned loss of our properties.

Because I became the spokesperson of our community, this launched my writing and radio career. Jack Harper, like a lot of politicians, knows the score about the globalists takeover of this country.

Once a rising star in Arizona state politics, Jack Harper made the mistake of challenging voter fraud in Arizona. As a result of his vocal attacks on the lack of integrity on the voting system in place in Maricopa County, Jack’s political career went south and he was increasingly portrayed as a delusional conspiracy theorist who was prone to knee-jerk reactions.

The point in bringing up Harper is that there are politicians who fully understand that our country has been conquered and, as a result, when they challenge the status quo, they are marginalized. The point of the Harper revelation is to point out that there will be politician who will ride in on their white horse and save the day. Where will the resistance come from, you ask? Look in the mirror, because the American people are on their own, and God help us if we ever give up our guns.

Harper and Horne’s idea of arming school personnel goes a long way toward protecting our children. I predict that Horne’s idea will suffer the same fate as Harper’s. Protecting the children, in fact, protecting all of the citizens in the United States is the not the objective of the Obama Administration! Ask yourself, would it be easier to protect school children by arming trained personnel or to risk civil war by confiscating guns? Further, Obama’s children are protected by 11 armed guards while they attend school. Why are Obama’s children more precious and deserve more protection than the Sandy Hook children?

Anyone with an IQ over room temperature should realize that getting our guns is the sole objective of these false flag attacks. Whether Sandy Hook was a false flag event, or not, the children at Sandy Hook are NWO fodder for gun confiscation. On that point, there can be no argument. Therefore, if the government does not want to directly protect our children, why are they going through the charade to get our guns in the name of protecting our children? George Orwell would be proud of this 1984 example of doublespeak.

Why They Want Our Guns

If you were going to rob one of two homes, what would you choose? Would you choose a home that clearly has armed family members; or, would you choose the home where the best weapon in the house is a butter knife? This is the choice being made by the Obama Administration. They have plans to loot your personal resources as they simultaneously facilitate your demise. In the following paragraphs, you will see why you must be disarmed at all costs.

The United States has unsustainable debt. The United States is crumbling under the burden of empire and is fighting wars we cannot afford. The United States treasury has been plundered by the bankers and, with QE unlimited, there is no end to the plundering caused by the illegal banker activities involving the futures and derivatives markets. The dollar will collapse. It is no longer a matter of if, but when. The globalists are taking steps to steal as many assets from the American people as possible before the collapse.

For example, the Federal Reserve is printing $40 billion dollars per month in mortgage backed securities (MBS), each and every month, in order to buy properties in the United States. The total estimated real estate worth of the United States is placed at a little over ( See Here  $23 trillion ). When one begins to calculate the real estate acquisition power of the Federal Reserve’s MBS program being done with OPM (other people’s money)  – i.e. your money and my money – one does not have to be economic expert to spell the word feudalism. Just like in the movie, Hunger Games, the government will soon be the major landlord in America as it moves to control all important resources.

Does the current mortgage-related fraud make a little more sense to you now? Does the collapse of the housing bubble, which significantly lowered the net worth of the nation’s real estate market come into play as we watch the Federal Reserve gobble up $40 billion dollars of property each month at dramatically reduced prices brought on by their illegal Wall Street Ponzi schemes? Even Ray Charles could see that these events are not coincidental. But hold on to your hat, as this is just the beginning.

On August 9th of 2012, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ( Here ruled  )that once a depositor places money in the bank, the bank can do whatever they see fit with your money. In other words, the assets in your bank account could be stolen tomorrow and there is not a damn thing you can legally do about it. The canary in the mine for this violation of the public trust took place with MF Global when Jon Corzine, former Goldman Sachs official as well as the former Governor and Senator from New Jersey, oversaw the theft of $1.2 billion in secured private investment accounts. In other words, this money had already been earned and was not at risk, but it was stolen; and the government overseer of this industry, CME’s Gary Gensler (a former Goldman Sachs official) refused to act on the theft of accounts overseen by Corzine. But it gets worse.

