Michael Hudson - Public Banking Is Needed To Stop Our Economic Destruction (Created By The King’s Private, For-Profit Banking Criminals And Politicians)

I thought this post fitting today because it is April Fool’s Day.  And, because we have been fooled repeatedly for the last two hundred years by banking criminals.  It’s time to end the truly unjust, antidemocratic, criminal foolery of private, for-profit banking forever.  Private, for-profit banking is responsible for endless crimes against humanity and against democracy.  It’s time for democratic, public banking.

I’ve linked to Michael before and am very fond of his honesty and his detailed understanding of reality.  His understanding of reality clearly is driven by an intent of discovery and search for truth.  I have only seen a few people across the world that can actually understand economics, money and banking as a functioning trio and can put this entire crisis together with the breadth and depth of knowledge needed to see clearly what the real issues and solutions are.   He is also one of a dozen or so people I have run across that actually understands how public banking would literally change the world.  Literally.  Ellen Brown is another I have mentioned on here before.   The changes afforded through public banking are more transformative than any single person could ever imagine.  Literally.  Because the changes would be so dramatic and so far reaching that our society and the world would look nothing like it ever has. 

It’s impossible for any single mind to imagine all of the consequential changes of public banking.   But simply everyone who wants to participate in a merit-based democratic system could own a house or apartment, could have enough food, could have economic opportunity,  could be granted a decent education and could share in our society’s wealth to enough degree that no one would want for Maslow’s essential human needs.  Then democracy could share all of this abundance with everyone around the world to empower them to do institute the same empowering, democratic ideals and systems in their nation.   The entire community of life could then share the fruits of human ingenuity and freedom with our brothers and sisters everywhere.   Why would we ever again see war when  the power would be given to the people and not politicians?  We could democratize economic opportunity and freedom across the entire world rather than colonizing and enslaving the world as private, for-profit banking, corporations and capitalism do today.  Of course, they can only do so backed by the force of the state.

Most every perspective on this crisis or proposed solutions are flawed in some way because they most often discount the complexities and interconnections of how the system has actually evolved and what is needed to actually create a functioning democratic economy.  Most people truly have no appreciation of how pervasive injustice and corruption is and always has been due to private, for-profit banking.  Michael is at the top of that list of truly competent minds that I believe can understand and present understandings without any ego-motive or hidden agenda.   Mind you, there is a lot of subconscious confirmation bias, dissonance and unresolved ego-motive out there that recommends solutions that are flawed, biased and even destructive.

All of the remarks about getting government out of banking or making money public while keeping banking private or doing away with fractional reserve banking or only loaning money a bank has or returning to a gold standard are so flawed I could blow a hole in them the size of Alaska.   The answer is democratic public banking and democratic public money.  Period.  They cannot be separated.  Money and banking are manifestations of the self or ego.   Therefore, they are institutions of control.   Liberalizing these institutions from private and state control are the only way to democratize and free them.  Democratic banking and money are institutions of empowerment and freedom.    Any other manifestation of these institutions are simply other attempts at control.   Of course, the best answer is to do away with money altogether.  Then there is  only freedom and democracy.  You know, like on Star Trek where money had become a relic that had been deemed unnecessary and thus was abandoned.  lol

Public banking is not socialism either.  It is the only form of democratic banking.  The people making ludicrous self-interested or ego-motive driven markets either don’t even understand what socialism or capitalism are or they are fear-mongering or lying. 

Public banking is the only form of democratic banking.  Private, for-profit capital can never have the primary intent of serving democracy.   There can be no structure for private, for-profit banking that does not include conflict of interest with democratization of our capital.   Thus, this system always leads to parasitic enslavement and class struggle that simply is diametrically-opposed to democracy.  It does not serve society or democracy by turning over our capital, credit, development or monetary rights to a private institution of taxation and servitude.  Trying to save this system is trying to save a system that has always subverted democracy and always has involved public theft.   It was the king’s private, for-profit banking, usury and attempted debt enslavement that was the primary driver for the Revolutionary War.  Usury and debt enslavement that the parasitic elitists used to extort their power and wealth.   And, of course, to extort their fair share needed to wage endless war and fund empire.  Both of which always have a primary intent of looting, wealth, power and control.   It wasn’t Bloomberg’s soda tax that sent people over the edge into armed conflict in 1776. (The tea tax)  Our state-approved history books are deceptively and knowingly preposterous.   Or as Howard Zinn said, “History is a Weapon.” and the state ensures that you know what to think rather than how to think in order to use that weapon.

