As its title suggests, this is an open letter to you guys – and gals, of course. First, let me present the problems, the real problems, that need to be solved.
The world is running out of oil.
The world is running out of natural resources.
The environment is being degraded.
World population is still increasing too rapidly.
Okay, there are more problems, but let’s stop here for the moment. To begin with, how can we solve the above? The main way is by the appliance of science, ie technology. We have the technology now to solve all these problems, and I mean all of them. Let us look at the first one; there are companies that are at this very moment developing the technologies of the future. Feasible electric cars and hydrogen cars have already been developed; although the technology is still evolving, the main problem remaining to be solved is lowering the cost of production.
A potentially far more exciting development is the production of solar cells for cars or even for planes. In July last year, a light aircraft powered entirely by solar cells flew for twenty-six hours non-stop. Imagine if it were possible to fly a Jumbo Jet on solar power; as things stand, the technology needed for this miracle is decades away, but this is what we should be aiming for.
What is the main stumbling block to developing new technologies as fantastic as this? As usual, it is financial, in a word, money, or rather the lack of it.
At this time, the world is going through a recession/depression, and there are ominous predictions that this will be double dip.
Now let me run something by you; this is technology in action:
In February 1927, a trans-Atlantic phone call of approximately half an hour’s duration between the London office of music publisher Lawrence Wright and the Broadway, New York office of lyricist Edgar Leslie cost around £150, a staggering sum in those days.
Next is one of my favourite quotes, by Alec Broers from the 18 April ’92 issue of the New Scientist: “IN THE 1950s, an electronic circuit that could store a single ‘bit’ of information cost more than £1. Today, a penny will buy 5,000 of them.”
Finally, from the September 1991 issue of Computer Shopper, an advertisement for a machine described as a “PRICE BREAKTHROUGH”, a Tandon portable with 12 months on-site maintenance, 386, 16/8 Mhz Processor and 40Mb hard drive for one thousand one hundred and ninety-nine pounds. And no Internet!
Now compare that with the machine on your desktop, or your mobile phone for that matter.
It is clear that new technology follows a definite economic pattern; when it is first developed, it is astronomically expensive; only a tiny number of mega-rich individuals can afford it. Then, the price plummets dramatically, none more so where computer technologies are concerned. Now consider the price of money; this is always expensive, but what is money? Although it exists in many forms, including the note and coin issues, government bonds, etc, most money, the figure generally quoted is 97%, most money exists only as credit. And credit is made of what?
Credit exists only as figures in a book or as blips in cyberspace, as in this cartoon. If money can be created simply by writing figures in a book or by entering data through a keyboard, how can it ever be in short supply?
The simple answer to that question is that the worldwide banking system has what the engineer Major Douglas called the monopoly of credit. Governments print and mint about 3% of their money supply, and the banks create the rest. Even worse, they manufacture this money ex nihilo, and then sell it, yes, sell it, to the rest of us. The charge on money is called interest, what Moslems call riba, and is forbidden in Islam.
Here is a question for all of you, why should the government or anyone pay for a commodity that can be created at no cost by a responsible authority, ie the government?
Here is another question, if the only source of money is the banking system, and the banks create this money as an interest-bearing debt, how is it possible for this debt ever to be redeemed? Clearly it cannot be, ever, which is why the current Greek default is unavoidable, or failing that, some other default. And another. And another. And another. When the parasites of international finance and their paid lackeys - the politicians, financial journalists and economists - insist we must avoid a default or life as we know it will end, what they really mean is that we must bail them out so that they can continue to play their stupid casino games at our expense: that is our pensions, our public services, our research and development. Our future.
Furthermore, the money creators and the money changers, and the big funds, spend all day and every day playing games with this money, gambling with it, to the detriment of the rest of us. Listen to this parasite, and check out the truth about managed funds and fund managers, in particular how a parrot picking out investments with its beak has just as much chance of beating the market as any of them.
Contrary to Rastani’s facile assertions, it should be clear that only a tiny percentage of people can benefit from a falling market. It is only when the value of money is relatively stable or increases steadily that society as a whole can benefit.
Please study the contents of this website, and some of the excellent educational material produced by financial reformers, like this brilliant full length cartoon just under 47 minutes, which explains in detail how money exists as debt, and what we must do in order to reform the system.
Finally, if you would like to make a contribution to this site, please hit the donate button, but whether you do or not, please get involved – check out the links page for details of organisations in the forefront of a movement whose time has come. As Major Douglas pointed out, the financial system is primarily an engineering challenge; its purpose should be to distribute the goods and services the community creates. Clearly it doesn’t do that anything like as efficiently as it should, which is where you come in.
October 5, 2011
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