It's TIME to rebuild.

In the time of the famine the potato was blighted. That was a small problem that became catastrophic due to our over reliance on the very same potato. Today our money system is equally blighted. Again it is a problem that has become catastrophic due to our complete over reliance on cash in our society.

All talk of bond burning, debt restructuring, interest rate reductions etc.. is a massive waste of energy. It is trying to root out the blight from the crop. That is not going to solve the long term problem; namely that modern society provides no security for people, save for those who can guarantee they can get their hands on this fascinating resource that is money, whenever or wherever they so wish. Even our sovereign government is proving that it cannot guarantee this.

What we need is simple Project management and for us all to get working at de-leveraging the power of cash. We need to diversify, as we should have done pre- famine.

Our current Monetary system is highly dysfunctional. All governments have relinquished their sovereign rights to print their own money and instead allow PRIVATE central banks to issue and sell them their national currencies. This evolved with the Bank of England in 1694 and extends right through today, including the Irish central bank (in the past), ECB, FED etc...in fact all but 4 countries worldwide.

When selling this money to local banks as loans (like Anglo/AIB/BOI etc..) or to governments, these central banks DO NOT CREATE the interest payable money on the loans. They only create the principal, i.e. if they create 1million Euros of a loan, they only create that sum and not the hundreds of thousands of Euro of interest due on it. Hence their ultimate customers, mortgage holders/businesses/governments are always striving/fighting/competing for scarce money to repay both the principal AND interest. While the principal on our loans does exist in society and since the interest does not, then it is only possible to find this elusive interest when others also take out loans. This is a RIGGED game. Everyone has to be in debt, always. It is a system that is designed to foreclose on the entire world. It has taken over 200 years to reach the point where this is starting to happen, but start to happen it has. The middle class worldwide is being wiped out, resulting in an ever unfolding stark future, i.e. a permanent working poor class and an elite, all ruling financial class. The more time that passes the more this future is taking hold.
All of this is a Ponzi scheme of such blatancy that we can't even see it. The house always wins, we always lose. Remember "WE", is not just me and you, but our governments and our businesses. And once again these are PRIVATELY owned central banks that are issuing our money.

Our current highly toxic worldwide situation is as a direct result of this. It worked ok while the population of the world was rising rapidly, as during the 20th century. The worldwide population quadrupled from 1900 to 2000 resulting in an average GDP rise of 4% per country. However from 2000-2100 the world population is only set to rise by 50%. Therefore simple maths (One eight of 4%) yields a GDP rise per annum of only 0.5%. Simply put we will never find the money to repay today’s debts, and never will. The rate of money creation has slowed down and the elephant in the room is coming into focus, i.e. that all the money created in the past 100 years plus was not issued into society with an equal release of the interest owed on the monies. This is why our efforts in Ireland to grow our way out of our problems through exports, while a noble concept, is very naive. The current financial system will not allow this to happen. No export boom will save us.

These central banks know the Ponzi scheme has finally collapsed and hence the reason there is a credit crunch that is so prolonged: a) they know there isn't enough cash to pay off the debts and b) vast swathes of cash have been sucked out of the system (by them) and transferred into precious metal assets etc., since they knew this debt crisis cannot be solved. All because there is not enough money created (by them) to pay it and not enough future people to work to pay it off.They have had our number for too long. We need solutions among ourselves. We need to take the power away from them.

Solution 1:
Outlaw private central banks. Since we are only concerned with Ireland in this discourse, establish an Irish sovereign controlled public central bank. Create money and if it continues to charge interest - see below, as we may not need to charge interest - then make sure the interest money is also created with the principal when loans are issued in the future. This will lead to a massive reduction in stress trying to find interest elsewhere, depending on others to borrow, to then fight them for this money in our current model.

Solution 2:
Build the infrastructure to de-leverage the power of cash. A great public works so to speak, to regain full employment. If a black swan event hit our lives tomorrow, like ATM's not dispensing cash, we have to ask ourselves what are the essentials that we need, that should be decoupled from needing cash to provide them. My answer would be,
A) Food
B) Water
C) Home Energy

Outside of them we do not need anything else in an emergency. Sure, individuals need medicines etc. but the typical person just needs those 3 things as basic necessities. Build those into our lives and provide them free to people. Yes free, but free as in we do not need cash to obtain them. This gives a huge baseline of security in our lives. Remember as consumers we have come from using pen and paper 50 years ago to nano technology today. Yet we still live in a society where even the basics can only be obtained by having this so called precious resource called money.

A) Build local community permaculture and aqua phonics solutions (high yield providers of quality organic food from small footprints) to provide food at a community level of 200 people or so. Let a few people work there and their "wages" paid from a mutual credit system with their neighbours, i.e. a sharing of services and resources. Alternatively, all adults could donate 2-3 hours per week to help cultivate food and therefore not need to purchase it with cash. This is very practical, even in cities.
B) Build water infrastructure. Scrap plans to introduce water charges (more taxes = longer working life = needing more cash) and to pump water from the Shannon to Dublin(madness!). Instead employ thousands of unemployed construction workers to install rainwater harvesting devices from roofs, to capture brown water. Also drill wells in housing estates etc. to always ensure fresh water is available, again without needing ongoing cash or taxes to purchase.
C) Energy. Example: Build something like Spirit of Ireland project as a national project. Do not let CRH or private companies profit from it. Nationalise untapped quarries etc. and create concrete at cost. Build the wind turbines in Ireland, but again not in private hands. This renewable project could be achieved at a cost of circa 10billion, providing free electricity for ever more to Irish people. Why Not? (Of course any consumption over an agreed standard would have to be paid for in some way).

