Introducing Margrit Kennedy

No Anglo-American economist has come close to countering the scam of usury -- losery -- as has Dr. Margit Kennedy. Her empirical findings simply wipe the field of all opposition. In Germany the poorest 80% pay 1 billion Euros in interest to the richest 10% PER DAY.

Yes, that's right, one billion euros per day. That is a grand total of 365 billion euro's per year. That is one seventh of German GDP and extrapolating this to America, the poorest 80% must be paying at least a trillion a year. (Migchels)

Some good documents by Margrit Kennedy "Why Do We Need Monetary Innovation?"
http://www.margritkennedy.de/index.php?id=105&ord=56
http://www.margritkennedy.de/pdf/PRE_moneypres.pdf
http://issuu.com/margritkennedy/docs/pre_moneypres

Margrit Kennedy's website: http://www.margritkennedy.com

Margrit writes about "Complementary Currencies."

An excerpt from Margrit Kennedy's 1995 book titled: "Interest and Inflation Free Money."
http://www.margritkennedy.de/pdf/BUE_ENG_Interest.pdf

Verses on US banking history and tallies

By John "The Engineer" Turmel aka "King of the Paupers"

http://johnturmel.com/poembank.htm

The record most successful case was in the British Isle,
Where "Tallies," sticks of money, left King Henry I with smile.
Accountants in the Treasury would split the stick in two,
One half would be the money and the other half its due.

A tally worth a pound of gold to pay the King's expense,
The other half amounted to taxation that made sense.
The tax collectors through the land all had an easy way,
Since people had their tallies and enough the tax to pay.

The tallies funded projects and could pay for everything=,
With tallies matching tax, a hero, Henry I, their King.
For over 700 years, the tallies were in use,
But having lost control of money now is Crown's excuse.

Some presidents who of this Populist idea knew,
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson too.
Some brilliant scientific men were also of accord,
With Franklin. There was Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

Now look at how it works today, let's get it understood=,
Replacing wooden tallies now is paper pressed of wood.
Two notes used in America can clearly show the way,
Both legal tender now down south. They can be spent today:

"United States Note" issued by the nation's Treasury,
And "Federal Reserve Note" which is banker's currency.
Their fronts are very similar except the name they state,
Their backs are very different, it means another plate.

The Government had given banks permission to create,
A batch of brand new money to be lent at interest rate.
The Government then borrowed from them and at their request,
The Congress passed the Income Tax to pay them interest.

One Congressman objected, Louis T. McFadden, loud,
"The greatest crime in history," he said with head unbowed.
Ten dollars out, eleven back, it often takes a while,
But after years, the end result's a melancholy style.

The money from the Treasury, its use did almost cease,
To pay the interest to banks, the taxes did increase.
And when we ask "The Treasury, why is it never used?"
In answer, we get silence and an attitude bemused.

So to this day the bulk of the American supply,
Is borrowed from the banks at rates that make debts multiply.
All Government=s do service debt by taxing you and me,
Instead of letting Treasury create it interest free.

I see no reason for a tax to pay them interest,
When use of plates by Treasury would lower taxes best.
The money from the Treasury was used down south before.
The "Greenback=s" used by Lincoln paid to win the Civil War.

The "Continentals" did their job until King George did state:
"There'll be no use of your own plates, for gold you'll have to wait."
Though we've been told that their revolt was over tax for tea,
Ben Franklin said "The war's because they took our currency."

Comments below are by John "The Engineer" Turmel re:
what's happening in Wisconsin ...

JCT: Hope the protesting civil servants can wise up.
Wouldn't it be neat if they got the state to pay them with bonds and
all went back to work happy! Har har har. What an example. They did
it in Argentina. Gee, no one noticed?

Whose going to be first to do it outside Latin America where they were
led by Macho Man Governor while California was led by a Girlie Man
Governor.

Someone's going to finally do paycheck currency right, why not now?

