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Mar 26, 2023Liked by Joel Smalley

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Henry Ford

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Mar 26, 2023Liked by Joel Smalley

Hi Joel

I started looking at and researching the money system just before the global credit crunch. I've read and still got many books which describe money and how it operates. There are some common themes as well as differences.

Your point - "What then, is fiat money really? Is it worth anything? The answer is a resounding “nothing”. It’s a promise of nothing".

I don't think that's strictly true, governments back fiat money, and it is accepted for trading and payment of taxes. Some would argue that it's the very fact we pay tax in £'s which means it becomes ubiquitous.

You are correct that a business or an individual could use other forms of exchange, and this does happen. But, whether a government would accept other forms of payment is questionable.

Central Banks, The Bank of International Settlements and various governments exert enormous control via laws. One could say they use a form of legal violence.

Back in the 1930's, Wörgl created their own currency, which dug them out of the great depression. It was called the miracle of Wörgl. Ultimately, it was closed down via legal action from the Austrian Central Bank.

You say, "All you have to do is establish communities of people with all the goods and services they need between them and adopt an alternative medium of exchange and store of value".

This has been tried and is being done now, albeit in a small way. I think there are various reasons why they tend to fail, but it isn't easy to set up these systems in a way which keeps people using them.

I'm all for challenging the status quo, but I think it's helpful to understand this is a huge fight with plenty of vested interests who would like the status quo to continue.

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Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 27, 2023Liked by Joel Smalley

I initially learned about this in the 1990's by watching Bill Still's The Money Masters, http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/ but didn't understand the concept enough to change how I used money. Plus, I was raising a family and didn't have time. Nobody else in my circle of friends and family cared about it at the time.

Fast forward to the 2008 financial meltdown and I wish I had paid more attention. Like many, I experienced a wake up call at that time and resolved never to be caught off guard by ignorance about money again. I'm in a much better position now but appalled at how little people CARE to know how money works and how the entire political, social and economic systems are designed to enslave them. If I try to explain, their eyes glaze over. So long as they're not suffering too much themselves they don't care about the sweatshops in India, Pakistan and China.

Meanwhile, the imperialist countries are raping and pillaging third world countries to maintain high living standards in the west keeping our population numbed out and dumbed down. Until those countries start fighting back or the oligarchs in power start robbing and murdering their own citizens.

So, now when it's too late people are waking up out of their TV and cell phone stupor, they're realizing the party's over. It's quite pathetic to watch people becoming bitter at everyone else without a shred of understanding about how it could have been different had they been paying attention. So many whistleblowers yet so little accountability. Citizens failed in their duty to overthrow corrupt governments and oligarchs who bought them. Now our children will pay the price.

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‘Money’ and ‘currency’ are not the same thing. Gold is money. Fiat is currency.

Understand that and you are 75% of the way there.

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What I see missing in crypto money is a way to define unit of value, not sure what the technical term is. The current notion of a stable crypto currency makes reference to a highly inflated fiat currency. Not exactly stable. How can we define stable without this reference back to the old system? How can we define inflation in a truly decentralized and open way?

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Please read "The Lost Science of Money" for proper understanding and actual solutions.

We can't just all run and hide. We need to fix things. We need to understand the very nature of money, and its history going back thousands of years.

The first fiat currencies were gold and silver coins(recorded history). If that does not make sense to you, it is because you need to learn better.

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Silver and gold are not really commodities either. Yes, they have some industrial use, but in general they have value simply because a large number of people agree that they have value, nothing else.

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I don't see how fiat money is a Ponzi scheme. It does not promise high returns and it doesn't require an ever increasing number of investors to pay out the earlier investors. What am I missing?

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Thanks Joel. Only reasonable to observe that most fiat currency uses the dollar as a reference value.

The devil $ has been barrel of oil price backed for a long time now.

USA's determination to maintain that supremacy is 100% the reason for each & every single conflict, world wide, since WW2.

North Africa, The Middle East ripped to shreds by Oil war. Ukraine Oil war.

All ultimately driven by Rothschild's evil.

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2934-complete-list-of-rothschild-owned-and-controlled-banks

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 Fractional Reserve Banking (money making magic–$1 for $10) exists to make drug cartels look respectable.

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Fiat currency could potentially serve as sound, and remarkably efficient, money absent debasement. However history informs us governments always succumb to temptation and abuse fiat, harming fiat holders. Everyone is about to learn this lesson the hard way, again, and now with all national currencies fiat this iteration of the phenomenon is bound to be global. The consequent vaporization of financial wealth will be breathtaking, and terrifying.

Tangible assets offer refuge particularly liquid tangibles, namely precious metals.

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Joel Smalley, i cannot overstate how satisfying it is to receive your posts. Thankyou!

For this topic, i've enjoyed and hence recommend the 'what is money podcast' with Robert Breedlove and guests. A wide exploration, heavily bitcoin biased, starting with the premise of money as a store of energy.

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I can't remember website now but there are communities who are trying these systems, either for goods and services, some working on a 50/50 cash/named token system. Cash required in instances where supplies to be bought. I would like to investigate further. If, for example, people got credit for their first purchase, they'd have to offer something within a certain timeframe. What happens if they don't? Do some schemes start off with purchasing tokens in first place? Who gets money? The idea of it sounds good but not sure how people will take to it. Just the other day in UK, it was announced on news that "Dave's Bank" to be made into a Netflix movie. Dave, local entrepreneur in his northern town, set up a community bank to assist local small businesses with loans which the big banks wouldn't entertain. It's obviously successful, hence Netflix interest. Richard Werner, ex WEF one time candidate also proposes community banks too.

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Yes, fiat money, inflation, the whole banking system are horrible. At the same time, can you name a few things that are good in this system? Just for the sake of a balanced view? How are we going to build a better system if we have no capacity to show gratitude for what we have?

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Notes and coins are only about 3% of the money supply in the UK. Printing more notes and coins will have only a small effect on the total supply of money. Most money is created by commercial banks. You get a loan from a bank and deposit the money in your account, prior to spending it, that is money creation. The Bank of England can control what the commercial banks do by setting interest rates, by regulating how much capital they need to operate and by controlling the amount of reserves they need to deposit at the Bank of England. When people talk about ‘printing money’ they usually mean Governments running deficits which they need to finance by issuing bills and gilts to investors. The other form of ‘printing money’ which is fashionable since the global financial crisis is QE - quantitative easing. This is where the Bank of England through an Asset Purchase subsidiary acquired assets such as government and corporate bonds financed by loans from commercial banks.

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