Submitted by dhayes@seldon.terminus.com (Dave Hayes)
money-ethics@uwsa.comAtt'n:(Dave Hayes)
A short extract from "Lightning Over The Treasury Building",
by John R.
Elsom. First published in 1941.
[Note the small numbers involved then, and where we are now.]
Quote
Debunking the Inflation Bugaboo
When the subject of Constitutional money is raised, the Bankers and their
parrots cry "Inflation" from the house tops. They shout "Printing Press
Money" and "Fiat Money," to scare their ignorant and uninformed dupes into
submission.
Let us look at the matter squarely. What other kind of money than
"printing press" money have we in America? All currency is printing press
money.
Its substitute is check book money.
Now, which is better, for the
Government to issue, printing press money, or to give the Bankers the
privilege to issue check-book money?
As we have shown you, there is $69,000,000,000 [1941] of check-book money, in
circulation and on deposit.
How would it cause "inflation", if instead,
that it were Constitutionally, issued currency, which would mean that there
would be 100 cents, behind each dollar, of bank deposits, instead of one and
two-thirds cents ( 1 2/3c.), as is now the case?
Fiat money is money issued by command of the State or Government. Well
isn't that the kind of money we want, and for which the Constitution makes
provision?
The Bankers will say:
"Just look what the over-issuance of money did to
Germany, during, and after, the First World War."
Well - who did it ?
It was the Bankers, through the Reichbank, who did it.
And they did it intentionally. It was done so that they, and their "Pals"
could pay their debts with inflated money, and thus, get out from under, at
a fraction of a cent on the dollar. And, moreover, the inflated currency
was not matched by goods and services, in the nation.
No, my Friends, a scientific Board of Economists, appointed and supervised,
by Congress - which would be no longer dominated by the Bankers, and which
would, therefore, work in the interests of all, of the people, of the Nation
- could issue and regulate the value of money, a great deal more
satisfactorily, than a group of avaricious and unscientific Bankers.
What the Bankers mean, when they cry "Inflation", is, they would no longer be
in a position to first inflate, and then, deflate the Nation's purchasing power,
to their own advantage.
The way to end "Deflation"-which is a great deal more disastrous, than
"inflation" - as well as uncontrolled "Inflation" - is to take the power to
create and control the money, out of the hands of private Bankers, and place
it the hands of men, who are responsible to the people who appoint
them.
Don't let them scare you, with their self-centered cries. They, always,
shout, for their own interests, and not for yours, and of course, the way
they shout is through their "Charley McCarthy", subsidized newspapers.
Do
the opposite to that, which the major portion of the Metropolitan Press
advises, and you will be working in your own, and the people's, interests.
An increase of purchasing power, in the hands of who, now, lack it, is the
crying need of the hour.
That cannot be accomplished, so long as, we have a
money system based on debt; and a money system, based on debts, is the only system
that the Bankers like.
Their definition of sound money is money, which pays
them interest. Money which pays no interest is, they say, unsound money.
Nonsense!!
Why should 27 cents of every earned dollar go to the Bankers to make their
money sound?
Why should we pay Bankers $15,000,000,000 yearly just to
safeguard against "Inflation'??
There is a much less expensive way than that, to do it.
Place the power, to
create the money and to regulate its value, in the hands of Congress, for
which the Constitution provides, and then, if they cannot supply efficient
money, to transact the Nation's business, at capacity production and
consumption, replace them with men, who have sufficient stuff, above their
ears, to do the job, for most certainly it can and must be done.
Un-Quote
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