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The Monetary Creation Stakes
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Hello, I am glad to see so many of you.
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I have been working for 6 years on
2 unusual but fundamental subjects
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that are discussed nowhere in the
media, though.
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I came to that step by step.
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Like many of us I was politically
inactive before 2005
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and I woke up to this during the
debates about
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the european union constitution.
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Reading this text I got scared because
this text was incompatible
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with our national constitution and it
was clearly made to overcome it.
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I knew that this treaty was a bad
constitution because
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it left people helpless against abuses
of power.
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I saw it and denounced it.
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I was lucky to be heard.
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This kind of luck changes a man because
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my point spread widely and quickly
on internet.
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People started to discuss and
criticize it,
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I spent nights to answer them,
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I had to sharpen my arguments and
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all this helped me to greatly improve
on the subject.
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Finally...
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I am trying to summarize briefly what
brought me to this in 2005.
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After 2 months I got nearly 800,000
visits on my website,
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about 40,000 a day during the
last month.
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It is quite something for a
normal person.
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I had never been in politics before and
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My audience was never larger than a
classroom before that.
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People sent me like 400 emails a day,
some enthusiastic, some moving.
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But I got some incisive emails too,
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calling me a fraud or an idiot,
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some very nasty emails.
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I spent nights to answer them first
but there were too many.
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Therefore I started to answer people
on my web site.
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I answered to these people
once for all because
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everybody told me almost
the same thing.
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So I published my answers to these
emails on my web site.
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And you pay a particular attention
to your answers when you know
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that you will be read by 40,000 people
during the next 24 hours,
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some of them seeking the first
slightest mistake.
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It urges you on to read much,
to sharpen your arguments,
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you seek help from any clever
source around you.
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Therefore, in my first text, I begged
for people's participation.
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It was incredible for me to have
an opinion
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that differed so much compared to
what I heard on the radio.
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I wrote:
"please, tell me where I am wrong.
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I must be wrong, I am no match for
leading experts
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like Giscard d'Estaing or Delors
that built European Union.
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In my text I wrote:
"I might be wrong somewhere.
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So please just tell me and I will
correct my mistakes.
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But as far as I know,
this is my current position".
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And...
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it worked. People helped me and
the final text is still
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available on internet, it is called
"Une Mauvaise Constitution".
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And it is still very relevant since
this very constitution
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was finally adopted.
You know that this so called
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"new" constitution is a simple
compilation of the older treaty.
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The original treaty was
simply differently rewritten.
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With minor changes, but basically
the same rules applied.
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You know that the constitution
voted in 2008 by the parliament
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was rejected by referendum
in the first place.
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This is for me an authentic treason,
a Coup d'Etat.
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This is deeply legal for having been
voted by the parliament
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but this is exactly what I call an
abuse of power.
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This is precisely what I want
to discuss today.
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This is the heart of my work,
what I am working hard for.
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I...
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I seek efficient solutions against
abuses of power.
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any case of abuses of power:
abuses from socialists,
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abuses from capitalists,
abuses from people...
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I intend to organize the society in a
way that abuses are not possible.
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And in general, abuses of power
are done by rich people.
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Not exclusively, people also
might commit abuses.
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For example a popular gathering
might become
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a furious mob and might commit
injustices and abuses.
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But it is most frequently done
by rich people.
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We will see when and how.
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So I want to resist abuses of power.
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For that I intend to identify the
cause of the causes of abuses.
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I mean that problems have
more than one source
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and
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I observe that people I argue with,
politicians from any party...
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usually consider a unique aspect of
power abuse, and fight it separately.
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For example, one will take care of
and only of ecology.
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He will focus on that, he will spend
all his energy on that
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and he will drop other topics
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He will not try to discover why ecology
is no political concern,
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why people who might want to fight for
ecology have no political power
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and how comes that people who destroy
environment have political power...
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both political and economical power.
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Usually no one tries to understand
that but when I seek for
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the origin that enables the ecological
destruction of the planet
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I find a political cause...
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and an economical cause.
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I observe that large scale destructions
are done by rich people
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who rule politically by means of
election.
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Ecology is just an example, there are
many topics like that.
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For example, feminism...
Currently, left people are focused on
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fighting for feminism,
fighting against racism
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and have many similar positions
I may agree with.
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But all this is not the main problem
for me.
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The multiplicity of social strugles
is dividing us...
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because people fight consequences
instead of fighting causes.
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As if...
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As if we had water-flood.
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There is a faucet fully turned on,
and there is a water-flood.
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Everyone is mopping up and no one is
considering turning off the faucet
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As another example, imagine our social
activity flowing like a river.
