It's the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World
Thursday, 08 November 2012 10:10By Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis
Interest charges are a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich. A public banking system could realize savings up to 40 percent - allowing taxes to be cut, services increased and market stability created - with banks feeding the economy rather than feeding off it.
In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35 percent to 40 percent of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35 percent to 40 percent cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of "Wall Street greed," but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.
[snip]
Her figures are drawn from the research of economist Helmut Creutz, writing in German and interpreting Bundesbank publications. They apply to the expenditures of German households for everyday goods and services in 2006; but similar figures are seen in financial sector profits in the United States, where they composed a whopping 40 percent of US business profits in 2006. That's more than five times the 7 percent made by the banking sector in 1980. Bank assets, financial profits, interest and debt have all been growing exponentially.
(Source: Adapted from Of Two Minds)
Exponential growth in financial sector profits has occurred at the expense of the non-financial sectors, where incomes have at best grown linearly.
(Source: Consider the Evidence)
By 2010, 1 percent of the population owned 42 percent of financial wealth, while 80 percent of the population owned only 5 percent of financial wealth. Dr. Kennedy observes that the bottom 80 percent pay the hidden interest charges that the top 10 percent collect, making interest a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich.
(Source: Who Rules America?)Please Continue Reading at Truth-out.org : http://truth-out.org/news/item/12605-its-the-interest-stupid-why-bankers-rule-the-world
Occupy Money: Creating an Economy Where Everybody Wins [Paperback]
Margrit Kennedy (Author)Book Description
As a medium of exchange, money is one of the most ingenious inventions of mankind, as it facilitates the trade of goods and services and allows for specialization and the division of labor. However, compound interest and inflation have caused our monetary system to balloon to the point where bailing out banks, large corporations, and even entire countries will not prevent a complete breakdown of the global economy – unless we change the system in fundamental ways.
It’s time for a grassroots movement to knock conventional money off its pedestal and replace it with a fresh paradigm that puts people before profits. A guide not only for the 99% but also for the 1%, Occupy Money demonstrates that the creation of a stable and sustainable monetary system will reflect real wealth, rather than the smoke and mirrors of
speculative profit, thus providing an alternative to the Age of Austerity. This vision can be realized through such creative initiatives as:
• Establishing time banks and complementary currencies geared to specific services such as health and education
• Eliminating interest through interest-free loans and “demurrage”, which rewards currency circulation
• Re-localizing economies through regional currencies.
As a medium of exchange, money is one of the most ingenious inventions of mankind, as it facilitates the trade of goods and services and allows for specialization and the division of labor. However, compound interest and inflation have caused our monetary system to balloon to the point where bailing out banks, large corporations, and even entire countries will not prevent a complete breakdown of the global economy – unless we change the system in fundamental ways.
It’s time for a grassroots movement to knock conventional money off its pedestal and replace it with a fresh paradigm that puts people before profits. A guide not only for the 99% but also for the 1%, Occupy Money demonstrates that the creation of a stable and sustainable monetary system will reflect real wealth, rather than the smoke and mirrors of
speculative profit, thus providing an alternative to the Age of Austerity. This vision can be realized through such creative initiatives as:
• Establishing time banks and complementary currencies geared to specific services such as health and education
• Eliminating interest through interest-free loans and “demurrage”, which rewards currency circulation
• Re-localizing economies through regional currencies.
As a medium of exchange, money is one of the most ingenious inventions of mankind, as it facilitates the trade of goods and services and allows for specialization and the division of labor. However, compound interest and inflation have caused our monetary system to balloon to the point where bailing out banks, large corporations, and even entire countries will not prevent a complete breakdown of the global economy – unless we change the system in fundamental ways.
It’s time for a grassroots movement to knock conventional money off its pedestal and replace it with a fresh paradigm that puts people before profits. A guide not only for the 99% but also for the 1%, Occupy Money demonstrates that the creation of a stable and sustainable monetary system will reflect real wealth, rather than the smoke and mirrors of speculative profit, thus providing an alternative to the Age of Austerity. This vision can be realized through such creative initiatives as:
• Establishing time banks and complementary currencies geared to specific services such as health and education
• Eliminating interest through interest-free loans and “demurrage”, which rewards currency circulation
• Re-localizing economies through regional currencies.
• Establishing time banks and complementary currencies geared to specific services such as health and education
• Eliminating interest through interest-free loans and “demurrage”, which rewards currency circulation
• Re-localizing economies through regional currencies.
For many years financial insiders have hidden economic truths by describing them in arcane terms that no layperson can understand. Occupy Money uses clear, simple and concise language to explain how money will serve people instead of people serving money, and in doing so it issues a challenge to the very foundations of conventional economic doctrine. A must-read.
Margrit Kennedy is the author of the international bestseller Interest and Inflation-Free Money, an outspoken critic of the current global economic system and a renowned advocate of alternative regional and complementary currencies.
Margrit Kennedy is the author of the international bestseller Interest and Inflation-Free Money, an outspoken critic of the current global economic system and a renowned advocate of alternative regional and complementary currencies.
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