Money is not the goal, money has no value. The value comes from the dreams money helps achieve.

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Goldman Sachs Doesn’t Have Clean Hands in Greece Crisis

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 30, 2015

Tens of Thousands Protest in Front of the Greek Parliament Against Austerity Plan for Greece, Evening of June 29, 2015

Are Goldman Sachs executives Lloyd Blankfein, Gary Cohn and Addy Loudiadis losing any sleep over elderly pensioners waiting outside shuttered banks in Greece, desperately trying to obtain their pension checks to pay their rent and buy food? Are these Goldman honchos feeling a small pang of conscience over the humiliation by creditors of this once proud country? Perhaps Blankfein, who famously espoused that he’s “doing God’s work” might shed a tear or two for the small child clinging to her elderly Grandmother’s hand as she searches in Athens for an ATM that will give her $66 from her bank account – the maximum allowed per day under the newly imposed capital controls.

According to investigative reports that appeared in Der Spiegel, the New York Times, BBC, and Bloomberg News from 2010 through 2012, Blankfein, now Goldman Sachs CEO, Cohn, now President and COO, and Loudiadis, a Managing Director, all played a role in structuring complex derivative deals with Greece which accomplished two things: they allowed Greece to hide the true extent of its debt and they ended up almost doubling the amount of debt Greece owed under the dubious derivative deals.

Why is this Dutch city giving residents free money?

Starting this fall, the Dutch city of Utrecht will begin an ambitious yearlong experiment: giving monthly checks to numerous people already on welfare, no strings attached.

The concept is known as a basic income.

It affords citizens a standard amount of money to cover expenses, ranging from major health costs to quick trips to the grocery store, on top of their other sources of revenue.

Richard Nixon gave a similar idea a try in the 1960s. A decade later, Canadaconducted its own experiment. And in 2016, Switzerland is slated to hold a referendum on implementing basic income.

A Comparative Chronology of Money

http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/amser/chrono.html

Democracy Realized

We must have a new pursuit of Democracyin the market places instead of the capitols of the world. DEEP IN THE MORES of man has ever been the ideal of liberty and, linked with it, the social consciousness of equality of opportunity, or democracy. Democracy, the agent, would secure liberty, the ideal. How to implement democracy has been the problem of the centuries. The implementation thus far has been political, and the method has been the consent of the governed. Obviously, unanimous consent cannot be hoped for, so recourse is had to the will of the majority. The rule of the majority is therefore the highest ideal conceivable in the political sphere. This leaves, at best, a tyranny over the minority. Is such an ideal worth striving for? There is no choice on the political plane. We must either accept this ideal or turn from the political implementation of democracy to another. Fortunately, there is now the hope of economic democracy through a true monetary system that will realize the dream of democracy. Money can be the perfect register of desire and appraiser of satisfactions. It is the means of keeping man ever attuned to his fellow man. It is a court of arbitration whereunder differences may be easily adjusted. It can be the steady uplifter of the social order. It can be the minimizer of taxation and political intrusions. It can be the preserver of peace. It can dissolve the bounds of social strata. It can make competition perfected cooperation. It can provide security. It can make every voter win the election. It

Ignorance of Money

WRITING to Thomas Jefferson in 1787, John Adams said, "All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." Downright ignorance is the proper term, and it still abides with us. It applies to our academies, our counting houses, our legislatures, and the man in the street. We do not know what money is, what its virtues or vices spring from, what are the natural laws governing it, nor its influence in determining the trend of a people toward democracy or dictatorship. 

Two forces are now pressing for its solution. One is the increasing specialization of labor, which requires man to make more exchanges in ratio as he reduces his selfsufficiency. In other words, the more man reduces his part in the production of the whole product, the more exchanges are necessary and hence the greater use of money. The other force making the solution of the money problem imperative is the growth of dictatorship and the contraction of democracy in ratio as governments exert the money issuing power. 

The Credit Theory of Money

By A. Mitchell Innes

From The Banking Law Journal, Vol. 31 (1914), Dec./Jan., Pages 151-168.

[Editor's Note. – So much has been written on the subject of "money" that a scientific Writer like Mr. Innes is often misunderstood. Many economists and college professors have differed with the statements made in his first paper, but it seems that none were able to disprove his position. Following this number there will appear a symposium of criticisms and replies to the first paper, and we cordially invite criticisms and replica to this his second paper.]

The article which appeared in the May, 1913, number of this JOURNAL under the title "What is Money?" was a summary exposition of the Credit Theory of money, as opposed to the Metallic Theory which has hitherto been held by nearly all historians and has formed the basis of the teaching of practically all economists on the subject of money.

Up to the time of Adam Smith, not only was money identified with the precious metals, but it was popularly held that they formed the only real wealth; and though it must not be thought that the popular delusion was held by all serious thinkers, still, to Adam Smith belongs the credit of having finally and for all time established the principle that wealth does not reside in precious metals.