BerkShares: A Great Economic Experiment

Lessons in Economics

What are BerkShares?

BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a “great economic experiment” by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities. Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares had a robust initiation, with over one million BerkShares having been circulated in the first nine months and over two million to date.
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Money, Debt & Fed FAQ’s

Part 7: Understanding Money

What caused the US Housing market collapse?
Who owns the Federal Reserve Banks?
Why do some people deny that the Federal Reserve Banks are owned by private corporations?
Doesn’t the fact that the President appoints the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System make it a quasi-governmental sort of entity?
Have the Courts decided whether the Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned or not?
How does the Fed “create” money out of nothing?
If private banks create over 90% of the US money supply, then are they not a greater threat to our democracy than the Fed itself?
How do private banks create money?

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How the Dollar System works?

Part6: Understanding Money

The Dollar System and US economic reality post-Iraq War

It’s accepted wisdom that the United States, despite recent problems, is still the strongest growth locomotive for the world economy, the pillar of the global system. What if we were to discover that, instead of being the pillar, that the United States was, in fact, the heart of a dysfunctional economic system, which is spreading instability, unemployment, and depression globally?
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How the Bank of North Dakota saved the state from bankrupcy?

Lessons in Economics

How Cash Starved States can Create their Own Credit

On February 19, 2009, California narrowly escaped bankruptcy, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on his Terminator hat and held the state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial budget. If the vote had failed, the state was going to be reduced to paying its employees in I.O.U.s. California avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.

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The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme called Fractional Reserve Banking

Part5: Understanding Money

Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul

Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done: you induce many investors to invest their money, promising steady above-market returns; and you deliver – at least on paper. When your clients check their accounts, they see that their investments have indeed increased by the promised amount. Anyone who opts to pull out of the game is paid promptly and in full. You can afford to pay because most players stay in, and new players are constantly coming in to replace those who drop out. The players who drop out are simply paid with the money coming in from new recruits. The scheme works until the market turns and many players want their money back at once. Then it’s game over: you have to admit that you don’t have the funds, and you are probably looking at jail time.

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How the Monetary System Works?

Part 4: Understanding Money

Money as Debt by Paul Grignon

What is money and where does it come from?People have been using objects of value for trade since thousands of years, but our current money system works different than it used to be half a century ago. Now banks are more powerful than governments and are able to create more money than there actually exists. The powerful tool they use is “debts“. Our money systems nowadays is based completely on depts. Even the government has to ask for a loan from the banks! This documentary shows how money is created and who profits form this money system. With the knowledge from this free documentary it will also be easier to understand how the currend financial crisis could happen.

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Lessons in Economics from The government of the Island of Guernsey

Lessons in Economics

How to solve the Infrastructure Crisis without selling National Assets

The government of the Island of Guernsey does, for one. Located among the British Channel Islands just south of Great Britain, Guernsey is so small that it has been able to stay under the radar long enough to try some experimental financing without raising the hackles of the international banking establishment that is normally in control of such things. When the Guernsey government needs funding, it simply issues the money it needs.

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How Banks Secretly Create Money

Part 3: Understanding Money!

Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money

It has been called “the most astounding piece of sleight of hand ever invented.” The creation of money has been privatized, usurped from Congress by a private banking cartel. Most people think money is issued by fiat by the government, but that is not the case. Except for coins, which compose only about one one-thousandth of the total U.S. money supply, all of our money is now created by banks. Federal Reserve Notes (dollar bills) are issued by the Federal Reserve, a private banking corporation, and lent to the government. Moreover, Federal Reserve Notes and coins together compose less than 3 percent of the money supply. The other 97 percent is created by commercial banks as loans.

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Who owns the Fed?

Part 2 : Understanding Money!

The Fed now owns the world’s largest insurance company-but who owns the fed?

“Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”
–    The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s

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How money is created?

Part 1: Understanding Money!

The Money Myth Exploded by Louis Even

The financial enigma resolved — A debt-money system.

“The Money Myth Exploded” was one of the first articles of Louis Even, and to this date it remains one of the most popular illustrated story to explain in layman’s language how money was and still is created by private banks as a debt.

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