On Wealth and Money,
the Nation and the World
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Third Part:
International Sovereign Monetary Architecture,
Complementary Currencies.
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A World Currency:
The universal optimum.
What is feasible in Europe is feasible in the world.
What is feasible in Europe is undoubtedly all the more feasible in the world
as the world embodies the ultimate dimension:
the universal dimension.
We could therefore imagine the whole world having a world currency.
It could be called
U N I T E E
for
Universal Note of Interdependent Trade and Economic Exchange.
This name is magnificent because it reveals its universal implication:
From the individual to the universal,
a Universal Currency would benefit the whole world,
all peoples and all countries of the entire planet.
Everyone is included.
Without exception.
This is perhaps the ultimate step in integrating the world to itself,
in revealing the world to itself.
UNITEE.
We are all part of it.
It is mind-boggling and magnificent at the same time
to see to what extent such a currency,
generated according to the calculations, criteria, measurements and balances we have described above,
would benefit everyone.
Such a currency,
based on such a breeding ground of wisdom,
would be fruitful and generous throughout the world.
Please read again if necessary.
Hear humanity’s prayer.
However,
this probability, although immense,
remains relatively low in the very short term.
Will Europe be able to find its way back to the Enlightenment
and reveal to humanity its destiny?
Will the Europe of the Enlightenment be reborn
and enlighten the destiny of humanity?
Will the Europe of the Enlightenment be resurrected
and enlighten humanity as a whole
on earth and in the universe?
Several paths are possible:
Europe and, or England,
one People, one Country, one Land shows the way
and the world is inspired by it.
Sovereign currencies are gradually gaining ground
and the world thinks more and more about the benefits of sovereign currencies
and creating a world currency
organized according to the same rules as those we have described for the European Monetary Area.
Humanity fulfills its destiny
by rapidly adopting a world currency
and it is this currency that inspires and helps nations
to integrate the greater whole.
In other words,
either nations make the world or the world makes the nations.
If we were to move in the right direction,
it is very likely that these two movements would take place at the same time.
In any dynamic,
at least two movements take place at the same time and reinforce each other.
This would probably be the best solution:
international convergence.
Humanity reaches a stage, an optimal dimension,
a new stage in the History of Evolution.
When a sovereign world currency,
respectful of all peoples, of all countries of the world
is born,
we will be free.
The Great Revolution will be over.
Humanity will fulfill its Destiny.
*
If God exists,
there is nothing more comparable to the divine will
than the universal will.
*
Another way is possible:
Sovereign and Solidarity-based World Monetary Institutions.
Before, at the same time, or after Europe and, or Great Britain,
or any nation bold enough,
pioneering and aspiring to salvation and national liberation,
we could create global monetary institutions
based on the rules and principles of sovereign money.
That is to say,
a World Sovereign Monetary Committee,
in a way the sovereign system’s equivalent
to the current International Monetary Fund,
and a World Central Bank,
the equivalent of the current World Bank.
These new institutions would create the sovereign world currency
to make up for both the monetary and institutional shortfall
of countries in difficulty
because faced with war and, or corruption of the state apparatus.
According to the rules set out above,
global institutions could take the lead
in assessing and generating the money
needed for the proper functioning of the economies that need it.
The ‘financing’ of states in need by global institutions already exists.
However,
when the IMF lends money to a country that desperately needs it,
it does so with high interest on the debt
and imposes excessive liberalization and privatization policies
that hurt the nation and further impoverish the population.
According to the rules of sovereign money, on the other hand,
the beneficiary nation would be granted a sovereign ‘loan’,
at zero interest rate,
against the bonds of this State, so-called ‘perpetual’ bonds,
therefore subject to no repayment,
as is the case for a particular nation under a sovereign monetary system.
Thus,
within a sovereign system,
the sums calculated by the new World Sovereign Monetary Committee
and allocated by the World Central Bank
would function as substitutes for national monetary institutions
that are either non-existent or plagued by widespread corruption.
It does not matter if these global institutions
are different from the ones that currently exist
as long as they are governed by rules of governance
such as those we have described
for national sovereign monetary institutions.
Exactly with the same rules of measurement as those described above,
the World Sovereign Monetary Committee
would take into account the economic data of the country in question
and decide, whenever possible, on a sum of money
necessary for a better functioning of the said economy
so that it can best benefit that area, the members of that area
and, by extension, the world in general.
In order to better circumvent the problem of institutional corruption,
this money could either be given directly to citizens
or invested in projects with both high ecological and economic added value.