Do you remember that little organization called MERS which was caught selling multiple notes representing one individual mortgage note? Your mortgage note could literally be held by a couple of dozen mortgage companies that could move to foreclose on your mortgage note even though you are current on your payments. I did a brief check on my note and did a title search. Fortunately, I can only find one mortgage note to my property. However, when I looked at the mortgage agreement I have with Wells Fargo, it specifically states – in the fine print of course – that Wells Fargo retains the right to sell my mortgage note and is not responsible for the conduct of any party connected to the transaction. In simple terms, this is a license to steal. According the authoritative book, Clouded Titles, hundreds of thousands of properties have been stolen in this manner.

Now ask yourself, if you knew that you were about to lose everything, what would you do? Well, you would have a garage sale in which you would try and get as much value as you could for things that would not be of use to you following your economic collapse. This is what is happening today in America’s markets and the Federal Reserve is behind it. THEY KNOW THAT AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS COMING AND THEY ARE TRYING TO OBTAIN AND ROB AS MANY ASSETS AS POSSIBLE!

To add fuel to the fire, America sits on the precipice of the fiscal cliff. Your taxes are about to rise significantly. The estate tax policies will become draconian and the middle class generational transmission of wealth will be all but halted. People on fixed incomes will suffer greatly and some will be forced out of their homes; of course Helicopter Ben will be there to swoop up the crumbs with their MBS. Doctors treating the elderly will see an income reduction of 30%. Who will be left to medically treat the elderly? When granny dies because she cannot get her heart medication, how are family members going to respond?

We are witnessing the Great American Fire Sale brought to you by the five megabanks on behalf of the Federal Reserve.

In parts one and two of this series, I spoke about how I personally know two ex-intel types who have already relocated to enclaves of like-minded people to what they believe to be safer areas. I personally know of a third person who is in preparation. They tell stories of coming gun confiscation and draconian gun enforcement, the rationing of resources, even more horrific false flag events which will be used to justify the seizing of our guns and yet, even worse unspecified events.

Some of you have demanded names, on these three families, but I cannot break the confidence. All of you in the media understand the importance of not giving up the identity of your sources. I will say this: one source is a family who I originally had a professional relationship with and it grew into a sharing of confidences. This family has already relocated and I will not likely hear from them again. Their move was disruptive to the children of the family and their timetable was greatly accelerated.

Another source I have had for 4 years. The person is an in-law of a very close friend who I have known for years. Each encouraged me to come forward in a general way so people would start to prepare. I have held this information for some time because I did not think I would be believed. However, it was only after Doug Hagmann came out with information from his DHS insider that, to some extent, validated what I had been told, did I decide to print what I know. I am hoping that more unnamed sources will come forward in order that we can establish a preponderance of the evidence which will get people to stand up for their rights, their futures and their children.

I have written statistics courses for colleges. I have overseen master’s theses as a research instructor and consultant. I deal in facts and data and I am better at these skills than most. I do not like using unnamed sources, except I think, in this case, the importance and urgency of the message outweighs the validity component. At the same time, I would be skeptical of the veracity of these claims as well without further proof. Therefore, let me turn my attention to verifiable intelligence sources, which accurately predicted what is happening in our time.

You want names, you say? My current sources are out of bounds. However, my news director for my talk show, Annie DeRiso, and I have intelligence community contacts which goes back almost two decades who warned us of the times that we live in now. Annie was married to Bill Pawelec, who was a freelance CIA operative. Bill and I had been friends for years prior to his meeting Annie. At the time Bill contracted terminal cancer, Bill was in the process of planning to build a self-sustaining community in the approximate vicinity of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, which was going to be inhabited by like-minded intelligence community types. This was such a serious endeavor that he and former NSA operative, Vance Davis, were in contact with the now defunct Enron Corporation to facilitate the construction. Bill and Vance invited me to participate, so I had first knowledge of their plans.

Annie and I also had a lot of contact with the now deceased NSA operative AC Griffith, who was a guest on my show several times. Griffith warned Annie and I about the coming gun confiscation which would utilize goon squads who would go house to house and eliminate any opposition. AC said that they did not have the ability to canvas that many homes, but would work on the principle that the IRS uses when dealing with tax cheats. Namely, they rule by intimidation by publicly punishing the few they catch in very harsh ways so as to intimidate the population. Griffith also warned of an ever-increasing set of false flag events to come over the country as an excuse to impose martial law. Following his death, those closest to him find themselves being followed and harassed and have ceased any level of activism.

