The financial systems of the world are becoming increasingly plutocratic benefiting the banks, the financial institutions and corporations, through shameless and obscene profiteering at the expense of other sections of society, non-humans, and the world’s resources.

As a long-term alternative to the existing financial systems based on money and debt, The Venus Project has proposed a Resource-Based Economy based on the assertion that there are enough natural resources on the planet to provide everyone with basic needs and that money is a social convention and is not necessary for survival.  Whilst we agree with this as a potential long-term solution we feel that, in the meantime, billions of humans and non-humans will still suffer and die needlessly and that the environment will suffer much damage.  It’s estimated that upwards of 50,000 poor people die every single day from starvation, water borne diseases, or Aids, and this equates to 1 person dying about every 2 seconds, which is quite an obscene statistic when we already produce more than enough food to feed every human on the planet.

Peaceful Economy Proposals
When reading these proposals, you will need to remember that all monetary and economic systems are social constructs.  This means that the current rules/laws/constraints/regulations under the current orthodox monetary system do not apply in our Peaceful Economy heterodox monetary system. There will be regulations but only with a view to benefiting all of us.

A Peaceful Economy is our proposal for a more short-term to medium-term sustainable alternative for monetary reform and will give governments the sole right to all money creation.  Banks currently create 97% of all money in circulation (from interest-bearing debt) and the governments just 3% but in our proposed Peaceful Economy it will be illegal for any financial institution to create money, other than the Governement’s national bank.

Below we outline some relevant economic concepts, as well as the key components of what we mean by a Peaceful Economy.  Fundamental to our new economic system is how money can quite simply be created electronically out of thin air with the click of a computer mouse button (to understand how the banks “create” money, we recommend that you watch the documentaries “Money As Debt“, “Money As Debt II“, “Zeitgeist“, or “Zeitgeist Addendum“ on our Peaceful Economy resource page.)

We are not economic experts, and the following list is subject to change and revision.  These proposals are an open-source project and we welcome suggestions from the general public as well as economic experts. (Please do think outside the box when reading these proposals):

1. The creation of all money will be the prerogative of all the individual governments of the world with just one national bank per country (e.g. “The Bank of Britain”, “The Bank of USA” etc.)
2. It will be illegal for any other financial institution to create money. No more money creation by the banks as interest-bearing debt.
3. All private banks will be nationalised. All branches of private banks will become branches of the new National bank – this will keep most bank employees gainfully employed.
4. Currency is not required to have a store of value against a commodity (e.g. gold, gilt bonds etc). It is to be accepted that all currency is actually worth its own store of value and that the currency is, itself, the commodity. (e.g. a £1 coin is actually worth £1 and a £5 note etc is actually worth £5!).  To have a store of value against any other commodity (gold etc.) is socially constructed in the current monetary system.
5. No devaluation.  This is socially constructed in the current monetary system
6. No inflation.  This is socially constructed in the current monetary system.
7. All taxation abolished.  (e.g. income tax, health insurance, motor tax, council tax, etc).  Strictly monitored and regulated, the government “creates” money as and when it is required to fund the services that our taxes pay for ( e.g. councils, council services, council housing, the Health Service, transport, elderly care, child care, deprived areas etc.)
8. All taxpayers to be refunded their tax payments for a term to be decided (12 months?).  A welcome cash bonus for every tax-payer and will keep most tax employees gainfully employed.
9. All government registered charities to be funded by the government.   Strictly controlled and regulated, the government creates money to fund these absolutely vital services (for example, it’s a scandal that the likes of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London has to “beg” the UK public for funding through national TV advertising.)
10. All world debt to be cancelled (international, national, personal).  All nations will be able to create money to enable them to become self-funding and self-sufficient to service the needs of their own populace.  An end to famine and poverty.
11. All loan companies (mortgage, banks, credit cards etc.) to be repaid their outstanding debt by the government – minus all interest charges.
12. All future loans will be provided by the government.
13. All government loans will be interest-free.
14. All utility services (gas, electricity, water) to be nationalised.
15. All utility services to be free.
16. Inflated profiteering to be outlawed.  A government department will be set up to monitor and regulate the difference between the “cost of goods or services” and its “selling price”. The maximum markup on cost price will be 100%.
17. Free education for all.
18. Each adult citizen will receive a Citizens Living Allowance (CLA) of, for example, £100 per week to spend on whatever they wish. The CLA payment would be a welcome supplementary income to each person’s individual weekly working wage or, for those people who prefer not to work and feel that they can live sustainably on just the CLA income alone, they will be freely allowed to do so. With the introduction of the Citizens Living Allowance, all unemployment benefit payments will be abolished. We would like to thank Positive Money for the Citizens Living Allowance idea.