It goes without saying
that in the countries with the greatest difficulties,
funding for training and education would be essential,
because the aim is for every people and every nation
to achieve the greatest possible level of self-sufficiency and sovereignty.
Thus,
this money would benefit the economy of the whole country in general,
and each and every one in particular.
Do you remember the 26% debt-interest
that France had to pay each year on average from 2006 to 2016
that we presented a little earlier?
As soon as the world gets out of debt,
imagine the huge sums.
The debt of the so-called developing countries
is of another order of magnitude.
As soon as the world gets out of debt,
the whole world regains the power to act on its own condition.
Of course,
the international community will have to ensure
that the investments are successful
and, or that the sums benefit whoever is entitled to them,
or else the benefits of the new global monetary policy will not be renewed.
As long as this money does not fall into the pockets of the elites,
who would keep it for themselves,
this new currency will benefit the entire economy.
That nation’s improved GDP, or GPI, will grow and improve,
and the nation can, if its carbon footprint does not grow,
hope to return to a global allocation the following year.
Above all, seeing that it works,
it is a safe bet
that nations and populations will quickly learn to manage the monetary thing
and thus, in the long run, do without international aid.
One of the ancillary benefits,
but a very important one, of such measures
would obviously be the reduction of major movements
of uprooting and displacement of populations.
Let it be said again and again,
helping countries in difficulty is already being done,
except that the IMF’s rules
chain the countries to which it deigns to lend to perpetual debt,
austerity and the forced sale of all the country’s assets.
In the system where the currency is sovereign,
the currency does not chain,
the currency liberates.
It is simple, it is clear.
Considering the global situation,
it is the best thing to do.
We have reached such a deadlock
that the question does not even arise.
We have to try.
At the end of the road is universal harmony.
That’s wonderful news.
*
Unitee.
An international currency generated according to such goals and purposes
could prove to be a miracle, the radical and effective solution
that will get us out of the mess we got ourselves into.
*
A financial windfall on fallow land
As it would be wise to do so for the sake of everyone on the entire planet:
If by mutual agreement,
humanity decided to put an end to tax havens
by imposing a minimum threshold of taxation,
then it would be a good idea to convert this financial manna
into world currency.
Indeed,
since this money comes from funds
originating from every or almost every country of the world,
and considering the opacity of accounts, schemes of all kinds,
the multiple shell companies etc.
that have been used by tax evaders from all countries of the world,
then it goes without saying
that it would be much simpler and quicker
to convert them into world currency
rather than sending them back to the countries
from which the holders originate.
Tax havens account for between $21 trillion and $37 trillion.
The hidden wealth is astronomical,
it’s a fact.
If, as a result,
it were considered fair and legitimate to tax that money at, say, 50%,
then the world would suddenly be richer by $10.5 to $18.5 trillion.
$10.5 to $18.5 trillion,
do you realize what the heck that means?
That’s the end to all our problems.
Or to put it better,
that’s the beginning of all our solutions.
Incidentally,
we must remember that it is not the level of taxation that may be unfair,
but the differences in taxation.
If for example,
all those who earned more than a million dollars worldwide
were taxed at 90%,
but in return they could benefit
from efficient means of transport and infrastructure,
from a free or very low-cost health system and from assured social peace,
free or very low-cost schools and universities
guaranteeing them quality colleagues and employees,
a healthy and preserved environment, a fluid and prosperous economy,
then what could they complain about,
they could live and continue to do business,
probably better than they do now,
certainly better than they will in the years and decades to come.
On the other hand,
when some people pay a lot of taxes and others do not,
or when some countries tax at a certain rate and others at a lower rate,
then all the distortions and problems that we see today are created.
I don’t need to draw you a map.
Look at the world,
the misery, the poverty, the despair and all the gaping and blatant injustices.
For the sake of clarity of reasoning,
we will not go into the details of the taxation we are proposing here.
Let us just say that, ideally,
it would be preferable for this tax to be proportional:
The higher the income, the higher the taxation.
We have already talked about this.
Beyond the billion,
we might even consider a 70% tax or more.
I remind you that the United States after World War II
had an income tax rate of over 90%.*
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_States
This being said,
the accounts in tax havens are so opaque
and surrounded by so many schemes of all kinds
that such a task would be titanic and would take years if not decades.
Individuals and companies
that have decided to break the social contract
by refusing to pay taxes in their home country
or the country where they have been able to do business
and therefore make profits
have gone outside the law.