For the naysayers, how is this for naming names? And while we are at it, in Jim Marrs’ most recent appearance on my talk show, he revealed that several hundred banking officials have stepped down from their positions and have not been heard from. Interestingly, in the Hagmann interview, his DHS source alluded to the fact that DHS and Wall Street have parallel agendas. America, you are living history, right here and right now.

The forces from the Federal Reserve are poised to literally steal as much as they can from Americans before the economic collapse. And before the economic collapse, the government must get our guns. President Obama and Barbara Boxer are openly talking about the banning of guns. California and New York are poised to “buy back” guns. Seemingly, everywhere in the media, everyone is talking about banning guns. Again, I repeat, if the powers-that-be would refuse to directly protect our schoolchildren with armed guards on the campuses, then we have a right to question their motives in wanting to seize our guns.

Source:

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Have read this Just before I was about to fall of my lemon tree….LOL
LOVE IT…Don’t ask me why .
Thanks ” ivonprefontaine “

Teacher as Transformer

We enjoyed a restful Christmas. We head out tomorrow night for a trip to British Columbia where my 88-year old mother lives. Over the past few days, I thought about what I hold true and came across this Rumi poem. I will be working more on the literature review for my dissertation and I need to assure myself that I distinguish between two types of intelligences: one that grounds me and one that is simply the currency of the day.

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teacher says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of…

View original post 72 more words

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Netanyahu Kills the Sabbath


Hello, Howdy and G’day to all my friends at Word Press.com. from an Old Fart

If you didn’t hear of me, feel my presence or smell, is that, I HAD AN WONDERFUL HANUKA SEASON with my daughter and EX, her new family and some old time friends.

Now here I am, fresh as a cucumber in the mist of the morning, and hot as chilli as the days pass out…LOL.

AFTER ALL, I AM BACK WITH THE SWORD of JUSTICE, FOR SOME HOT, HILARIOUS, FRESH STUFF…..LOL.

A few weeks before the elections, the situation in Israel deteriorated into verbal Jewish Wars. Every lie is kosher if it can bring a few votes. Swine are poultry; Friday equals Saturday. As soon as the Jewish Sabbath ended in the late hours of December 22, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu was hit by a religious antimissile more advanced than anything RAFAEL may construct anytime soon.

“Netanyahu caused ‘Hilul Shabat,'” read the headlines of settler Channel 7. “Hilul Shabat” translates roughly as “Killing the Sabbath,” and refers to a situation in which the Jewish rules regarding the Saturday are broken. “Hilul” can also be translated as “desecrated,” however, the allusion to death shows how seriously this issue is considered. The term is also used while mentioning killed soldiers; it gives a false illusion of the state’s sanctity.

 Jewish Wars - The Sabbath Battle

Jewish Wars – The Sabbath Battle

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism

“What happened last Friday is unbelievable,” a senior politician of what is known as “Religious Zionism” who refused to be identified by name said. He added, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ran hurriedly and gave interviews to the three leading television channels, directly causing the workers of these channels to violate the Sabbath.” Netanyahu gave the interviews before the beginning of the holy day; however, after he left the studio, the workers there had to edit the event and prepare its broadcast. By doing so, they violated the Haredi interpretation of Sabbath Laws. However, Netanyahu was responsible for their unforgivable crime. Netanyahu’s spokesman dry answer to the accusation was that the interviews didn’t violate the Sabbath.

Jordanian Police

“I fully support your goals, but I cn’t condone your methods” | Pharaoh to Moses
Shimon Peres
“Releaser of terrorists – Shimon Peres – President of the Arabs”
Poster by the settler Jewish National Front

Is this serious?

The issue is deadly serious. Towards the end of 1976 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition with the religious parties faced a motion of no confidence brought by the Haredi party Agudat Israel. The reason for the motion was four F-15 jets sent by the US to the IDF during the Sabbath. Instead of facing the shame of losing the vote, Rabin dissolved his government and called for early elections in May 1977. Menachem Begin won the elections, and the Likud era began. Should Netanyahu be worried?