And what about the guys who hear the Good News that they're going to
be getting interest-free loans, are argue they shouldn't.

Life Without Usury

By Peter Jon Simpson

Can there be such an economy rooted in Christian Law wherein usury and interest is a capital crime? The Dark Ages are a most misunderstood period. Voltaire said that history is the tricks that the living play on the dead. Voltaire was right. The Establishment teaches us that the Middle Ages came just after the Dark Ages. Lots of dirt, tyranny, poverty and borderline hopeless living. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The greatest displays of a nation’s wealth, its cathedrals, were built during the Middle Ages. The skilled labour used to construct the cathedrals was mostly volunteer labour. Labour was donated to the church to perfect skills, learn or upgrade new skills. How could such labour be donated? At the dawn of the age, the usurers were driven from the land. Anyone on either side of a usury contract was given thirty days to cease and desist. Failure to comply meant expulsion from the land and the denial of the right to a Christian burial. Usury dried up and blew away.

In the middle of the 19th Century, Oxford Professor of Political History, Thorold Rogers wrote of that era: “At that time a labourer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working fourteen weeks.” The other thirty-eight weeks were his to do as he pleased. Would you like to earn all of the money required to feed, shelter, clothe and recreate your family for a year by working fourteen weeks? What would you do with thirty-eight weeks of vacation per year?

Many parts of Europe were so prosperous during the Middle Ages that hundreds of communities averaged 160 to 180 holidays a year. None were bank holidays. The people worked for themselves, learned new skills, studied, went hunting or fishing, and many volunteered their skills and trades for building those magnificent cathedrals. Lord Liverhume, writing the century before Thorold Rogers said : “The men of the 15th Century were very well paid.”

Today we can still visit the remaining cathedrals if we can afford to leave our contemporary responsibilities. Cabot in his book ‘The History of the Reformation’ stated that our forbearers possessed the wealth and leisure for one hundred thousand pilgrims at a time to visit Canterbury and other cathedrals. This was in a land with one tenth today’s population. Cabot in his book ‘Rural Rides’ stated that concerning Winchester Cathedral: “That building was made when there were no poor rates, when every labouring man in England was clothed in good will and cloth and when all had plenty of meat and bread and beer.”

The people of that age re-instated God’s Law, particularly regarding economics. They neither gave usury, nor took it. There was no chain letter money and banking system. Consequently, the lands were full of spiritual and material wealth. There was a church every four square miles throughout England and thirty-five magnificent cathedrals. Externally imposed laws were at a minimum. The church, the king, the municipalities and the guilds had limited power. The Court system evolved from the church and was separate from the government.

The reason the room stood when the judge entered the court was not out of respect for the judge, it was because the judge carried the Bible onto the Bench with him. And that bible was the final arbiter of the dispute before the court. The court system, an outgrowth of the church was mostly autonomous. The church interpreted the laws. Laymen wrote pamphlets concerning economic justice. Usury was the aids of its day – economically speaking.

Today these facts are hidden from us by an evolutionary, humanistic, government-save-me establishment. The Middle Ages are often referred to as the Dark Ages. And our lives today. Instead of working three days a week and having four to ourselves, we have two pay cheque familes today, where a generation ago we only needed one pay cheque to afford our common life style. Our wives must now work so we can afford what our parents had a generation ago. We flee into alcohol, professional sports, movies and T.V. We seek to escape the pressure of our due bills. 160 to 180 holidays a year to us is a foreign a circumstance as the planet Saturn and her multi-coloured rings.

I am now convinced that if we as a people can abolish usury from our society as our forbearers did in Europe seven hundred years ago, we will leave our children and grandchildren a circumstance where they will be able to make a society that is prosperous and just, peaceful and plentiful. If we cannot as a people banish usury from our nation, we will condemn our children and grandchildren to a world of poverty and tyranny. It will be one hell of a fight where as Salomon P. Chase said: “The people will be arrayed on one side, and the banks on the other, in a contest such as we have never before seen in this country.