It would therefore be fair
with regard to the climatic and ecological urgency
not to go into detail and tax everything as a block.
50% seems like a good rate.
We’ll give them half.
$10.5 to $18.5 trillion…
Whereas it would only take $400 to $800 billion a year
to eradicate poverty in the world…
The truth is,
the world is a very rich place.
Saving the world by subjugating tax havens
whose money is too obscure to trace its origin
will serve to create the first salvo of this common international currency
and will give sufficient confidence in this new manna
to establish it as a tool for enlightened global development.
*Patrick Viveret,
philosopher, essayist and honorary magistrate at the Court des Comptes of France,
whose proposals are admirable, puts forward the idea of transforming into a world currency
the money received as a result of the banning of tax havens
in 2010 in his book, Reconsidérer la richesse,
published by Editions de l’Aube.
Obviously, it’s all pointing in that direction.
This operation would be done once,
after which the ‘tax haven’ jurisdictions would be required
to bring themselves up to the level of the tax rate decided by the world,
failing which, firstly, they would not benefit from global solidarity
and, secondly, they would find themselves in a situation
where the operation would be repeated.
*
Even if,
in order to protect ourselves from value distortions
and the resulting risks of inflation,
and in order to ensure that justice is done,
it is desirable for nations to receive their rightful share of the world’s wealth,
it should be noted that, under the rules of the sovereign currency,
we could do without this money and create it from scratch,
as we explained earlier.
*
World currency:
indicative of optimal monetary value
From the micro to the macroscopic,
from the human scale to the scale of the microcosm and the scale of the universe,
an organism only works because each of its parts are different
and yet form a harmonious and organized whole.
Optimal value for money will be all the more revealed and fertile
the more it has a universal reality.
This is obvious.
Humanity will only find the true value of money
and free itself from its excesses
by sharing a common and non-exclusive world currency.
Through a monetary, economic and financial synergy
born from the simple fact that it is global, universal,
all the nations of this poor world could,
in a much fairer way than nowadays,
benefit from the planetary wealth
and finally transform it into sustainable wealth.
Not being subject to exchange rate fluctuations and speculative attacks,
it would establish confidence in price stability,
it would establish confidence in trade,
it would establish confidence in the world.
No longer the prerogative of a single nation or economic entity,
the value of a common world currency
could benefit all nations, all peoples, the entire planet.
The world must be given this immense power
of absolutely immeasurable scope.
A rational and stable international currency is the prerogative of all,
without distinction or discrimination.
Like gold in the past or the dollar today,
we must make this currency the reference currency
that could finally become the impartial and fair reserve of value
par excellence worldwide.
It is the harmony of scales
that creates balance and harmony within the great whole.
This also applies to the relationship of money to space and time.
Optimal value for money will be all the more revealed and fertile
the more it becomes universal.
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1944:
A missed opportunity.
For an economic harmonization
of all the nations of the world to be possible,
for international relations to calm down
and develop not on aggression and imperialism
but on justice and world balance, on understanding and coherence,
so that there are no more countries, currency, commodities, debt or people
to attack, against which to speculate,
it seems indispensable for a world currency
created by the peoples and for the peoples
to be created for the common good of humanity.
As far as my eyes can see,
I cannot imagine what perverse effects
this world currency could have
compared to the widespread corruption,
control, manipulation, exploitation, repression,
genocide of the species, genocide of the living
and all the financial and authoritarian abuses
that are rampant on Earth today.
John Maynard Keynes* himself
was one of the greatest precursors of a world currency
at the Bretton Woods conference.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
Let’s quote Wikipedia:
“At the Bretton Woods summit in 1944,
two plans to create an international monetary system clashed.
One was Harry Dexter White’s plan
to re-establish the Gold Exchange Standard
and the other was John Maynard Keynes’ plan.
The latter, based on an analysis by E.F. Schumacher,
proposed the creation of an International Clearing Union
and a supranational currency, the “bancor”,
to which the currencies would have been pegged.
One of the main motivations of the Bancoor project
was to pacify economic relations between nations
by avoiding major imbalances in external balances,
and hence protectionism and tariffs.
Bancor can also be seen as an attempt to make tax evasion impossible,
as well as the very existence of nations acting as tax havens.”*
* https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor
This is also what Jacques Généreux* says
about the abandonment in 1971 of the fixed exchange rate regime
of the Bretton Woods agreements
by the United States and the world in their wake:
*Jacques Généreux explique l’économie à tout le monde,
Jacques Généreux, Seuil, 2014.
