Ellen states in the book that until the end of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church strictly forbade usury.

Then on page 60 she has a heading "A Revisionist View of the Middle Ages." She points out that modern schoolbooks generally portray the Middle Ages as a time of poverty, but that a nineteenth century Oxford historian by the name of Thorold Rogers stated the reverse: "a labourer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working 14 weeks." She goes on to say, "Money was available for inventions and art, supporting the Michelangelos, Rembrandts, Shakespeares, and Newtons of the period."

She states that the reason for this was "the absence of usurious lending practices." She states, "Rather than having to borrow the moneylenders' gold, the people relied largely on interest-free tallies. Unlike gold, wooden tallies could not become scarce..."

In the chapter entitled "A Look Inside the Fed's Playbook," I'm struck by the final paragraph:

To understand what is really going on behind the scenes, we need to understand the tools used by Big Money to manipulate markets. In the next chapter, we'll take a look at the investments vehicle known as the "short sale," which underlies many of those more arcane tools known as "derivatives." A massive wave of short selling was blamed for turning the Roaring Twenties into the Great Depression. The same sort of manipulations are going on today under different names...

I have heard the word "derivatives" a lot when listening to talk radio about our financial crisis and the banker bailout. My understanding is that derivatives are the primary culprit.

I've heard that term "short sale" before as well. Not sure what it means. I'll find out in the next chapter.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
I've heard that term "short sale" before as well. Not sure what it means. I'll find out in the next chapter.

Ellen explains the short sale within the context of a "bear raid":

A bear raid is the practice of targeting stock for take-down, either for quick profits or for corporate takeover. Whenever the market decline slowed after the 1929 crash, speculators would step in to sell millions of dollars worth of stock they did not own but had ostensibly borrowed just for purposes of sale, using the device known as the "short sale." When done on a large enough scale, short selling can actually force prices down, allowing assets to be picked up very cheaply.

Right away I'm amazed reading this because of the concept of selling something you don't own. That doesn't make any sense to me unless the person who owns the stock had hired you to sell it for you.

But Ellen goes on to say:

...when short sellers sell stock they don't own, they don't actually get the permission of the real owners...

She goes on to say:

...The lending of shares by a broker who holds them in trust for his customers is comparable to the goldsmiths' lending of gold held in trust for his depositors. The broker's customers may have agreed to lend out their shares in the fine print of their brokerage contracts, but they are probably not aware of it.

I have also read most of Web of Debt and found it very good so far, in addition to the book I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the debt money system a film made by the poeple that made the Money Masters, called The Secret of Oz, (2009). Ellen Brown is featured in this and her ideas for a soloution are offered.

Also you may be interested to read a report that made a comparison of the cost to the uk for the period 1970 - 1980 between debt money and debt free money. Although a little techincal for me in places the report conclusion speaks for its self:

"CONCLUSION
If the Government had followed a policy of extensive
fiduciary control and had itself issued credit, rather than
allowing the banks t o do so, it could, for example, have made
a net reduction over the period 1970-80 in the need for
Government borrowing from the £48,578 million Securities
issued to about £22,OOO million, a saving of about £27.000
million on the national debt over the period.

The effect of implementing the proposed move now would
be that a net amount of £20,OOO million of national debt
could be cancelled. The consequent reduction of interest
payments on the national debt and, therefore, of taxation or
further borrowing required to meet these payments, would help
to bring about reflation without inflation."

(note: £1,000 Million = £1 Billion)

Sorry unable to insert the link correctly, please go to WWW.ERCouncil.Org
then Historical Publications and its called Government Debt and Credit Creation from December 1981

[edit on 9-5-2010 by ukWolf]

[edit on 9-5-2010 by ukWolf]

[edit on 9-5-2010 by ukWolf]

[edit on 9-5-2010 by ukWolf]

I'd like to add that the credit creation / debt money issue is unknown to the vast majority of the populations in the countries that have central banks. What I think is needed is a short and accurate paragraph or statement that will quickly alert each nations people to the system as it is and as it should be.

Going beyond this and using technical terms and phrases is merely what the bankers already do, by confusing the citizens who then lose interest the moment they are heard and relying on the politicians to "make everything all right". Keep it short, keep it simple but be accurate. Without the knowledge and support of the masses it will be hard to bring about any change, for one thing that we know for sure the change will not come from the bankers and politicians.

QUOTES:

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.

I'm on the chapter entitled "Waking the Sleeping Giant." Under the heading "Another Blow to the Quantity Theory of Money" is the following, which I think is interesting. (M2 money supply is M1, which is what we usually think of as money - coins, dollar bills, and the money in our checking accounts - plus savings accounts, money market funds, and other individual or "small" time deposits, according to the glossary in this book.)

In March 2006, the People's Bank of China reported that its M2 money supply had increased by a shopping 18.8 percent from a year earlier. Under classical economic theory, this explosive growth should have crippled the economy with out-of-control price inflation; but it didn't. By early 2007, price inflation in China was running at only 2 to 3 percent. In 2006, China pushed past France and Great Britain to become the world's fourth largest economy, with domestic retail sales boosted by 13 percent and industrial production by 16.6 percent . . . China has managed to keep the prices of its products low for thousands of years, although its money supply has continually been flooded with new currency that has poured in to pay for those cheap products. The "economic mystery" of China may be explained by the Keynesian observation that when workers and raw materials are available to increase productivity, adding money ("demand") does not increase prices; it increases goods and services. Supply keeps up with demand, leaving prices unaffected.