If every citizen of this country had the security above it would mean that over 50% of pensioners and unemployed peoples welfare cheques could be met FREE from cash needs. That means we now don't need to pay them as much cash, something that is devaluing by the minute anyway. We could potentially save 10 billion per year on our welfare bill of 20 billion. Similarly a percentage in the public sector would not choose to work 40 hours per week if they had security like above. Hence we would also see a massive saving in annual public sector wage bills.

So for a modest outlay as a percentage of our current public expenditure we could secure all the people of Ireland with a massive public works scheme to give free energy, water and food into perpetuity. TAKING the power away from cash and putting real security into people’s hands. Diversifying from those rotten spuds!

Solution 3:
As mentioned let government issue its own money. It could greatly reduce, if not eliminate, income tax, vat etc... by choosing to charge interest on the money it sells to its citizens. Alternatively, it could keep some taxes and decide to issue money free from interest payable. There are so many options here as unnecessary government debt to outsiders (private central banks) will be eliminated.

Solution 4:
People can explore the infinite potential of mutual credit systems once they know they have food , water and energy security. Their work lives will greatly reduce in formal taxable employment but will greatly increase in supporting each other in the local community. e.g. plumber fixing a heating system for an accountant (one guys account credits, one guys debits, with no cash transactions) , who then both go and trade elsewhere. An infinite loop of work, services and goods that can circulate free from the need to obtain cash to partake.
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Of course the big question is what of the current debt legacy. Well as mentioned this is mainly owed to private individuals in central banks. They have got enough to date over the centuries. Their time is up. All interest should be cancelled on debt and a VERY hard deal done on the principal in our new currency. As for all the private pension funds etc. that are invested in government/bank debt, well some of that commitment should also be transferred into our new national currency, but again if we provide real solutions like the infrastructure above these future retirement funds will not be needed as much as before. Therefore people will accept a hit knowing life is becoming more secure.

As for mortgage debt, well again it should be transferred into the new currency but free of interest, and made payable to our government, possibly in lieu of taxes. Again there are many creative options available to us.

There is an infinite supply of goods, services and work needing to be completed in this world. What is in restriction is man made currencies. We need to completely change the game. Money should not restrict our lives. It is simply a logistical problem that could get addressed in a matter of months. We are meant to live in abundance, not restriction. Money is not our God, we simply have allowed a few people to convince us that it is.

As for the argument that we cannot possibly issue our own currency to clear our debts, as it will lead to hyper-inflation etc. Well that would be true if we allowed our private central bank to do so. You see it is not the printing of money that creates hyper inflation. It is when the banks use that new surge of money to then leverage out even more debt to society that causes the inflation. Remember they roughly loan out at least ten times the money then have on deposit. Once a careful management of the control of new government money ensues, as in money created by government has to be used to build national infrastructure like above and pay wages etc. then we will not see hyper inflation by clearing our debts and resetting our economy on to a truly sustainable footing.

Our current plans for a smart economy in this country require others to get in debt elsewhere, i.e. we wish to become leaders in technology etc., but for that to happen we need consumers elsewhere. Those consumers will have to work ever harder to purchase our products. Remember we are facing a population peak, hence IT IS NOT smart to build our future economic prosperity on consumption industries. What is a smart economy though is one that meets the basic needs of its people in perpetuity, free from the unsustainable need to obtain ever more deflating cash resources. We can have that with simple project management and planning.

Now for the crux. No politician or current institution will do this for us. The only ones who can force this change are us ourselves. That is our challenge. To realise we are the ones we have been waiting for. The question is will we realise it. Grass root movements have to start, to force the change. Mutual credit systems are ideal in that case, as they require no outside forces to set up. Just people helping people. In time this grass root movement will awaken those in power to what a real economy should be and do.

I have often wondered why the people of Ireland didn't take to small punts to land fish in the time of the famine, especially those around the coast. I now believe it was because they were so emasculated by the system of tenancy, single crop dependency, competition amongst each other etc. , that they failed to make the small changes to help themselves. Then all of a sudden it was too late. We are not in the time of the famine, but the circumstances do resonate. A political and social discourse that is totally self defeating and seeking villains. We are emasculated all over again. It's time to get to work, before it's too late. What if that ATM fails to dispense cash. It nearly happened in September '08. Could it happen again? One may not agree with my ideas on project management if it did happen. But pretty soon we all could be challenged and faced with the opportunity to think up and implement our own ideas. It really is that exciting, exhilarating and scary all at once. Yeah but the destination is sooo worth it - A reclaiming of true individual and community sovereignty, with more security and freedom thrown in.

p.s. There is a precedent for what I discuss. Canada is probably the only Western country that had a public central bank in recent times, namely 1935-74. They were so sick of the carnage post the '29 crash that they booted out the bankers and issued their own money, free from interest. For the next forty years the national debt flat lined at 18billion (this was a legacy debt) , public works soared, there was no visible poverty and there was a huge sense of social cohesion. Then in '74 the bankers wormed their way back in. Debt in Canada is now at 550 billion over a similar period of time, i.e. approx. 40 years. That shows the carnage of debt accumulation when private central banks run the world.
p.p.s. We only looked at the main crime of not creating interest on loans in our analysis of central banks. The even more potent crime is fractional reserve banking in itself, i.e. creating money that one doesn't have. In essence banks can create anything up to 20 times the deposits they have in their enterprise. This is morally unacceptable and once again has just been accepted as a part of modern economics. In essence this is fraud, but unless our legislators act on this it will continue. There are so many viable and just "outs" from the toxic economic models that run our world. We need to start taking them, to free the peoples of the world.

Barry Fitzgerald
Author of "Building Cities of Gold"

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