Our children’s future depends on our taking up this challenge and winning. I believe that fight must originate as the American Revolution 210 years ago, in our churches. We may have to educate and train our churchmen at first. This fight must be staged and it must be won. As General George Patton said: “We will go forward and meet the enemy and be victorious or let no man come back alive.” If I didn’t think this fight could be won, I wouldn’t have written my book and created this 1988 update.

Life Without Usury is transcribed from the 1988 audio cassette ‘Avoid Bank Holidays’ by Peter Jon Simpson.

NOTE: “Life Without Usury” is also posted at this website:
http://studimonetari.org/articoli/lifewithoutusury.html

UsuryFree Community Currency Defined and How Used

By Tom J. Kennedy

As more and more people complain about a shortage of Canadian dollars (federal cash) in the marketplace it is becoming clear that interest - which ought to be correctly called usury - has become problematic as we progress into this 21st Century.

The average rate of interest (usury) on credit cards issued by the giant retail corporations is 28.9 % and for may of these transnational corporations, their finance department is the most profitable arm of their business.

It is noteworthy that during 2010, more families than ever before put second and/or third mortgages on their family homes to pay off credit card debt.

The good news is that people are understanding that how we spend our money is more important than how we vote. More and more consumers are ready and willing to spend their money locally instead of continuing to spend it all with the giant transnational corporations.

In support of this shift towards shopping locally, numerous communities all across Canada (and elsewhere) are launching community currencies with a goal to re-build the spirit of community. Each of these community currencies is created by the participating traders and therefore bears ‘no interest.’ These community currencies are commonly called usuryfree community currencies since they are ‘interest free.’

A usuryfree time currency called Tamworth Hours was launched in the fall of 2004 in rural, eastern Ontario. From 21004 until 2008, Tamworth Hours were accepted by a number of home-based enterprises and various small to medium-sized businesses north of Hwy 401 and along the 401 corridor from as far east as Montreal extending as far west as Kitchener-Waterloo.

In 2006, a usuryfree dollar currency was launched in rural Ontario west of Ottawa and north of Hwy 7. This local currency is referred to as The Unity and is traded within a growing network of small to medium-sized businesses in Bancroft, Maynooth, Barry’s Bay, Combermere, Killaloe, Golden Lake, Eganville and other small towns in the Ottawa and Madawaska Valley.

Tamworth Hours was a time-based local currency and The Unity was a dollar-based local currency. The traders enroled in both groups used these paper notes in their respective communities. Additionally, there was evidence of inter-group trading whereby each other’s paper notes of usuryfree community currency are accepted at par. Most trades were negotiated with a percentage of usuryfree community currency being accepted as a complement with Canadian Funds. Business owners learned to cover their wholesale cost with Canadian Funds and accept a portion of the retail mark-up in the community currency of their choice.

Many people refer to these paper notes of usuryfree community currency as: barter notes, gift certificates, coupons, paper chits, time tokens or dollar tokens, and ‘just like Canadian Tire money.’

It is interesting to note that in 2002, officials/authorities speaking on behalf of the federal government’s Bank of Canada carefully crafted the words ‘gift certificate’ to define the new community currency that had just been launched at Salt Spring Island at that time.

In an article on page 4, of the National Post, Tuesday, April 4, 2002, Denis Abbott, spokesman for the Bank of Canada made the following statements: “There appears to be an increasing number of groups and companies issuing their own private currency, Canadian Tire money is best known. As long as these groups don’t use Bank of Canada artwork or our logos of the prime ministers and things like that, there is typically not a problem. In the eyes of the government, the island (Salt Spring Island) money is merely a gift certificate and not currency.”

In recent years, ‘gift certificates’ have become one of the most popular ways of accepted gift giving for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas and other celebrated holidays. It seems reasonable that most people who spend ‘gift certificates’ treat them just like Canadian dollars which are defined as ‘currency.’ Therefore, it is quite acceptable that some people like to refer to usuryfree community currency as ‘gift certificates.’