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This river is extremely polluted by a
pink foam representing unemployment.
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On one side of the river, people are
fighting against unemployment.
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But these people never try to
investigate upstream,
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never far enough to discover the
source of the problem.
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And on the other side, people with
another concern are doing their best
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to repair ecologic damages, to urge
people to respect the environment,
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but once again, without looking for
the original problem.
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I am interested in all these topics and
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when I try to identify the
deepest cause of all these problems,
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I always get the same answer.
We always find...
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rich people...
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with power...
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because they bought election.
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They paid for the winner's campaign.
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You always have manufacturers and
bankers, namely rich people.
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We will see that banks arose
out of storekeepers.
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So basically banks and manufacturers
are alike,
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it is the wealth accumulation that
enables political corruption.
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So...
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My works are focused on 2 big topics:
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the monetary creation, this will be
the first part of my talk.
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This is a wide topic and I could spend
a whole day on that
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so I will try to be as synthetic
as possible.
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I may come back to that later and go
into the subject in greater depth
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during a discussion, according to
your wishes.
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In the second part of my talk, we will
discuss the joined political aspect:
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I think that we won't take money control
back from bankers without sortition.
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For me, election is the problem. It is
desperately considered as a sacred cow.
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I can understand that
multinational company
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support the election principle.
And they do it.
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But there is something strange about
left humanist people
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who yearn for a peaceful society
where arms dealers do not decide.
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Oddly enough, they defend the election
that enables rich people to buy power.
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This will be the second topic
of my talk.
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I will show you the
athenian democracy.
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It is a great system that
raises objections.
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I have been working for a
long time on that system
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so I am able to refute all
these objections so far.
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But maybe you will ask me
new questions.
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This is exactly what I expect
from this meeting:
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new objections that I have not
considered so far.
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First, let's talk about money.
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Well...
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We are currently facing many
social problems.
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Society is under pressure
because of difficulties
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which seem mainly caused by
unemployment.
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In our economy where few are
self sufficient...
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we need money to trade
between each other.
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In a world where money is rare
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and people who create it
do not create enough,
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we have to work to earn it,
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so we strongly depend on jobs,
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i.e. work that is willingly
given by an employer.
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And...
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When we consider unemployment,
there is something strange about it.
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Jobs enable people to work
in exchange for payment.
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We do not lack workers,
we have plenty of them.
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And we do not lack things to do, we
have plenty of useful things to do.
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For example, we need to isolate
buildings with
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triple glazing to heat them
with less energy.
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We need to build housing for everyone.
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Well, I won't tell more,
there is plenty of
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things to do for us all to live
with dignity.
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So there are people who are
ready to work
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and many things to do.
We simply lack money.
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And...
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And... is it complicated to
create money ?
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No. It is not.
So why are we lacking money ?
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This is exactly my point:
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understand why we lack money and
discover the origin of that.
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What is money ? Who creates it ?
Is it hard to create ?
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What are theories around that ?
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I will be quick on that, but it is
useful to know
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the theory accepted by present
economists.
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And also to know alternative
theories found in
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human history.
Some are very interesting.
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And also monetary experiments,
also very interesting.
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I do not know all of them but...
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I will tell what I have discovered
so far and
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you may also share your knowledge
with me.
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Because the number of money experiments
is amazing and fascinating.
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So,
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how is money created today ?
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I brought many books you may refer to.
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I will often mention them in my talk.
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About history of money...
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When you learn about money,
how old it is,
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which form it took...
you discover a fascinating story.
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With a book dealing with history of
money you will go through
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human history and you will better
understand the world today.
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Because the way money became
a privilege for few people,
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has a great impact on the way
we live in peace and prosper.
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This is decisive for peace.
In other words,
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wars are mainly caused by bankers.
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So it is crucial to understand this.
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I have a huge amount of books
dealing with money creation.
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I selected the best of them for you.
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There is a first great man, Galbraith,
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he is dead, he has a son still living,
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He wrote
"Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went",
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it is full of british humor,
it is very nice to read.
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He described greeds, cheatings,
dirty tricks, plots...
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Galbraith has a great credibility,
he worked with important people.
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He was a great economist together
with a journalist and a humanist.
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He took a stand for people against
oligarchy, bureaucracy and injustice.
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And his book...
[Which period ?]
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Mid and late 20th century,
he died a few years ago.
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And his son seems to be like him,
a good man too.
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In this book, the definition of
money is great.
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I put a mark on that...
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I want to read it, it is very short.
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He warns us...
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There is something funny about that...
