YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYMENT

In order to be able to buy something it is necessary to have money. The ways to obtain money are to be employed and obtain a wage or a salary, or to be able to save some money, have an inheritance, or make a winning. For the majority it is by means of employment.

Now, there are two ways in which we can discuss employment. One is from a long standing moral imperative, "If a man will not work neither shall he eat' - defining work as something the price of which can be included in all costs and recovered in price. It completely denies all recognition to the social nature of the heritage of civilization, and by its refusal of purchasing power, except on terms, arrogates to a few persons selected by the system, and not by humanity, the right to disinherit the indubitable heirs, the individuals who compose society.[C.H. Douglas, The Control and Distribution of Production 1922]

In other words, employment is used as a system of government.

The other way is to view employment from the economic aspect.

The illusion of 'full employment'
The first assumption of orthodoxy to be challenged must be that it is a function of the economic system to provide employment,. 'We must create more jobs'. Because it has nearly always been so, except for the favoured few who inherit wealth, employment remains as a fixation in the mind that only by that means can one obtain the wherewithal to buy the necessities of life. One must 'earn one's living'. Hence the gloom occasioned by news of job losses and the relief accompanying announcements of new 'job-creating ventures. But as technological innovation proceeds apace with the spread of automation, robotisation and computerisation, it is high time that the 'problem' of unemployment and its attendant loss of incomes is recognised for what it really is.

The essence of the 'unemployment problem' has been put succinctly by Douglas as follows:

"The paramount difficulty of the industrial system is commonly expressed as that of unemployment. Therefore the suggestion involved is that the industrial system exists to provide employment, and fails. Those engaged in the actual conduct of industry, however, are specifically concerned to obtain a given output with a minimum of employment, and in fact a decreasing amount of employment. Consequently, those who are talking about industry and those who are conducting industry have in their minds objectives which are diametrically opposed and incompatible."[C.H. Douglas - The Monopoly of Credit, 4th edition, 1979, Bloomfield Books, Sudbury, Suffolk]

And again:

"...the best brains of this and every other country in the industrial and scientific field are working as though they recognised their objective to be the replacement of human labour by that of machines, although it is quite possible that very few of them do. To put the matter still more baldly, these best brains are endeavouring to put the world out of work, to create what is miscalled an unemployment problem, but what should be called a condition of leisure." [C.H. Douglas, Warning Democracy, 1930]

The only times this century when the 'unemployment problem' was 'solved' came during the two world wars when the industrial nations were fully engaged, not in beneficial production for their peoples, but in the most colossal orgy of mutual destruction in history. Not only was there no unemployment, there were manpower shortages as more and more recruits were called up to replace the losses, and more and more women entered the munitions factories or worked on the land. And the 'balance of trade' was temporarily very favourable indeed - the export, at enormous cost in human lives, of bombs and shells, tanks and aircraft, submarines and torpedoes. And there was never any 'shortage of money' to impede the war effort. As is now also evident from the large defence cuts arising from the 'peace dividend', a substantial proportion of the workforces in the developed economies have been or still are engaged in the presently unavoidable but socially wasteful business of producing munitions of war, most of which never reach open markets. But of course they 'provide jobs' and incomes.

The impact of technological advances on productivity leads logically to the conclusions that in the long term unemployment will remain a permanent feature of the industrial scene and that in consequence employment is progressively failing as a social mechanism for distributing incomes. So what is the alternative?

The inescapable conclusion is that incomes from employment have to be supplemented by incomes not derived from employment, that is to say, an unearned basic income for all over and above earnings, the cost of which does not appear in the costs of production. However startling that conclusion may appear at first sight, there is nothing new in it, the justification for it on both philosophical and pragmatic grounds having been well enunciated by Douglas years ago.

There have been others since Douglas who have made similar observations, one of whom was Professor Robert Theobald when writing in his Free men and Free Markets commented:

"Our present socio-economic system only remains valid so long as it is possible for the overwhelming proportion of those seeking jobs to find them and as long as we can assume that these jobs will provide the jobholder with a reasonable income. If this condition is not met, we are no longer justified in assuming that those without jobs are lazy or worthless, or in only paying them minimum incomes on a charity basis. Our present system of income distribution cannot continue if the goal of full employment ceases to be feasible or desirable. What is the present response to the threat of growing unemployment? It is generally agreed by labor, management and government, that the only practical answer to the problem of the worker elbowed aside by cybernation is to push him back through legislation. Indeed, it is proposed that through the use of retraining schemes the worker should be pushed back in just as many times as he gets elbowed out of the system."

