Abolish Interest Rates
>Date: Tue Dec 15 14:55:49 1998
>From: xkevinsm@ti.com (Kevin Smith)
>Subject: Abolish interest rates.
>To: johnturmel@yahoo.com
>John,
>I read with interest your posting on USENET about the money supply
>and sought out your webpage. I think your heart's in the right
>place with respect to some of the issues you address in your party's
>platform, but I disagree with some of your reasoning and conclusions.
>Your contention that $500 for every man, woman, and child goes to
>the expense of maintaining plates at banks sounds rather far-fetched.
>I don't know how big Canada's annual budget is, but $180 thousand
>million ($180 billion in US lingo, correct?) would amount to 20% of
>the US federal budget. Where do you get this number? How does this
>contrast to say, the defense budget, or national health care?
JCT: In 1997, the Fraser Institute estimated that total debt
service by all levels of governments was $180 billion per year.
Divided by 30 million citizens, that's $6,000 per year in debt service
per person or $500 per month.
That's not all the worst of it. They also estimated that the
total personal and commercial debt service was another $140 billion
for a grand total of $320 billion spent on debt service by Canadians.
That's $10,666 per citizen per year or almost $900 per month.
I know it's amazing but the amount of money spent on servicing
interest on debt dwarfs all other expenditures and I'm sure it's the
same for the United States.
>Furthermore, what is the purpose of the money that is spent in this
>fashion?
JCT: I think I've explained it best in part of my poem in
http://turmelpress.com/pomlizas.htm:
When you were little, did you ever dream of printing cash?
Of filling up your wallet with some money in a flash?
Creating money accurately means TO HAVE THE PLATES,
The stamping of some paper into notes best demonstrates;
Or stamping metal into coins; or blips computerized,
Into your bank account deposits, checks now authorized.
So whether paper, metal, volts of electricity,
TO HAVE THE PLATES is printing money absolutely free.
Now if you printed to spend, the others would bewail,
They'd call it counterfeiting and send you off to jail.
But what if Crown would let you merely print it up to lend?
With only what you could collect in interest to spend?
If you could print and lend a thousand out at ten percent,
You'd make a hundred interest on printing that you lent.
But if you could print up and lend a million out you'd get,
An extra hundred thousand dollars for your fee on debt!
If Crown stops using its own money plates and comes to you,
A billion printed nets a hundred million revenue!!
With everybody being taxed to pay you interest,
Of all the scams in history, TO HAVE THE PLATES is best!!!
Though never spending, only lending, riches do await,
To all who with the plates become the loan-sharks to the state.
And though to join the few who thusly profit, one might dream,
Wake up to see we're all the victims of their greedy scheme.
While Crowns of old had ruled that "Treasury run money plates,"
Without the interest to middle-men at rip-off rates,
Today most governments to banking industry have lost,
Control of money plates so interest is now a cost.
To service debt in ninety four, Canada's request,
A hundred'n eighty billion dollars paid in interest.
We're taxed over five hundred dollars each per month to pay,
For interest to holders of our plates they gave away!!!
We now see the unjustly cost that makes our tax inflate,
And only usury is what we must eliminate.
We Abolitionists would get the plates back from the banks,
Have Treasury create the money for printing charge and thanks.
The interest we save could be split up I recommend,
For each to get five hundred dollars monthly dividend,
As if you owned a share in the incorporated state,
An income guaranteed for life, no question, no debate.
JCT: So without changing anything other than the installing LETS
at the bank's central computer and eliminating the interest debt
service, the money that tax us to pay debt service can be returned to
all citizens as a dividend.
Or if you are a Social Crediter, you wouldn't let them tax you
that money in the first place.
>Is it your claim that interest is somehow immoral?
JCT: Bhudda, Old Testament saints, Jesus Christ and Mohammed all
claim that taking from the poor to give to the rich is immoral and who
am I to disagree with them.
>If so, is it only immoral when practiced by a big bank, or under any
>circumstances? Why is it not the right of the "saver" to be
>compensated for the purchases *he has forgone* by the charging of
>interest from those who would like to use his money to try and
>create some wealth of their own?
JCT: Rockefeller and Rothschild cannot forego consumption of the
billions they lend out so why should they be recompensed for foregoing
consumption they cannot consume?
See my earlier posts titled "Christ said "Do not lend at
interest" and you'll see that helping your neighbor create some wealth
of his own permits him not only to pay you back but also be in the
position to lend to you interest-free should you ever be in need. See
Paul Corr II 8:14. That kind of security is all the recompense I would
ever need.
>Certainly you can't be serious when you say that, "...if
>you are borrowing money for a house, interest is unnecessary if it
>is insured because the house isn't going to walk away...". Fine.
JCT: If it's fine for a house, then I'm serious. And serious
about all loans for the recompense of security stated above.
>What if there is a real estate downturn and the house becomes worth
>less on the market than when it was moved into? Since the homeowner
>may default on his loan, isn't the bank entitled to collect interest
>in return for assuming this risk?
JCT: Once there is no interest, there will be very small
changes in value and if someone defaults on the loan, the house didn't
disappear. The collateral is still there. And besides, we only ask
that they pay enough to cover the depreciation of the asset, something
quite easily done when all payments go against principal and not
interest.
>I personally like the idea of local currencies because I don't want
>to see the government controlling the money supply. But even in a
>completely privatised economy I would expect that banks would charge
>interest for loans and pay interest to depositors.
JCT: LETS bankers are paid via service charges with no problems.
And depositors not only receive the security of their neighbors
success but also do not suffer inflation but rather enjoy increased
buying power of their money.
While most people have been deluded into seeking interest in the
chase for more money to buy their goods, not seeking interest allows
for more goods bought with the same money.
The best way to understand reverse-inflation or appreciate with
LETS is by considering LETS Hours. If you spend an hour producing a
pair of shoes for a youngster in exchange for his 1 Hour promissory
note, in 20 years when you wish to purchase a pair of shoes from the
youngster who has come on line, his 1 Hour note will buy you three
pairs of shoes because of his improved technology.
Doesn't it make sense that as technology improves, the standard
of living should improve. And yet, though our parents could afford to
buy a home and raise 8 kids, most people can't afford a home or to
raise kids anymore. The error is in the delusion that people should
demand more money for their food, rather than more food for their
money. It's the reason I pity all those poor unions who, led by their
economists, demand more money year after year and never end up ahead.
>Interest is the oil that ensures money gets to where it's needed,
>when it's needed.
JCT: LETS bankers manage quite trivialy to ensure that money gets
to where it's needed when it's needed without using interest.
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