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He explains that money is made
complicated on purpose,
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to confuse us like doctors
a long time ago, like lawyers...
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They maintain a technical jargon
to keep underlings apart.
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"The reader should proceed in these
pages in the knowledge
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that money is nothing more and
nothing less than what he or she
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always thought it was - what is
commonly offered or received
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for the purchase or sale of goods,
services or other things"
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Anything else is useless confusion.
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Indeed, when we address money creation
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and how this was stolen to the people,
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we will see that it is not complicated.
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There is a second book that I like,
also very nice to read:
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"La pensée monétaire de l'âge classique
à nos jours" by Christian Tutin
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"Tutin", T-U-T-I-N,
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He quoted the best parts of
contemporary experts on money:
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from Locke to Hayek including
Law, Cantillon, Hume, Thornton,
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Ricardo, Marx, Fisher and of course
Keynes and Friedman.
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But it is not hard to read
because it is the
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best about money written
by the best authors.
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It is actually a fierce
debate between
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those people to determine
what money is.
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So a good book to understand
the stakes.
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I won't do history of money,
I will tell you what it is now.
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Today we have two kinds of money.
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First, there is the money we use,
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this money is mostly created
by private banks.
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And there is money created
by the state.
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A small part of it is paper money,
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the other part is exchanged
between banks.
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So there are two kind of money.
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The money exchanged between banks
is not our concern.
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You will never see it,
it is just for banks.
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And there is the money that
we exchange between us.
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It is hardly created by the state,
it is mostly created by private banks.
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How and when is it done ?
Let us take an example
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to see how money appears
and then disappears.
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Let's say, you need $100,000
for your house.
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You go to the bank and say:
"please loan me $100,000".
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The banker does not have
this amount of money,
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however if you are reliable
he says "no problem".
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If you are not reliable,
there is a chance that you
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do not pay off your debt
and it will become the banker's
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responsability to pay it back.
So he pays attention to it.
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I should stand up for that.
The banker has a balance sheet.
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I had a drawing for that.
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There are assets and liabilities.
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I am a bank, assets are what I am owed
and liabilities are what I owe.
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Liabilities are what I owe,
so you want $100,000, here they are.
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This is on my account,
I owe you $100,000.
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There is still something wrong,
it is not balanced yet.
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I have to write the same amount
on both sides of the balance sheet.
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For now it is not balanced,
but what I wrote here
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as liabilities, as debt of my bank,
is new money.
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I shall explain how it
circulates after that.
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And the credit operation is not
completed yet. The banker says:
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"I owe you $100,000" and in the
same time: "you owe me $100,000".
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On the other side, as assets
he writes $100,000.
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He says: "now you owe me $100,000".
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When a bank gives someone credit,
two debts are created.
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Bank and borrower together
create two debts.
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The debt of the bank is paid now, and
the debt of the borrower is paid later.
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Difference lies in term.
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[3 debts are created]
What is the 3rd ?
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[interests]
Interests... indeed...
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but interests are taken
from existing money.
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The money is only created
from the amount that
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people borrow and that is
granted from banks.
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Then, you pay off your debt with
interests. For now I leave that apart.
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There is $100,000 on both side of the
balance sheet and then people pay back.
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$10,000 back, $10,000 back, money is
progressively destroyed on both sides.
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And at the end, money disappears.
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Money disappears. If everybody paid his
debts, there would be no money left.
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Almost nothing,
just banknotes and coins.
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[money as debt]
Money as debt, indeed.
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Any money that circulates through
bank accounts is called
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"demand deposit". It appears and
disappears just as I said.
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Money appears together with debts,
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and disappears together with
repayments.
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More than 90% of the money today
was created like that.
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So... how comes...
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I should also tell
how it circulates.
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The person has this amount of money
on his bank account.
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With that he will pay his suppliers
and his workers.
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A part of this money will leave his
account for another in a bank B.
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And it works the same way with assets
and liabilities, so let's say
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$10,000 have gone, there are $90,000
left and $10,000 arrive here.
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And money just go.
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It is just a new entry on the
"liabilities" column of a balance sheet.
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Money is created as liabilities
and circulates through liabilities
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of banks with the help of checks,
credit cards, transfers...
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If you take an overview of the bank
system, you see that money consists
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of liabilities of all banks and
circulates thanks to checks, etc...
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Yes ?
[It is like a unique bank]
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Exactly ! They create money together,
they lend to different people.
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For example, I am J.P. Morgan, I hold
10% of the stock market,
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it means that I am in charge of 10%
of the people's money,
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and each time it lends 100, 90 go
elsewhere and 10 remain for me.
