AMERICAN   MONETARY   INSTITUTE
PO  BOX 601,  VALATIE,  NY 12184   ami@taconic.net
"Over time whoever Controls the money system controls the nation."
Stephen Zarlenga, Director

Dedicated to the independent study of monetary history, theory, and reform

Dear Friends,
Rather than the Institute writing a report on the recent 5th Annual AMI 2009 Monetary Reform Conference, I thought you'd rather see what some of our participants had to say about it. We'll add them below as we receive them!
I'll just mention it was another wonderful experience for us at the Institute to meet with so many people so knowledgeable and committed to reforming our monetary system. Looking forward to seeing you again next September in Chicago.
Sincerely,
Stephen Zarlenga
Ami


Reports            Reports            Reports            Reports            Reports

First From Washington State:
Michele St. Pierre ©2009

Chicago, Illinois. September 24th. While the pundits argued about whether Chicago would get to host the 2016 Olympics, they ignored the much more important issues being discussed at a Conference there on Monetary Reform, which could overwhelmingly impact the world’s people in a positive way.

What if there didn't have to be any wars? What if you could have peace and prosperity as every human's birthright? What if it was not that complicated, but relatively simple to achieve this? What if it wasn't about left or right, black or white, liberal or conservative? What if it was about freedom versus slavery, prosperity versus debt, peace versus war? What if the solutions weren't all that difficult and you could see world peace in your lifetime?

Do you think that is an impossible dream? One that only little children and demented utopianists could even imagine? Throw your cynicism to the wind and dare to think again. Think outside of the box. That’s what a small group of monetary reformers has been doing now for the last 6 years under the umbrella of the American Monetary Institute. The Institute is the birthchild of Stephen Zarlenga, who throughout his lifetime studied economics and wrote a book called “The Lost Science of Money,” which elucidates the history of how peace and prosperity has been achieved before, and most importantly, how we can achieve it again through the reasoned use of the power to create money. 

While Obama attended the G20 conference where the status quo glorified itself and showered itself with more power to abuse and denude the people of the earth of their wealth and productive earnings, bonafide honest and caring citizens of this planet worked on their benevolent plan to stop the plunder, and return the resources of the earth back to the productive, civilized and gentle inhabitants who deserve it.
If you were an academic, and wondered why there are wars in the world, and you studied the issue, you would eventually reach the same conclusion as the American Monetary Institute.

There are wars in the world because bankers/financiers/corpora

te globalists love wars, foment wars, encourage wars, finance wars, utilize the media to propagandize the public to accept wars, in order to get countries into more debt, so that they can collect the interest, and consolidate the world's real wealth and resources into a few elite's hands. These are the same international bankers controlling the issuance of most of the world’s money at interest through private central banks like the Federal Reserve.

So how do you end wars? You eliminate the Central Bank's control of governments’ money (the people’s money). The U.S. Central Bank is the Federal Reserve. Would you like to end it and bring control of the U.S. government back into the hands of the people via their elected representatives? If we regain control of the money power here, the rest of the world will follow, and the financial incentive for wars will have been drastically reduced.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is soon going to be sponsoring the American Monetary and Financial Security Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill is the outcome of all of this economic brainstorming.
It would briefly,
1. Nationalize the Federal Reserve and put it under Treasury - making it a government function and eliminating Private Bankers from the issuance of our money.

2. End the Fractional reserve banking system and replaces it with one that has a 100% reserve requirement (meaning banks can no longer print money into existence through loans). It would also cap interest on loans at 8%.

3. Spends U.S. dollars (not debt money) into the economy to stimulate it and provide financing for infrastructure projects.

Many world economists care about what happens with monetary reform in the United States, because they know that whatever happens here affects all of their countries as well. They want to work on monetary reform here, because it can happen here. We could be a good leader once again. We could be a beacon of light rather than the dark force of empire building and war.

These economists know that if the U.S. fails, there is no hope for their countries. They are willing to put time, effort and money into legislation to save America, in order to save themselves. Are you? Be a part of the solution. Support the AMI and this legislation. Their website is www.monetary.org.

