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Jacque Fresco : An Obsolete Monetary System -1

By On 05/02/2015

Jacque Fresco : An Obsolete Monetary System - 1

Jacque fresco quotes 293x300

An Obsolete Monetary System

The money-based system evolved centuries ago. All of the world's economic systems - socialism, communism, fascism, and even the vaunted free enterprise system - perpetuate social stratification, elitism, nationalism, and racism, primarily based on economic disparity. As long as a social system uses money or barter, people and nations will seek to maintain the economic competitive edge or, if they cannot do so by means of commerce they will by military intervention. We still utilize these same outmoded methods.

Our current monetary system is not capable of providing a high standard of living for everyone, nor can it ensure the protection of the environment because the major motive is profit. Strategies such as downsizing and toxic dumping increase the profit margin. With the advent of automation, cybernation, artificial intelligence and out sourcing, there will be an ever-increasing replacement of people by machines. As a result, fewer people will be able to purchase goods and services even though our capability to produce an abundance will continue to exist.

Our present, outmoded political and economic systems are unable to apply the real benefits of today's innovative technology to achieve the greatest good for all people, and to overcome the inequities imposed upon so many. Our technology is racing forward yet our social designs have remained relatively static. In other words cultural change has not kept pace with technological change. We now have the means to produce goods and services in abundance for everyone.

Unfortunately, today science and technology have been diverted from achieving the greatest good for reasons of self-interest and monetary gain through planned obsolescence sometimes referred to as the conscious withdrawal of efficiency. For example, the U. S. Department of Agriculture, whose function is presumed to be conducting research into ways of achieving higher crop yields per acre, actually pays farmers not to produce at full-capacity. The monetary system tends to hold back the application of these methods that we know would best serve the interests of people and the environment.

In a monetary system purchasing power is not related to our capacity to produce goods and services. For example, during a depression, there are computers and DVD's on store shelves and automobiles in car lots, but most people do not have the purchasing power to buy them. The earth is still the same place; it is just the rules of the game that are obsolete and create strife, deprivation and unnecessary human suffering.

A monetary system developed years ago as a device to control human behavior in an environment with limited resources. Today money is used to regulate the economy not for the benefit of the general populace, but for those who control the financial wealth of nations.

Resource Based Economy

All socio-economic systems, regardless of political philosophy, religious beliefs, or social customs, ultimately depend upon natural resources, i.e. clean air and water, arable land and the necessary technology and personnel to maintain a high standard of living.

Simply stated, a resource-based economy utilizes existing resources rather than money and provides an equitable method of distributing these resources in the most efficient manner for the entire population. It is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude.

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources; today our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival. Modern society has access to highly advanced technologies and can make available food, clothing, housing, medical care, a relevant educational system, and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy such as geothermal, solar, wind, tidal, etc. It is now possible to have everyone enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities that a prosperous civilization can provide. This can be accomplished through the intelligent and humane application of science and technology.

To better understand the meaning of a resource-based economy consider this: if all the money in the world were destroyed, as long as topsoil, factories, and other resources were left intact, we could build anything we choose to build and fulfill any human need. It is not money that people need; rather, it is free access to the necessities of life. In a resource-based economy , money would be irrelevant. All that would be required are the resources and the manufacturing and distribution of the products.

When education and resources are made available to all people without a price tag, there would be no limit to the human potential. Although this is difficult to imagine, even the wealthiest person today would be far better off in a resource based society as proposed by The Venus Project. Today the middle classes live better than kings of times past. In a resource based economy everyone would live better than the wealthiest of today.

In a resource based society, the measure of success would be based on the fulfillment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power.

The Choice Is Ours To Make

Human behavior is subject to the same laws as any other natural phenomenon. Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture. No one is born with greed, prejudice, bigotry, patriotism and hatred; these are all learned behavior patterns. If the environment is unaltered, similar behavior will reoccur.

Today, much of the technology needed to bring about a global Resource Based Economy exists. If we choose to conform to the limitations of our present monetary-based economy, then it is likely that we will continue to live with its inevitable results: war, poverty, hunger, deprivation, crime, ignorance, stress, fear, and inequity. On the other hand, if we embrace the concept of a global resource-based economy , learn more about it, and share our understanding with our friends, this will help humanity evolve out of its present state.

Organisation supportrice en France :
Association Civilisation 2.0 - http://www.civilisation2.com

Sources : https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/store/official#!/~/product/category=1360103&id=5501756

https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/about/resume

Yves Herbo-MPSA, 13-01-2015

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In Political-economy

Jacque Fresco : An Obsolete Monetary System -1

By On 13/01/2015

Jacque Fresco : An Obsolete Monetary System - 1

Jacque fresco quotes 293x300

An Obsolete Monetary System

Resource Based Economy

In a resource based society, the measure of success would be based on the fulfillment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power.

The Choice Is Ours To Make

Organisation supportrice en France :
Association Civilisation 2.0 - http://www.civilisation2.com

Sources : https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/store/official#!/~/product/category=1360103&id=5501756

https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/about/resume

Yves Herbo-MPSA, 13-01-2015

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In Historical Manifesto

Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 8

By On 17/10/2014

Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 8

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

part Two

Vb)
Liberation

"Who will tell the untold power of association when it turns into cooperation ...?" Jacques Duboin (Liberation)

By cons, it does not need to be an economist to see the result. The unlimited growth is unsustainable, its consequences are already such that it is the biological balance of the planet is in danger. What do foresaw few lucid minds there a few decades now seems the obvious: we can not continue this blind race. "No tree may climb to heaven!"

As for competitiveness, it leads to a profound social imbalance. This ongoing economic war which requires to be the best in anything, disinherit losers too little combative ... or who have not had the chance to be born among the privileged. By dint of promoting "the best" at the expense of all others, the tremendous advancement of knowledge and its technological applications has been put at the service of a tiny minority, while nearly 840 million people (YH: in 2003) (55) malnourished, lacking even a piece of land to grow their own hands to survive.

Both pitfalls of capitalist money

While the catastrophic effects of these imperatives for growth and competitiveness are increasingly evident, yet we continue to pretend unavoidable. And with such hollow arguments that "it is in the nature of things" or "this is how men work," without realizing how these two traps in which our civilization is lost, are contained in the existing mechanisms of the currency, which, however, are obviously not the laws of nature. Indeed:

• The requirement for growth is contained in the mode of creation of money: you have an investment worth more than it cost that can be paid the interest on the loan or "return on investment".
• The widening gap between rich and poor is contained in the choice of the customers to which credits are open, because a credit agency, to avoid being made bankrupt, requires collateral, mortgage, insurance. It can not lend to the rich and
the "snow-ball" effect of compounding, and only the rich can afford to get rich.

While the opinion is being gradually to become aware of the dangers of growth at all costs and is outraged to see that exploitation of resources can not be reduced, on the contrary, poverty in this world, it is clear that the monetary mechanisms are so poorly known that their relationship with this high productivity and individualism is not generally denounced. To believe that it is not even perceived.

This link will yet manifest. It manifests itself, for example by the public reaction against money in times of economic crisis we find that it is creating its own currency that minorities while trying to survive. The experiments that were launched in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, those, for example, slush money Gesell or WIR circles, as well as those that are springing up everywhere from the liberal turn of the 1980s, by example in Argentina since 2002, are manifestations of the rejection of the official currency. But these parallel currencies, because they are topical, restricted, marginal, can, at best, that saving, but only for association members who create, some of the adverse effects they see.

And, secondly, how can we not see that everywhere money as mobile when large human catastrophes as we deplore the tainted blood, or environmental disasters such as oil spills or in gégazages sea, when we become aware of the effects of the commodification of public services and the patenting of life, or when you discover the power and role of pension funds, currency speculation and tax havens on economic choices, etc. I need regular. Money is the common denominator of all these inhuman behavior, it is indeed the common origin of these disasters that have nothing natural

This should help to understand that trying to fix it, when possible, the effects of these mechanisms does not help, as they renew indefinitely, or even increase, as is still common cause

Delete this cause is certainly not easy, but we must realize that it has become inevitable, it is the necessary condition to give the company bases other than those who are destroying it. But this reconstruction through a new transformation of money: for it no longer requires growth, it is necessary that its creation no longer requires payment of interest, and takes into account other criteria that profitability financial to make it possible to produce, in respect of the human rights and environment, goods and services accessible to all, without exclusion. No coup should this time be necessary to achieve such a transformation since, unlike the previous ones, it aims to increase the general interest before the interest of a few. But it is urgent to think about it, and it is to this end that we make the following three propositions.

First proposal: Return to the regality

Clearly, the intangible currency corresponds to the current state of technology, commodity money is over. It would be absurd to deny the virtual currency while dreaming of return of gold Louis exists, it is convenient, therefore accept without us linger, the currency of tomorrow will be in book-entry form, as it is almost completely today, smart cards and transactions transmitted over the internet going again develop.

But we must be aware of the danger of this modern form of money simply because it is naturally materially unlimited!