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In the same time, the other banks
lend money too and
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10% of these loans eventually
come into my accounts.
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So if all the banks together
create $1,000 during a day,
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$100 are for me, whatever
the source of the loan is.
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Each bank has to lend in proportion of
the market share of its deposits.
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If a bank lends more than the
others in proportion,
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money will go to other banks
and it will have to
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raise capital, that is it
will have to pay...
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I think that it is useless to go
deeper into the detail.
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We will come back to that when
we talk about objections.
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Bankers pretend that it is a
strong restriction to
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money creation that banks
are in competition like that.
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But if they lend money at the same
pace, there is nothing to compensate.
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The money supply consists of
the sum of all
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credits that have not
been paid off yet.
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It is like a bathtub that fills up with
a faucet that represents new loans.
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So any new credit contributes to
fill the tub of money supply.
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And repayments are like the
plughole from which water
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flows out regularly according to
the schedule of repayments.
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So the amount of money supply fills
and empties like a bathtub...
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...but it fills in a way
that has nothing to do
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with our needs.
Actually we need money to trade.
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Image is a bit old but it is like blood
in the body that enables to trade.
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Blood circulates in our body,
it takes particles
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somewhere and bring them somewhere else.
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Too much blood is bad,
to little is bad as well.
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It is important to have
the right amount of blood
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as it is important to have
the right amount of money.
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In optimistic periods,
when we trust in the future,
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we, humans tend to borrow much.
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In the same time,
bankers tend to lend much.
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This leads to the creation of
much money. money supply inflates
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and it leads people to take
more and more risks than they should.
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I am simplifying. On the contrary,
and this is what I worry about,
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there is the reversed situation.
People's mood switches from
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optimism to pessimism,
like during the real estate crisis.
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And the market is under the "sheep"
effect, all agents behave the same way.
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When everything is fine,
the market is optimistic,
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and when it starts to turn, the actors
start to depress all together,
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they stop borrowing,
bank stop lending...
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whereas people keep on paying off.
The bathtub keeps on
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emptying according to the schedule
of repayments while
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it stops filling and thus you have
less and less money...
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and more unemployment.
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The strict connection between
money and unemployment is hard to draw
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but this argument has been held
by many theorists for a long time.
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And...
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the most famous is Keynes.
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I think it is not stupid to correlate
the amount of money with unemployment.
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I am led to think so
because of some
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experiments with alternative form
of currency.
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In many cases of alternative currency
in history, I observe that...
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First of all,
you need a serious crisis to create
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a new currency:
when unemployment rate is very high,
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when craftsmen and storekeeper
can not work...
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In such situations districts take
locally control of the money
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and start to pay civil servants
with money they create themselves.
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Money is something highly conventional.
You just need trust to make it work.
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And in any experiment I know,
it takes only a
-
couple of weeks to make
unemployment disappear.
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Activity starts again when
you bring money to it.
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I mean that there is a relation
between unemployment and
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the introduction of new money when
there is not enough.
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But you have to pay attention
not to create too much money,
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else its value might collapse
and then you might face
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other kind of disasters.
But if you create money moderately...
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you have a solution to unemployment.
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But if you give the money you create
to rich people like today,
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to people who do not spend it and
accumulate (like a sickness)
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then you will not solve your
problem of employment.
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You need to give money to those
who spend it.
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Jean-Marcel Jeanneney, a minister of
de Gaulle wrote a book called
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"Ecoute la France qui gronde".
It is out of print, hard to find,
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maybe as a second-hand but I published
the best parts of it on my website.
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First, this guy explains that creating
too much money generates hyperinflation:
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money loses its value and it is a
disaster for everybody.
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He reminds of Assignats during the
french revolution,
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the John Law's system,
the german hyperinflation in the 1920s.
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He knows that. However he suggests that
the state should create paper money,
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not money for private banks, nothing
you need to pay off but banknotes.
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And then, without going through banks,
distribute FF3,000 to any individual,
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kids, elder, men, women and observe
empirically what happens.
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Does it create inflation ?
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If not, then we do it again
6 months later.
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Else we stop for a time.
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He proposed to distribute money to
people. But the original aspect lies
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in that money is given to people
who spend it. This changes everything.
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Currently we create billions that we
give to people who do not spend it.
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They possibly lend it but with
expensive interests.
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About money creation I omitted
a point that should be mentioned.
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Until 1973 in France,
and 1913 in the U.S.
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the state was allowed to create money
like private banks.
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Banks could create money like I said
but state could also
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create the money he needed for itself
and its investments.
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For that it just needed to borrow
from its central bank.