From Duncan, Vancouver, Canada

Hello Stephen:

I have just arrived back to my home on Vancouver Island. It was a great Conference. I was impressed by the number of young people who came and spoke so understandingly. My son-in-law Paul Krismer was greatly impressed too. Change will come. I  thank you for all the work you do to make the Conferences happen. You are building an army of good thinking people.  You are doing great work!

 

Thank you for honouring me and Celia with the Lifetime Achievment Award. It caught me by pleasent surprize. I wish I had had my thinking together and got our picture taken as you presented it. Perhaps some one did.  If you know I would like to get a copy for local publication. . That award gives me the opportunity and the credibility needed to write up news reports to BC provincial and local newspapers. I shall be doing that in any case.   Since 2004, Celia and I did talk to many Mayors and Municipal Councilors and elected officials on the Island, and we did get at least four communities to make some effort to get funding from  the Bank of Canada  for community projects. (Why are we, here in Duncan, paying for three swimming pools  just for the right to have just one pool?!)  AMI support and recognition will help me to shame them further for not taking stronger action.

 

I will give you a write-up on Celia's life and activisms. And I will also send along copies of anything that does get printed or has already been published  in the past.

I continue with our Eye Opener films next week and continue to pressure for Monetrary Reform wherever I can.  I have a group in Vancouver who are arranging for me to address their current Mayor, since he now holds the office in the City Hall that Mayor Gerald Gratton McGeer built in 1935 to help get people working again. Keep strong Stephen, you are doing a great job. Our thanks to Jamie too for his dedication to AMI.

Kind regards, Will Abram

and a later email:
Yes Stephen - This Fifth Conference  was inspiring!  Thank you for all the effort you put into making it happen. I will forward to you very soon an attached file and power-point of my presentation.   ***Please note - My son-in-law, Paul Krismer,  was sharp and on the bit.  I have a wonderful picture of you presenting  me that award,  from his camera.. That picture will be appearing in B.C. papers as soon as I get my write-ups together and done. Thank you for being!

Kind regards,
Will Abram

From Michigan
Thank you Megan (Stephen's Assistant).  I'll reciprocate by writing the AMI a cavalcade of colorful commentary in the near future, and by pledging to bring a couple of lads with me to the next conference...
Hope you are doing well,
Keith Houser

From Connecticut

Dear Stephen,

 Thank you so very much for the honor of participating in the 2009 AMI conference, which I believe will be remembered as a watershed moment in the monetary reform movement. Your relentless research and faithful focus amaze and inspire me. I know how challenging it is to do original research, I know the effort required to put together a conference without the resources of a large organization, and I know how next to impossible it is to bring such diverse, diverging human beings together to unite toward a common goal. But it's just NEXT to impossible...you made possible the meeting of the minds necessary for this movement to come to fruition. And WE will make a more beautiful world possible through "The "....American Monetary and Financial Security Act...."  I think we need the word, Freedom -- then the title rolls off the tongue, and sings to the sleeping American Revolutionary spirit dormant but not dead in All Americans, and those souls of the world who may not share our nationality, but share our dream.

 Godspeed,

Meredith

From Iowa

Distelhorst to speak on monetary reform

A DVD of a speech given to the American Monetary Institute last week in Chicago by a Burlington man will be shown Tuesday at the public library.

Dick Distelhorst, a longtime monetary reform advocate, spoke at the conference. His speech was titled "What Must Be Done Now!"

Distelhorst is among the most knowledgeable Americans regarding the workings of the Federal Reserve system, according to Steven Zarlenga, director and co-founder of the American Monetary Institute.

"He also understands fully which actions have to be taken to end this tyrrany of a self-declared elite," he said. "Our nation and its people cannot survive the continuance of the present privately owned, debt-based monetary system.

"Either we kill that system now or it will kill our representative democracy. That is the stark choice now facing us. There is no doubt that the solution to our economic and social justice problems is to institute the debt-free monetary system proposed in the American Monetary Act."

Distelhorst is a senior advisor to the institute.

His speech will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Burlington Public Library.