« […]they could have exhumed the Bancor project proposed by Keynes in 1944:
a real international currency with a real international central bank.
But that would have meant adopting a logic of global cooperation
between nations treated on an equal footing.
Many large states, starting with the most powerful among them,
the United States, were no more open to this logic in 1971
than they were in 1944.
In the absence of a possible agreement on a refoundation,
the IMS** disintegrated fairly quickly between 1971 and 1973.
Most of the States then turned to the second option:
they let their currencies float and gave up exchange rate policy (e),
in order to preserve the autonomy of their budgetary (b)
and monetary (i) instruments. […]
The abundance of dollar capital that is now unconvertible to gold
is swelling the pool of liquid assets in search of financial investments.
This mass will be further amplified by the oil shocks of the 1970s
as some oil-exporting countries – suddenly enriched by soaring oil prices –
seek to recycle their “petrodollars” on the financial market.
Moreover, the collapse of the IMS
generated a great deal of exchange rate instability,
which penalized both exporters and importers.
This is why speculative financial instruments,
initially intended to enable investors and companies to hedge
against exchange rate risk, are being allowed to develop.
But those who hedge this risk – very often banks –
in turn want to protect themselves against the risk they have just taken on.
New financial products will therefore be invented to hedge against
the volatility of instruments that hedge exchange rate risk,
and then others that will make it possible to bet
on the price movements of contracts that hedge the risk of … etc., etc.
The great wave of “financial innovations” has thus been launched
and will continue to unfold until today.»*
*Jacques Généreux explique l’économie à tout le monde,
Jacques Généreux, Seuil, 2014.
**International Monetary System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_monetary_systems
*
A system for calculating the value of currencies
known as ‘floating’.
Since 1971 when the United States, under the aegis of Nixon,
decided to abandon the dollar’s peg to gold,
all the major economies have adopted a ‘floating’ system
for evaluating currencies and exchange rates:
a system for evaluating the currency against each other,
according to the interplay of supply and demand
and subject to all imaginable and possible forms of speculation…
All being linked to each other,
setting themselves in relation to each other,
they therefore have floating values
and are entirely subject to the game of supply and demand,
like sitting targets
exposed to every imaginable and possible speculative attacks.
Since then,
despite advances due mainly to scientific and technological progress
rather than economic progress,
monetary and financial crises follow one another
and strike this world harder and harder,
sowing poverty and suffering all around.
With the possible exception of the dollar,
which is the reference value,
every currency is subject, in the arena of the financial markets,
to a perpetual risk of systemic speculative attacks
because they are inherent to the laws of the markets in general
and to their subjective, irrational and ultra-greedy excesses.
Indeed,
ever-increasing aggressiveness, competitiveness and greed
necessarily give rise to ever more implausible distortions
in representations of value and price,
ultra-subjectivity intrinsic to the blind, sheep-like herd behaviour of markets
driven by profit alone.
National currencies are one expression
of the fierce competition between all economic entities.
Since currencies are constantly in tension with each other,
balance and stability are impossible;
their quest is therefore an illusion,
our system a lie.
This competition is all the more absurd and ultimately unsuccessful
as the value of currencies evolve not only in relation to each other,
but also according to internal processes and dynamics,
specific to each of them,
which makes all the more unlikely
the appraisal, anticipation and harmonization of the world.
Money is constantly running after its own value
in an arbitrary, theoretical, and chaotic madness
without any connection with the fundamental realities
of humanity and its Earth.
On a very large scale and on the entire planet,
the human, the living, is thus sacrificed on the altar of greed.
To reform the currency throughout the world
is therefore imperative.
To create an international currency
according to the principles of the Sovereign money principles
is the most effective way
to address the imperfections of an international currency system
with unstable and uncertain exchange rates
and subject to speculative attacks.
Not being subject to all the painful exchange rate fluctuations
and market contractions,
freed from the cycles of bubbles, booms and depressions,
inflation and deflation or disinflation,
currencies could become stable, balanced and immune to speculation.
Because it alone can avoid favouring any nation
to the detriment of any other,
a world currency of reference
could largely alleviate the cyclical crises
caused by the bursting of the speculative ‘bubbles’
which, one after the other, hit all the capitalist economies of the world without exception.
As J.M. Keynes advocated in 1944,
a world currency could therefore not only pacify the world
but also make it more just and prosperous,
especially if it is sovereign.