His creation is so easy that having abandoned the right to create money to private companies with their own interest objective, seems like an aberration, obvious source of many abuses of unpredictable consequences, incalculable. We have seen that when goldsmiths signed more than they had received gold in their cellars, their only limit was ... fear that their customers find that they had exaggerated Inefficient method, since several panics have marked history We also remember that when too many bankers have followed the example of goldsmiths, because they realized that it made them hurt that some of them were intrigued to get a monopoly And the history of central banks shows that it is still to prevent abuse, panic or bankruptcies they have received a certain power, not to set a limit on the money supply, but only an attempt by the through their discount rate, speed up or slow down the growth of the mass, hoping that these changes would ultimately affect the economy. And since these rates do not obey to the markets, we can not count the number of countries ruined by currency crises ... It is clear that political power should not be content to imagine dikes to prevent abuse or plug in the consequences, it is up to him to determine the necessary money to the economy

It is not without reason that the "right to coin money" was, par excellence, a prerogative of the sovereign, he is a part, under the monarchy, the "sovereign rights" with those to tax , ordered the police and the army, to render justice to declare war or to sign the end. Why any of these rights Prince has he done except when the people won sovereignty? We do not understand that democracies have abandoned some new preferred one of those essential rights that decide the life of a nation The right to create money is too important for it to be dissociated from the other attributes that are used to decide all on their behalf. (because they are not democracies!)

It must be returned to political power because a developed society, as it can be designed in the XXI century must be able to decide that it will meet the needs, according to the means available to it in respecting the rights of living human beings, and to come. From this perspective, if the essential choice for the overall direction of the economy is a fundamental political decision therefore can not be left to private interests.

Today the company serves finance, dictating policy to governments. Hand over responsibility for all money creation to the government, is to reverse the roles: the economic choices then become political choices and finance them subject.

But this is not enough. In a true democracy, entrust the economy to political power would be entrusted to the people, but the whole society, even in the XXI century, is not guaranteed to be democratic and to remain so. To put the economy at the service of all and keep it there, we need rules that prevent abuses by officials to issue paper, and for this, impose monetary limit mass concrete, objective.

Second proposal: Fix objectively money supply

Such a natural limit is simply the result of two aspects of money: it is a right to draw on the wealth produced and recognition of common debt as required by law to accept payment From these two facts leads to the following rule: representatives of a population, having a monopoly on creating the currency undertake in his name, can not issue the equivalent money to wealth and that this population produces sells

The creation of money and being committed to production, new production automatically create its equivalent in other currencies And, conversely, when a product reaches the consumer, money that he uses to buy it has served its purpose and has no reason to exist then it is canceled at the time of sale In other words, the currency becomes a parallel flow and equivalent to the wealth produced to be sold This is obviously an equivalence principle, which will result in practice, adjustments by calculations similar to those that stock computers do today to view quotes in a continuous and permanent.

But we must insist on another aspect For that equivalence is the origin of money creation, we need the price of a good or service offered for sale is evaluated when is committed to its production, rather than after, when it has already been produced This has the disadvantage of disrupting the habits, and the reflex is likely to believe, but a little faster, it comes to remove the market. All those who boast incessantly its irreplaceable merits rest assured, it is not at all to remove, but rather, to return him his virtues (56), that is to say, to allow the selling price of a good or service really is the result of a discussion between producers, sellers and consumers buyers.

But this is only if the democratic evaluation takes place upstream, so before it's too late, it is possible to discuss the modes of production, encourage or proscribe.
Specify, if necessary, that these discussions are intended to define the bases and not to fix prices each, one by one, and that one should provide margins of error and uncertainties, such as for agricultural production, which will result mathematics necessary changes described above. and add that this is not utopian, as evidenced by the Seikatsu, the producer-consumer associations and work in Japan for the past 20 years, or the Community supported agriculture (CSA), the consumer associations (57 ) pass contracts with farmers who purchase and before the season, part of their farm harvest.

Compared to the current situation, currency retains its role as a unit of account and means of payment, even offline. It is a purchasing power that is used only once because it is out of date when he served as a ticket or stamp, leaving its owner the ability to use it for any purchase of his choice. By cons, this reformed currency ceases to be a source of enrichment and inequality, so domination, where an appropriation not involve payment of interest.

Reorganized on this basis, the currency appears as a way to distribute it among all consumer goods and services produced by the economy of a region The logic of accumulation policy, ie accumulation, gives way to a logic of sharing, distribution

This reform, much simpler and more objective than those that have marked history, led to a turnaround: the law of the financial jungle that prevails today, it substitutes a social control of production, economic decisions-finances are finally subjected to reflection and policy debate, informed by surveys conducted objectively.

But until such a prior debate will not consider other aspects as profitability, the warnings of experts and warning cries against the dangers of the current high productivity can multiply indefinitely, they will only be wishful thinking. (see History 2007-2016)

With regard to international trade if the currency of a country (58) is the book event that residents commit themselves to produce (using human knowledge to grow the wealth of soil and sub soilless), trade relations between the two regions are only barter agreements between the two populations, the international exchange of goods are zero-sum and there is then a more international debt. It goes without saying that these contracts may include deadlines, their equity and their enforcement may be subject to supranational control, etc. The important thing is that this transformation of the bases of foreign trade would supply the population with the right to dispose of themselves, to ensure that their own vital priority sufficiency, "living in the country" and flourish developing their culture.

Our third proposal is inspired by what we have observed about the concept of value:

Third proposition: Separate property management from that of the people

We recalled that when economists speak of value, it is exchange value and that it is, in fact, the selling price of a commodity. Besides this award, as set today, no way the result of a debate as claimed by classical economics, but rather the law of the strongest, financially speaking, this approach compared to the standard what the single currency, which is measurable and what is not, leads to considering human labor as a commodity, a first among other matters, and finally the human being as a replaceable object, going to treat employees "like kleenex" in case of "redundancy", "false dismissals bankruptcies."

On the other hand, a little bit of insight predicts that the production of tomorrow will increasingly collective and intellectual work (59), which will make less use of labor, measurable (-ish) work time, and more and more human participation imponderable linked to the personality, culture, experience, imagination and creativity, qualities not measurable by gasoline. So pretend to estimate individual participation to buy it at a "fair price", "wages", becomes an absurdity or a scam.

To avoid this aberration, we must separate the management of people in the property. Do not mix in the same accounting being and having is bringing the economy to its natural place, that of stewardship. Let us not forget that the role of a production company is to transform the raw materials to make available to people the things they need, and that is not to provide employment, it is not create jobs to warrant income. The fact that the transformation of the material requires human intervention does not require treating "human resource" as a commodity, and it is separating materials accounting from humans that this distinction becomes possible and that be remembered that work and jobs are not the goals, but the means. Then only the income received by a human being will not be the price at which it sells to a company. We no longer talk about salary, price of sweat, but individual income based on personal needs and whose goal is to provide everyone with the means to develop their own skills to effectively perform the activities by which it assumes its participation in society. While this contribution may not be fully measurable and produce quality, even for the long term. Even if it means that income is paid by all of society and throughout life, not by companies, to those they employ, and only for the duration of the job.

In today's economy, money profit is used to "commodify" the field of the intangible. Encroaching this area of freedom, finance, submit it to profit and control or restricts access. The General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS is being installed this appropriation of a common heritage of all mankind, makes knowledge slowly developed over history. Art and culture are some already standardized, it will soon be impossible for farmers to renew their crops, as they have done for so many generations, without buying new seeds from Monsanto. When will the obligation to buy the right to have their own offspring?

The reform we propose is to make it impossible that appropriation, making the currency the instrument of management only real. To separate what is naturally the domain of the economy, which is measurable and which must, in some cases, be "saved" so counted, and that which is the domain of the unmeasurable, the imponderable and intangible, that of knowledge, culture, information to be given without discard the use of which, far from having to be limited if it is not used to harm, shall be delivered besides, and thus be free.

These two areas are obviously not independent, since there is a link between them, man, who lives in the area of real and must flow freely in the area of intangible its own. But to the extent that the economy produces goods and not financial gain, where money is a stream that burns at the same time as the goods produced, it becomes possible to determine objectively the economy. So people can be grouped into a network of cooperatives of all sizes and all take objective decisions that affect them directly, since it is first to decide what to produce to consume and in what conditions this also defines their activity and the total money they have. It is then up to them in the budget and set the share paid for the material means of production, it is necessary to make public services and that which constitutes their personal income work.

The debate is largely open to the public and focus on public interest criteria. This is an extension of democracy to the economy that is available, allowing any resident to participate, if not always directly, at least by delegation to these decisions that are both social and economic.

(55) Read Passet, Financial Globalization and Terrorism

(56) Even the contrary, it is the financialization of the economy that has resulted from the virtues of the book market, to those professionals "Markets" (Stock and currency markets or other commodities , etc.) and remove them for the rest of the world, who is offered goods at prices fixed in advance by the seller: it's "take it or leave it", you do not market ...

(57) include the CSA model of Poughkeepsie, pre-installed in urban areas at a hundred miles north of New York and in France the Alliance peasant ecologists consumer network that brings together organizations working together to promote the development of ecological agriculture products quality.

(58) or a region or group of regions whose residents choose to associate economically.

(59) read about the deep analysis of André Gorz, for example in the immaterial, knowledge, value and capital.

Sources: http://www.france.attac.org/

To be continued for the last part: Appendix and Bibliography

Yves Herbo, 23-10-2014

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In Historical Manifesto

Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 6

By On 12/10/2014

Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 6

Part IV Part Two

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

"Come and help me! Whoever made it clear to his fellow man the meaning of these words is the unknown founder of all human societies."

Jacques Duboin (Liberation)

IVb
Currency and Society

The consequences of a currency debt.

Whatever the considered aspect, and unlike the liberal contention that money is neutral, the reality is that the fact of using the currencies of debt not secured on a manifest wealth created by private companies whose only profit objective is a huge impact, even if they are not generally perceived:

At the national level: a common commitment.