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And as central bank belongs
to the state, and
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we are the state, the loan was
without interest.
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When the state paid off,
it did not pay interest.
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But eventually France, U.S. and Europe
were victim of a monetary coup d'état.
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The monetary creation was left
to private banks exclusively
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so that states cannot borrow
from their central banks anymore.
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In other words, oblige the states
to borrow
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from private banks
for their investements
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and oblige them to pay interests.
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And in any country where it happened,
public debt appeared.
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Public debt was successfully used
to enslave Third World countries,
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to steal their raw materials
and resources.
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This happens now to developed countries.
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Progressively, the state
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is forbidden to create its money
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and is forced to borrow
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on the stock market, that is
from rich people.
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This way, the elected representatives
enslaved the state, made it dependant.
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This happens clearly in Europe today.
Greece, Portugal, Ireland
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are beeing strangled
by the debt system and there is
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most likely no way around it
for the other countries.
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[It is interesting to say that
in 1973 this was decided
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by Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing.
And who was Pompidou ?]
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Pompidou was the manager of the
Rothschild bank.
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[As an example of what became
world politics, when Gaddafi
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came to Paris, he pitched his tent
in the garden of the
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Rothschild family.
Just another interesting relation.]
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I didn't know that.
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Anyway. We actually often call
this 1973 law, the Rothschild's law
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because it incredibly served
the interests of banks.
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And we are the ressources of the
states. The work of millions of people
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is thus for a large part dedicated
to pay the debt service,
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to pay the banks, the creditors
of the state, on public spending.
-
Since the state is not allowed
to borrow from
-
its central bank, it has to borrow
from private banks.
-
So what happend in 1973
is deeply against
-
general interest. It is a coup d'état.
-
And... the same thing happened
the same way
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in the U.S. in 1913 and with
the same banks.
-
So...
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I think that the most relevant
book about this
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period is
"Secrets of the Federal Reserve".
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I think that it is the best book
to understand
-
the monetary swindle of that period.
-
It has existed for a long time but
it was translated into french recently.
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That's bomb.
When you read that you get outraged.
-
It is easy to read, like a detective
story. And it explains how...
-
[Eustace Mullins]
Eustace Mullins: M-U-L-L-I-N-S.
-
It explains how a couple of bankers who
were detested by the american people...
-
The americans just emerged from a
dreadful crisis. They had been ruined,
-
they lost their savings and people
hated banks and Wall Street.
-
[This was initiated by J.P. Morgan]
Yes, but I cannot tell everything now.
-
But...
-
How a couple of bankers literally
conspired: they hid on a private island
-
with a member of the Parliament
to develop a project of central bank.
-
But a private central bank.
A bank which looks like a
-
public bank but is not,
which is called "Federal Reserve"
-
and which is neither federal
nor american nor is a reserve.
-
They wanted this project to be voted by
the congress. It failed the first time,
-
then they tried again in 1913...
The plot of Jekyll island was in 1910.
-
All this looks like a detective story.
-
The servants were given vacation.
They had hired new foreign servants
-
just for this meeting, just for one week
so that nobody could recognise them.
-
Mullins' work is really interesting.
He pieced this
-
puzzle together:
he relied on thousands of old
-
articles... even on books written
by the conspirators.
-
After the system were installed, some of
them started to talk as they got older.
-
He managed to complete the puzzle.
He did a huge
-
research work, very complicated and
very interesting.
-
And we discover the same procedure,
the same rules,
-
the same outrageous rights given
to the central bank
-
compared to states in the current
european system.
-
This book describe also the way
this project has been voted.
-
These bankers financed the campaign
of the three
-
candidates... The two main candidates
who could win
-
the election had both a project
of federal bank.
-
they were described as contradictory
whereas
-
they were alike, they led to
the same thing.
-
Finally, Woodrow Wilson was elected
in 1913. The first thing he did was to
-
vote this project of federal reserve
in a quick and dirty way, in december.
-
He did it against public opinion and
against general interest. Since then...
-
I think it is relevant to describe
America as an occupied territory.
-
These people have had their money
stolen and thus have been
-
enslaved by some privileged guys
with power beyond imagination.
-
You have to realize that by taking over
the dollar, they took over the world.
-
Eustace Mullins did a major
investigative work to expose the owners
-
of banks. There are shares and control
shares which are more important...
-
Nowadays this secret is kept as well
as the nuclear launch code.
-
Today it is almost impossible to know
who controls banks.
-
Back then the information was
still available and the trail of
-
the ownership of the Federal Reserve
led to the City in London.
-
That's the last straw !