From Michigan (again!)
Hello Stephen,
Thank you very much for organizing the conference.  It was a great pleasure to attend the conference, hear many of the excellent talks, and to meet many intelligent, interested people.... As the conference was proceeding, I was thinking the conference that I have coming up in November.  As part of that thinking, I made a list of tips to speakers and tips to the conference organizers.  I think these tips are equally valuable to AMI and the next conference, so I will paste them below. (and he added many excellent suggestions for next year)
Aaron Wissner


From California by Carol Brouillet
(Who actually swam the whole mile! First one to do it. Everyone else has only done the half mile. Yes she gets an AMI T-shirt!)

Stephen,
Thank-you for the news!  I did write a report (and continually have been trying to edit/improve it, as I'm not completely happy with it), but I realize, if I don't publish it, it will be hopelessly out of date.  Here's the rough draft:

Life or Debt?
AMI – Monetary Reform and Liberation
G-20 - Debt Slavery 

     In Pittsburgh the G-20 agreed to disagree, thus maintaining the illusion that they have secured the unraveling financial system by instituting the mildest of reforms even while allowing the bankers most responsible for the economic disaster to keep their ill-gotten gains.  Simultaneously, in Chicago a less heralded group gathered at the American Monetary Institute (AMI) 5th Annual Monetary Reform Conference to deepen their understanding of the flaws in the dominant debt-based system and the possibilities for transformation.  At the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, protected by brutal military and police forces, world leaders were met by thousands of protesters deploring their policies.  At the AMI meeting at Roosevelt University in Chicago, monetary researchers, authors, and activists from Russia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, Canada, Britain, and across the US were ignored by the press as they shared their insights and experiences and discussed the Monetary Reform and Financial Securities Act, to be introduced into Congress by Dennis Kucinich as a first step to ease the debt slavery burdening humanity.
     The AMI was founded by Stephen Zarlenga (& Dr. Lucienne DeWulf), author of The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money, the Story of Power,  ( http://www.monetary.org) who contends that
 
“By mis-defining the nature of money, special interests have often been able to control a society’s monetary system, and in turn, the society itself.” 
 
     For years the AMI has labored to create a bill ( http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf)  that would nationalize the Federal Reserve, prevent private banks from creating money out of thin air (which they do now under the current fractional reserve banking system), and enable the government to spend it into existence by investing in much needed public infrastructure, including education and health.  The conferences feature speakers who understand the current process and how our dishonest, private, oligarchic system could be retooled into an honest, public, transparent, and accountable one.
 
     The recent four-day conference in Chicago included outstanding speakers with extensive knowledge and expertise in a wide range of areas, including some who had worked at the Federal Reserve­ whistleblower William Bergman and Meredith Walker; authors, economists, and advisors to Congressman Kucinich­Michael Hudson and David I. Kelley; as well as William Black, who led the Savings and Loan rescue effort in the 90s and spoke in detail on “Fraud's Critical Role in Producing the Financial Crisis.”  The talk that moved me the most, however, was about the history of Canada’s monetary reforms, presented by Will Abram ­who was born a year before the 1929 stock market crash and vividly described his life during and after the Great Depression. (http://www.criticalthoughts.info/website/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=5&Itemid=41)
  (Chart here that would not copy)
   
    As Will Abram explained, the Bank of Canada was created in 1935 under the leadership of Gerald Gratton McGeer, who was the true father of the Bank of Canada, and William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was Canada’s prime minister when the Bank of Canada was nationalized in 1938.  The Bank enabled Canada for decades to create money to fund government programs, expand the railroad system, provide jobs and healthcare, build a large navy, and educate its people--all without skyrocketing debt.
That changed in 1974 when Canada decided to allow other banks to “create money,” and then Canada began borrowing from these banks!  As a result, the growing debt has siphoned off much of the country’s wealth in the past 35 years, resulting in the selling of the Canadian Railway system, the erosion of public services, and loss of control over national resources.  Will Abram noted that Gerald Gratton McGeer has been basically written out of the history books­the book that he authored, Conquest of Poverty, (described as a good read, by Will who brought a rare copy to the event) has been
long out of print, and McGeer’s ideas about money have been all but forgotten.
(Another Chart here that would not copy)

       Upon hearing this presentation, the first question I asked was “What happened in 1974?” Will gave a cautious, evasive response. (He said that he needs to research it more thoroughly. Zarlenga indicated that Will knows more than he is telling about this and hopes that Will will present his documentation at the next AMI Conference.) Apparently it is legally possible for Canada to reclaim control over its monetary system, the laws still exist, but no one, in powerful government positions, is exercising them.
 