We saw above that the law (35) that requires all citizens of a nation (or group of countries, such as "Euroland" (36), accept payment in the currency, the -Ci became the recognition of a collective debt: it engages all citizens of this nation to provide the equivalent of the amount referred to anyone present that currency and that, therefore, a right to draw on goods and services sold by that nation.

So money is a national link (or community) between the citizens of the country (or group of countries) which issues they are united, says Benjamin J. Cohen (37), by the common commitment that is their currency as they are united, for example, by the use of a common national language.

So the question arises: who can make such a commitment on behalf of a State? It seems clear that in a democracy it can not be that the elected representatives of the people, and it is this fact that makes most people believe, in good faith, make it the experience by asking your neighbors, that it is the public authorities have a monopoly on money creation and control.

We have seen that government control over their national currency introduced at the beginning of the XIX century and it had its heyday in the middle of the XXth. But that in the 1980s, in the wake of the famous "liberal turn" described above, it was abandoned.

And the consequences are serious, if not well received: by giving this power, which nevertheless seems legitimate, governments are not only deprived of the possibilitépour state to use money creation to cope in an emergency to public expenditure necessary and unforeseen. They also gave up a key management tool of the economy through taxation (including the redistribution depends) and through interest rates or exchange rates: by creating more money, the state could decide to accept inflation, reducing the burden of debt, favored debtors over creditors, or, conversely, deciding to limit the money supply, the government reassured creditors. The devaluation of a currency was offered to the country's exporters immediate competitive advantage.

Finally, the public monopoly on money naturally strengthens the authority of politics: it is obvious that the more a government is able to ensure its monopoly unless its policy is subject to foreign influences. But since the free movement of capital has deleted these monopolies national currencies, they can be used outside of their territory (including tax havens), and they thus provide transactions and investments. Winners are private actors who can escape the constraints of any monetary policy, and the losers are the government, so those who elected them.

internationally

As most currencies were convertible into gold, universal reference standard, exchange rates between currencies were the result of a simple calculation, purely mathematical, the relationships between their weight in gold. The transactions are settled in any currency and only debit balances between countries were settled by reference to gold.

Since the abandonment of this reference, international trade can be established in any currency; the exporting country can set its price in its own currency, the importing country may require to pay with its own currency, or if the buyer and seller decide to, they can use the currency of a country not involved in their transaction .
In short: there is no international currency, there is more than defining a universal reference exchange rates between currencies, which are the currencies of debt securities whose value fluctuates with the market.

Now we have seen that to use in a commercial transaction, a currency debt introduces a delay and a risk to the seller: it is found, after giving his goods, with a lending it then going to have to be accepted as payment for other goods. It is therefore very important for him to be paid in a currency that he thinks she has and she will keep, or better she will gain purchasing power. A currency is said to be strong because its purchasing power is rising: it is the trend that is important, rather than the actual value. So it happens to the value of money what happens to the stock market value of the shares: a large international investor can influence the share price:

when placed on a currency or security by buying in bulk, the value of that currency or the stock goes up and then everyone wants it, and its rating continues to rise. And so suddenly, conversely, an investor decides to get rid of any security or currency, his fellow
as with the herd, think he has reason to believe that this title will lose value when they sell too, and indeed the title down. As currencies, such as shares, can be amplified by speculation. Thus, since it obeys the liberal ideology, the global economy, and with it the world's currencies, is not controlled in the public interest, but to thank you vogue runaways or winds panic which it is impossible to predict the magnitude and scope.

Hegemony for the country whose currency is used

International trade has become accustomed to using the dollar for foreign trade during the period 1933-1971 during which the currency has remained the only one theoretically indexed to gold. This usage was reinforced after the Second World War because the economy of the United States was the first in the world, its booming industry was at the forefront of virtually every area, its businesses, which they had not been bombed, enjoyed huge reconstruction contracts worldwide.

The imbalance in the balance of payments of the United States with the failure of their war against Vietnam threatened the dollar's role when it became clear that American banks did not have enough on deposit to honor such debts. But at that time, no other currency was managed to inspire more confidence than the dollar.

Since then, the European Union is built economically, the Airbus is an example: its planes compete with those of the American Boeing. Yet Airbus, EADS became still sets prices in dollars, the height is that it gets paid in dollars even when it sells its products in Europe. It is true that the widespread use of the euro in Euroland is still new ...

Such hegemony translates into a tremendous advantage when it comes to bank money (for which, as we have seen, there is no hard limit to its creation ex nihilo) and that all countries asking for their trade, the country that can produce at will emit.

The North Americans in turn benefits and signing shamelessly these IOUs that nobody them back asking for the honor they have lived for decades at the expense of other populations worldwide buying on credit. Professor of Political Economy at the University of California, Benjamin J. Cohen is well placed to explain: "A country whose currency has international status finance its deficits by issuing its own currency:" A country whose currency enjoys international status finance its deficits by issuing its own money "(38), taking the 1999 figures, he said that this was equivalent to an interest-free loan of 25 to 30 billion per year made in the United States by the rest of the world.

This assessment should be revised upwards since, not only because of the slowdown in the American economy, but also because the federal budget was in surplus in 1999, was set deficit policy GW Bush (lower taxes 637 billion in 10 years and huge increases in military spending, which reached $ 400 billion). It is planned to more than $ 300 billion for 2003 and over 400 in 2004 before taking into account supplements for war against Iraq. Thus the trade deficit accumulated by the United States is that they have to the rest of the world the equivalent of about a quarter of gross domestic product (GDP). Such debt is unthinkable from any other country, which would be well before we get to such excesses culminating in the collapse of its currency ... and IMF intervention.

Recent example:
all accounts denominated in Argentine pesos have been abruptly cut by over a third of their purchasing power in dollars.

This can not happen to the American dollar accounts when the reference is the American dollar! So the United States, no savings, neither the State nor in households and businesses and there it became normal to live on credit. The rise in debt levels has been overwhelming, tripling between 1964 and 2002, reaching nearly one third of global GDP (39).
Household debt rose from 200 to 7,200 billion and that of enterprises, with their frenzy of mergers and acquisitions financed by loans, increased from 53 to 7620 billion (nearly 7 times GDP). An American economist has calculated (40) between 1995 and 2002, the deficit of the trade balance had allowed the United States to confiscate 96% of global growth.

The operating risk

The risk, as we have seen, the nature of the currency of debt has led to a transformation of the economy if its offset.

First, the risk has developed a lucrative trade, the insurance. We can judge the weight taken in the company by insurance companies in finding their pressure to be entrusted with the management of pensions (41). Some recent scandals in the United Kingdom and the United States have shown the dangers of private management.

Risk is also the source of new financial instruments, based on speculation in futures markets, options, margin calls, hedge funds, etc., which are called derivatives because they are variations on paris courses, or indices or interest rates. These new "products" have proliferated because in all cases, whether prices rise or they lower their manipulation can yield very large ... All these creations lead either to expand the range of what speculators can buy and sell, or to use the multiplier effect of credit to allow speculators to pay credit (but without using their own money) that they hope to sell more expensive, conceding the difference.

This expansion greatly increases the dangers of the credit system:
weakening of the currency, increasing the number of wheels that can fail, and if the system collapses, extending the scope of the disaster. The greater this "leverage" over the blast growing in scale.

And all this is done at very high speed and the initiated. For the latter, it's a bargain, but the fact that derivatives are used to move a lot of money across the planet "without any radar signals do" (42) puts unpredictable to those who produce the real wealth risk. Hence the multiple crises, crash, etc. ruining brutally States. For example, while a report by the World Bank stated in 1997 that market liberalization would result in an overall economic boom including Asia, disaster struck economies and Asian currencies, which began as early as next: falling stock indices: 80% in Indonesia, 74% in Malaysia, 42% in Thailand, 29% in south Korea, and 73% collapse of the Indonesian rupiah, won 33% of the south Korean, and 12% of the Thai baht, followed by that of the Malaysian ringgit, which preceded little one Singapore dollar, after which it was the stock market crash in Hong Kong. The yen was deemed healthy because Japan had the largest reserve currency of the world, but the yen collapsed too. Such crises are not confined to countries in East Asia: Russia had hers in 1998, then it was the turn of Brazil, Argentina and the havoc since December 2001.

The powers of the currency

The national currency is a link between citizens by balancing two opposites that are necessary for a society to exist and function: the assertion of authority, which issues the currency, and the affirmation of personal liberty, that how to spend the money we have.

The authority that issues the currency therefore has the authority to require members of society on the one hand they believe in the value of the currency since it is no longer collateralized real, and the other hand they recognize the right to buy their goods or products to all who have this money, as it has forced currency.

Beyond the power of authority, there is a real fetish related to money and which originated perhaps the fascination with gold coins used for millennia.

Finally the money is a vector of domination that shows inequality. And it becomes a means of grabbing so violent when he was loaned against interest.

Pay: help or make an investment?

Throughout history, most religions have preached against lending at interest, considered in its moral aspect: giving to the poor is a virtue, but pay a fine, it's not quite give it, is to accept deny it momentarily, so provide a service. Or the company that calls itself "modern" hijacked the word service from its original meaning and tends to make paying any service, even the most mundane. All services that were naturally become free pay, to the point that it becomes abnormal, however, is that a loan is free.

However, it should distinguish between:

- A loan for a certain period of time, which is a service against payment
- An investment of money we do not have immediate use, it is no longer there to be of service to someone whose need is known, but to "grow" their savings
- An appropriation by a bank through the "multiplier effect."
In the second case, the money is placed, usually through a bank, which then agrees to pay a certain percentage of the sums entrusted to a specific term for this purpose.