I would disagree with Michael on one point he makes in this video.  I think we would clearly come to agreement were this a roundtable discussion point.  But it’s not a minor point and I want to bring it up because of how very important it is to understand a greater truth than is presented by the status quo.  As a blanket statement, we don’t need economic growth, per se.  We need productivity growth.  Real science-based productivity growth.  More on that later. 

I think I have a unique perspective on public banking given my background, life’s experiences and understanding of capital and money.   No one person has the corner on ideas.  But it’s unique enough from that of others that sharing it would certainly foster others to think creatively and outside of our current perceptions of the way things have to be or should be.  For years I‘ve noted I will put up my solution for a public banking system before I stop blogging.   That’s probably not going to be anytime soon.  My priority right now is encouraging people to think for themselves and think differently.   But I would like to make a comment as it pertains to this post and remarks about nationalizing Wall Street noted in this interview with Hudson.   Nationalizing Wall Street is a start but it is not the final answer.  Instead it is a first step towards reforming our capital system.  I don’t see a politically-driven, class-based world where politicians or private entities control banking and money but where an empowered, democratic (or constitutional republic) society are responsible for self-rule and their banking, money and government -

Every community, every neighborhood and every rural area not served by a reasonably close community should have representation by public banking.   Even if it is only a handful of employees in a rural office.  Every person in this country should have their own local public banking facility to ensure the democratization and development of our economy and our citizens and to ensure all of our creativity and inventiveness is monetized.  And that bank should have zero ties to politicians or elected officials or have its funding in any way controlled by politicians.   It’s charter should be to serve the community, human development and democracy.  Not politicians, not a corporate state,  not the endless bribery of political lobbyists and certainly not some Wall Street criminal who has absolutely no motive other than to serve himself aka Adam Smith’s invisible hand of ego-motive or self-interest.  

A distributed banking system makes democratic capital development an integral part of our neighborhoods and our communities and focuses on community and human development.  It can much more easily capture and monetize the knowledge and creativity of our citizens free from Wall Street debt slavery, corporate servitude and megalomaniac politicians in some far off land who don’t give a shit about what happens in your community or to the people in it.  

A distributed, localized public banking and public capital markets system not controlled by politicians or Wall Street makes it substantially less corruptible and bribable.  And, it helps ensure equality and democracy aka local self-rule rather than class-based private, for-profit capital that subverts economic freedom and human rights.   I laid out how this could easily be accomplished in a comment years ago before I shut off the comments section.   And I have noted on here many times, well before this crisis was so obvious that I believe we will take down Wall Street forever this cycle.  And, that a distributed capital system is where we are likely headed at some point. 

We are slaves because we allow ourselves to be slaves.  We do that by outsourcing our power and thinking to people who want to enslave us.  That is, politicians, elites and corporate bureaucrats.  They offer us nothing.  They make or create nothing.  They are not our masters.  They are takers, megalomaniacs, parasites and predators.  And if we let them, they’ll take it all.  We can only have a recovery if enough Americans take back their power and reject political authority in favor of self-rule or exercising our constitutional form of government.

Title link video interview with Michael here.   By the way, I know I sound like a broken record but The Real News is simply the best news source I have come across.  For such a small operation, it truly is astoundingly well done.  There are no toady bureaucrats telling them what to do or chasing ratings with infotainment.  They are a testimony to what is achievable by empowering our citizens and disempowering politicians, corporate bureaucrats, elites and all bureaucracy that only survive by living off the productive abilities of others.   That one camera-facing journalist and a small staff can provide what is arguably the best news in America is a testimony to what can happen when we take back our power and grant it to our citizens rather than dumbed-down corporate bureaucrats and politicians.