The Haredi position on the Sabbath is neither pure nor innocent. In God’s Clowns: On Jewish Sabbath I analyzed various tricks used by them in order to allow breaking the Sabbath. One of them is related to social visits during the Sabbath. I wrote, ‘“But, what can one do? One wants to visit his friends!,” said Rabbi Schmeck. Oh, yes, one wants to do that. However, that may be considered a violation of the Sabbath, since the day should be dedicated to God and not to social acquaintances. What can one do? Let’s see, is walking from the synagogue to one’s house allowed? Of course it is! Now, what is one’s house? This one is an easy trick: wherever my belongings are, that’s my house. Good! Now, let’s put a small item of ours – let’s say a Bible, for the irony – in our best friend’s house. Technically, his house is now also my house. “Mi casa, tu casa; tu casa, mi casa.” Now Rabbi Schmeck can walk from his house to his temple and back to his other house, while God is confused by all this nonsense and believes that Schmeck still fulfills the Mosaic Law.’ Religious Jews manipulate religious laws for their convenience and in order to create obstacles for others. The latter may help them to obtain concessions from a Prime Minister weeks before the elections.

Netanyahu didn’t even care enough to explain the incident himself; he sent into the cold a secondary spokesman to do that for him. The poster above explains the issue. It shows President Shimon Peres with a kaffiyeh, the text reads “Releaser of terrorists – Shimon Peres – President of the Arabs – Jewish National Front.” In the years since Rabin’s Labor lost its hegemony, religious parties in Israel have shifted to the right wing of the political spectrum. They are closely related to settler parties, as the Jewish National Front is. They are openly derogatory towards the left; anybody knowing anything about Israel knows that Shimon Peres has been the eternal “Shin Beth Candidate,” the open political face of the political police. Claiming that he is the “President of the Arabs” is equal to claiming that Hitler was the “President of the French.” It works well during election campaigns for as long as you want to alienate the people from a given party. HoweverYet, this time it backfired. The religious parties cannot tell Netanyahu that unless he pays for his horrendous crime they will vote Labor, even after the latter announced that it supports the settler budget. A month before the elections, Netanyahu killed the Sabbath, and there is nothing the Jews can do about.

Shalom, and my best wishes for the Rosh-Ha-Shana…..LMAO

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Merry Christmas from S.O.S.News and Me.


       AussieWatch
“Like Rust We never Sleep” | December 16th 2012 | Established 2002 | Subscribing Computers 69,623 +

o SOS-NEWS Main Site
o AussieWatch our Investigations Site
o Newsfront Archive blog
o Original Library

Contact your politicians and voice your opinion at anytime [HERE]

“Average Australians have access to the courts in the same sense that Christians had access to the lions”

MANY THANKS FOR A DECADE OF SUPPORT

With good news in short supply we need to reflect on Christmas for the children keeping the happy face of Santa alive as childhood is such a short lived period of life.

For those who remember beyond 25 years enjoyment of a traditional Australian family Christmas, think how sad it is today for your children and grand children who never felt that freedom and festive spirit stolen by the servants of our nation.

Our last “AussieWatch” news for 2012 will be published Friday 14th December as we take a break for a few weeks. The next newsletter will be published 8th February 2013 along with new formats on our web-network we hope will assist you to continue making informed decisions.

SOS-NEWS consistently recognised and quoted by media around the world differs in Australia where controlled media watch us like a hawk, utilise our publications, never mentioning the source confirms SOS-NEWS keeps pressing the right buttons nutralising spin doctors, infiltrating political and corporate bunkers.

Government and opposition will continue to extinguish the remaining embers of free speech in Australia threatening their power base. Watch the next move – “when government cannot dictate they legislate“.

To all subscribing owners of 70,000 + computers on our mailing list, to all readers who receive forwarded “AussieWatch” from subscribers, we at SOS-NEWS thank you for remaining loyal over the past decade and we look forward to your support over the next decade.