In the third case, for against the bank cash to have it manages customer accounts and does not pay. These deposits used to open credit, by writing and leverage games, and it was she who earns interest on these credits ex nihilo. Or they impinge seriously on the purchasing power of the borrower must pay a lot more than he was paid. For example, if borrowed at 15%, it shall, within 5 years, pay double the amount that was credited.

Effect snow-ball Loan Interest:

The small investor who puts his money on a book to buy later his car will spend their savings plus interest at the time of purchase.

It is not the same for the big saver, because his savings earns him enough to live on his income and even place ever. Take an encrypted to see the importance of this snow-ball effect that is the very nature of capitalism example. Imagine that someone has a million and up to 10%. After a year, he received 100,000 euros in interest allowing him to live and to raise capital. Suppose he spends 40,000 euros for a living, he may place a year after 60,000 euros in addition to its first capital and is 1.060.000 euros that will bring him the second year.

If still providing capital to 10% and saw its interests, here are the numbers:

capital at 1 January - annual expenditure - capital position at year-end

1,000,000 40,000 1,060,000 first year
second 1,166,000 1,123,600 42,400
third 1,235,960 1,191,016 44,944
Fourth 1310117 47640 1262477
Fifth 1,388,725 1,338,227 50,498
Sixth 1,418,222 53,528 1,472,050
seventh 1,560,374 56,740 1,503,634
eighth 1,653,997 60,144 1,593,852
ninth 1,753,237 63,753 1,689,484
tenth 1,858,432 67,578 1,790,854
eleventh 1,969,939 71,632 11,898,307
twelfth 2088138

We see that the capital will have doubled in a dozen years, while allowing him to live his lifestyle increasing by 6% per year.

Debt in the world

This mechanism is of interest to understand the problem of Third World debt: countries that called developing and who borrowed the rich countries should in turn provide much more than they have received from them. Some are even forced to borrow again to pay the interest due on previous loans they have already repaid the capital: it is a downward spiral, orchestrated by the IMF, we discussed the role.

Here are some telling figures on the external debt of the Third World:

In 1979, the sharp rise in interest rates (from 5 to 20%) requires the southern countries to borrow at usurious rates of interest to pay their previous debts. In about thirty years, the debt increased from 50 to 2500 billion dollars, a 50-fold increase.

Alone in Latin America between 1980 and 2000, has spent an additional $ 106 billion on what it was. In general, during these 20 years, the countries of the South have transferred to the North 3.450 billion, which is six times the debt (567 billion) that they had in 1981.

In 1998, the 41 most indebted countries in the Third World have contributed to the rich countries of the North 1,680 billion dollars more than what they received.

In 1999, developing countries had to pay $ 350 billion for debt service (repayment and interest), especially the Brazilian government had to pay 95 billion reais of interest while its health budget public was only 19.5 billion.

The debt of Third World countries (excluding Eastern European countries) is now 2.000 billion (43). SSA reimburses each year four times more than it spends on health and education.

What is to give the poor if financial rules bind him to his poverty?

Interest rates and inflation

Inflation, by cons, reduces the debt. Take the example of a loan of ten million to 10%.
Contracted today, then it will pay off in a little over seven years, 20 million. But if by then the currency was devalued by 5%, $ 20 million will pay, in seven years, a purchasing power equivalent to a little less than 14 million today.

Whoever does credit is favored by higher interest rates.
Whoever is obliged to borrow is favored when the inflation rate increases.

During the post-war boom, the inflation rate was very high, it exceeded 15%, which contributed to large investments and allowed all those who then enjoyed a large income to build wealth. Then the slogan was "curb" inflation, which has kept the value of these assets. The policy imposed by the Maastricht Treaty to the European Central Bank, giving it sole directive to prevent price inflation exceeds 2%, goes in this direction: it protects the owners of capital at the expense of those who are required to take. When interest rates on loans are higher than the rate of price inflation, the interests of "bancassurance" are provided and the number of indebted households increases.

(35) "being forced" and "legal tender" of the national currency.

(36) All European countries have adopted the euro.

(37) Benjamin J. Cohen is Professor of Political Economy at the University of California

(38) in the special issue on the currency, No. 45 of the magazine Alternatives Economiques (Q3 2000).

(39) See, for example, figures recalled by Frederic Clairmont in Le Monde Diplomatique in April 2003.

(40) See World 20/11/2003.

(41) We have included studying the pension problem. Read about the # 989, entitled "Pensions, brainwashing for pension funds" and the numbers 1008, 1017, 1022, 1026, 1028, 1032 monthly Big Relay, BP 108, 78115 Le Vésinet cedex.

(42) R. Hahnel, "Panic at the controls.

(43) People's Tribunal, Porto Alegre, Attac info 312, March 8, 2002.

Sources: http://www.france.attac.org/

Continued from Part V: parallel currencies

Yves Herbo - 12-10-2014

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 5

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 5

See beginning Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

IV
1: Large monetary theories

What is striking when one delves into the literature on the currency, the number of major theories that are dealt out there with perfect assurance even when they contradict each other. We absolutely can not pretend that this area is a science, it was rather the impression that economists vis-à-vis the currency in the position of the sorcerer's apprentice: their instrument eludes them.

For we find him, we trusted in the synthesis brought forward by Jean-Marie Harribey (29) in a summer on these issues (30) university, then we wondered what remains of classical monetary theories , Keynesian and Marxist when they face the current reality.

The classical and neoclassical designs.

These two concepts, which are the basis of liberalism, have a common position on the currency, based on four ideas:

• 1 money, simple intermediary, only conceals in fact it is always the goods that are exchanged between them.
• 2 any change in the quantity of money in circulation causes a proportional change in all prices.
This creed of monetarism, which is the basis of the quantity theory of money, itself rests on three assumptions: a) the velocity of circulation of money is constant, b) the trading volume is constant and c) market equilibrium ensures full use of all capacities (so there is no unemployment). (ahem ...)

It is not necessary to be an economist graduated to see how these assumptions are unrealistic.

• 3 therefore any change in the money supply has no effect on output or employment, so it is called neutral with respect to real economic activity.
This does not prevent the economist Milton Friedman to draw a paradoxical conclusion but that is law since the Treaty of Maastricht on European Central Bank: Although the change in the money supply is "no effect" on the economy, monetary policy should be to limit the issue, because it may cause inflation ... (so she has an influence).

The news does not lack examples of the role of money on the economy between 1994 and 1999 ten countries developing experienced at least one major financial crisis. Such "accidents" that put their failed banks, annulled the economic gains accumulated over several years of painful reforms and even often provoked serious social problems (31). The case of the Argentine crisis since December 2001 is perhaps the most eloquent on the evils of these dogmas imposing precepts, those of the Washington Consensus that we mentioned above about the IMF on fiscal discipline, the rates competitive exchange etc., despite evidence to the disaster consequences.

Note that the assertion of the neutrality of money vis-à-vis the economy even more likely to be believed by the public that unlike simple transactions (purchases and sales by individuals) are easy to identify, large currency movements that really move markets are complex transactions on computer and developed in secret ivory financial and other hedge fund companies towers.

They are available only to insiders "underground world of finance (32)," which strives to make them secret.

4 • Another consequence of the fact that any exchange is under the veil of the currency being exchanged between goods, the law of markets JB Say that "any offer of goods creates its own demand." In other words, the amount of income distributed by the production is equivalent to the value of this production and the overall balance of all markets, said by Walras, recovers automatically (?) By price flexibility.

This law of markets has been criticized, for example by Jacques Duboin (33): "the law of markets is simply summed up in the statement that the product purchase products or, rather, that the goods are mutually opportunities. It can not be questioned, since noticed it at the time when we fell practiced barter goods against goods ... But Jean-Baptiste Say draws this unintended consequence, namely that overproduction can only exist in only one part of the economy, and it is easy to
remedy by increasing production in other sectors so that items are overproduced immediate opportunity. Hence he concludes that the fear of a general congestion of markets is pure fantasy. In witness whereof we must always produce more, which is the true way to finish this is incorrectly called the economic crisis, because it will never happen if we sacrifice to the god of "productivity ". This refrain is sung today by all unrepentant liberal, because the law guarantees opportunities, not only in eternity capitalism, but the gradual improvement in the condition of all human beings. He has only to produce more "...

Indeed, this view will not consider a major problems: first, the poverty which is the lot of those who do have access to any purchasing power are out of the market, then the impact of productivism that this ideology appears as a panacea, and finally the consequences of growth, assumed without damage and without limits. (but not necessarily destroy rapidly renewable resources or little (including animals and plants, rare commodities and destroy the planet in the end (pollution, soil depletion) ...

Yet it is these dogmas on which were based the European institutions ...

Karl Marx.

Money is for Marx a value-door associated with the products. For it is not the value of a property that interests the capitalist, therefore its use value, but its exchange value, because it is likely to swell the capital, once the merchandise sold. Money thus being related to the goods and being accepted as a general equivalent of all goods, we must consider itself as a commodity. Thus Marx agrees with the conventional to give the money as an instrument of exchange, without uncertainty.

According to JM Harribey, the most innovative and most fruitful of Marx in this field contribution has been to show the role of money in capital accumulation: it starts from the idea that money does not the same meaning when used for human labor or buy bread. In the first case, it is only a purchasing power. In the second, it is a right of ownership on the employee's ability to create value, and that it functions as a capital: so she conceals a social relation of alienation of labor. Indeed, the work purchased the employee produces a fruit, and it becomes the property of the person who paid the salary. If he manages to sell this fruit more than it spent, it is he who sees the gain, so that profit seems born of his capital as he comes from the work of the employee. In addition, by materializing the value created by labor, currency reduces it to a corrupt act, she empty her creative nature. Finally, if the salary is barely enough for the worker to live, he is forced to return to work, so to enrich the employer. Hold more or less money distinguishes one who holds a capital of the poor bugger (as Bourdieu) who has only his labor.