     Deregulation and privatization­the policies championed by the World Bank that have concentrated wealth and power, increased poverty, and been a disaster for the bulk of humanity­continue to be prescribed for countries hardest hit by the global crisis, such as Iceland and Latvia.
 Michael Hudson  (http://michael-hudson.com/) jokingly skewered the ‘neoliberal kleptocracy’ meeting in Pittsburgh for rewriting the rules to continue to extract wealth from the countries that have been lured into debt.  He detailed his visits to Iceland and Latvia, which can’t possibly pay back the debts that the corrupt forces within their countries have incurred and then shifted onto the public.  He described the dire situation in each country, including the exodus of people who cannot afford to stay. An article he wrote in August summarized the gist of his narrative:
 
       ‘Iceland promises to be the first nation to lead the pendulum swing away from the “real economy” ideology of free markets to an awareness that in practice, this rhetoric turns out to be a junk economics favorable to banks and global creditors. Interest-bearing debt is the “product” that banks sell, after all. What seemed at first blush to be “wealth creation” was more accurately debt-creation, in which banks took no responsibility for the ability to pay. The resulting crash led the financial sector to suddenly believe that it did love centralized government control after all – to the extent of demanding public-sector bailouts that would reduce indebted economies to a generation of fiscal debt peonage and the resulting economic shrinkage.
 
         ‘This agreement is the first since the Germany’s World War I reparations debt to subordinate international debt obligations to the capacity-to-pay principle. Iceland spells this out in clear legal terms as an alternative to the neoliberal idea that economies must pay willy-nilly (as Keynes would say), sacrificing their future and driving their population to emigrate in what turns out to be a vain attempt to pay debts that, in the end, can’t be paid but merely leave debtor economies hopelessly dependent on their creditors. In the end, democratic nations are not willing to relinquish political planning authority to an emerging financial oligarchy.
 
         ‘No doubt the post-Soviet countries are watching, along with Latin American, African and other sovereign debtors whose growth has been stunted by the predatory austerity programs that IMF, World Bank and EU neoliberals imposed in recent decades. The post-Bretton Woods era is over. We should all celebrate.’
       Reality trumps fraud.
       Hudson clearly spells out the fraud or ‘misguided wishful thinking that has dominated neoliberal thought’ –
       ‘Debts are a claim on output, revenue and wealth, not wealth itself.’
 
       ‘This is what pro-financial neoliberals fail to understand. For them, debt creation is “wealth creation” (Alan Greenspan’s favorite euphemism), because it is credit – that is, debt – that bids up prices for property, stocks and bonds and thus increases financial balance sheets. The mathematically convoluted “equilibrium theory” that underlies neoliberal orthodoxy treats asset prices (wealth in the financial sense of the term) as reflecting prospective income. But in today’s Bubble Economy, asset prices reflect whatever bankers will lend – and rather than being based on rational calculation their loans are based merely on what investment bankers are able to package and sell to gullible financial institutions trying to pay pensions out of the process of running economies into debt, or otherwise disposing of credit that banks freely create.
 
          ‘The amount of debt that can be paid is limited by the size of the economic surplus – corporate profits and personal income for the private sector, and the net fiscal revenue paid to the tax collector for the public sector. But for the past generation neither financial theory nor global practice has recognized any capacity-to-pay constraint. So debt service has been permitted to eat into capital formation and reduce living standards.’
 
