Glocal Econ 19: Caribbean Conspiracies and Canadian Austerities

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Tereza Coraggio

Homework Due:

Chapter 39: Liquidating the Federal Debt Without Causing Inflation

  1. How would it affect M1, M2 and M3 to buy back government bonds with cash?
  2. Calculator question: Divide $40 trillion of M3 by the 312 million people in the US. If this amount per person circulated 10X in the US economy, what would be the average income? Does this seem practical? Now divide the $1.5 trillion said to be in circulation in the US by 312 million people. Multiply it by 10. Is this more realistic?
  3. How does the Social Security trust fund compare to the money in circulation? If the Fed issued $26 trillion to banks and corporations, could they also issue enough to pay back the trust fund?
  4. Would it be better for the Federal government to pay the accrued amounts of Social Security back to the counties to have them administer the program, or to phase it out by having the Federal government continue to provide benefits for those past a certain age?
  5. Let’s examine Mike Ruppert’s claim that $1 trillion of the US economy is money-laundering. Could the primary function of the entire consumer market be money-laundering? The military (M1) takes the resources of third-world countries.  This forces them to work for corporations to make goods (M3).  But these stolen goods and resources have to be fenced (M2) in order to generate “legitimate” profits and pay for more military (M1). That’s where we come in.
  6. Is it more dangerous to back the dollar with “the full faith and credit of the United States” rather than a privately-owned Federal Reserve? Do we perhaps want to transition M1 only from a military-consumer economy into a producer economy, and let M2 and M3 fail?
  7. Who owns the foreign central (as opposed to national) banks? Is this who you want to give your money to? If a tsunami of US dollars hits our shore, what will happen to housing prices? Will it REALLY be a good thing to have homeowners go further in debt to the banks because they can? Will they or the banks end up owning their homes? Will they also buy up our agricultural land? Will we have anything left?
  8. Ellen Brown says that there’s not much we can do about foreign ownership of US assets, other than imposing high tariffs or making foreign ownership illegal. Is this true? Could we not put limits on how much return on investment is enough, and reclaim those that have exceeded it? Could the Federal Reserve issue the money for each county to buy back their assets from foreign owners? Could lawsuits be filed against corporations that have harmed the environment, to be paid in assets rather than cash? If counties own the assets, rather than the Federal government, they wouldn’t be liable to be appropriated in a bankruptcy.
  9. China and Japan hold the majority of foreign debt. But according to David Wilcock, much of the gold that should have belonged to their current government was hidden by the dynasties in the US Treasury, in exchange for bearer bonds – like the $134 billion the Japanese couriers were smuggling into Switzerland from Italy. Maybe we could give it back to China in exchange for cancelling our debt.
  10. Does Brown mistake the purpose of the stock market, when she thinks that holders of foreign debt would invest in it? Is its purpose the laundering of money through venture funds that get sold to suckers like us and our 401K and pension funds?

Chapter 40: “Helicopter” Money: The Fed’s New Hot Air Balloon

  1. If Ben Bernanke’s “helicopter drop” was done by the counties to “acquire existing real or financial assets,” would this be a good thing? Could we localize rather than nationalize “essential industries that had been monopolized by giant private cartels” including media, telecom and internet services, and pharmaceuticals?
  2. If Japan created 35 trillion yen in 15 months for 127 million people, how much is that per person? Was Japan’s deflation because, like the US now, they’re a consumer society? Did the Bank of Japan reflation of the US dollar simply keep the calliope going for another few whirls, so it could spin off more real assets to the bankers?
  3. Do we trust big government “with sweeping powers to declare and conduct wars, provide for the general welfare, and establish and enforce laws?” Should we then trust them to create the national money supply?
  4. Brown gives only three options for creating the money supply: a private banking cartel, local communities, or a centralized representative government. She seems to think that people are more trustworthy and accountable in large masses. Do you agree?
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