Banking and Wealth // Based on Humaneness
by Bob Riley

As a preface - money at its root only represents a consensus of value - it need not be pegged to Gold or Petrodollars or anything else.  Eventually, there needs to be international standards related to some central definition and exchange value of dollars, Euros, Deutschmarks, Francs, etc., that would be fair to wealthy and poor nations alike when it comes to international trade and transactions.  We need to STOP operating on the "scarcity" principal which comes from interest-based systems and private ownership of natural resources (precious metals, minerals, etc.), since natural resources, in any ultimate sense, are given in the Creation for the common good and NOT as tools for private accumulation of wealth.

We need to move ASAP to a Federal Banking System (a part of our government) as a COMPLEMENT to the Federal Reserve Bank (the latter, as you know, being owned by a consortium of giant private banks, if I understand Ellen Brown correctly).  That Federal System will generate FEDERAL currency and fiat money and will initially be pegged to the value of the present Federal Reserve dollar in physical and fiat (electronic transactions and book entries) form. 

After the Federal Banking System is in operation, no more currency (Federal Reserve Notes) may be issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.  All public (local and state) banks and governmental institutions will borrow their money ONLY from the new Federal Banking system.  Private banks and businesses may borrow from EITHER the Federal Banking System or the Federal Reserve Bank, the latter still to be operating under the direction of the Federal Government for the common good.  Services for the elderly can be funded by direct grants, so that no one needs fear being left penniless in his/her old age.

The Federal Banking system will, at the least, issue all funds needed for public projects (infrastructure, green technology, etc.) and all social services.   The Federal Banking System will also, over a long period of time, issue the fiat money needed to pay off the national debt to the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank and all other Federal obligations to the nation's creditors (China, foreign investors, Treasury Bonds and Bills, etc.).  This will solve the interest-based, private bank money origination, present problem where we "can't afford" to develop green technology, provide healthcare to all U.S. residents, provide foreign aid, build mass transit systems, build low-income housing, etc.

Again, money has no intrinsic value - it only serves as a means of exchange for the good of society.  Natural resources, however, DO have intrinsic value (water, air, minerals, etc.) and therefore can NOT be owned by private parties or any form of government, from the local to the national to the global level.  However, in order for us to be able to achieve a globally sustainable way of life, there will have to be regulations developed at ALL levels concerning the amount of natural resources that can be consumed by any private individual or family or business or governmental body, and for what purposes.  If you think about it, this is an essential principle for the global family to achieve a fair/just and sustainable way of life.

Thus a rich family may NOT build a house that requires an excessive use of natural resources (wood, steel, natural gas), regardless of how much money the family has access to.  Violation of such standards of use would bring swift and severe criminal prosecution of all parties involved in such excessive use.  Thus all construction, subsequent heating and gas use, etc., will have to be closely regulated.  The same standards would apply to proposed development and manufacture of new products - such products would have to be reviewed by an appropriate level (local, state, federal, global) of public interest team which would have to look at public need vs resource value and abundance or shortage, etc.  Our economy can no longer afford to be driven by "blind market forces" which somehow end up benefiting the wealthy disproportionately and hurting the poor.