YOU AND YOUR FAMILY'S SECURITY

Security may be in the form of economic security or political security. The first implies that people should be able to reap the benefits of their contribution to society by being secure in their day to day lives from poverty. It means more than just a subsistence at that level, but the ability to enjoy the abundance that both nature and man have made available.

When we look closely at the factors contributing to increasing wealth production, it is not difficult to recognise that the major factor stems from the development and application of knowledge derived from the past. Each generation builds on the legacy of knowledge it inherits, refining what has proved useful, and discarding what has proved useless. So knowledge is continuously advanced and handed on - an increment of the association of like-minded men and women whose work becomes pooled for the benefit of all. The remarkable advances made this century alone in such fields as agriculture, aviation, engineering of all kinds, electronics and communications indicate the immensity of this inheritance.

So just as we no longer have to pay Shakespeare, or Beethoven, or Rembrandt or Dickens for enjoying their works, but only those who make them accessible to us, so we do not have to pay the numberless inventors, engineers and scientists from whose past work is derived the increased productivity of modern industry.

It is incontestable that this cultural inheritance is communal property and that it is the most potent factor of production of real wealth. It is the special and particular form of inherited Capital which not only makes human labour less than necessary, but also endows every member of the community with a rightful claim to a share in this common inheritance. The so-called 'curse of Adam' is being progressively lifted from the shoulders of mankind and everyone is entitled to a share in the resultant benefits.

Justification of the basic income
Recognition of this fact provides the essential key for unlocking the 'unemployment problem'. Translating the underlying philosophy into actuality only requires that, like other inheritances, it can be mobilised in monetary terms, or 'monetised', to provide a basic income as a birthright, independent of earnings - The Social or National Dividend.

The National Dividend would thus break the age-old link between employment and income. It would transform the 'unemployment problem' into leisure, with the assurance of at least a basic income, in addition to, but independent of, earnings.

A more recent contributor to the line of thinking proposed by Douglas was Professor Robert Theobald. In his Free Men and Free Markets (1964), he said:

"Consideration of all the evidence so far presented makes it clear that we face a new and paradoxical situation. We can produce more goods than we can sell, given present patterns of purchasing power. If our socio-economic system were adjusted to abundance, the volume of purchasing power could be increased where necessary, and reductions in production could be made, where appropriate, without damaging the interests of the individual....the socio-economic system has not yet been adjusted to abundance. Instead the development of cybernation-the combination of machine skills with machine power-continues to deprive an ever-growing number of people of their jobs and therefore of the income required to benefit from abundance." He proposed:

"...the establishment of new principles specifically designed to break the link between jobs and income. Implementation of these principles must necessarily be carried out by the government as the sole body concerned with every member of society and with the adequate functioning of the total socio-economic system."

"In order to ensure that government concern with the total socio-economic system would not outweigh its responsibility to every member of society, a due-income from government should be given as an absolute constitutional right, for unless this is guaranteed the government would have the possibility of developing the most extreme form of tyranny imaginable."

Financing The National Dividend
It will naturally be asked how the mechanism for the basic income can possibly be financed. It is entirely reasonable and sensible that the creation of money (i.e., financial credit) should be based on national productivity of Real Wealth, and not on currency as at present. To ensure adequate distribution, all that is necessary is to establish a correct relationship between the rates at which goods and services are produced and consumed on the one hand, and the rates at which money is created and cancelled on the other. A true National Balance Sheet showing a surplus of physical production over the physical consumption provides the real basis on which money can be created.

Because well over 90% of the 'money' that fuels our economy is created by banks out of nothing and is lent by them as debt which must be repaid to them plus interest, the economic system 'runs on debt'. (See You and Your Money) A key element in the changes necessary with regard to the money supply is that control over money creation must revert to a Parliamentary authority independent from political interference. There is a perfect case for a controlling monetary authority to be independent provided only that the monetary system itself were first corrected to ensure that it accurately reflected the physical realities of the economy, actual and potential, instead of distorting them as now.

A National Credit Authority is required, having the overall responsibility of monitoring the economy, maintaining the national accounts of production and consumption in both physical and monetary terms (as is already done by the Bureau of Statistics in calculating Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product), and regulating the issue of credit in accordance with the performance of the economy. It would be responsible to Parliament but immune from political manipulation.

