Ecuador declares foreign debt illegitimate

Something’s gotta give if enough honest people try hard enough!

* Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate *

IN TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2010

In November 2008, Ecuador became the first country to undertake an examination of the legitimacy and structure of its foreign debt. An independent debt audit commissioned by the government of Ecuador documented hundreds of allegations of irregularity, illegality, and illegitimacy in contracts of debt to predatory international lenders. The loans, according to the report, violated Ecuador’s domestic laws, US Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and general principles of international law. Ecuador’s use of legitimacy as a legal argument for defaulting set a major precedent; indeed, the formation of a debt auditing commission sets a precedent.

http://groups.google.com/group/newslog/t/b34071e65bf7417c?hl=en

Anne Belsey’s Money Reform Party

This is the latest story by most admirable Anne Belsey who applies her creative spirit to tireless campaigning which includes talking to 25 – 40 strangers a day:

Money Reform Party

e-Newsletter September 2009

Dear Money Reformers,

I write to you in the middle of the political conference season, mindful that the Bromsgrove conference is less than a week away. I regret that I shall not be there this year, so I thought to update you with news of my own activities.

Knocking on doors

I now spend a big part of each day knocking on people’s doors. This takes place in either the historic cathedral city of Canterbury (Motto: Ave Mater Angliae), the picturesque harbour town of Whitstable or one of the surrounding villages set in deepest rural Kent.

‘Hello, I am here to ask for your support at the general election. My name is Anne Belsey and I represent the Money Reform Party.’

At this stage, or earlier, about a quarter of all the people I address say something along the lines of ‘No, thank you.’

But three quarters don’t. Three quarters listen to what I say and I give them what has become something of a ‘practised’ spiel about the nature of the money supply and the need for debt-free money. Getting a 30-second lecture on the causes of the credit crunch/ recession and the solution to it must come across like a bolt from the blue, and I sometimes wonder whether sheer British politeness keeps them listening.

The eyes are the give away. They tell me whether someone is listening and just how interested they are and whether or not they want to say something. I always let them say their piece and a few want to have a good old natter, before I bring want ever subject onto which they have ventured back to money reform.

Most people are only mildly interested, some very much so, and some just congratulate me on simply making an effort. One chap said that he would vote for me as I had a nice face. (Every vote counts!) Quite a few remark that they had had no clear idea about their voting intentions, but that I had given them something to consider. I get the view that support for all the major parties is very lukewarm.

I find that I can only do three or fours hours a day; it is quite tiring; and I can only manage to speak to about 25 to 40 people a day. On this basis, assuming I can keep this up for say 150 days between now and the election (allowing for bad weather and Christmas), I hope to speak to about 5000 people, or I should say, 5000 households, which is about 10% of the constituency.

My hope is that sufficient number of the people I talk to directly will pass on some indication of support, if not booklets and DVDs, to friends and neighbours, and word will begin to spread.

I have no idea what impact this might have, or how many votes I will accrue, but I think that talking to people will definitely have a greater impact than merely pushing leaflets through doors.

Concentration of effort

When I set up the MRP, I envisaged that we might field half a dozen or a dozen candidates at the next general election. As things stand, I think that I am going to be our only candidate, but I am not worried about this. Indeed, I think that I would positively dissuade from standing anybody who is not prepared to put in 20 hours a week knocking on doors for the next six months or so.

What I think matters in this election is not the number of votes we achieve, but the proportion that we achieve in any one constituency. My target is 10%. This might prove to be wildly optimistic, but I think that this will be sufficient to make the major parties take note.

In other words, I think that 10% in one constituency will have more impact than 1% or 2% achieved in each of ten constituencies. 1% or 2% will not be worth noting, but 10% in the only constituency that the party contests might make the major parties think that the people of Canterbury and Whitstable have a viewpoint that is held across the country.

This should be sufficient evidence that there are clearly votes to be had in money reform, and the party that adopts money reform to its bosom can expect to reap that 10% across the country at the next election.

