Serious Money: An Introduction (Chapter 1)

" Hear O Earth: behold I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not given heed to my words. (Jeremiah 6:19) For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you, your deeds shall return on your own head." (Obadiah 15)

What starker warning does anyone need! The world's biggest creditor nation of a few short years ago is now become the world's largest debtor nation. The oppression of debt and interest we laid upon others is now laid upon us. And we shall be repaid for the oppression sevenfold and even more.

Everett Dirksen (deceased), a member of Congress from Illinois, must be turning over in his grave. He had a fierce reputation as a scrutinizer of the Federal budget, looking for waste, "Pork," and anything else he could cut from the budget. He would say, "a million here, and a million there, pretty soon it adds up to serious money..." How much more so in our day of a billion here and a billion there... For sure, they add up to trillions, and that folks is serious money!

Only fools continue to blithely, recklessly, and even presumptuous do the same things that are precipitating the expanding world crisis of debt-money. Only men of an evil eye and unquenchable greed continue to do the same things within a money system, "Mammon"---to use the Biblical term---which day by day increases the misery and suffering of billions of desperately poor people. The "greater fool" theory continues to inspire a dangerous, dream-like confidence, even a reckless bravado, which encourages the charade that the "buck" (also read debt) can always be passed on into the hands of yet another sucker, even if it has to be a whole new, as yet unborn, generation. However, in all chain letters, including the monetary one, there is always someone who loses their nerve, refuses to play, and the sucker cycle is broken. It is inevitable that this "loss of nerve" will occur somewhere in the money system, because, if you will look at the face of your money, you will see that it is an instrument of debt. Every "Federal Reserve Note"---those ubiquitous dollars which are sloshing about the world---is a debt of the people of the United States.
This book is intended to shock the socks off your "fat city" complacency and your religious smugness, both of which are quite certain that things will go on as before. There is a real crisis, and it is much, much more than a crisis of confidence. You can choose to seriously consider alternatives, and then in good faith go and make them real in your life, or you can continue to indulge in more of the typical unregenerate American optimism that gratuitously holds on to "the experts are working on it...and somehow it will all work out." The Hebrew wisdom of the Torah offers quite a different set of teachings and instructions. The present mess is going to sort itself out, but not the way most people think. In the richest western democracies there is the notion that God is for Capitalism, Democracy, and Bank of America! Every religious body has a list of "isms" that their God approves and underwrites. The God of the Torah doesn't strike me as much interested in anyone's "ism." But the cries of the oppressed, the cold, and hungry seem to be of considerable concern, and if He hears, His action soon follows. However, the arch-enemies of God, the "powers, principalities, and spiritual hosts of wickedness" collectively referred to as Satan, are interested in preserving and even expanding the Mammon-system of debt money.
This book is directed to all who "have ears to hear, and eyes to see" what the God of the Bible offers as His wisdom. His teaching and instructions are most clearly spelled out in the Torah, what some have erroneously termed "the Law." The purpose of the Torah is that "it might go well with you..." Only a fool would dismiss the teaching and instructions of a loving Father as having been "done away with...!" There are many who say they take the Word of God seriously, but by their actions demonstrate they neither know nor obey that Word. Has your religious tradition prostituted itself in service to the debt-money system? Is your religious tradition profiting from the exaction of interest? If so, how do you square those actions with The Word? Further, how do you plan to escape the consequences of such explicit disobedience of that same Word? You may have great discernment and awareness of "the signs of the times," but how is it you have failed to see how your "riches" are not riches at all? The world says its ways are the path to prosperity, in other words, do it our way and you will be rewarded. The clear implication is that the Torah-ways of God are not rewarded, or in other words, His ways are punished. The perfect lie: evil is good, and God's ways are evil. This is otherwise known as blasphemy!
The storm clouds of massive debt are already gathered worldwide. The United States, as the "giant" debtor of them all, can still bully the rest of the world. But for how long will the rest of the world "buy" the "paper" of the United States? It would be prudent to remember that confidence can go up or down just as fast as those dollars can be moved around. Exhaustion hasn't set in yet, but more and more individuals and even whole economies are having difficulty hanging on. The terminal phases of desperation and exhaustion may much faster than can be imagined.