The National Dividend would be provided from part of the new money created via the National Credit Authority and would be distributed as purchasing power to each member of the community as a right. It would be unrelated to earnings and would be sufficient to ensure a 'certain standard of self-respect, health and decency which is the first desideratum.' (C.H. Douglas -Monopoly of Credit)

YOU AND YOUR TAXES

There are a number of basic considerations with regard to taxation. One is the belief that it is necessary for the government to tax in order to obtain revenue to carry out all the expenditure that is necessary for the public services, social services, defence, education, health etc. Another is that it is a means of redistributing an inequitable distribution of income. In fact, the whole theory of taxation as a justifiable expedient rests upon two propositions; first that the poor are poor because the rich are rich, and therefore that the poor would become richer by making the richer poorer: and secondly, that it is a justifiable procedure to have a system of accumulating riches, and to recognise that this system is legitimate, while at the same time confiscating an arbitrary portion of the accumulated riches. The latter proposition is very much the same thing as saying that the object of the game of cricket is to make runs, but if you make more than a small number they will be taken off you.

'It is impossible to get a sound and clear understanding of taxation by any consideration of money figures or statistics, as at present compiled, since there is no relation between facts and money. It is essential to begin by a consideration of real. i.e., physical, economics as distinct from money economics. (see You And Your Money) For instance, the old and original tithe was a genuine and justifiable tax. It consisted of one tenth of the agricultural production of the taxed land, and this agricultural production so collected was handed over to the Church for the physical maintenance of the clergy and their dependants, it being assumed that the clergy were too busy with other matters to raise their own crops.

'Now it is obvious that the physical meaning of this to those who paid the tithe was that they did a small amount of extra work or, alternatively, had a little less to eat themselves. There was nothing in such an arrangement which could, or did, result in a loss to the community on the one hand, or, on the other, make it impossible for the agriculturalist to live.

'But now consider the fact of a money tax upon agricultural land, which is the form the tithe has now taken. It is imposed quite irrespective of the value of anything which is produced upon the land, and its effect is simply that of an overhead charge upon anything which is produced. If a farmer owns the land he farms and has to pay a tithe on it, the tithe appears as a cost of production and increases the price that he must charge in order to live off his farm. If he cannot raise the price, which is generally the case, he ceases to farm, because he does not grow money, he grows produce, and money is demanded from him.'(C.H. Douglas - Dictatorship by Taxation)

Confusion between money and real wealth
'It is assumed (see You And Your Money), in the first place, that the equality between real wealth and money is absolute, and that, therefore, if an individual has a large amount of money in comparison with his neighbour the whole community will be raised in its standard of living if the richer man is taxed, even though the poor man does not get the money-which, in fact, he rarely does.

'The absurdity of this argument, as apart from other aspects of it, is evident if it be applied, say, to the question of the ability of a proportion of the population to buy Rolls-Royce cars. If one imagines all the purchasers of Rolls-Royce cars to be taxed so that they no longer can buy Rolls-Royce cars, it does not, of course, mean that the poorer portion of the population buys Rolls-Royce cars; it merely means that Rolls-Royce cars are not produced.

'We see exactly this state of affairs in wartime, when luxury production ceases, but in peacetime we know perfectly well that we have what is called an unemployment problem, that is to say, a surplus production problem, and that, under the existing financial system, the inability of anybody to buy Rolls-Royce cars would merely result in an increase in unemployment, and that the present financial system regards full employment as being the best method of keeping us in slavery to financiers.

'All the preceding arguments lead up to, and are, in fact, dependent upon the proposition that the production of real wealth - that is to say, all the things which money can buy - is entirely separate from the production of the money with which to buy them, and in taxing anyone but a banker we are merely increasing the value of the banker's monopoly of money-making.'(ibid)

The process of government budgeting in terms of Receipts and Expenditures gives the impression that the government collects taxes and spends this money in the different areas shown in the Budget. This is a misconception. In reality, the government borrows and repays its borrowings from the collections. A little investigation into the practice will reveal that if the private banking system is responsible for 90% of the money supply(see You And Your Money) then the demand for a balanced budget is another form of the claim that all money belongs to the banks. Present day finance and taxation is merely an ingenious system for concentrating financial power. If, as is often claimed, by economists, that the national debt is owned by the people of the nation, why is it that there has never been a proposal to redistribute the National Debt.

