Time for Public Owned Banks has Come

I received the following forwarded message from Ellen Brown of the 

http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/ in a discussion group about public Banking

I believe that Public Banking is the answer to removing the hands of Internationale Corporate Banking from the throats of taxpayers on the National, State, and Local levels. I wanted to share it with you on my Blog.  It is time to stop paying the Bankers for doing what we can do for ourselves. 

William Hodge

from:		Ellen Brown ellenhbrown@gmail.com
reply-to:		public-banking@googlegroups.com

                                                                                                                         

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Stivers <jwstivers1@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 12:20 PM
Subject: the circus has come to town

My latest article: http://jamesstivers.com/circus.pdf

The website has been updated in general to reflect my change in political affiliation.

The Circus has come to Town

As of this writing (February 21, 2012), Idaho has joined the nation in Presidential politics. For many years, Idaho's primary system decided its partisan races at the end of May, including that of Presidential nominees. Usually, that made Idaho's 32 Republican delegates irrelevant because, by then, the nominee had already been decided for all practical purposes.
This year, with changes to a caucus nominating process to be held in March, Idaho joins the madness of "Super Tuesday" and the flurry of candidates flying in and out of the state wooing voters. It is a spectacle that folks in the back country are not used to seeing.
Unfortunately, it is also distracting citizens from state business. Idaho has a citizens legislature that meets during the winter months. The March 6th Presidential event comes in the middle of the session and competes for the attention that voters should be giving to consider important legislation.
One such proposed legislation is Rep. Brian Cronin's (D - Boise) bill to study a state bank (HCR030). This bill proposes to form a commission to study the state bank of North Dakota and see if the idea would work here in Idaho.
When I ran for the state senate in 2010, I made an Idaho State Bank the centerpiece of my campaign. I believe there is no more important legislation than this one for the future of Idaho.
Regrettably, Republicans have not shown interest in this idea. In some respects, they have been hostile to it. During my campaign, I suffered attacks from my Republican colleagues for flirting with socialism. The general consensus was that state government should not be in the banking business. Ron Paul Republicans who have now come to dominate the Party in the state evidenced even greater hostility.
In spite of the fact that the state Republican Platform calls for monetary reform and eliminating the Federal Reserve System, somehow, Ron Paul Republicans fail to see how an Idaho State Bank would be an important step toward that goal. Nature hates a vacuum and so does money and the notion that we can abolish the Federal Reserve and not end up with a de facto substitute is immensely naive. Government entities need places to put their tax receipts. As soon as they put them into a private bank, a new system will be created by default. Wouldn't the citizens of this state be better served if that bank was owned and controlled by the people rather than stockholders out to make a profit?
Actually, many Ron Paul Republicans do support the state bank concept. I discovered that when I polled the members of the Campaign for Liberty in 2009. It is really a vocal minority within the party that uses scare tactics and name-calling to discredit the proposal. Unfortunately, that vocal minority has control of the party and there seems to be no hope in sight. It appears that no faction within the Republican Party will come to the aid of this bill.
Now that the Idaho Bankers Association has begun organizing an opposition to this bill, it appears stalled in committee. Ron Paul Republicans are mesmerized by the election process; not a single discussion on state legislation has appeared on their Internet forum groups. I tried to bring this bill up for discussion and got token nods from a handful of old friends.
In contrast, Idaho Democrats have embraced the state bank proposition and are pushing forward with it. Ironically, it was the liberal Democrats in Congress who included Ron Paul's "Audit the Fed" bill into their larger package of banking reform - and then passed it. It appears that Idaho Democrats would follow the same course were it not that there are so few of them. Democrats comprise a mere 15% of the legislature.
The Republicans have complete control of the state and all they seem to be concerned about is contraception, evicting Occupy Boise and other inanities. I suppose if we want a state bank in Idaho, forward-thinking Republicans and Independents will have to switch to the Democrat Party and change the representation in the Legislature.
That is what I am doing.
-- James Stivers

Taxes and Basic Income

"Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?" - Sheldon Adelson, net worth $21.5 billion USD (2011) 

There is no good reason why anyone should pay
a higher Tax Rate than others. After the Community has provided every person with sufficient food, serviceable shelter,  medical care, and free access to education that teach all skills necessary to prepare a person according to his ability and desire to express his contribution to living, a flat tax rate will be fair to all.

If the essentials of life are not guaranteed, it is necessary to make sure that we do not create a Social division of wealth so great that we end up with a society of Noblemen and Serfs. That is the major reason for progressive taxes. 

In the age Debt Currency, taxes are not levied to fund the activities of Government. They only serve to control the amount of currency in circulation to prevent an imbalance between enough to operate the economy at maximum efficiency and too much that will lead to inflation. 

The operations are actually funded by creating money through borrowing and spending it into the economy to achieve the Public Good that is mandated for Government to do. That is the real reason that we have had a growing debt for most of the Nations history. As the Economy needs more money to function it is created by debt. Money = Debt. Taxes remove money that is not needed.

The problem is that we have done it poorly. Banks control Debt and they find it useful to expand rapidly and then contract rapidly in order to create opportunity to convert Monetary wealth accumulated through interest into real wealthy by foreclosing on Debt collateral. We need to remove Debt creation from Banks and place it in the hands of Government.

Copyright © William Hodge 2012