Can you imagine how harsh it is
-
for american people ?
And it led mainly to Rothschild.
-
This deserve to be discussed in public.
-
Mullins might be wrong on some points,
we have to check.
-
The problem is that we cannot
discuss that
-
without being called a fascist
or an antisemite.
-
It seems that antisemitism was made up
to protect Rothschild. When we talk
-
about him we are immediately called an
antisemite, a fascist... Hitler soon.
-
Well I don't think I have much
in common with Hitler and fascists.
-
So, among alternative solutions,
there is "Freigeld" (free money).
-
"Freigeld" is a concept proposed by
Silvio Gesell. He was a famous
-
and appreciated economist who
proposed something interesting.
-
Keynes considered Gesell's concept
with respect.
-
Gesell tried to prevent people
from accumulating money.
-
Indeed, other people need
unused money to circulate.
-
So, in order to dissuade people
to keep unused money with them
-
he proposed that money might
lose its value each month. For that,
-
stamps had to be purchased and
attached to the money to keep it valid.
-
Indeed, this encourages people to
get rid of it since it loses its value.
-
But if you think about it,
Keynes' solution
-
involving a bit of inflation
is equivalent.
-
Inflation makes your banknotes
lose their value progressively.
-
"Freigeld" and inflation
are very similar.
-
Not exactly identical though.
Anyway, it was
-
Keynes' solution to
"Euthanize the rentiers".
-
That is a rentier...
-
Inflation reduce the gold pile
of a rentier. Workers, however...
-
About protecting people
against inflation...
-
I am a bit lost with my books but...
-
Concerning solutions to
withstand inflation...
-
Maurice Allais was not in favor of
inflation, but explained that a little,
-
2% was necessary - due to landed
property, I will not explain that.
-
So, these 2% that Allais suggested
to maintain, were compensated
-
by a general indexation system
like France knew after 1945.
-
During 30 years in France,
people's income were
-
indexed to inflation with the
sliding wage scale.
-
Wages were indexed, loans were indexed,
rents were indexed and thus,
-
for the workers and the little people,
inflation was painless.
-
Only the wealth of people
keeping banknotes decreased.
-
Actually, speculators often managed
to earn more than inflation.
-
Only the wealth of people keeping
piles of banknotes decreased.
-
And more people than you think
keep banknotes.
-
For those people...
-
money melt away.
-
So "Freigeld" is a solution to prevent
people from accumulating too much money.
-
Concerning the maleficence that happend
in -73 when the state
-
abandoned monetary creation,
I see as consequences...
-
a ruined state.
-
You have to understand that
rich people have much to fear
-
from a strong state that
they could not control.
-
So the strategy applied by
so called "liberals"
-
all around the world aims
to destroy the states.
-
And an efficient way to do that
is to ruin it.
-
Ruin by depriving it of resources
and Galbraith emphasizes
-
that great crisis are preceded
by cuts in rich people's taxes.
-
It is the sign of a crisis.
-
When taxes of rich people
start to decrease strongly,
-
this means that we are getting
close to a crisis.
-
I think that Galbraihs is right.
Since recently, you can see
-
that often, rich people pay
almost no taxes anymore.
-
And when rich people do not pay taxes,
the amount
-
of money that state lacks is a
bottomless pit.
-
So first, the state is ruined
by depriving it of its resources.
-
Second, by getting it into debt,
state is
-
burdened with the interests of the loan.
-
It is burdened with additional expenses.
-
You have to realize that the
interests of the debt,
-
not the refund, just the interests,
cost France...
-
It costs us 45, 50 billions euros
a year.
-
It is considerable !
50 billions just for a debt,
-
it is just the interests,
I insist, an unnecessary debt.
-
A debt that is not necessary.
If the state...
-
had kept the right to create money
for itself...
-
If it was allowed to borrow
from its central bank,
-
that is to create money it needs...
-
it would not pay interests.
-
Besides, the amount of deficits...
-
André-Jacques Holbecq wrote
a short book, very simple...
-
This short book: "La dette publique,
une affaire rentable"
-
and this other one: "Argent, dettes
et banques"...
-
Two good short books by
André-Jacques Holbecq
-
that explain well and
enable to understand.
-
He did quite a hard work because
statistics were not
-
available anymore, so he had to
go hunting for them.
-
Since 1973, public spending
did not grow. It did not grow.
-
In proportion, it is roughly unchanging.
So how come we are
-
more and more in debt ?
Well look, it is the debt service.
-
At the beginning in -73, debt was little,
-
so debt service was little
and thus the deficit was shallow.
-
And then, year after year,
deficit is roughly equal to...