Because any single nation issuing the world’s reference currency
inevitably tends to favour only its own interests,
the favour of issuing the main international currency
should no longer belong to any particular nation,
but to the world as a whole.
A prerogative of a single nation no longer
but of the world as a whole,
the power to create and issue the international currency
would no longer belong to any one nation in particular,
to any one country in particular.
A common world currency
would therefore belong to all peoples, to the whole world.
Speculative attacks on currencies and sovereign debt
would simply no longer be doable.
*
Dollar hegemony.
For a new world currency of reference
Imagine that you, readers, could create money,
and that you could exchange it anywhere
for anything on the market, or almost anything,
and you would have an idea of the huge power
and the potential of a world currency
that is not just for the world, but that of one nation,
and you will have an idea of the immoderate power
of the one country that creates and controls it,
an idea of the immoderate power of the dollar
and all the consequences that it generates on international finance
and on all the economies of the world.
You will have an idea of the disproportionate imbalance
in favour of the dollar,
now the world’s reference currency.
To date,
no currency has managed to assert itself against the dollar
and compete with the greenback.
Which is absolutely paradoxical when you think about it,
when you consider the gargantuan public, but also and especially private, debt…
In a world that has become a vast global market,
the United States would probably never have become so rich
without its monetary supremacy.
Without the predominant position of the dollar on the international market
which allows it to issue money for the whole world
and to grow artificially through fractional reserves, debt interest, private bubbles
and other financial and speculative operations,
without its military power which allows it to threaten countries
which would dare to question its economic-financial-monetary hegemony,
it would probably never have acquired such power.
What are the geopolitical results?
A great rift between nations and the world?
A great global international monetary competition
that justifies all the excesses, all the perils, in which all the fighters,
even Americans, are or will be, sooner or later, losers?
Since the presidential elections of 2016,
it is certain that the United States has lost the predominant role
that History had granted it.
The giant’s flaws are being exposed.
The divisions of the American people are certainly too deep
for them to ever reassert their power.
Without even mentioning the ultra-capitalist and monetary system
that make it a giant with feet of clay,
a ‘paper tiger’ as a Chinese dignitary said shortly after the crash of 2007,
the land of the United States is hit by all possible climatic disasters
which are among the most violent in the world:
Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, extreme heat and cold, droughts and forest fires…
will no doubt prevent them from returning to their former glory,
even though they would do anything for it.
What an ironic twist of history
for one of the world’s most climate-skeptical nations.
Thus,
slowly but surely,
the Dollar is losing its hegemony as well as its power and legitimacy.
Therefore,
in order to protect humankind and the world,
even before the United States can no longer hold its position
as the dominant power,
so that no other country can take over,
so that no national currency can once again dominate the world
in the same greedy and predatory manner,
the best safeguard against monetary, financial, industrial and military imperialism
is undoubtedly the creation of a world currency.
It therefore becomes all the more crucial, just and legitimate
to create a currency and institutions
that can ensure global stability and national sovereignty
so that never again will any one power prevail over all the others combined,
and never again will hegemony and imperialism take hold.
Indeed,
the day when the United States can no longer support the stability of the dollar,
and that day is near,
then two scenarios will be possible:
Either a national currency regains the upper hand
and establishes its hegemony over the world
in the same way as the dollar does today,
with all the excesses that this implies.
Or no national currency succeeds in imposing itself,
the fluctuating rates of the currencies keep fluctuating.
Subject to all the more speculative attacks,
national currencies are so destabilized
that the entire international monetary system
goes out of control and collapses.
As a result,
the creation of a sovereign world currency
is indeed the only guarantee against both financial and monetary chaos,
against the hegemony of a monetary power
to the detriment of the rest of the world.
A currency that is the work of all for the benefit of all.
Such is eternal universal wisdom.
Such is eternal universal justice.
There is nothing more powerful.
There is nothing more beneficial.
In these troubled times,
when the apocalypse is being foretold
and the need for decisive action is increasingly being felt,
there is no better and more effective way to do this
than to create a world currency of reference.
As in 1944,
despite the many benefits
that the whole world could derive from the advent of a world currency
that would belong to no one
but, belonging to no one, it would belong to everyone,
it is highly probable, alas,
that the United States would not look favourably on such a revolution.
Just as the Paris Climate Accords
did not get obsolete because of the American withdrawal,
the rest of the world has all the legitimacy and power to do
without the United States.
When the building you live in collapses,
you leave, period.
No matter how hard you try to persuade stubborn people who want to stay,
if they don’t want to leave, so be it.
I’m leaving.