Although there is an argument propagated that taxation redistributes purchasing power it does in fact create a shortage of purchasing power. The technical arguments to this proposition are not entered into here because of space. However a simple example will suffice. A farmer has a property, a wife, and two children. He dies, no production takes place, but the family have an asset that precludes them from a benefit, but land tax and rates still have to be met. Even if a benefit is available it is reduced to the extent of the land tax and rates payable. In the same way, just as a man is taxed on his assets and has to pay the tax in money which is purchasing power, although these assets do not grow money, just so do the price values of industrial assets enter into the price of goods which are sold.

Taxation and in particular progressive taxation is legalised robbery.

YOU AND YOUR MORTGAGE

Everyone dreams of owning their own home. Very few people question why is it that it takes twenty to thirty years for the average homeowner to pay for their home. The major factor is interest. Once upon a time when one borrowed money to purchase a home the interest rate applicable at the time was calculated and repayments were set at a fixed rate for a particular period . Now the interest rate is variable except for some of the recent innovations that allow for the rate to be fixed for a short period. As a result the final total cost of a home is often three times the amount of the original loan.

No one would question the payment of interest on borrowings but whether they should be changeable at the whim of the bankers is doubtful. As banks have the monopoly of credit creation and create the money out of thin air and claim it as their own, the practice of changing interest rates payable on loans previously incurred is doubly questionable.

A mortgage is only one debt that is incurred. We live under a financial debt system not a credit system and yet in nature there is not such thing as a debt. Debt is a man made innovation.

The wider implications-the impact of debt on the economy.
When we consider that the indebtedness to banks affects every sector of the community in every country of the world, it becomes possible to understand why "there is never enough money" to do many things universally thought to be desirable and physically possible. The impact of bank control of money creation in the form of debt does not just lie in the burden of repayment of principal and interest. It also makes absolutely certain that there will be periodic economic crises as the levels of total debt rise inexorably as a proportion of GDP and banks recall outstanding loans or are forced to 'write them off' as bad debts. Even in periods of relative economic prosperity, the growth of debt to banks is an inescapable feature of the current financial system.

To demonstrate why this should be so, C.H. Douglas, whose writings came to be known collectively as 'Social Credit', offered his famous A+B Theorem with its mathematical proofs. This makes clear that the distribution of purchasing power in any given period of production is always insufficient to clear the market of the actual goods and services produced in that period.

Douglas analysed the flows of money through the economic system and demonstrated mathematically that the root cause of so-called recessions is a chronic deficiency of consumer purchasing power. The main reasons for this are:

1. All incomes derive from the productive system as wages, salaries and dividends (including all incomes distributed from national or local taxation).

2. Each productive cycle starts with the investment of capital to finance the costs of production, i.e. materials, labour and energy, to which must be added an allocation of costs for depreciation. It ends with finished goods on the market with price tags attached, reflecting all costs.

3. The capital invested may come from savings, i.e. retained profits or shareholders' funds, or from bank loans. Most large-scale production is financed by bank loans, i.e. newly-created bank credit. Money thus flows outward from the bank where it is created, generating costs to the producer, all of which must be recovered in prices. Money flows back to the bank from consumers via the retailer, distributor and producer, thus liquidating costs. On its return to the bank, the loan and the money are both cancelled out of existence.

4. Producers' costs include depreciation of plant and other overheads, materials, labour and energy consumed, plus profit and bank interest. But, the only purchasing power distributed direct to consumers in the course of the productive cycle are wages and salaries.

In short, each productive cycle generates a flow of prices at a faster rate than it generates a flow of purchasing power and the system is not self liquidating. 'The essential point is that when a given sum of money leaves the consumer on its journey back to the point of origin in the bank, it is on its way to extinction. If that extinction takes place before the extinction of the price value created during its journey from the bank, then each such operation produces a corresponding disequilibrium between money and prices.' [C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit (4th edition), Bloomfied Books 1979] 'This deficit may be made up by the export of goods on credit, by the writing down of goods below cost, by bankruptcies, and by money distributed by public works and charged to debt. But in the main it is represented by mounting debt.' [ibid]

One aspect of the mounting debt is Consumer Credit, which enables consumers to buy yesterday's production at today's prices with tomorrow's incomes. The gap is increased by savings, i.e. abstention from spending, and by their reinvestment which generates further costs for which there is no corresponding fresh money in existence to liquidate them .