-
not exactly, but it is very close,
the deficit
-
of the french state correspond
to debt service.
-
By reducing resources of the state,
by increasing its expenses
-
and year after year...
you have to realize that since -73,
-
members of the Parliament decided
not to balance this growing deficit.
-
They could balance it by reducing
spendings or increasing taxes.
-
They did not. They left the debt grow.
-
Now we are told: "Parliament were lax"
-
or "they were weak"
-
or "they did it to be re-elected,
to remain popular".
-
Possible, but I don't buy that.
-
I do not. It is possible...
-
I think that all this
fits together too well...
-
This decision, year after year
to let the debt grow so that
-
the state is progressively
enslaved by those who lend money.
-
And eventually, the state will
depend on these people. All this
-
matches so perfectly the interests
of those who finance election...
-
that I can hardly believe that
it is a coincidence.
-
I know, it is conspiracist, paranoid...
-
Nevertheless, since -73, members of the
Parliament, the so-called "left-wing"
-
like the so-called "right-wing",
all of them let the debt grow.
-
I find it too easy to forgive them
pretending that
-
"they were weak, they wanted
to be re-elected".
-
For me all this looks like
an attempt to bring
-
the state to heel.
To bring the state to heel.
-
This is consistent with the destruction
of nations by the European Union.
-
This is along the same lines.
The European Union construction takes
-
part in the destruction of the nations.
The state that our revolutionary
-
fathers built in 1789 to get rid
of the old aristocratic system.
-
And we are beeing stolen that...
-
by those who were the privileged of this
system. This is a counter-revolution.
-
A lot of people write books called
"counter-revolution".
-
We are witnessing a counter-revolution.
-
The privileged are erasing...
-
what we gained in 1789.
-
Well...
-
I am reaching the end of my talk about
money, and I kept the best for the end.
-
Creating money aims to finance economy.
-
No matter whether state is allowed
to create money or
-
how much is created, our goal is
to finance economy.
-
For many years, for centuries, this
task was entrusted to the stock market.
-
To public companies and to the stock
market. Those who have too much money...
-
come to the stock market
to make it available.
-
And those who need it to
start a business, come to borrow it.
-
I think that stock markets
are justified in case money is rare.
-
And it is created by some
privileged people who keep it rare.
-
But if we consider, that money
should not be rare,
-
if we consider this as a society,
we could then design
-
a system where we would take back
the control of the money.
-
And we would create... not too much
money because we do not want to
-
live through those bad experiences where
everything collapsed because of it.
-
People were ruined and the situation
was worse than before.
-
Without creating too much...
-
I guess that we could create
more money than today and also
-
dispatch it to other targets
than what private banks do.
-
But if we manage to take back
public control of
-
monetary creation, we do not need
the stock market anymore.
-
We need neither the stock market,
nor savings, nor rich people's money.
-
So let us grant the control
of the monetary creation...
-
not to politicians...
-
I will come back to that later, but to
public power, to citizens. This could be
-
an assembly, possibly randomly selected
that decide how much money to create.
-
We shall discuss that
because it might be
-
too technical for
randomly selected people.
-
Anyway, some public power instance,
an incarnation of
-
what we, the people are,
could decide how much money we need.
-
This may be a way to finance economy
instead of private banks.
-
There is another way I wanted to talk
about, a wonderful work, very exciting.
-
This were brought to me by
Franck Lepage. Franck Lepage is
-
an exciting campaigner, you should
get to know him if you do not.
-
You can type his name into Google,
you will find his
-
"gesticulated conferences" where
Frank tells important things.
-
I cannot tell much for
it is not related to money:
-
his main topic is about a
popular education. It concerns
-
culture as political education
of young adults to avoid wars.
-
Culture is reduced to art,
which is a disaster.
-
Culture should include education
of young adults on ethics.
-
For example Orwell's Common Decency,
a kind of generosity...
-
altruism that can be developed
and taught with a dedicated education.
-
So, Frank's work is about popular
education: the scuttling of the culture
-
reduced to art and without political
aspect. It is an essential work but...
-
we may talk about that later
together with random
-
selection which is also a tool
for popular education.
-
Frank introduced me to
Bernard Friot's work.
-
I cannot talk in detail about
Friot's work.
-
I encourage you to watch Friot's
conferences, each of them is
-
2 hours long. I saw 4 or 5 myself,
I met him, I expect to do it again.
-
The work of this man is essential...
and revolutionary.
-
Before reading the book you should
watch several videos because he...
-
he improvises in his videos and
they are never the same,
-
there is always something new and
they are rich.