So the gain is the source of all kinds of profits, including interest earned by creditors because it is not over-work interests the capitalist (unlike the lord demanding work of his serfs) or goods produced is their monetary value, ie the added value when transformed by the sale in monetary value and thus social relations in the capitalist system, lead to commodification, reducing all human actions to a merchant act, the reduction of all human value to market value.

John Maynard Keynes.

In the 1930s, Keynes notes that the Liberals precepts are powerless to act against rising unemployment. He thinks it is a mistake not to take into account the uncertainty surrounding any economic decision: we do not know the future, and it also depends on the decisions of others. He deduces four ideas:

1 currency is a form of more liquid than any other wealth: it is immediately available, unlike movable property, land, machinery, etc. It can therefore be retained passively (hoarded) and offers the holder a choice of expectations. Note that this assumes that quality currency does not depreciate.

2 preference for liquidity offered by the currency depends on the interest rate at which it can be placed if it is low, liquidity is preferred, especially since we can assume that it will go up. As we are sure of nothing, this availability is a guarantee, and we can consider interest as a premium waiver liquidity.
We see that money, because it is the most liquid asset of all, gives the holder the opportunity to speculate. The source of currency instability and uncertainty is a way of speculation.

For Keynes, while "economic agent" (you, me, a business, etc.) has two decisions to make about the use of what they receive: a) how much will he eat, b) what shape will he choose for saving it. When interest rates fall, people betting it will go up, do not put their money: there is demand for speculation. And this varies depending on the decisions of the Central Bank.

3 away from the traditional view of monetary sphere completely separate from the sphere of the real or productive economy, Keynes believed that the currency is active, it plays a role in production and employment so it refutes the quantity theory of money, which would be verified if all factors of production were used (no unemployment) and if it was no longer possible to increase the production. He concludes that when the economy suffers from underemployment, monetary authorities can increase the money supply in circulation by lowering interest rates, which will have a double effect: to make more profitable investment projects, which a multiplier effect, increase aggregate income.
Note that the solution to end the Keynes unemployment is increasing production. It is a purely economic point of view, in that it does not envisage any limits to this growth, no barrier, for example ecological (or humanist). We did not ask, in his day, if the development was "sustainable" ...

4 Finally, as he finds that he has highlighted the uncertainty at the start did not lead to general chaos, Keynes concludes that the stability is due to a kind of implicit agreement: a good mimicry leads each agent economical to adopt the attitude of the majority, but in opposite directions conventions play consistently, so is stability prevails.

To summarize this theory, JM Harribey concludes following P.Combemale (34) that according to Keynes, fiscal policy of the state (and the policy of the monetary authority) on one side, and the detention of the currency the other is a kind of "dams" that protect the radical uncertainty but does not eliminate it.

Comparing these different viewpoints, JM Harribey stressed that it was Marx who first denounced the capitalist process that reduces the human being to a commodity whose use must provide a benefit to capital. This commodification today extends to all areas, as evidenced by the greed of large capitalist enterprises on all wealth, first the natural resources (land and water, oil and gas, air soon ...?) and the genome of the species (patents on life) on science, health, education, etc. The pretext is that market mechanisms would only be able to satisfy all human needs, without any alienation of their freedoms. They forget that the market is interested only solvent requirements, that is to say, those of the only humans who manage to raise money in any way whatsoever. (This is one reason why the mafia, the underworld, and reinject that divert much of the economy, have become so large and well protected by economic institutions (bought themselves) from between two world wars and the great economic crisis of 1929, becoming a key player in the system!) ...

Keynes and Marx have in common to have shown the role of money in capitalist economy, stressing that without money creation accumulation would be impossible: in fact, from a macroeconomic point of view, during a period given the capital could not recover by selling the production, more than the advances (salaries and other means of production). To make a combined profit, globally, must be put into circulation an amount greater than what corresponds to these advances Production currency, and it is this money creation that allows owners of the means of production transformed into capital surplus value produced by labor. Thus, for the credit, the banking system anticipates the monetary benefit and allows capital to appropriate at the time of sale of the products.

As JM Harribey points out, Marx's analysis illuminates financial speculation by showing that capital derives profits in two ways. On the one hand, shareholders appropriate the value of employees' work and secondly, they can make a profit by reselling their purely financial dearest they have paid shares, and this in three cases:

- If the profits of the company increased its capital

- If buyers anticipate future profits,

- And thanks to the widespread belief that the upward trend will continue during the financial long.

The latter is purely speculative: swelling corresponding financial bubble is in fact no real wealth since it is sufficient that all punters looking to simultaneously sell the same shares for their current collapses. But as the bubble swells, as prices rise, shareholders see their capital grow at a rate that has even become much higher increase in real output. This is obviously not a miracle, but the manifestation of the optimism of the capitalists, for example, the prospect of "restructuring" (layoffs, outsourcing, flexibility and increased job insecurity) that make their expected cost containment wage, so more profits, so they are betting that prices will rise: capitalist exploitation is lurking behind market speculation.

This shows why sell at the same time is an imperative for the capital, and that, therefore, capitalism involves a consumer society where salesmanship is supreme quality in defiance, if any, rights of man or the environment, since these rights are likely to make the sale less profitable.

Conclude that it is futile to try to repair the effects of the race for profits, for example on the environment. Much to fill the bottomless barrel of the Danaids because as motivations persist race similar effects multiply. If we want the environment to be respected, and if you want other aspirations to human society, such as the desire not to harm future generations by depleting non-renewable resources of the planet, we must dare to invent a system economic placing top motivations other considerations that the obsession with profitability, reporting, ROI, etc.

(29) Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV.

(30) Summer University of Attac in Arles in August 2001.

(31) Read about Naim's article in Le Monde Diplomatique in March 2000.

(32) Read about the article in Le Monde Diplomatique I.Warde November 2001.

(33) Jacques Duboin, The political economy of abundance, ed. OCIA (1945).

(34) Introduction to Keynes, éd.La discovery.

Sources: http://www.france.attac.org/

Continued to Part 2 of Part IV

Yves Herbo - 09-10-2014

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 4

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 4

I come back on a very good study by ATTAC independent group that not only returns to the basic historical that led us to the current economic situation of the entire planet, but was widely anticipated and explained the risks that have occurred since the book which dates from 2004 ... the group continues its observations and interventions, and I am personally quite agree with their conclusions, and history:

See beginning Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

III)

Exchange for sale - Value - Functions of money

Exchange sale

To understand how a changed economic exchange, return to the three ways to exchange goods or services. Either they are exchanged directly, immediately, without money, or we a commodity money is used as an input, is the currency of current credit is used.

Direct exchange without money, is the simplest way to exchange goods or services: Alice gives carrots to Brigitte and Brigitte gives apples to Alice, they agree on the amount to estimate the exchange is fair. Once this exchange took place, the two sides are even. Alice can eat apples and Bridget, his carrots. Such a direct exchange between people who know and who just by chance, what exchange, can not be applied to all economies since production there ceased to be handcrafted.

It remains possible that two extreme levels.

- Either between individuals who know enough to be trusted, then it is the exchange of services between friends or close relationships between that help.
It's a bit this "exchange of favors" that local trading systems (LETS) organize: their goal is to create exchange relationships who live nearby but who initially do not know . So they have no guarantee that the exchange is fair, hence the need for a true accounting of trade, leaving a total initiative to members of SEL. What is not simple.

- Either between countries, but it is then contracts trade involving preparation, negotiations on terms and conditions established by both parties under international jurisdiction ... which could be organized by World Organization the Exchange to ensure fairness.

The second method is to use via a commodity money.
Initially, Alice gives carrots to Brigitte, who, not having apples that seeks Alice gives him against another party well with a market value of which they feel both its value is equivalent to that cores provided by Alice.

After that first time, Brigitte can eat carrots. By cons, Alice has separated from his carrots and ends up with something she does not necessarily use, but it has the assurance of being able to swap later in the opposite direction, against, for example, apples equivalent value it needs. When she is found to be the second exchange, but only then also be able to eat leaves and apples.

So there is a period during which the person who received the commodity money instead of what he wanted is not really leaving because he has to find then the exchange against the goods it needs. Meanwhile, it may lose its currency being stolen, apple prices can increase, there may be a shortage of apples or just drop in the value of the intermediate object, such as it has become more abundant etc.

The intervention of a commodity money delays the time when the two parties exchanging are even. But until they have both a property that keeps real value, although it can vary.

This type of exchange has disappeared along with commodity money.

The third case involves the use of a receipt: Christian sells apples to Denise, who did not against party goods of equivalent value. She gives Christian a receipt in which it agrees to settle its debt to him later: Denise remains the debtor, the creditor remains Christian, they are not even.

Although Christian has provided its part, continues to affect sales as long as Denise has not produced the goods equivalent to receipt. It may require that its debtor owes. What guarantee is there that Denise on its commitment? It can be prevented to keep it by accident, die or lose his job, and may be dishonest and disappear without having paid his debt. And what guarantee is Christian that someone will agree to give value to that piece of paper that has no intrinsic value? And if he finds someone who accepts it, is it going to be good against the equivalent of what he has done?