YOU AND YOUR SUPERANNUATION

There is an increasing exertion on the part of governments to force people into compulsory superannuation or what they like to refer to as, "saving". They say that unless people save more the economy will not be able to function. Increased saving will reduce the necessity for higher taxation and will allow people to retire in comfort because it will not otherwise be possible to provide for old age pensions.

The contribution rate for money paid into superannuation funds has gradually increased and the proliferation of funds, in Australia alone has been stated as being about 80,000.A recent report stated that the plan (in Australia) to lift the Superannuation Guarantee Charge to 15 per cent of workers' salaries by 2002-3 will boost net national saving by almost $7 billion and would slash the current account deficit by $3.5 billion.

Although pensions were paid in Australia from 1909, in 1946 a special Social Services Levy was introduced and paid out of wages to ensure that people would be able to retire on a pension without any means test. The accumulated fund was subsequently taken over by the Federal government in 1952 and paid into consolidated revenue and has continued so since that date. Superannuation which is paid by the employee and the employer (on behalf of the employee in lieu of increased wages) is another reduction in purchasing power to the individual.

A moment's thought and reflection will reveal the nature of this increase in control over the individual. First it is compulsory, second, there is no guarantee that those paying into their respective fund will ever receive the benefits they expect. It is another form of taxation. The amount estimated to be available in the various funds by the turn of the century runs into hundreds of billions of dollars. Because of the vast amounts of money accumulating in funds some future government may be tempted to take control "for the benefit and security of the superannuants."

As funds accumulate in countries around the world it will be difficult to obtain placement for suitable and beneficial investments to ensure a return that will be satisfactory in the long term. Inflation and management fees are just two factors. Inflation may provide higher interest rates but these are negated by the increase in prices, and management fees are a direct reduction of capital. Another major factor that will eventually have an effect is the re-investment of "savings". Money paid out in salary and wages in the production of goods is a cost that is included in the price. For that price to be met, goods must be sold. Any money "saved" and re-invested in further production means that a further cost is incurred. That money can do one of two things. It can be used for the purchase of goods in the first round of production , or it can be used for purchase of goods in the second round of production. It cannot do both. Unless there is an increase in the money supply, something will go unsold. Under the current financial system all money comes into existence as an interest bearing debt, (see You and your money)and therefore the logical result will be an escalation in debt or an increase in bankruptcies, or a greater concentration of businesses into fewer and fewer hands. In other words increased control and centralisation.

YOU AND YOUR MONEY

EVERYBODY knows about money - or thinks they do whether as coins, notes, cheques or credit cards. We can't live without it. We try to save for a "rainy day" in banks or building societies; we put some by in pension funds, superannuation, or insurances for our old age. It is something of value, but there never seems quite enough.

Certainly the government never has enough. All public services paid for by the government - like health, education and defence - are strictly rationed in how much they can spend each year. So are local authorities. There's never enough to meet all the demands; never enough to keep the poor and elderly safe above the poverty line, and never enough for repairing and building houses, hospitals or roads.

Under the current financial system a federal government legally has the right to utilise the services of the central bank by issuing securities against the nation's credit. Technically this means that the amount of money available to the government is unlimited. This procedure of issuing securities to facilitate the issue of cheques by the government is the one that is usually referred to as "printing more money"

Confusion reigns over the question of what constitutes money and certainly fuel is added to the fire with the common usage of the term "printing money". Quite often one hears the remark, "Oh! they just want to print more money". The implication being that this is bad. However, money is a term that is usually accepted as meaning notes and coins, and yet in a strict sense money is a psychological thing because it is based on its acceptability no matter of what it is made. In reality, money used in our society today is printed in that it is created artificially. Using the term printed money is misleading and neither contributes to nor detracts from its (money) ability to act as money. A counterfeit note undetected by the user as such and passed from hand to hand is just as much money as a legitimate note. What distinguishes "sound" money or "good" money from "bad" money is not where it originated, but whether it is accepted as a medium of exchange. The problem with "bad" money or what those misusers call "printed" money is not that it is "printed" but that it is being produced, not in accordance with a formula showing the co-relation between Production and Consumption. It is usually the creation of credit for production in excess of consumption in any given period.

Although there is available material, labour, the technical skills and the need for many desirable projects there remains a constant shortage in the areas of hospitals, schools, housing, and other basic necessities.