As you can see from our Peaceful Economy proposals, by giving all money creation to just one central national bank for each government, cancelling all debt (international, national and personal), abolishing all taxes, gifting each global citizen with a Citizens Living Allowance, a Peaceful Economy would create a world economy were each and every adult citizen on the planet would be cash “richer” and not cash “poorer” through spiralling international, national and personal debt, as is the state of the world economy today.

A Peaceful Economy would create a world were not one man, woman, or child would ever again die needlessly each and every day through poverty and starvation.

In future blogs,  we will develop some of these ideas in more depth as well as explore other alternatives to the current exploitative and negative monetary systems.

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time Change

“The Motley Fool” takes a look at the International Monetary Fund and what it does.

The International Monetary Fund (the “IMF”) has been in the news of late, most recently related to its financial help in dealing with the devastating floods in Pakistan. But what actually is it, and what does it do? In this, our latest instalment in our occasional series looking at the world’s financial institutions, we’ll take a look.

What is it?

On its own website, the IMF describes itself thus:

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”

The IMF, headquartered in Washington DC, was founded in 1945, from an initiative arising from the 1944 United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Breton Woods, New Hampshire.

With its initial 45 member countries, the IMF’s aim was to assist post-war economic reconstruction by helping facilitate international payments and stabilise exchange rates, and this was achieved by setting up a fund, contributed to by its members, which could be used for making short-term loans to countries suffering from balance of payment difficulties.

Today, with its 187 members, the IMF’s stated aim is to ensure the stability of the international monetary and financial systems, which, as we have seen in recent years, is not a simple task. The organisation, which works closely with the World Bank (which we will look at in a later article), goes about this business based on a three-pronged approach.

Intelligence

On the idea that that sound economic and financial policies are essential for economic stability and growth, the IMF keeps tabs on economic development around the world. In addition to monitoring and reporting on global and regional trends and developments, the IMF also keeps a close eye on the economic development and policies of individual countries, by co-operating with them in an ongoing analysis, and assessing the likely impact of their policies on their local economies and on the global economy. Most of the IMF’s members allow the IMF to make their reports on their individual economic conditions openly available.

In addition to meeting with and analysing individual countries, the IMF also occasionally convenes regional meetings which bring together a number of countries to analyse regional economic and financial development.

As a results of this activity, the IMF provides a number of reports covering a range of economic and financial indicators, with the organisation’s World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report being amongst the most widely read.

Consultation

In addition to providing analysis of its members’ economies, the IMF also provides consultation and training, offering its member countries advice and training in areas of financial and monetary policy, fiscal policy, and generally sound economic management. In addition, it offers training for countries in collecting, monitoring and analysing data on their own economic progress.

Lending

The most powerful tool in the IMF’s armoury, of course, is its pile of cash. And the best way to encourage a country to develop open and responsible economic policies is to offer to lend it the money to do it with. So to that end, the IMF offers loans to member states that are facing difficulty with their balance of payments — when they can’t raise enough from their own economies and from conventional lenders to cover the costs of running their economies. Preferential interest rates are available for less well developed countries, or those facing seriously difficult recovery problems.

Of course, an IMF loan always comes with conditions, and those conditions typically require the recipient country to commit to things like open trade, free movement of capital, and transparent financial policies. Such agreements, known as Structural Adjustment Programs, are intended to help the recipient countries develop responsible economic policies, and avoid the risk of simply lending money to be wasted on reckless spending. But the IMF’s policies are not without criticism.

Criticism

The conditions attached to IMF loans, especially some of the austerity measures they impose, have led some to claim that IMF intervention increases hardship and poverty, at least in the short term. And this has helped fuel recent anti-globalisation movements.

Others criticise the IMF’s essentially Keynsian monetarist approach, and opine that such a “one size fits all” policy might not always be the best for everyone, and might stifle a country’s freedom to adopt innovative policies of its own that might prove more effective.

Further criticism is aimed at the number of unsavoury dictatorships that the IMF has offered financial support to in the past, suggesting that the IMF’s aims have not always been so squeakily clean and have instead sometimes come down on the side of allies of economically strong Western governments.

But whatever criticism might be levelled at the IMF, there’s little doubt that its activities have helped the spread of Western-style economic development.

Original Article

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
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It’s Time For Change