Scarcity Amid Abundance

Our world is facing many challenges. But the vast majority can be traced to insufficient money. In other words, scarcity.

There’s never enough money to pay for health care, education, infrastructure, child and elder care, local governments and a whole lot more.

But that only applies to 99% of us. The 1% are flush with money. And their share of the pie is increasing.

Why? Because scarcity for the 99% is not a bug in the system, it’s a feature. Mathematically, wealth inexorably shifts to the 1%.

To understand why, we first have to understand where money comes from. And who controls it. Contrary to popular belief, it does not come from the government.

Where then? From banks. Around 300 years ago, starting with the founding of the Bank of England, the wealthy and powerful convinced most governments to give them the sole right to create money. That’s right, they privatized money creation.

Banks owned by the 1% create more than 95% of the money in circulation. How? With every loan they approve, they create new money with just a few keystrokes.

The Bank of England revealed that secret in 2014.

But you have to pay back more than you received. The difference is the interest owed on the loan.

The problem is, the bank doesn’t create the interest when they create the principal. You have to get that from the money already in circulation from previous loans, or forfeit your collateral

And so, bit by bit, the wealth of the 99% is transferred to the 1%. That’s how you create scarcity amid abundance

But . . . it doesn’t have to be this way.

There is an alternative. We the people can fund our own prosperity by issuing our own money for our own needs. The Federal Reserve acknowledged this when it said, “The government isn’t the only entity allowed to issue money. Private citizens and businesses can too, and throughout U.S. history, they often have.”

In fact, having a people’s money working alongside national money is a practice that can be traced back to ancient Egypt.

Done properly, it greatly stimulates local economies, as well as advancements in science, technology, the arts and more.

For example, did you know that for 250 years during the Central Middle Ages, the 99% enjoyed greater abundance than most countries in the world today?

Communities throughout Europe embarked on huge infrastructure projects that resulted in the building of more than 1,000 cathedrals and 350,000 churches.

There was no central authority directing or funding that activity. Not the church, or the monarch, or the nobility. The people themselves issued the money that financed those beautiful buildings and the jobs and healthy local economies that went with them.

Imagine what we could do today.

    • Like jobs with living wages and personal debt reduction
    • Solvent state and local governments
    • Thriving small businesses and non-profits
    • Health care and education for all
    • Food security
    • Clean air, water and energy

The means to make those things happen and much more are built into a structure developed by National Commonwealth Group called the Sustainable Communities Framework.

So, what can the federal government do to help citizens help themselves?

Before answering that question, we need to talk about how the concept of “money” is already changing worldwide.

Digital currencies of all types are proliferating, and central banks (including the FED) are attempting to get in front of the changes rather than reacting to them. Lawmakers will need to be aware of those new realities and respond to them as needed.

With that in mind, the two most important things that Congress can do to facilitate the potential beneficial impacts of new forms of money on communities nationwide are:

ONE – change the rules about what the IRS shall accept for payment of taxes to include liquid properties like stocks, bonds, precious metals and alternative currencies, and

TWO – get the FED to purchase alternative currencies from banks like they do other financial instruments.

Taking those two small steps will help unlock hugely impactful programs at the regional level. Established and run by citizens themselves, those programs will allow people to bootstrap their own economies out of scarcity, and instead create widespread prosperity. There is probably nothing more transformational that elected representatives can do for their constituents at this time.

Details on these recommendations are available from National Commonwealth Group