Are you aware of what the interest is on the United States Federal debt of nine trillion dollars (soon to be raised to 12+ trillion)? Do you hear any of the politicians of either party speak about the actual amount? Since I wrote the last (2nd edition) comments in 1989, the Federal debt has tripled. If the consumer credit debt is added to corporate debt and these are added to the Federal debt, this total indebtedness exceeds the sum total of the value of all assets: land, buildings, equipment... When debt liabilities exceen net asset values, the resulting condition is known as banruptcy.
The world financial system is founded on a single premise: debt. The money that is created and put into circulation is essentially borrowed money, and every one of the transactions that puts money into circulation establishes a debt that is interest bearing. So the supply of money, regardless of how you reckon or conceive of money, cannot ever catch up to the debt, because the debt is not simply the amount of money borrowed: it is an ever-enlarging amount driven by the interest mechanism. The mechanism has been installed in the hands of a privileged oligarchy, as the Pujo Committee of 1912 termed it. This oligarchy operates a money vacuuming machine that sucks up more and more of the wealth, including productive labor such as "farming," in a concentration unknown in history. The wealth of this nation, following that of the Third World, is disappearing into a financial "black hole!" The movement toward a "cashless" society is only the latest and most sinister ploy to make every transaction of buying and selling go through the credit system, thereby making all transactions subject to the interest mechanism.
Every modern economy requires a monetary medium and a mechanism to facilitate the creation and exchange of goods and services. Money---whether wampum, gold, silver, or paper---is the life-blood of that exchange process. That life-blood is now metered and drawn off by the interest-sucking machine of the money monopolies: all the varieties and sub-species of the world's bankers who sit astride the flow, on one hand siphoning off a "profit," and on the other hand creating more of the same "money" to be run through the system over and over again, and always, if possible, subjecct to the application of interest. Thus, a bank or credit card company, or an insurance company, or an automobile manufacturer---all of them in fact banks (for example GMAC or Ford Credit)---creates money by creating credit. Credit=debt=money.
Can there be any escape from the money mess? In his book Megatrends, Naismith speaks of the possibilities of individualism, networking, and de-centralization which groups of citizens might use in new, alternative, and innovative solutions that take as the starting point the Biblical Wisdom of God. First, there must be an acknowledgment of the error of our ways, repenting and turning from them, and in a new Spirit, taking the Biblical Torah wisdom to heart as our own.
But in all times, there are those who are quick to adopt the easy explanation: they cry "conspiracy!" And every conspiracy discussion, sooner or later, looks for a scapegoat. Historically, Jewish bankers have been the favorite whipping boys, in spite of the fact that less than 2% of American bankers have been or are Jewish. Fact is 90+% of bankers are WASPs. A look at the world's largest banks quickly dispels such nonsense. Bankers, of whatever stripe, are captives of their own myths and delusions. They still ardently believe it possible to make money off of money, some of their own and a lot of yours and mine without any reckoning whatsoever. Compounding this delusion is their seeming ability to pass on their screw-ups to the "government, taxpayer, or some other third party." They go on perpetuating the fiction that they alone have the "Midas touch" and the keys to the mysteries of "creating money." But, the old-line insiders are getting nervous because they are being challenged with all sorts of new banks and quasi-banks: stock-brokers, insurance companies, major retailers, auto companies...the list of those wanting to join the bonanza keeps on expanding. Keep an eye on Wal-Mart! On every corner and in every shopping mall there is another entity offering "credit" or "financial services."
A notable line of Americans---Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, and Justice Louis Brandeis among them---has warned of the dangers of the banking scheme. Every economy needs mechanisms for the efficient transfer of capital. These have been developed, but they have been con-fused and merged with the "interest" exancting mechanism of the traditional (and now the non-traditional) banking establishment. The version of capitalism we now see operating is one that has been defined and promulgated by the ruling money-class in deference to their own interests of greed, power, and profits. The desire to be rich is the snare of materialism, and the whole world is in its clutches. As the root of all evils (1 Tim. 6:9-10), it brings forth a harvest of material and spiritual wickedness, for "what causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not this passion of money?" (James 4:1-3)