-
One has to master his own vocabulary
about job, wage, contribution.
-
He gives his definition of "job",
his definition of "work" which is...
-
very useful. I shall summarize
so that you
-
understand how it articulates
with my talk.
-
I am trying to finance economy
without rich people's savings.
-
I would like we, the many non-rich
people, to have a normal economic
-
activity, to live a decent life
without requiring rich people's money.
-
without requiring capital,
without capitalism.
-
Without the money accumulated by...
-
those who have money.
-
Taking back money creation
is a first idea. And Friot's idea...
-
That's another bomb. Friot says:
-
There is something in our
current real life,
-
this is no utopia, this is no dream.
-
In our real life,
there is an anticapitalist financing
-
system that works very well,
namely our pension system.
-
In what way is it a major
solution that demonstrate that
-
we are able to finance something
without saving money first ?
-
Well look how our grandparents designed
the pension system after the war.
-
It is easy, very easy.
-
We do not know what will happen
in 20 years, but next year we know
-
how many people are going to work
and how many will be retired.
-
We apply the rule of three and
thus we know the proportion of
-
the wages that must be deducted
to pay the pension next year.
-
Each year we decide the part
of the wages that must be
-
taken to pay the pension next year.
It is unsinkable.
-
Of course, for the baby boomer's
pension you must raise
-
the contribution rate, like today.
By the way, this rate
-
has kept growing since the end
of the 2nd world war.
-
The rate rises a bit each year.
This happens in a period of growth,
-
when wealth rises even more quickly.
Each time, we create
-
much more wealth and we take
a bit more of this new wealth
-
for pensions. It is painless and
the system is unsinkable.
-
Except if you scuttle it voluntarily.
-
When business leaders gained to
freeze the employer contributions...
-
when they stopped to increase...
to adjust the part taken on
-
wages for pensions, they scuttled it.
And then pretended that
-
the system was not viable.
But they unbalanced it voluntarily.
-
This is sheer sabotage !
The system was designed
-
to be self-balanced,
without the slightest deficit.
-
And it worked very well
with huge amounts.
-
Pensions are 230 billions a year.
-
And state is not needed.
These are social funds betwen us.
-
No state needed, no saving needed,
no loan needed,
-
and there is no interest to pay.
-
These are important commitments,
230 billions
-
over 30, 40, 50 years.
And it works very well.
-
Already 45% of the global salary
is paid by funds.
-
Not only retirement but also health,
unemployment... any social insurance.
-
Almost half of our income
is already paid
-
by firms to funds and then
by funds to us.
-
It is already happening,
and there is no need to borrow.
-
No need to pay interests.
No starting capital or savings needed.
-
Friot says: this system has existed
since the 2nd world war.
-
It has worked perfectly since then.
It should be
-
applied to every professional
categories, to everyone.
-
And above all, since it works
for pensions...
-
then let us do the same for salaries.
-
A firm would not pay its
employee directly. It would
-
pay a fund that would pay him.
It would be shared.
-
One may doubt it would work,
but it is already
-
working for pensions,
why not for salaries ?
-
And for investment.
-
Instead of entrusting the stock market
that does not finance economy anymore.
-
You know that all together
the stock market deplete wealth.
-
Each year, if you compare
what the market takes from economy
-
and what it gives to businesses,
it deplete wealth.
-
It is useless. For a long time,
the market has not financed economy.
-
I discovered Friot's idea
a couple of months ago.
-
It should be explored but
it is very appealing.
-
Friot's idea is:
-
"Let us follow...
-
the successful example of pensions
for 60 years.
-
Let us extend this system to other
problematic topics", like investment.
-
The part of GDP that goes
to investment is catastrophic.
-
We are far from the 25% of the GDP
we need.
-
But if firms were asked
a contribution in investment,
-
if firms that need to invest were able
to get money from an investment fund,
-
we would have 25% for investment instead
of relying on a useless stock market.
-
I think that none of these reform is
possible in the context of election.
-
Because elected representative,
for a large part...
-
a part that is hidden...
-
are answerable to their sponsors.
-
And if those sponsors are rich people...
-
the richest are not storekeepers,
they are banks.
-
So it would be an illusion
to believe that
-
representative would change
anything about banks.
-
It would be equivalent to a suicide.
-
So what I am about to tell about
sortition in place of election
-
is the political complement
to this work on financing.
-
I would be glad to hear
your opinions about financing systems
-
because I am still doing
research on that.
-
There might be things that
I have not fully understood,
-
or that I missed.
I am still seeking...
-
new material.
-
http://etienne.chouard.free.fr/Europe