     William Black’s  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9HKKyNPe4k) presentation detailed how those committing fraud, the crooks, can undercut and drive out honest, ethical people, in industry as well as in the financial sector.  For example in China, unscrupulous companies added a poisonous, cheap substitute (melamine) to healthy milk powder, to undercut and eliminate their competition, make larger profits, and didn’t care that their actions killed babies and endangered public health. 
 
     The Ponzi scheme that ballooned into the current global crisis was characterized at the most basic level by loans that were made to people who could not possibly repay them. It was only by lenders not looking at these loans, failing to act ethically and responsibly, that these loans could be approved, repackaged, and resold, again and again, for the profit of those who participated on one level after another.  There was systemic fraud taking place, and there was pressure on honest people to not look and not tell. Some courageous whistleblowers were punished, but only a token few of the many perpetrators have been punished, and there are still no real investigations or accountability.  At the highest levels of government, the financial entities most responsible for the economic crisis are still directing government policy.  As a whole, Congress remains subordinate to the financial sector and actively participates in the coverup.
   
     There have been a few, very rare politicians who have had the courage to speak honestly and challenge the monopoly capitalists who have recently turned into financial cannibals in their struggle for survival.  One such politician was Henry George, who wrote Progress and Poverty in 1879, which showed how the monopolization of land deprives society, as a whole, of wealth, and how this problem could be solved by the imposition of a tax on land. Land reform and monetary reform go hand in hand.  Dr. Cay Hehner, director of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York, spoke eloquently about the “End of Capitalism As We Know It,” emphasizing the abrupt inversion of language as those in power scramble to change the rules that contradict ideologies that they have been pushing for decades, simply to save their own skins. Henry George inspired Tom L. Johnson, perhaps Cleveland’s greatest mayor, who in turn was an inspiration to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has championed numerous taboo issues, earning popular support and the predictable contempt of the corporate media.
 
    When Congressman Kucinich introduces the Monetary Reform and Financial Security bill in the US Congress, will the media ignore it, as they ignored his bill to impeach President Bush?  Will the public even learn about it?  Does the public realize how deeply flawed the existing system is, and how they are being robbed by those who control the system? Is there any reason to hope for genuine reform or accountability?  On the surface, it looks as though Goldman Sachs is running the government for their own personal profit.  If the Monetary Reform and Financial Services bill were passed, would it actually be implemented?
 
     One of the speakers at the conference, Michelle St. Pierre, has been active in the Campaign for Liberty’s efforts to pass the “Audit the Fed, HR 1207 Bill,” a campaign that has gathered 296 co-sponsors in Congress. (I have to admit that this grassroots effort to support that bill touched me personally. Years ago I was invited to speak at two of the rallies at the San Francisco Federal Reserve, which is where I met Steven Walsh--who persuaded me to read Stephen Zarlenga’s books, thus renewing my interest in monetary reform, which had been my major issue until September 2001.)  Remembering the deceptions, omissions, and distortions of the 9/11 Commission Report, I asked Michelle if she thought there was any chance that the Fed would be honestly audited. She replied  that the campaign alone was worth the effort, to simply raise public awareness about the inherent problems of our Federal Reserve System, and a necessary step on the road to identifying and solving our monetary problem. 
 
     It is encouraging to note the statement by Senator Bernie Sanders, that the “Audit the Fed” legislation is likely to pass both houses. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has refused to reveal who were the recipients of taxpayer money.
 
       I shared my heartfelt appreciation for those in attendance. I experienced a strong sense of community from being with people who share one of my passions-- to transform our war economy into one that serves life, by tackling its worst flaw, the debt-based monetary system. 
 
     I know how difficult it is to explain the true nature of money and global economics to people, much more challenging even than raising questions about the official story of 9/11.  I passed along an insight given to me: “When most people are faced with a problem, they ask what can I do?  But 9/11 is so big, they have to ask themselves ‘Who am I?’ which is a much harder question.”  The room was filled with people who had had an epiphany of some sort that changed their lives, including bankers, traders, investment analysts, engineers, teachers, economists, farmers, environmentalists, and even
Chris R. Lindstrom, the grandson of David Rockefeller and the great great grandson of both John D. Rockefeller and Nelson Aldrich, the senator and political force behind the Federal Reserve.  Chris, like me, had been working with the E.F. Schumacher Society to pioneer the idea of local currencies, to raise awareness, and to build community prior to the financial crisis.  For decades, people did not want to look at “what money was and how it shaped society,” but now people are feeling hurt, threatened, and hungry to understand what is going on, and open to solutions that make sense and will help them through the crisis.
 