SOS-NEWS Volunteer Staff
“Like Rust We Never Sleep”

A Message To Our Misunderstood Ethnic Cousins

LATEST FROM OUR WEBSITE NEWS SERVICE

Merry Christmas from the Prime Minister

If you think the country is in good hands, you are not a public servant, a school teacher or an academic recipient of fictional government science research funding, this information may assist you making a decision at the polling booth next year – then maybe not … read more [HERE]

Two Years of Cablegate as Bradley Manning Testifies for the First Time

Julian Assange we support to the hilt. Never expecting his damning information to appear in mainstream media, read Julian’s release concerning Bradley Manning, detained without trial for 921 days, testifies for the first time over Wikileaks cablegate. – – – read more [HERE]

ARE YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS ?

How much longer is this dictatorship delivered by the major parties to the people going to continue unchecked? Pictured left will soon be democracy in Australia if we continue to capitulate to government threats and bully tactics used successfully by the Nazis to control until the people said “NO MORE“.

It appears the historic fighter from Australia, recognised world wide as famous for standing fast during conflicts with an enemy from another country threatening their freedom, will not exercise the same guts to fight this political enemy within who have placed the people in a political concentration camp.

Here is your chance to make a move. Arm yourself with a pen or computer, now hype yourself upby shouting out loud 3 time “I want My Australia Back” then go for it before Friday 21st December 2012 then snail mail or email with your stand as an Australian who has had enough.

The short time frame for people to make submissions against this government agenda to shut you up is a façade of democracy but research facts reveal 98% of pending legislation calling for public submissions over 20 years have passed in original format. A contributing factor to this is the small amount of public submissions allowing dismissal without consequent to politicians.

Hit them hard with thousands of submissions no matter how small, vent your anger at the arrogance of these taxpayer funded public servants GAGGING you their master from voicing your opinion as an Australia who enjoys our constitutional freedom of speech. Ask for a referendum, that will frighten the hell out of them.

Could we be gagged?

 

A Senate committee is conducting an inquiry on a controversial bill by federal Labor Attorney-General Nicola Roxon. The deadline for submissions is not far away – Friday 21 December 2012 – and brief emails pointing out the bill’s dangers are urgently needed.

Among other problems, the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 would:

greatly increase the number of attributes (eg gender identity) on which discrimination is forbidden;

 

make it illegal to offend someone at work on the basis of their religious belief or political opinion;

 

reverse the onus of proof;

 

deny non-disabled respondents the right to have a legal adviser at conciliation conferences;

 

make it illegal for church-based aged care homes to discriminate on sexual orientation or gender identity grounds.

The new offence of “offending” others at work on the basis of religious belief is a big worry. A similar law in Victoria caused great stress and expense for two Christian pastors before they were vindicated by the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal five years later. Some other states then decided not to proceed with such harmful and counter-productive laws – but the federal Attorney-General is ploughing ahead.

Former NSW chief justice Jim Spigelman has spoken out against the federal bill, saying it would impose unprecedented restrictions on free speech, far beyond anti-discrimination laws in other countries (The Australian, 11/12/12). Reversing the onus of proof (so respondents must prove their innocence), then denying the right to have a legal adviser at conciliation conferences, is contrary to natural justice.

The bill would prohibit discrimination against same-sex couples. There would be no exception for religious bodies providing aged care – they would have to treat homosexual couples as married couples. This would undermine religious freedom and could be extended to schools and other services in future.

 

Please act now – send a brief submission to the Senate inquiry by Friday 21 December

Email egcon.sen@aph.gov.au or fax to 02 6277 5794 – or post to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.

Write “Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012” in the subject line. Include your name and postal address.

In your own words, say:

The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill undermines free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association and natural justice. It should be rejected, or amended:

to remove from clause 19 the words, “conduct that offends, insults or intimidates” and the words “religion” and “political opinion” from the list of protected attributes in clause 17;

 

to delete clause 124 which reverses the onus of proof;

 

to allow respondents the right to legal representation if they wish;

 

to allow religious freedom to religious bodies in all circumstances.

For more information on the parliamentary website for this inquiry click here or go to: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=legcon_ctte/anti_discrimination_2012/index.htm

 

Family Voice Australia: a Christian voice for family, faith and freedom

www.fava.org.au phone: 1300 365 965 email: office@fava.org.au

Download a pdf copy of this to distribute and print – http://sosnews.org/pdf/Government-Gags-Australians.pdf

 

 

Coal Train Crash – Was Just A Matter Of Time

SOS-NEWS released a VIDEO in January 2012 on coal mining in NSW showing ramification to our rural food bowls and rail network running 24 hour convoys of 70 carriage heavy laden coal trains pulled by 3 locomotives along a single track never designed to accommodate this traffic mentioned as we videoed the rail track.

