Frequently Asked Questions
About the Problem
What’s wrong with the way money works now?
Because banks can manufacture money “out of thin air” and then charge interest on it, banks have a tremendous incentive to increase the amount of debt outstanding. It’s all too easy for the banks to do so, which has led directly to ours being a pathologically over-indebted society.
It is fair to say that the interest on all the outstanding debt money – at least $600 billion a year – provides a truly massive unearned subsidy to Finance. On top of that, because 97% of the new money entering the current system is via the bankers’ “magic wand”, one can reasonably claim that the additional $700 billion of free new money created each year by the banks is another massive subsidy of Finance.
Thus between interest on the monetary base PLUS the windfall of each year’s increase in the money supply, Finance is being subsidized by $1.3 TRILLION a year! No wonder they are the “Masters of the Universe!”
How does money get created now?
97% of new money is created by banks when they make loans. Literally out of thin air – and backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government (your taxes).
Why now?
We are not yet Greece. But the clock is ticking. Our economy is being hollowed-out by the maladaptive consequences of stimulus. Our political institutions are losing legitimacy as they are revealed as ineffective, corrupt or both. And our social fabric, the deep sense of trust and mutual respect without which no nation can long endure, is beginning to break-down.
This sounds like too much, don’t you think we can muddle through just by following the good old American path of hard work and virtue?
The train has left the station on that one. The smart money has already read the tea leaves and they are just jockeying for position when the “mother of all bubbles bursts.”
Won’t austerity work?
No.
Won’t more stimulus solve the problem?
No.
But Don’t We Need banks?
No. We don’t need banks. In the 21st Century, functions like providing an account, transferring money and processing payment are utilities that should be available at essentially no cost.
There is still a role for investing expertise. But this should be satisfied through a financial intermediary that can aggregate and invest funds or provide credit, but does not have the power to create money.
About the Solution
Why don’t I see anything in your proposals about things I care about like: Education, Energy Policy, International Policy, Infrastructure etc?
Until the money power is routed from control of our political institutions “reforms” will benefit the Powers above the interests of the People. The recent “health care reform” effort is a prime example. What happened to the stock market price of pharmaceutical and health insurance companies when it was enacted? They went up.
Our entire focus is on deep institutional reforms which will then allow the People, through Clean Democracy to decide what to do about the other pressing issues of today and tomorrow. These are important decisions, and they need to be addressed, but until we clean up the process, real dialogue is impossible.
How will Free Money work?
To avoid deflation, the money supply needs to grow at least at the rate of GDP growth (or potential GDP growth). Thus new money is always entering the economy. Today 97% of that new money is created by banks when they make loans. Since money is a “social” institution, and is truly the property of the people as a whole, the required growth of Free Money, will instead go to the citizens. Each month each citizen will get approximately $250 credited to their account, as their citizenship share of monetary growth.
Free Money will exist on a central electronic ledger system that can be instantly and freely accessed. All citizens and legal residents will be issued Free Money accounts and IDs. Monetary transactions, for example paying for a purchase at the grocery store, will be executed electronically via network applications, portable devices and point-of-sale terminals that include strong identity and security protections.
Unlike today, Free Money will come into the economy unencumbered by debt. Rather than paying banks for the privilege of using our money, citizens will own their newly issued money free and clear and will be able to spend or invest it as they see fit.
Isn’t that too wild and radical?
Its not even that novel. Remember, the idea of giving the power to create money to the federal reserve system in the first place was pretty novel back in 1913. During the Depression, FDR looked closely at a plan to get rid of fractional reserve banking. In the 1970′s Nixon got so far as planning how to message a transition from fractional reserve banking to the American people.
But, until now, we haven’t had the technology to create a new kind of money that is free of the limitations of the 20th Century. With Free Money, we can finally do away with the mistake of fractional reserve banking and move forward with a truly 21st Century currency.