     This global crisis, despite the threat that it brings to the survival of humanity, also contains a unique opportunity to increase awareness and turn the dominant order around.  Money, next to brute military force, has been a powerful tool of empire.  Knowledge, global opinion, coalitions of countries working together, and coalitions of people working together in opposition to war, the IMF, WTO, World Bank,  the European Union, trading alliances, and military pacts, are contesting which financial rules will be adopted and applied to which countries now and in the future.
 
      The G-20’s decision to add more debt to the world’s debt problem is a bit like adding fuel to the fire. Will humanity allow the International Monetary Fund to create and saddle indebted nations with more debt (To be called Special Drawing Rights) to further control them and siphon their wealth?  This might also include the US, who might be forced to devalue the dollar and sell off national resources to pay off our debts.  If we can succeed in educating the American public and the world about money, it could be truly transformative.  We could abolish debt and empower people to exercise responsible control over governments to create money to serve rather than rob them. Or as Will Abram states in the introduction to his pamphlet  Money The Canadian Experience with the Bank of Canada Act of 1934 Nationalized in 1938 Money created to be spent into existence 1935 to 1974-
 
     “Money is a creation of the human mind, money is a very powerful tool. Money can enslave mankind or it can free mankind.  How money is used marks the degree of humankind’s social and spiritual evolvement.  Used with equality, care and compassion it will allow mankind’s creativity to grow to its highest possible potential.  Each person free, unhindered by want of money.
 
      “When people become sufficiently evolved, to spiritually grasp the full purpose and meaning of money, they will recognize that money represents no more than the intrinsic sum value of what sharing and caring persons are able to give in exchange with others.  Once that concept is fully understood and unselfishly taken to heart, there may no longer be a need for printing the tokens we call money.  War will be history and harmony will be the norm.”
Carol Brouillet


From Illinois
WOW!!

Some REALLY GREAT reports!!! I feel SO guilty for not having had enough time to even think about composing my own, but the ones already posted kind of say it all. The conference was extremely well done and extremely informative.

I personally was especially gratified that Stephen himself calls Dick Distlehorst "among the most knowledgeable Americans regarding the workings of the Federal Reserve System [and more]" since Dick gave such a favorable review of my book The Two Faces of Money a couple years ago. One question I wanted to ask but couldn't due to time constraints was whether any plans were in the works to perhaps shorten slightly the DVD of Mr. Distlehorst's speech and put it on YouTube (in segments of course). I thought his speech ROCKED!

Like Carol I also was quite moved by Will Abram's presentation which made the whole money thing quite clear, in black and white as it were. I found out later in my conversation with Mr. Abram that he indeed was the presenter in two of the "Recommended videos" I link to on my website The Two Faces of Money. com. Couldn't believe I actually had the opportunity to meet him in person. He truly did deserve the AMI Lifetime Achievement Award!

There were so many other excellent presentations (many of which others have already described nicely) that I wish a lot more people could and would attend. Toward the effort of increasing awareness and interest, I am going to link these reports to my website if that is OK - and I will forward the link to as many others as I possibly can, with some select excerpts of the reports to encourage readership of them.

Thank you all for your very difficult and demanding work!
Sincerely,

Geraldine Perry, Orland Park, Illinois
co-author The Two Faces of Money

PS: Let this suffice for my report. You may post it in the report document if you like.

PPS: I wish I could attend tonight's meeting to discuss more but unfortunately I have another commitment. I do have some ideas, possibly not all that useful (but who knows, every little bit helps) about future conferences. Whenever there is time I would like to share those with you.

 


Dear Friends,
As participants continue sending in their reports and comments we'll continue posting them here. Check back soon!

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