That’s my thinking. Shoot me down, if you think I am talking rubbish.

A one-woman campaign

I do not expect any help with my efforts. I had members/friends/supporters delivering leaflets for me at the last, local elections, but giving a brief lecture to a complete stranger on their doorstep and then being ready to answer their questions, confidently and fluently, is quite another thing.

This is not like normal canvassing, where one is encouraging people to turn out and vote for something they already know about. This involves telling people about a party that they have (usually) never heard of, an issue they barely understand, and a solution which they assume to be already in place, but which they are told isn’t.

Also, with so many people being turned off the major parties, with their slick spin and hype, presenting myself as a plucky little one-woman band will do me no harm at all. (Oh, the cynicism of it all!)

I can do this campaigning. I can’t say that I enjoy it, but I am prepared to do it, and when the election comes (in less than 9 months), I can stop doing it and then forget about money reform for a year or two to recover my sanity. And I have to admit that if I don’t do it, and the economic mess gets worse, as I expect that it will, I will not be able to reconcile any lack of effort with my conscience.

So I want to put in the maximum effort, distributing leaflets, booklets and DVDs as I go around knocking on doors. I have enough leaflets (I have them, I might as well deliver them where I get no answer), but I want to be able to buy more booklets and DVDs, which will cost money and I am running a bit short.

All contributions welcome

I do not normally like asking for money, but I would be very grateful for any contributions that members of the party can make. The more booklets and DVDs that I can distribute as I talk to people, the more votes I am likely to win, and the higher proportion of votes that I win the more likely will the major parties adopt money reform.

Many wars are won on a single battlefield. Could we win the campaign for money reform on the single political battleground of the Mother of England?

It has got to be worth a try.

(Cheques payable to ‘The Money Reform Party’ to 34, Berkeley Close, Dunkirk, Faversham, ME13 9TR)

Regards,

Anne

Four ways of “net credit creation”

Professor Richard A. Werner is a professor of economics at the University of Southampton. His letter to the FT explains that he coined the term “quantitative easing” and its true meaning: four ways of creating credit:

1. increasing BANK credit
2. increasing TRADE credit
3. increasing CENTRAL BANK credit
4. increasing credit created by the GOVERNMENT.

We’ve been advocating the last as “public credit for publlic purposes” through “Early Dation Motions” since 2002.

Green Credit for Green Purposes was a submission to the Treasury Select Committee in response to the Stern enquiry.

“Slaves to Debt” in “The International”

Last night I watched a main stream action film starring Clive Owen called ‘The International’ – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(film). Wikipedia summarises the plot well:
“Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks, the International Bank of Business and Credit which funds terrorist activities. Uncovering illegal activities including money laundering, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments, Salinger’s and Whitman’s investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan, where the IBBC assassinates an Italian prime ministerial candidate (Calvini)”

There is one exchange of dialogue in this film that I found remarkable in its level of truth for a mainstream action movie. This occurs 33:20 minutes into the film when the two agents interview Calvini – who has amassed his fortune in arms dealings:
DA Whitman: Mr. Calvini, we’d like to know why the IBBC, a bank would be purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of missile guidance and control systems from your company?
Calvini: The IBBC has purchased billions of dollars worth of Silkworm missiles from the People’s Republic of China which they have presold to clients in the Middle East. Contingent upon the missiles being equipped with VOLCON guidance systems. My company is one of only two in the world which produce the VOLCON.
DA: But why is the bank committing so much of its capital and resources to the sale of these missiles?
Calvini: It’s a test. Small arms are the only weapons used in 99% of the world’s conflicts and no one has the capacity to manufacture them faster and cheaper than China. What Skarssen (IBBC CEO) is attempting to do is to make the IBBC the exclusive broker of Chinese small arms to the Third World. And the missile deal is the gateway transaction.
Lou: Yeah, but billions of dollars invested simply to be a broker? There can’t be that much profit for them.
Calvini: No. This is not about making a profit from weapon sales. It’s about control.
DA: Control the flow of weapons, control the conflict.
Calvini: No, no. The IBBC is a bank. Their objective isn’t to control the conflict; it’s to control the debt that the conflict produces. You see, the real value of a conflict, the true value is in the debt that it creates. You control the debt, you control everything. You find this upsetting, yes? But this is the very essence of the banking industry, to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals slaves to debt.
You can watch the clip on youtube for the moment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDxNtpMEEZM&feature=PlayList&p=659CB4853D9ABCB7&index=2 (3:15 into this clip). Better be quick, before they remove it for copyright infringement.
Best regards
Craig