The delay introduced by commodity money credit money, its lack of any link with a concrete richness clearly defined, not only adds a risk, because the question arises what is the commitment to pay, but also doubling it changes the nature of the transaction. On the one hand, one of the terms of trade has changed in nature, it is dematerialized and not the other. On the other hand, two interchanges now play different roles, one, the seller sells the other a real good (or service) and whose value is realized, when he receives the buyer or merchandise usable or equivalent service, so incontestable: the seller is paid by a symbolic promise for use later for an operation in the opposite direction remains uncertain.

Good (or service) that is not in one direction, from the producer to the consumer. Conversely it is a symbol that is transferred. There are more but exchange sale and purchase.

In fact exchange, we do not encounter in our economies, this buy-sell using credit money is now in circulation: the metal parts is worthless, tickets have never had intrinsic value and bank money is made by writing games.

The current system is a generalization of sale with credit money. There generalization debtor All nationals are debtors, since the law requires them to accept payment in the national currency and are thus obliged to honor this collective debt. There is widespread use of credit: anyone with that currency-IOU is a credit to the nation as it has a claim on it.

We shall return to the consequences of this system.

Value.

The value is a very general concept, as will the appointment of an abstract character when it is a moral value, that of a courageous act for example, or the talent shown by an artist, until to as concrete as the price per kilo of land measurement. It should at least distinguish the use value of the exchange.

The use value of a property is very personal because it is at the discretion of the one who is likely to use it and, as shown by Ricardo, each man has "a personal standard to assess the value of his pleasures "(27). It depends also on his environment and personal resources. As a result it is not possible to define a measure of the value in use.

The result is huge in human terms ... because when merchants, traders and economists use the word value, without specifying, as is common, each of us tends instinctively to think of the use value for himself. While it's always exchange value of a property is. And since the exchange between goods disappeared, this value has become, in fact, the price at which an item or service can be sold. So when we hear of value in economics, must result in market prices.

And ... wonder how it is priced. Because the reality is very far from the classical theory of the market that the price would be the manifestation of a balance struck in knowingly by the interaction of supply and demand from economic agents fully informed and acting always rational way. In fact, prices are posted by the seller, and there is rarely debate when a prospective client tries to make him change his price, it is called haggling instead of market. The confrontation between supply and demand occurs only on the capital markets (stock exchanges on debentures or that of raw materials) where the behavior of the players who set the course is the sheep of Panurge: relying on their impressions personal, they try to anticipate what they call the tendency for the sole purpose of profit, betting on the rise or fall on what will be, in their view, the behavior of others. There could be no more competent witness to describe this attitude as the Director of the Federal Reserve (the central bank of States of America): Alan Greenspan spoke of "irrational exuberance of the markets"!

So that the general utility the ethical purpose, human quality and other social aspects are considerations that are outside the concerns of those who set the "value" of an economic business or property.

Is not it time to think about how to fix the selling price of a property more seriously than punters ...?

(27) The Englishman David Ricardo (1772-1823), a pioneer in the study of classical economics is Originally from the "law" of land rent, and was the first to assert that human labor is the source of all value.

The functions of money.

To what extent can we still assume that any economics textbook states as the three functions of money?

The first function is to be a standard of value and unit of account because the money is interchangeable against a good, whatever it is. They say why money is a "general equivalent" which leads to not seeing standardization, loss of identity that entails when we know that this expression "property of any kind" includes time of human labor.

Indeed, and whatever its name, frank, grain of salt, or euro value unit ("UV"), the unit of account is, by definition, means to reduce everything to a common reference value. This leads to the absurd claim to measure because it is "on the same scale" as few comparable properties that a design by Leonardo da Vinci and several tons of rice.

There should at least distinguish what is measurable, quantifiable, and what does not. A ton of rice is probably a thousand times more than a single pound of this rice, but the quality of a painting or of a word processing software does not compare to that of a pastry.
These qualities can not be measured and it is not possible to compare objectively. Even with quantities of the same kind!

A standard, by definition, is universal and invariable. How can we use the term for the currency standard of value while even when the monetary standard was defined by a mass of gold, it has never ceased to vary, and formally? Then, let alone how to admit since it no longer exists at all real reference and exchange value our current euros, for example, varies at every turn? To measure wealth, it must be compared to a wealth of nature, as if to measure length, you need a length universally recognized and the meter has been defined for it. Imagine do we measure lengths with elastic meter?

Given what we have called on the evolution of the exchange, it would be more correct to say that the primary function of money is to be, not a standard of value, but a means of payment.

And if you wanted to stop mixing being and having, that is to say, distinguishing physical property and all that is imponderable, should the economy ceased to want everything to money, but only what is measurable.

We saw that in losing any intrinsic value and any reference to a real and available wealth, money has destroyed modern economies the exchange of goods or services. So unlike a very common expression, we are not, strictly speaking, in an exchange economy. Yet economics textbooks state that the second function of money is to be a medium of exchange and they add that the medium of exchange is "accepted everywhere and by everyone at all times in our monetary savings [that implying] that there is a social consensus and the belief that one can get at any time any property in exchange for money (28). "Confidence ... or obligation when the State imposes forced currency and legal tender of a national currency without reference value?

The third function of money would be a store of value. This implies that the currency is worth in order to keep it in reserve. Whereas, since it has ceased to have, she obviously stopped at the same time to be a reserve ...

It is obvious that for all the people who have low incomes, money is not a store of value because it is fast and completely spent!

As for those who earn more than they spend, they are quick to "put" their money ... just to keep it from losing its value!

Of the three traditional functions, it can be concluded that only the first survives, but only if it be stated by saying that money is purchasing power and that in the current system, it is constantly changing.

The other two, we held that when the economy is not made up of individual exchanges, the currency remains necessary for the transfer of goods between producers and consumers to manage, avoid waste, adapt production needs, etc. and also to allow altering the timing to make a purchase, provided the nominal value of the currency is guaranteed during this period.

But the current currency has, in fact, other functions, while the standard textbooks do not usually set out ...:

One of the other functions of the "modern" currency is that of "grow" by opening a credit to its customers, the bank offers loan to the owner of the means of sharing the financial markets under its credit against financial capital, for example against a title in shares or against bonds, likely to bring him a regular income. This shows that the current currency debt has the ability to produce an annuity, so it has the additional function of being a source of enrichment.

It will ask who paid the price of the annuity.

But that's not all. Because "we do lend to the rich", this feature enrichment plays in favor of the (already) rich, who can offer a "guarantee" to the credit agency, our currency has also building function inequalities.

Conclude that the current currency, capitalist and modern, is:

• for low income, only one currency consumer

• for high earners, in addition, a way to get rich without providing.

(28) See the book's introduction Plihon D. "Money and its mechanisms."

Sources: http://www.france.attac.org/

Continued from Part V

Yves Herbo

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 3

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Foray into an area reserved too: money - Part 3

argent-bonus

See beginning Part 1, Part 2

II) after

Cash and aggregates, another world

Bank money is being expanded significantly, we now distinguish the current means of payment, that everyone uses every day, and everything that can be a financial capital, such as shares of a listed company or a passbook. This led to the definition of monetary aggregates associated with liquidity, that is to say, the availability of means of payment.

The aggregate more "liquid", called M1, or all of the circulating currency, includes all means of payment available immediately, that is to say the currency and accounts.

The second aggregate M2 is M1 which we add all the credit in the short term, that is to say, the sums deposited in booklets or on deposit accounts available within less than two years. A particular amount can go from one aggregate to another, for example a deposit ticket handed over the counter to be set to a libretto goes from M1 to M2. And if, as in M2, the bank lends, it puts on a deposit account and it returns to M1.

To form M3, M2 is added to other debt securities and money market securities, which are pure credits.

The total domestic debt includes all loans, whether in the form of bank loans or issuing securities, and whether loans to companies, governments or individuals.

Some figures do understand that the circulating currency, that are manipulated every day, and that comes to mind when it comes to money, is actually almost nothing compared to all those credits which the economy depends , that is to say with respect to all payment methods: in 1999, the M1 aggregate was evaluated, France, 358 billion euros, while total domestic debt was nearly six times larger, nearly 2,100 billion euros, ... more a half times the gross domestic product!

Payment methods used for transactions in the financial markets are a much greater than the only currency circulating amount. Especially since these transactions involve all kinds of marketable securities, not only bonds issued by companies to finance their investments, and are of the credit, but also on the actions that are of Deeds. We will return.

There is thus much more money is owed to the banks than is outstanding. It is clear that the debt can never be completely refunded if anyone (individuals, industrial, commercial or government) who have a credit in a bank decide to repay their bank, not only all the money would be needed and he n 'there would have any more outstanding, but in addition, it is no longer sufficient, it still miss much. But how to pay when you do not have the money? - Borrowing from a bank, that it will pay interest, etc. It's a vicious circle, open to the infinite spiral.

The banking system, guard rails?

The Bank of France was in charge of bringing some serious organization.

We discussed the fact that it is the issuing legal tender Institute, that is to say, it is what controls the production of coins and notes. It is through payments at commercial banks that these "species" enter circulation: When these banks fail to "cash" for their clients, or they are buying "cash" already in circulation "is refinancing" with d 'private financial institutions (the interbank market), if they are addressed to the Central Bank. This then plays them for the role of "lender of last resort" by providing the monetary base in exchange for debt that they had "boarded" and are then called "rediscounting". The monetary base and created against party debt is called credit money first level.

On the other hand it is the Central Bank, which holds the current accounts of all commercial banks (said secondary to distinguish in this hierarchy) including the Treasury. It is the "bank of banks" which it requires him to file the required reserve fiat currency, it relates to their accounts and that it included in its liabilities. These reserves, the amount of which depends on the size of each bank, that is to say that this credit bank issues were, originally instituted to compel banks to ensure in cases of massive requests lawful money from their customers.