Regardless, of the reluctance of any level of government to yet correctly define a usuryfree community currency as ‘real capital,’ it is prudent for all traders within the usuryfree community currency movement to know that any usuryfree community currency is real and spendable locally - and beyond local boundaries.

Traders with the usuryfree community currency movement often view the various paper notes as simple tokens (time or dollars) to be used as a complement with their federal cash when making purchases of products and/or services. A government bulletin issued in the late 1980's instructs business owners to treat any usuryfree community currency like federal cash and pay the appropriate taxes. It has often been said: “Whatever you can do with cash, you can do with usuryfree community currency.” It is obvious to any astute thinker why there is a government agenda to take away our paper notes of federal cash and make us subservient to debit cards and credit cards. Think about it.

To simplify the process, many business owners are balancing their tills at the end of the day by removing any usuryfree community currency and replacing it with an equivalent amount of federal cash from the petty cash float. This action allows the business owners to close the till without any complications. At a later time they spend the usuryfree community currency locally by finding products and/or services listed in the various Directories.

Some farmers in rural Ontario prefer to call this usuryfree community currency ‘barter money.’ They simply view these paper notes of usuryfree community currency as a useful tool to help them keep track of their ongoing barter deals. Farmers seem to catch on real quick to the idea of embracing any usuryfree community currency as a ‘barter money’ to help them keep track of their trading scores.

A few home-based business entrepreneurs like to use the paper notes of usuryfree community currency as coupons. These creative entrepreneurs realize that when treated as coupons there is an added savings/earnings value. The amount of any coupon is deducted from the suggested retail price before any taxes are calculated and added to the final bill. Indeed, the final bill can be lessened when any usuryfree community currency is treated like a coupon. Bravo for such creativity

The most common response received when a new enrolee learns about any usuryfree community currency is: “They are just like Canadian Tire money.” People don’t need to be told how to spend Canadian Tire money, neither do thrifty, local traders need to be told how to use any usuryfree community currency.

While Canadian Tire money is supposedly only spendable at Canadian Tires stores it is interesting to note that it is often accepted at gas bars, corner stores, garage sales and within community currency groups. It is likewise noteworthy that there is currently underway a mission to replace the paper notes of Canadian Tire money with ‘electronic bleeps’ on a plastic card - which are not transferable.

It is recommended that any new and innovative, networking entrepreneurs of this 21st Century carefully examine how they can adapt the usuryfree community currency model and apply it to any sales and marketing concept whereby commissions are paid to networks of distributors or associates. It would be optimal if dual accounts (a cash account and a usuryfree community currency account) could be established within an online database whereby listings of ‘offers’ and ‘requests’ of all participants would be displayed.

Any currency that can be looped from the company source to the distributors and back again and all who participate will win - simply because the banker (which exacts usury) will be cut out of the equation. The first networking company to implement this idea will lead the way and other companies will beat a path to their door asking: “What are you doing and how are you doing it?”

For example, when a product is sold a small percentage of usuryfree community currency can be accepted as payment and when the commissions as paid a similar amount of usuryfree community currency can be paid as commission.

Experience in the free market reveals that one hour of time worked by a professional is deemed to be of a higher value than one hour of time worked by an unskilled labourer. Therefore, in the interest of fairness, each trader using a time-based currency such as Tamworth Hours is invited to set his/her hourly rate based on the free market and negotiate any ratio of time-currency and federal cash accordingly for each exchange.

Since the federal government counsels us to treat our usuryfree community currency like federal cash when we earn it, we insist that the government treats it like federal cash when we donate it to any charity. So any time that a usuryfree community currency is donated to a charitable organization, a receipt should be requested which can be filed as a deduction against any income earned.

Likewise, when any usuryfree community currency is donated to a political party, a receipt should be requested and filed as a tax credit against any income earned.