A Petition and the Response from No 10

With a view to the meeting of the G20 leaders in April, the online petition to include international and national monetary reform on the G20 agenda received 523 signatures.

It can be read here and the Government’s response is here.

Only martial artists know how best to respond to being fobbed off in such an obvious way…

Cash goes round and round

It is August. In a small town on the South Coast of France, holiday season is in full swing, but it is raining so there is not too much business happening. Everyone is heavily in debt. Luckily, a rich Russian tourist arrives in the foyer of the small local hotel. He asks for a room and puts a Euro100 note on the reception counter, takes a key and goes to inspect the room located up the stairs on the third floor.

The hotel owner takes the banknote in a hurry and rushes to his meat supplier to whom he owes E100.

The butcher takes the money and races to his supplier to pay his debt.

The wholesaler rushes to the farmer to pay E100 for pigs he purchased some time ago.

The farmer triumphantly gives the E100 note to a local prostitute who gave him her services on credit.

The prostitute goes quickly to the hotel manager to whom she owed E100 for the let of a room to entertain clients.

At that moment, the rich Russian is coming down to reception and informs the hotel owner that the proposed room is unsatisfactory, takes back his E100, and departs. There was no profit or income, but everyone no longer has any debt, and the small townspeople look optimistically towards their future.

And the moral of the story?
Cash is ‘real’. An IoU is TRUST.

Enforcement of Bank of England Act 1694

<strong><a href=”http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38435&SESSION=899″>This Early Day Motion</a> </strong>was tabled by our Austin Mitchell MP on April 20, 2009:

That this House, observing that the intention of the founding Act of the Bank of England in 1694 was `that their Majesties’ subjects may not be oppressed by the said corporation’, notes that those subjects have been seriously oppressed by the Bank’s failure to control the greed, risk-taking and speculation of the banking system over which it presides; and therefore suggests that this oppression should be dealt with as the Act provides by fines three times the value of the abusive trading.

Today the first three MPs have signed. Will you get your MP to sign via <a href=”http://writetothem.com/”>WriteToThem</a>?

In our observation, oppressions through banks are due to:

1. There is now only a limited number of qualified staff in every branch. In fact, what used to be professional training for a professional body, ACIB, has become a “School of Finance“.
2. The training in “banking” is limited. It consists only of “sales”.
3. There is now little responsibility in local branches.
4. Instead, all decision making has been centralised. This results in the decision makers having little personal knowledge of the client or a perspective about a business.
5. There is little comprehension of day-to-day business issues.
6. There is no realisation of the criticality of time or expediency.
7. There is limited knowledge of supposed Government support. As an example, the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme (SFLGS) was reducing before the crisis.
8. Instead of joined-up thinking, staff are only box tickers and have no room for initiative.
9. MPs have very limited knowledge of the depth of the problems, even before the crisis.
10. Day-to-day business borrowing for “normal” clients has never been excessive. In fact, it was already very restrictive to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and often even obstructive.

Who creates the Money to Pay the Interest?

This is an excellent summary of essential points made by G. Edward Griffin in his remarkable book The Creature from Jekyll Island.

Given the current crisis situation, it seems obvious, just as Dr. Yunus suggests, to forget about governments and institutions and “just do it”. From my point of view, that means using Bartercard and Trade Pounds as an interest-free currency.