All this everyone knows - so much so, hardly anyone wonders why this should be so. It is simply taken for granted...it's 'obvious' you cannot provide housing for the homeless if you cannot find the money to pay for it. Never mind the unemployed bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and architects: 'Where is the money to come from?'

So where does this money come from? Who controls the supply? Why can't we afford to do what is socially necessary and desirable - indeed what is actually physically possible? Can't we? It all depends on what we call money.

Economic production is interlocked with the distribution of money through the agency of wages, salary and dividend. The existing financial system stands or falls by the perfectly simple proposition that the production of every article distributes enough money to the general public to buy that article. The orthodox economist says it does, the Social Engineer says it does not. The Socialist complaint against so-called capitalism is that money has been distributed inequitably, that is to say, that some people, the "Capitalists", get too much, and some, the "Workers", get too little. Hence the Socialist is permanently committed to a policy of "soak the Rich". It is a primary tenet of Social Credit theory that though this inequitable distribution may exist, it is a secondary consideration to the fact that not enough money is distributed to buy the goods that are for sale, and that in consequence redistribution is not an economic remedy, whilst being a political irritant of a high order. The productive system produces goods and services, but it is the banking system that produces the money and these are two different things.

Bank Creation of Credit
Although it may be a surprise to many people to learn that banks create money 'out of thin air', it is a truth which is established beyond question by many authorities. Conformation of this central thesis is to be found in standard textbooks on economics, but few of them deal fully with the process or with its implications.

Money supply
The money supply includes both currency in the form of notes and coins and bank-created money, or, officially:

a) The monetary base, i.e., notes and coins issued by the government and held by the public as 'legal tender'.

b) Bank and building society deposits held by the public and financial institutions in varying degrees of liquidity.

The amount of (a) and (b) may vary from time to time but it can be stated that within approximate variations the amount of what is commonly thought to be the money supply by the man in the street, i.e. legal tender in the form of notes and coins is usually around 10%. The other 90% being a creation of money by the banking system.

Limitations on the money supply
There are certain controls on the expansion of money creation by the banks. One is the prudent commercial operation of the banks themselves. There exists also other controls through the use of open market operations by the central bank and the prudential Prime Assets Ratio that hovers around the 10% mark. It is sufficient, and correct to say, notwithstanding these controls that the private banking system does create approximately 90% of the nation's money supply, and not the government or the central bank. As all of this money comes into existence as loans, the net effect is that the money comes into existence as an interest-bearing debt.

In Britain, a research report published by the Economic Research Council in December 1981 noted:

'It is right that the banks should be fully recompensed for the valuable service they perform, but if we examine these more closely we would see that this is essentially book-keeping. It is misleading to describe the banks' services in financing government expenditure out of newly-created credit as 'lending'. The word should not have been used in this connection as it creates a false picture of what happens. As a result, we have allowed private institutions to usurp the right to issue our money and to make very handsome profits thereby.'

The report proceeds to spell out the honest alternative:
'As the banking system in creating this money is merely using the nation's credit by liquefying it, the right of the banks to treat such created credit as a loan and to receive payment of interest thereon is unjustifiable, and it is therefore submitted most strongly that they are not entitled to anything more than an agreed fee based on the extra work devolving upon them by the handling of these funds...'

When we consider that indebtedness to banks affects every sector of the community in every country of the world, it becomes possible to understand why 'there is never enough money' to do many things universally thought to be desirable and physically possible. The impact of bank control of money creation in the form of debt does not just lie in the burden of repayment of principal and interest. It also makes absolutely certain that there will be periodic economic crises as the levels of total debt rise inexorably as a proportion of GDP and banks recall outstanding loans or are forced to 'write them off' as bad debts. Even in periods of relative economic prosperity, the growth of debt to banks is an inescapable feature of the current financial system. Thus the current financial system will continue to ensure that you will continue to have problems about the money available to you.

There is an alternative approach to correct the basic flaw in the financial system which is of a technical nature and not possible to expand upon here. Sufficient to say that the flaw must be corrected.

Reform of the Money Supply System
The power to create money must be withdrawn from the commercial banking system. The creation of the community's money supply, must revert to an independent governmental authority - a National Credit Authority - charged with the duty of maintaining a strict relationship between the volume of money supply and volume of real wealth production, allowing for imports and exports and for capital depreciation and appreciation - thereby ensuring that there is always 'effective demand' sufficient to clear markets in each productive period. All the statistics necessary to do this are already available within the various government Statistical Bureaus.