The trains run 70 carriages to accommodate the loop line used to wait off the main line for tha train coming from the opposite direction to pass. If there was a double track the mining companies would be running very much larger trains.

At Boggabri 29 November 2012, on an elevated rail bridge over Cox’s Creek, a fully laden coal train was derailed putting 5 carriages off the bridge closing that section of the line to all rail traffic for an estimated bridge rebuild and track-work of 3 months.

The wheat export from that area of NSW is also unable to meet export contracts if they cannot get the produce to shipping ports with an estimated loss of around $150 million.

Expected from rail investigators was suggestion of heat buckling the track. With the mangled mess that finding may remain, but for XPT passengers using the same track pounded by coal trains on an infrastructure never designed for this punishment, there is always the bus.

The almighty dollar need to be collected by government and their corporate mates with Whitehaven Coal, running out of space to store coal they cannot move by rail, have contacted their mates in government to set in place authorisation to operate convoys of truck to move coal on our highways.

Read the story published by the Newcastle Herald – [HERE]

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SO SIMPLE, SO EASY, we can WIPE the IMF with an epic plan to conjure away Debt and Dethrone the Bankers.


Ambrose Pritchard-Evans – telegraph.co.uk Oct 21, 2012

One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined.

The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money – roughly 97pc of the money supply – with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

Specifically, it means an assault on “fractional reserve banking”. If lenders are forced to put up 100pc reserve backing for deposits, they lose the exorbitant privilege of creating money out of thin air.

The nation regains sovereign control over the money supply. There are no more banks runs, and fewer boom-bust credit cycles. Accounting legerdemain will do the rest. That at least is the argument.

Some readers may already have seen the IMF study, by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof, which came out in August and has begun to acquire a cult following around the world.

Entitled ( Here),“The Chicago Plan Revisited“, it revives the scheme first put forward by professors Henry Simons and Irving Fisher in 1936 during the ferment of creative thinking in the late Depression.

Irving Fisher thought credit cycles led to an unhealthy concentration of wealth. He saw it with his own eyes in the early 1930s as creditors foreclosed on destitute farmers, seizing their land or buying it for a pittance at the bottom of the cycle.

The farmers found a way of defending themselves in the end. They muscled together at “one dollar auctions”, buying each other’s property back for almost nothing. Any carpet-bagger who tried to bid higher was beaten to a pulp.

Benes and Kumhof argue that credit-cycle trauma – caused by private money creation – dates deep into history and lies at the root of debt jubilees in the ancient religions of Mesopotian and the Middle East.

Harvest cycles led to systemic defaults thousands of years ago, with forfeiture of collateral, and concentration of wealth in the hands of lenders. These episodes were not just caused by weather, as long thought. They were amplified by the effects of credit.

The Athenian leader Solon implemented the first known Chicago Plan/New Deal in 599 BC to relieve farmers in hock to oligarchs enjoying private coinage. He cancelled debts, restituted lands seized by creditors, set floor-prices for commodities (much like Franklin Roosevelt), and consciously flooded the money supply with state-issued “debt-free” coinage.

The Romans sent a delegation to study Solon’s reforms 150 years later and copied the ideas, setting up their own fiat money system under Lex Aternia in 454 BC.

It is a myth – innocently propagated by the great Adam Smith – that money developed as a commodity-based or gold-linked means of exchange. Gold was always highly valued, but that is another story. Metal-lovers often conflate the two issues.

Anthropological studies show that social fiat currencies began with the dawn of time. The Spartans banned gold coins, replacing them with iron disks of little intrinsic value. The early Romans used bronze tablets. Their worth was entirely determined by law – a doctrine made explicit by Aristotle in his Ethics – like the dollar, the euro, or sterling today.