Chapter 30 of this book is entitled "The Lure in the Consumer Debt Trap: the Illusion of Home Ownership."

Ellen states:

If the bait that caught Third World countries in the bankers' debt web was the promise of foreign loans and investment, for Americans in the twenty-first century it is the lure of home ownership and the promise of ready cash from home equity loans...

The housing bubble was another ploy of the Federal Reserve and the banking industry for pumping accounting-entry money into the economy. In the 1980s, the Fed reacted to a stock market crisis by lowering interest rates, making investment money readily available, inflating the stock market to unprecedented heights in the 1990s. When the stock market topped out in 2000 and started downward, the Fed could have allowed it to correct naturally; but that alternative was politically unpopular, and it would have meant serious losses to the banks that owned the Fed...

After the Fed set the stage, banks and other commercial lenders fanned the housing boom into a blaze with a series of high-risk changes in mortgage instruments, including variable rate loans that allowed nearly anyone to qualify to buy a home who was willing to take the bait...

I've heard former managing director of a Wall Street investment bank and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President George Bush Sr. Catherine Austin Fitts talk about the fact that this is considered predatory lending.

This sounds like something everyone should read. I'm going to get it today. It does astound me that people know so little about these things.

To me addressing this is priority number one and all else is background.

[edit on 14-5-2010 by ISHAMAGI]

Although a very good book, one in which I've read cover to cover several times already it is not perfect. And some of her history is flat out wrong. I suggest you look at some of the well thought out reviews over on amazon.com discussing her book.

Originally posted by ISHAMAGI

This sounds like something everyone should read. I'm going to get it today. It does astound me that people know so little about these things.

To me addressing this is priority number one and all else is background.

Thanks so much for your comment!

You've stated the way I feel, exactly.

I know that I have not known about these things, and Ellen explains them in understandable language.

If a critical mass of us can come to understand, maybe we can take charge of our situation.

Maybe.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
Although a very good book, one in which I've read cover to cover several times already it is not perfect. And some of her history is flat out wrong. I suggest you look at some of the well thought out reviews over on amazon.com discussing her book.

How about helping us out with an example and a comment from you about the example?

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
I'm just saying it's not perfect and there are is some revisionist history in the book or atleast some very justified alternative explanations for some of the arguments she makes.

I know that as I've been reading this book there have been things she has said about history that have surprised me. My inclination is to believe that Ellen is right in her revisionist history. Our history needs to be revised - big time. That is my understanding after five years or so of exposure to alternative journalism. In order to discuss this further, someone will have to be more specific.

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
Even better book is the Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga which Ellen uses as a source for book many times throughout.

Better book for what?

In my opinion, the important thing is that the general public reads the book and it gets discussed and acted upon.

Something made me return to Chapter 29 of this book, "Breaking the Back of the Tin Man: Debt Serfdom for American Workers." (The "tin man" is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, which is a theme that is used throughout the book.)

There is a heading in this chapter "Debt Peonage: Eroding the Protection of the Bankruptcy Laws." I have never heard the word "peonage" before. I had to look it up. It means "a system by which debtors are bound in servitude to their creditors until their debts are paid."

She states:

...Billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett has warned that America, rather than being an "ownership society," is fast becoming a "sharecroppers' society." Paul Krugman suggested in a 2005 New York Times editorial that the correct term is "debt peonage" society, the system prevalent in the post-Civil War South, when debtors were forced to work for their creditors. American corporations are assured of cheap, non-mobile labor of the sort found in Third World countries by a medical insurance system and other benefits tied to employment. People dare not quit their jobs, however unsatisfactory, for fear of facing medical catastrophes without insurance, particularly now that the escape hatch of bankruptcy has narrowed substantially. Most personal bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies and other severe misfortunes such as job loss or divorce. The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 eroded the protection the government once provided against these unexpected catastrophes, ensuring that working people are kept on a treadmill of personal debt. Meanwhile, loopholes allowing very wealthy people and corporations to go bankrupt and to shield their assets from creditors remain intact.

Why is that?

[edit on 5/14/2010 by Mary Rose]

[edit on 5/14/2010 by Mary Rose]

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
Even better book is the Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga which Ellen uses as a source for book many times throughout.

Zosynspiracy,

I did a search under "Thread Titles" for this book and came up with nothing.

Maybe you could start a thread on this, since you think it's a better book. The more information we have, the better.

Just a suggestion.

Great thread!!!


The BEST book about this got the author jailed by TPTB

"Debt Virus"

get it now!!!!



HDF

//:/::/:////::///

Originally posted by Mary Rose
Something made me return to Chapter 29 of this book, "Breaking the Back of the Tin Man: Debt Serfdom for American Workers."

Continuing in this chapter is the heading "Graft and Greed in the Credit Card Business."

Ellen states:

The 2005 bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies. . . Approximately 60 percent of credit card users do not pay off their monthly balances and among those users, the average debt carried on their cards is close to $12,000. This "sub-prime" market is actually targeted by banks and credit card companies, which count on the poor, the working poor and the financially strapped to not be able to make their payments. According to a 2003 book titled The Two-Income Trap by Warren and Tyagi: "More than 75 percent of credit card profits come from people who make those low, minimum monthly payments. And who makes minimum monthly payments at 26 percent interest? Who pays late fees, over-balance charges . . . Families that can barely make ends meet, households precariously balanced between financial survival and complete collapse. These are the families that are singled out by the lending industry, barraged with special offers . . . all with one objective in mind: get them to borrow more money."