In further reference to politics, it is recommended that municipal politicians examine closely the various working models of usuryfree community currency and design a plan whereby the municipality will agree to accept a small portion of any usuryfree time currency as partial payment of municipal property taxes. This recommendation can be easily implemented as each municipality has contracts with local businesses and has local employees. As long as the municipality can spend the usuryfree time currency, it can be accepted as partial payment of property taxes. Again, all who participate will win, except the bank.

In summary, it is recommended that each trader enroled with any usuryfree community currency group become fully aware of the various possible definitions assigned to any usuryfree community currency. Consequently, any trader can apply any given definition for any specific negotiated trade and exchange. Feedback, testimonials and new ideas welcomed.

Note: Forward any feedback, testimonials and new ideas to: tom@cyberclass.net

The Reeve Of Stone Mills Faced With Rising Costs ...

NOTE: The content of this poem - originally created by John "The Engineer" Turmel can be adapted to suit any municipality. I have chosen to adapt it to suit Stone Mills Township - the rural township of my hometown.

The Reeve Of Stone Mills Faced With Rising Costs ...
(adapted from John Turmel's original: 'A Mayor Faced With Rising Costs'...) http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/pomlizas.htm

The Reeve of Stone Mills faced with rising costs and shrinking revenues,
To study any proposition, he would likely not refuse.
So many think the job of being Reeve is such a snap,
But the decisions that he is faced with are an ugly trap.

With tools, materials and trades that cover total range,
Yet one ingredient is lacking, money to exchange.
If snowstorm hits Stone Mills and there are no funds to pay,
What does his council have to do to clear the snow away?

They pledge a huge dollar bond to commercial banks to get the cash,
With which they pay the skillful men who clear the snow in a flash.
The merchants gladly take the funds for soon they have to pay,
The taxes for the snow removal that was done on that day.

But though a great sum of principal was spent, they must request,
That citizens be taxed for the principal plus the interest.
To budget who gets scarce resources isn't ever fun,
But interest on any township debt is always number one.

Whatever rate the bankers set is due amount they pay,
Unhappily, which projects live or die is our only say.
But if it's true and local currency serves as well as locals tell:
Why shouldn't municipal government be one to try it out as well?

When another snowstorm hits without the funds to pay,
Why not test to see if Tamworth Hours are a better way.
This time we could pledge the total bond to Treasury instead,
And see if use of Tamworth Hours will get us very much ahead.

The merchant should accept Tamworth Hours as another way,
His taxes needed for the snow removal, he can pay.
Again the Reeve will spend the equal sum but the tax to be assessed,
Will include only principal without the interest.

Before the budget allocations are completely spent,
Could Tamworth Hours help reverse project abandonment?
If council members for their tax took part of pay in Tamworth Hours,
There'd have some cash left over which indeed would be ours.

If the municipality took some Tamworth Hours for property taxes due,
The extra cash would guarantee that extra jobs ensue.
Tamworth Hours could be offered to fix a pothole to a local company,
Wishing to pay their tax with unemployed capacity.

With Tamworth Hours road repairs could be financed and all would gladly take,
Tamworth Hours from the working men so payment all could make;
And we could build our local infrastructure and all would take as pay,
Tamworth Hours to buy local products and services they purvey.

Today, in our society, where money clearly lacks,
Who could refuse some paper anyone may use for tax?
Tamworth Hour paychecks could be earned by all desiring work,
The opportunity to pull their weight so few would shirk.

With local currency the unemployed in the township will save the day,
Without it they will idly sit and die their lives away.
And best of all, the Tamworth Hours would help to save environment,
A way to pay to save our lives and make us affluent.

The only question left is how the municipal tax should be assessed,
For goods and services? A simple formula to test.
For services, the Reeve would levy a property tax at end of every year.
For assets, a tax to pay depreciation. It's so clear.

The municipal government that spent the most and had the fairest tax,
Would be the municipal government providing citizens the max.