This feature is the way that has been found to allow the Central Bank to put pressure on money creation ex nihilo by secondary banks and other financial institutions. But note well that this is only an indirect pressure, changes in the rate of reserves allows the central bank to encourage or restrain money creation by commercial banks.

And looking more closely, one discovers that there are two types of interest rates, according to the lender and the borrower.

When it is the clients who lend to banks (current accounts, savings, savings plans housing), it comes to lending rates. To attract people's savings, these rates are guaranteed and often regulated, but they are low or even zero in the case of traditional checking accounts. The flexibility of banks on the deposit rates is low.

But when on the contrary it is the financial intermediaries who open credit to their customers, they apply their so-called lending rates, and although the money, they say, has no odor, these rates are fixed this time "the head of the customer", they depend on the "quality of the borrower," that is to say its ability to pay. In fact there is a benchmark lending rate, said the base rate, which is linked to interest rates, those refinancing of banks with the central bank. This base rate is the same for everyone, but it represents only what is required for borrowers "first class", those with their bank feels they "have deep pockets." For other clients, banks charge a margin above the base rate, margin increases as the customer is considered less safe. And in addition to these interest lending rates, banks are generally charge their customers various fees, commission fees, management fees, records, etc., which are rarely displayed, and can vary greatly from bank to another. These free rate can be very high; we simply say that a broker takes a "usurious" rates when including commissions, it exceeds 33% of the average rate as estimated by surveys!

Confiscated democracy

Until the early 1980s, most of the financing of the economy was so effected by credits granted by banks and financial institutions. Or they belonged mainly to the public sector. In France, in 1984, the nationalized banks
controlled 87% of deposits and 76% of appropriations. This is called "the economy of debt administered."

The scheme, in the "war boom" has created an environment adapted to the needs of the economy by promoting the rapid growth of productive investment. May grant certain sectors preferential funding, through soft loans, lower than market prices, the policy had a little control over the economy. Although banks, abandoned long ago, money creation was largely and indirectly regulated by the Central Bank, which provided as "the credit crunch". And the state maintained by the intermediary, "some" control over the country's financial activity.

And then, wham, in a few years, all this has been upset in the name of an ideology that is imposed on all so-called "developed, one after the other economies:

In the mid-80s, under the pressure of Think Tanks (20) inspired economists such as those of the Chicago school, in the wake of monetarist Milton Friedman or Friedrich von Hayek, the regime gave way to the regime "economy liberalized financial markets. "

(20) Read about Evangelicals market by Keith Dixon.

By 1985 the share of administered rate loans was gradually réduite.En 1987 is the credit crunch that has been deleted. And in 1989 it was the turn of exchange controls.

Meanwhile, in 1986, the nationalized banks and major financial institutions have been privatized. (YH: Historically, it is the "left" who did the work that the "right" could not do before with President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, although the movement was Inrush by changing laws President Pompidou ...)

At the same time was created the "single capital market", which means that all transactions, whether in cash, short or long term, are now available to all economic agents, whether or non-financial, whether domestic or foreign.

The great, the super, hyper-capital market

The creation of the "unique" capital market was the explosion of a market multiple ... who devoted the stranglehold of finance on the economy, the more total grip that even the state was subjected to this market by Act 1993 (see above "when the state is forced to borrow from the private").

Enumerate, without insisting, its multiple facets.

For starters, its interbank market allows banks to arrange them, one may have available cash that others need. It is for the Central Bank to fix the so-called policy rates: the rate "refinancing on the interbank market," who serves as a reference, and both said rate "ease" the ceiling and floors between which the interest rate may change. In fact, these rates vary from day to day, so it's not monetary policy that requires the interbank market, but the law of supply and demand, that is to say the law market.

The market in which the public usually hears about is the financial market, ie the Exchange. Two kinds of securities (or "securities") are not bought and sold there: shares of companies "listed" and bonds.

Buying shares in a company that is buying a portion of its capital. This obviously raises the risk if the successful business, its rating, or rather the symbol of its shares goes up and it is possible to realize a gain if you manage to sell more expensive they have been purchased. It can also happen if the benefits are very high, the shareholders' meeting decides to pay a fraction (a dividend) to all shareholders. But nothing is guaranteed and the company can see its shares lower, for example if a rumor suggests that it has problems. In exchange for the risk that they share and the shareholders are entitled to participate in the election of the Board of Directors of the company appoints its boss and is supposed to control. But this usually happens between "large" shareholders, insiders, and small does not make weight (a recent exception landmark: small shareholders of Eurotunnel just succeeded to agree to change the direction, the behavior had proved truly catastrophic).

By buying bonds issued by a company, it is no longer to become co-owner, but to lend him money. Indeed, when a company needs a loan and does not wish to approach a bank, it issues bonds by pledging on the duration and interest rate of the loan. Thus assured of compensation and reimbursement to date, the buyer of such debt securities takes much less risk than buying a stock and it has, therefore, no right to intervene in the internal company policy.

Financial markets are thus used to pump the savings into big business. And the pump running so strong that in 2003 it had pumped into the world a whopping 19.554 billion dollars (compared to the global GDP was about 30,000 billion).

The explosion of financial markets was also reflected by the birth of a new business, the contracts that are traded on the derivatives market and serve the businesses protect themselves against a variety of financial risks, such as changes in interest rates, fluctuations in exchange rates and even took raw materials.

For all those "financial products", there are the new home market in the second hand market. This is the first, also called primary market, new furniture securities are offered to the public, while the secondary market traded securities previously issued and sold (possibly by professional speculators).

Since 1991, the national market dung beetle is organized into sections: there is the first market, the official, whose values are determined on a daily basis, the secondary market was created in 1983 for SMEs (small and medium enterprises ), the new market, opened in 1996, facing the financing of "ups" technology, and OTC on companies that are not yet or no longer listed on the official market the market.

Finally include the mortgage market, which facilitates the real estate financing by giving credit institutions the opportunity to sell their mortgages. This market has led to an innovation in the United States, known as securitization of receivables. Basically, say it allows lenders (banks and other credit organizations) to refinance by selling their receivables to non-bank investors and thus more safely manage the risks associated with these loans.

The stated aim of all these transformations, which constitute what is called a revolution, was to facilitate the comparison of all global supply and demand of capital in any form whatsoever. No longer reserved for banks choose to invest it is now exercised by "the invisible hand of the market" under the pretext that such a market on a global scale was the key to development and prosperity, the poor countries would have access to the rich countries. It was the end of poverty ...

The reality is the opposite of those promises: it is the big companies in rich countries that have benefited from this type of development, at the expense of the poor. Because the operation of the "main" is a fable, explains a witness JEStiglitz, and
can trust him since he was responsible for policy development as Vice-President of the World Bank, in 1997-1999.

Here is what this expert, Professor in five prestigious universities (Yale, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton and Columbia): "The famous" hand
invisible ", regulating the market? It is invisible because it does not exist. The market will not regulate itself. The "trickle" dear to Reagan, for whom the rich getting richer "trickles" always on the poor? This is simply not true. "(21)

Money has become ... capital (e)

In 1999, almost all banks in France as in all industrialized countries, had returned to the private sector and the capital markets have taken in managing the economy, a growing share compared to bank financing. Rest assured, banks will have lost nothing, they just expanded their activities to otherwise participate in the global economy, playing an additional role through financial markets. For example, whether the sale of new shares at an IPO or a capital increase or a bond issue, companies are forced to go through the through a bank, in which they must then, of course, pay a corresponding commission. This does not mean that banks have so far given their privilege of opening credits ex nihilo. In this area, the coverage rate (22), fixing a limit, is somehow a bridle on their neck. They recognize that the reserve requirement is for them a guarantee against bankruptcy, but if the strap is too tight, they fear that their investor clients to look elsewhere, that is to say in the financial markets, their funding. This shows that investment, that is to say, the dynamism of the economy even more dependent on this rate since the great turning "the economy liberalized financial markets." In addition, major American banks have established their risk assessment systems, allowing them to determine their reserve ratio which is obviously not without consequences on competition between banks themselves. And so it was that the era of "Cooke ratio" (c = 0.8) just ended with an agreement in Basel May 11, 2003: the ratio "Basel II" is not universal, it will be flexible. And it will, as the saying Professor at Dauphine (former CEO of Paribas) "the best investment" by "paying the risks one by one", it will increase the flexibility of the American giant. (YH: proven today (2014): Goldman Saks and JP Morgan for example, even with a few setbacks ... hold the world in their hands!)

Even without understanding the meaning and scope of these reforms, the public can see in the daily news bulletins, and for several years, that the movements of the stock market have the spotlight, and even those usually before football which is saying something! We see it as encouraging ordinary people to play its future on the Exchange, to persuade him that nothing beats the market to earn him the fortune he must dream.

The financial turmoil has indeed left the capital rein and the economy has been put at their service. But the promised fruits of this windfall spreading over the so-called developing countries are not at the rendezvous. The anti-globalization movement calling for a moratorium during which it would be possible to review these benefits. This moratorium is still denied, and during that time, the United Nations Programme for Development (UNDP) found that 840 million people still suffer from malnutrition in a world that has never produced so much ... (in 2003). - 1 billion in 2010 ...