Why not a return to a Gold standard as proposed by Ron Paul and Von Mises?
While superficially attractive, in reality the Gold Standard is not the panacea that some folks think it is. In fact, it might well be worse than the current system. We have a detailed analysis of the weaknesses and dangers of the Gold standard and why Free Money provides what advocates of a Gold Standard really want: a stable and predictable money supply.
See Why Gold is not the Answer
How will the Jubilee work?
All debt of citizens and of federal, state, and local governments will be discharged and declared null and void, and unenforceable. This full discharge includes both secured and unsecured debt, and any guarantees of such debt are also declared null and void.
Further, to avoid coercion with respect to access to possible future credit, it will be illegal to repay any previous debt, except that between two Persons, in which case voluntary repayment will be permitted but not required.
Cancellation of all debt applies to all lenders, domestic or international. No action for collection of discharged debt in courts of other countries will have any force in the United States. It will be illegal for any American Person or US Legal Entity to repay any international debt.
Won’t Jubilee just let a bunch of deadbeats off the hook? I don’t like the idea of debt relief – most of the people who owe money (including the Nation) need to pay back their debt. Otherwise we are just rewarding people for being reckless, greedy or both. I’m not in debt. I’m an honest, hard-working individual – I don’t need to be “emancipated”!
If only that were true, but its not. Whenever you use money – to buy things, to pay your employees, to save for a rainy day – you are playing with debt and within the debt money system. While people over their heads in debt might want emancipation, it is precisely people like you and me who are really in need.
We need to be emancipated from the *system of debt* where our savings are based upon a shell game and might disappear at any moment and our deposits fuel fake money that drives the economy to ruin. We, more than anyone else, demand emancipation from a system of debt money into a system of honest money.
But shouldn’t you pay back your debts? Isn’t it a moral obligation to keep your word? Doesn’t a jubilee amount to theft of the creditor’s property? Isn’t it immoral to break a contract?
Yes, it is. But this is only true of honorable contracts and moral debts. When the entire system is immoral (as is our current debt money system) the only moral thing to do is to reject it wholesale.
Money is the sovereign (and constitutional) property of the people. It has been stolen from them and given to banks who have rigged the game for the purpose of usury.
Debt contracts in this system are immoral and may be (must be) honorably dissolved. In the case of national debt the case is even clearer, those responsible for paying it off, the next generation, were not the ones who ran it up.
Won’t bad people start racking up debts once they think that a Jubilee will set them free?
Yes, in fact we are counting on it. The debt money system feeds on the perverse relationship between creditors and debtors. The jubilee is designed to bring this system to its knees and a big part of that is to make it choke on its own greed.
This is all pie in the sky and unrealistic. Politics doesn’t work this way.
No, of course not. That’s because politics doesn’t work. Fortunately, we aren’t planning on playing politics as usual.
About the Emancipation Party
Why a Political Party?
While the idea of political parties may seem old fashioned and even naive, a political party is really nothing more than a community of likeminded individuals organized to accomplish objectives related to self-governance.
Delivering on our Reforms will require organization, resources and focus. The Emancipation Party has been founded to provide the punch necessary to be effective.
But with core values like openness and transparency, the only thing we have in common with old guard parties is that we intend to shape the law of the land.
Why a membership party?
We have organized the Emancipation Party as a membership party for three reasons:
1. To be provably clean of purchase by vested interests;
2. To be able to select candidates based on their character and competence not on their fundraising ability;
3. To be able to have enough funds to compete loudly in the marketplace of ideas without the inevitable compromises of having large donors.
Why not work within one of the two major parties?
Both major parties are captured by the money power. We decided that if Wall Street gets to have two parties, the people should get to have one too.
However, if they will support Our Reforms, we will be more than happy to support and work with them.
Why should I trust you?
That is a very good thing to be worried about. Surely, trust is in low supply – as it should be. This is one of the reasons why we’ve made transparency a core value (of both our party and our platform).