On the Creation of Money
About 20 years ago the German economist Margit Kennedy wrote the book "Interest and Inflation Free Money'. It has been translated into 18 languages. She wrote it after having spent some time with and been inspired by a group of North-American Indians. She recently quoted a German study showing that interest on borrowed money represents around 30-50 % of the prices of all goods and services.
More about her work can be found here:
www.greenhealth.org.uk/MoneyCreation.html
She has inspired many groups in many countries, e.g. in New Zealand, where groups to establish regional money systems are being formed. The McKeever Institute of Economic Policy Analysis gave her an award in their 'The McKeever Institute of Economic Policy Analysis':
www.mckeever.com/kent.html
At that time, 20 years ago, I was part of a small group in a Nordic country that set out to explore the possibility of local money modelled on the successful JAK-bank (Jord-Arbeid-Kapital, Soil-Work-Capital, originally aimed at credit to farmers) that had already been established in other Nordic countries. We were not successful, but in the process we learned that the Freemasons disapproved of our efforts. Then we knew we had been on the right track. Centralized banking favours the few, it acts as a vacuum-cleaner that spouts money upwards. At the same time one member of the group found a study showing how taxation cumulates in percentage on one monetary unit as it circulates. The number might even higher than that of interest added cumulatively, as cited by Margit Kennedy in ref. to the German study.
This research and conclusion was presented to some politicians at that time, without eliciting any response. This is understandably, as the monetary system is very poorly understood by anyone, within or without banking and politics. However, the Minister of Finance in this country at that time, who was presented with Margit Kennedy's work, said such a system (interest free banking) was premature at that time. Maybe it is an idea that now has reached its time?
In William Cooper's book, 'Behold a Pale Horse', a story on a young economic thinker is included. His take on the taxation of the US Federation by the FEDS shows that the growing national debt is unreal given the assets in natural resources held by that nation, that is, had the FEDS been an asset of the national government, as demanded by the American Constitution. This young man ended up in jail, for life, with no chance of recourse to justice in an open hearing.
Many local surrencies have in fact been established over the years in different countries. But has invariably been regarded as a threat to centralized banking and government. As with other whistleblowers, many of these pioneers have ended up dead before their time.
Centralized banking and centralized taxation both have a vacuum cleaner effect, sucking money upwards to a level that is hard to scrutinize and therefore easily lost from democratic control. What we may choose in the future is a combination of local monies and bartering, local taxes and a sharing of resources from the local to a larger area. Anyone performing a service to others deserves compensation, but the simple creation of a means of exchange, currency, may be done as a collective effort, without interest.