Some argue that Rome began to lose its solidarity spirit when it allowed an oligarchy to develop a private silver-based coinage during the Punic Wars. Money slipped control of the Senate. You could call it Rome’s shadow banking system. Evidence suggests that it became a machine for elite wealth accumulation.

Unchallenged sovereign or Papal control over currencies persisted through the Middle Ages until England broke the mould in 1666. Benes and Kumhof say this was the start of the boom-bust era.

One might equally say that this opened the way to England’s agricultural revolution in the early 18th Century, the industrial revolution soon after, and the greatest economic and technological leap ever seen. But let us not quibble.

The original authors of the Chicago Plan were responding to the Great Depression. They believed it was possible to prevent the social havoc caused by wild swings from boom to bust, and to do so without crimping economic dynamism.

The benign side-effect of their proposals would be a switch from national debt to national surplus, as if by magic. “Because under the Chicago Plan banks have to borrow reserves from the treasury to fully back liabilities, the government acquires a very large asset vis-à-vis banks. Our analysis finds that the government is left with a much lower, in fact negative, net debt burden.”

The IMF paper says total liabilities of the US financial system – including shadow banking – are about 200pc of GDP. The new reserve rule would create a windfall. This would be used for a “potentially a very large, buy-back of private debt”, perhaps 100pc of GDP.

While Washington would issue much more fiat money, this would not be redeemable. It would be an equity of the commonwealth, not debt.

The key of the Chicago Plan was to separate the “monetary and credit functions” of the banking system. “The quantity of money and the quantity of credit would become completely independent of each other.”

Private lenders would no longer be able to create new deposits “ex nihilo”. New bank credit would have to be financed by retained earnings.

“The control of credit growth would become much more straightforward because banks would no longer be able, as they are today, to generate their own funding, deposits, in the act of lending, an extraordinary privilege that is not enjoyed by any other type of business,” says the IMF paper.

“Rather, banks would become what many erroneously believe them to be today, pure intermediaries that depend on obtaining outside funding before being able to lend.”

The US ( Here ),Federal Reserve would take real control over the money supply for the first time, making it easier to manage inflation. It was precisely for this reason that Milton Friedman called for 100pc reserve backing in 1967. Even the great free marketeer implicitly favoured a clamp-down on private money.

The switch would engender a 10pc boost to long-arm economic output. “None of these benefits come at the expense of diminishing the core useful functions of a private financial system.”

Simons and Fisher were flying blind in the 1930s. They lacked the modern instruments needed to crunch the numbers, so the IMF team has now done it for them – using the `DSGE’ stochastic model now de rigueur in high economics, loved and hated in equal measure.

The finding is startling. Simons and Fisher understated their claims. It is perhaps possible to confront the banking plutocracy head without endangering the economy.

Benes and Kumhof make large claims. They leave me baffled, to be honest. Readers who want the technical details can make their own judgement by studying the text here.

The IMF duo have supporters. Professor Richard Werner from Southampton University – who coined the term quantitative easing (QE) in the 1990s — testified to Britain’s Vickers Commission that a switch to state-money would have major welfare gains. He was backed by the campaign group Positive Money and the New Economics Foundation.

The theory also has strong critics. Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research says banks are in a sense already being forced to increase reserves by EU rules, Basel III rules, and gold-plated variants in the UK. The effect has been to choke lending to the private sector.

He argues that is the chief reason why the world economy remains stuck in near-slump, and why central banks are having to cushion the shock with QE.

“If you enacted this plan, it would devastate bank profits and cause a massive deflationary disaster. There would have to do `QE squared’ to offset it,” he said.

The result would be a huge shift in bank balance sheets from private lending to government securities. This happened during World War Two, but that was the anomalous cost of defeating Fascism.

To do this on a permanent basis in peace-time would be to change in the nature of western capitalism. “People wouldn’t be able to get money from banks. There would be huge damage to the efficiency of the economy,” he said.

Arguably, it would smother freedom and enthrone a Leviathan state. It might be even more irksome in the long run than rule by bankers.

Personally, I am a long way from reaching an conclusion in this extraordinary debate. Let it run, and let us all fight until we flush out the arguments.

One thing is sure. The City of London will have great trouble earning its keep if any variant of the Chicago Plan ever gains wide support.

Source  :

Courtesy Peter Myers