The future of finance

JOINT PRESS RELEASE from CompleteMediaGroup and the Forum for Stable Currencies:

Sterling Cash burning into smoke

At 11am on Thursday 23rd April in the House of Commons Grand Committee Room, expert speakers will create the debate on financial reform at the Forum for Stable Currencies. Expert speakers will be advocating economic democracy through freedom from National Debt. They will address the monetary problems connected with the banking crisis and global recession, discuss solutions to the problems and put together a framework for change. The speakers are leaders in the field and include Lord Sudeley, Austin Mitchell MP, Derek Wyatt MP, Michael Grimsdale ACIB (Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers), Abdallah Homouda, political scientist, respected journalist and TV commentator. The event is sponsored by Bartercard, the world’s largest trade exchange. Bartercard enables account-holding businesses to exchange goods and services with each other, saving valuable cash, without having to engage in a direct swap. Bartercard has created a new form of stable currency; the trade pound, which offers one solution to the economic crisis because it allows businesses to trade and grow without the need for cash or credit from banks. This is increasingly important as private banks have replaced money with financial ‘products’ and ‘instruments’ as a medium of exchange; replacing prudence with profits by accumulating toxic assets, packaging unsustainable debts and selling them on to unsuspecting buyers. As a result the banks are suspicious and unwilling to lend or trade with each other. Please email sabine@3d-metrics.com if you want to attend. Notes to editor Cash (notes and coins) and credit make up the money supply. After the Second World War, 53% of the UK money supply was in the form of credit (debt) issued by banks at interest. Now that figure stands at 97%. By making more and more money from credit (or debt) the financial economy is more and more disconnected from the real economy. This is inherently unstable as the money necessary to pay for interest on credit is simply not there. That means virtually everybody is borrowing at interest to pay off interest as well as capital. The mathematics of compounding interest on interest results in a cycle of boom and bust. Because the money supply being is controlled by central banks, successive UK governments have tended to increase the ‘National Debt’ to fund growth or ‘fiscal stimulus’ packages, rather than make cut backs to repay the debt (unpopular with voters) or print money themselves. [See the Forum’s petition Stop the Cash Crumble to Equalize the Credit Crunch, asking the Treasury Select Committee to organize an inquiry into the money supply. More on http://tinyurl.com/666rwd] Financial institutions are increasingly using legal enforcement to call in loans, cause bankruptcies, home repossessions, unnecessary litigation and even suicides. Through the national debt they also exploit and constrain the state’s budget, thus limiting political freedom. The dubious benefits of unfettered market forces and a Western capitalist ideology have faced no serious opposition since Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) effectively brought an end to communism in the former Soviet Union. Even communist China has embraced capitalism; transforming its economy and becoming a global super-power in the process. It seems the world has made a collective decision to accept the inevitable economic losers as well as winners; deregulate and let the so-called free market work its magic… but now the market’s spell is well and truly broken together with the global economy. At the recent G20 summit in London, the governments of the twenty most powerful nations on Earth decided to throw over $1 trillion at the ailing financial system. Along with previous commitments, this will take the total to over $5 trillion spent on propping up some of the biggest of those banks, institutions and financiers which have failed us so spectacularly. Yet, instead of trying to paper over the deep cracks in the global financial system, we should aim to rebuild a more democratic and fairer global economy. Fresh thinking and a modern-day Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) are required for a capitalist world. Ushering in a second decade of meetings, the Forum for Stable Currencies will provide the platform for key decision makers to discuss the hows and whys of creating a better future.

Money is Debt – Debt is Money

This is a quote from Peter Joseph, the creator and director of Zeitgeist the Movie and part 2, Zeitgeist Addendum, which goes into the depth of the monetary system and a remarkable interview with ‘economic hitman’ John Perkins.

The interview can be seen on video here.

As a solution, Peter Joseph suggests The Venus Project. Based on my experiences in the UK, I’m taking a more down-to-earth approach via stable currencies.