Credit "old" to the "modern" credit

All these changes thus represent a radical change in monetary habits. But this change is insidious because the vast majority of the population still do see a value in the currency used to buy real economic assets, and possibly subject to delay purchases. Yes, and we will come back, there is more trade in goods, economic exchange has become the sale-purchase of a good or service against the currency, whose nature is different. Of these transactions, the most common, everyday, are a relatively small amount, so that the public sees money as the circulating currency. He is not aware that the currency has become a symbol experts call the consideration of financial capital. Now this symbol hides immense power over the real economy, and it is a decision tool used however irrationally, because we know that on THE market became single, motivation rather reminiscent
Players at the casino than responsible for the future of the world.

Be changed without the mechanisms of money creation, assignment of banks have been expanded, diversified and extended to other financial institutions, also denied acting brilliantly on the economy in general, but always with the sole aim their own interest. And capitalism was able to deploy his imagination, inventing new markets where it is now possible to make a fortune or to ruin by selling or buying of risk, options, etc. Speculation is an art reserved for insiders, which the common people could be adversely affected, but he can not know.

Thus, for millennia, Assyrians to the Iron Lady, or roughly 2,000 years prior to 2000 years AD, credit corresponded to the delay between the choice of a purchase and payment; but, as expressed F. Rachline (23), "on departure and arrival, regardless of the credit period, a material made weight," emphasizing the fact that these terms banking have always been linked commercial or agricultural activities, then they never resulted in a stand-alone business, purely speculative, as is the case now. This "credit to the old" just to make room for a pure credit "is not based on anything other than himself," an advance as a bridgehead to be launched over a river whose the other side, if it exists, is invisible.

The franc to the euro

The principle of competition having been placed at the heart of the construction of the European Community, it was inevitable that, from its inception, the euro is under a single "control" the Market. The creation of the euro has not changed much of the way of money creation. Worse, public oversight tends to disappear a little more. The European Central Bank (ECB) now determines the discount rate of the euro, but it is not over run by elected than was the Bank of France and is less likely than ever to master the changes in the money supply. Its President is required to complete independence vis-à-vis the government, it should not obey their instructions, it does not even make their own.
One goal has been imposed by the Maastricht Treaty: prevent inflation exceeds 2% per year ... not to penalize investors.

Everything happens as if the financial and the "economists" in their service, were a world apart, an international statesman species exerting its own policy. The state organization of its own and manage its affairs independently (24). In Europe, for example, the government is the Executive Board of the ECB, it establishes its financial laws, it has its prefects, it is the national central banks, its electors, it is the Finance Ministers of States and its citizens are financial operators.

Note, however, a difference between the role assigned to the ECB and that of his American counterparts, the EDF. In Europe, the Maastricht Treaty requires each independently the ECB to ensure inflation and governments to reduce their deficit, whatever the circumstances. While in the United States, the relationship between the Fed and the administration are more flexible, is what has allowed President GW Bush to cut taxes while increasing military spending to a record deficit already mentioned . Europe and copy its neoliberal revolution in the United States, but adding a pinch, on this point, which hinders a priori its competitiveness against its biggest rival!

"Your money interests me!"

This unprecedented growth of international finance has revolutionized the global economy. Whereas before "the function of the international financial system to finance world trade and balance of payments, international financial flows have experienced explosive growth, no relation to the needs of the global economy" (25 ). In 1998, for example, 1.600 billion, equivalent to the annual GDP of France, have passed every day by the foreign exchange markets. These financial transactions are on average 50 times higher than those related to trade in goods and services.

International finance is derived from the financing of the economy to follow its own logic now, as denounced Passet "When the banker informed us, in an ad that had its moment of glory, that our money" interests ", it is our money that is, but it is he who derives power and influence. One can say the same for all institutions that concentrate our payment methods: banks and brokerage firms, pension funds, savings manager by which employees intend to finance their future pensions, hedge funds or fund performance, made for the purpose purely speculative, mutual funds, functioning as our Fund. These institutions concentrate a "firepower" formidable, much higher than that of the states "(26). Financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, investment funds and other pension funds) have objective search for the best performance from one currency to another, euros, dollars, yen for dollars, action to another, from one obligation to another. And it is to put these financial flows away from national taxation, protecting financial crime, that were created tax havens.

Anonymity money and banking secrecy and money allow the lucrative investment money, clean or dirty (that of drugs, weapons, mafia, etc.), so that companies and terrorists use the same ways to grow their finances.

Proposed by the Liberal Tobin to put some regulatory tax would penalize transfers that hedge the foreign exchange market and not those that are brought about by the exchange of international trade, as the former are distinguished by their frequency second "the long term, says one of these speculators, it gives me ten minutes! "

Evolving IMF: protect investors, not people.

In 1944 at Bretton Woods, was created when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to regulate the international monetary market, the right of individuals and companies to invest abroad leurscapitaux was limited by most countries, including the United States, to prevent the
speculative harm trade relations. But asset managers have pressured Republicans backed governments a wealthy voters (Reagan and Bush), for the lifting of such barriers. After that it's the Democratic administration (Clinton) who took the Republican initiative to fund its election campaigns; and the IMF charter was amended ... It then became, in the words of the most moderate, the manager of the credit system, with the objective in the short term to assist international creditors, and in the long term, to increase the return on their capital. For cons, the IMF is not affected by the domestic debt, for example, that consumer unien states that on average, at the end of 2002 was 40% of its income.

This brings us to the problem of Third World debt. Indeed, what's going to happen when the economy of a country, usually third world is sick and its local companies are forced to borrow abroad? - The IMF is involved because "outside of a conditioned IMF agreement, there is no possible international loan" and it requires borrowing governments to take, under the name of "structural adjustment pacts" (NOT) the necessary measures to ensure as soon as possible repayment of international creditors, that is to say, to maintain the value of the local currency. These measures, which involve privatization, austerity to limit imports and facilitate exports, reduced government spending and disruption of productive investments, resulting in increased unemployment and declining production, thus income, etc. form the so-called Washington Consensus. They are in the logic of the credit system, even if they are disastrous for the population. Because the IMF was not designed to help people in struggling countries, but to avoid international lenders to be harmed, that is to say, not to be repaid in full and with interest.

Investors stressed the risk to demand even higher interest it seems possible that the borrower country may not be able to repay them. But the worst part is that it's not them who take this risk, because if, despite PAS, a country can not pay, the IMF pays, and at taxpayer expense!

(21) Joseph E. Stiglitz, in When capitalism loses his head, ed Fayard, 2003

(22) See above "creation ex nihilo by banks

(23) Francis Rachline, "Let the money. Capitalism and alchemy of the future. "

(24) Details are provided on the organization of the ECB in the book The European Central Bank, and Francesco Papadia Carlo Santini. But this little book, published by Banqueéditeur and written by two bankers, the first of the European Central Bank, the second of the Bank of Italy is mainly a defense, uncritically, the directives given to the ECB by the Treaty Maastricht. For analysis and criticism, read The euro without Europe, how to see No. 61, January-February 2002, ed Le Monde Diplomatique.

(25) D.Plihon, the new capitalism.

(26) In Passet, In Praise of globalism. Chapter I, the real masters of the world, pages 31-32.

first conclusions

At this stage of our study we can conclude that at least two misconceptions are widespread. First they most often argue as if there was a fixed amount of money and should "do with." When in fact, such a constraint is exercised over the state. It also seems that many people are convinced that it is the government of a country that determines the mass of the currency in circulation, whereas it is in contrast to privately owned banks that issue bank money, which benefit and, in addition, the power to choose the beneficiaries of this windfall.

We realized that since it can be created easily by simple games paperwork, money-symbol has lost the guarantee that was his link with a wealth materialized. The development, first gradual, insidious, but has accelerated in recent decades, makes one see today (written in 2003 and unchanged since ...)

• monetary creation defies political decision, it has no general interest objective and increases inequality;

• creation mode that does not allow, for example, to finance a public-but not "profitable" utility, because it could not repay, nor, a fortiori, pay interest linked to the creation bank. Include thousands of examples of the dramatic consequences of the need to return any funding. For example, basic research: there is only the state that can fund basic scientific research that does not result immediately or never on a market and profitable application. In the particular case of medicine, private pharmaceutical companies, more and more large, research funding so-called "carriers", expected a rich clientele drugs, and they require market exclusivity through patents; by cons, research on diseases called "orphan" because rare is abandoned, potential customers are not sufficient to attract the investment! Constantly encountered similar situations in all areas: a common, or region, is facing a clear need, such as the construction of a bridge, a nursery or a highway for which existing skills, architects, workers available, and all materials and machinery needed. Lacks the credit. The construction can not be done because the human needs do not control the creation of money and the government are subject to these constraints;

• that this method of money creation does not weigh only this directly on society in all public areas: it requires any business that needs credit to repay more than it borrowed. This requirement directs the choice of companies which are thus induced either to offset their increased costs by "savings" made about working conditions or neglect "by economy" precautions deemed too expensive, either to adjust their selling prices in order to pay the interest on their loans, in which case it is the customers who pay the interest, so that pay an annuity to the banking system.

Inability to fund unprofitable business obligation earnings growth, the need to reduce costs, this method of money creation weighs on society in all areas of health, working conditions, environment, knowledge, evolution, culture ...

Which should lead public opinion to ask a few questions:

• Where does the choice of method of money creation?
- No political debate is at its origin.

• A there was spontaneous?
- History has shown on several occasions (including in France, two coups Napoleonic) pressure on those in power to impose the privileges banks still enjoy.

• This choice is it immutable?

- Nothing to do, especially not the money, it has changed throughout its history ... (YH: and there was even, there are only 450 more years, entire civilizations that passed by...)

Sources: http://www.france.attac.org/

To be continued in Part IV

Yves Herbo

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