No doubt so are you.
Thus,
if the whole world agreed to create a world currency
guided by the rational principles of sovereign money
that not only respects but above all guarantees the sovereignty of nations
and respects and guarantees the sovereignty of humanity,
then the world could largely do without the United States.
Of course,
we call for the greatest possible happiness
for all the peoples and nations of the world, large and small.
It would be all the more beneficial and marvelous
if the American people were to fully contribute to the destiny of Humanity
since their strength and talents are immense, of course.
But if by any chance the United States wanted not
to participate in the great rescue of humanity,
if by any chance the United States didn’t want to be saved,
well, so be it, may their will be done.
As long as the world is the world,
the world will have all the legitimacy of the world to save itself.
China, on the other hand,
seems to have already made its choice.
On March 23, 2009,
the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan,
published an essay in favor of a world currency.*
*Zhou Xiaochuan: Reform the international monetary system
Essay by Dr Zhou Xiaochuan,
Governor of the People’s Bank of China, 23 March 2009.
http://www.bis.org/review/r090402c.pdf
It is only to be hoped that this position remains valid.
*
If firstly,
the creation of a common international currency
has the effect of remedying the chronic instability of national currencies,
and if secondly,
this currency is sovereign and debt free,
free of the financial markets and the law of the market,
undeniably this currency has the power
to put a clear stop to the excesses of the international monetary system.
So, the creation of a common international currency
bears the power to create conditions
favourable to the emergence of a new reality
where at worst financial crises are no longer cataclysms
and at best become ancient history.
The creation of a common international currency
bears the power to liberate the living forces of the world,
to help and encourage them to cooperate, and work together
to build a new monetary, economic, political, social,
psychological, ecological and civilizational dynamic
Earthwide.
Money,
the only goal, obsessive, pathetic, sick, fixed idea…
We can put an end to this nightmare, this curse.
The world’s monetary harmonization is as indispensable
as it is full of promise.
*
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* * * * *
* * *
*
Complementary currencies
We may wonder,
in case all nations were to adopt sovereign currencies,
if it would be so crucial to create an international currency.
Issued according to the same rules,
they would find a natural balance with each other.
Above all,
they would all reflect the same reality.
Therefore,
with everyone acting according to the same principles and laws,
creating such a global and sovereign currency
would become child’s play.
In the meantime,
a substitute international currency
issued according to the rules of sovereign money
could easily make up for the malfunctioning of monetary institutions
that are lacking at the level of the nations in question.
And if by any chance,
the world or certain nations could not agree
on the establishment of a sovereign currency,
there is another solution:
Complementary currencies.
*
It is the synergy, the alchemy of all the solutions
in all sectors, all dimensions, all areas all over the world
that the deployment of this new and immense potential
born from the harmonization of the world
depends on.
*
Complementary monies
It needs to be said again:
It is absurd
that a land, a nation, a people, a monetary area
with the resources, the skills, the knowledge, the infrastructure,
the people, the means of production and the needs
cannot produce such and such a thing
simply because money is lacking,
when clearly this production, this service
would be beneficial to society as a whole.
If all the things we have just counted exist
and only money is missing,
then the creation of money
to produce what is necessary for the community
is not only legitimate,
it is the promise of all possible futures,
of life itself.
As we have said,
this currency can and should be a sovereign currency,
be it national, and, or international.
In the event that, for one reason or another,
national and/or international authorities are failing,
as is currently the case,
and the currency in force should run out
and no longer fulfil its natural functions,
particularly and above all trade facilitation,
then it would be not only legitimate but also wholesome
for local currencies to be created.
In order to avoid confusion and monetary chaos,
it is obvious and common sense that it should be the local authorities
– of an economic area, for example, of a large city,
or a group of smaller cities, or even of a given region –
that should be empowered to create the local currency.
If by any chance,
the local authorities weren’t up for it,
then it would be up to the citizens to first exert pressure
so they’ll do the right thing
and if they wouldn’t,
then even create it themselves.
Of course,
the quantity of this complementary local currency
should be measured on the same terms
as the sovereign currency we talked about earlier.
The system of complementary and parallel currencies
is one of the crucial and fundamental ways
of dealing with financial and monetary crises
and the resulting lack of liquidity.*
*The Future of Money,
Bernard Lietaer, Century London, 2001
**Rethinking Money
Mr Bernard Lietaer et Ms Jacqui Dunne,
Bernett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2013,
As long as ignorance on the part of the authorities in place
prevents the creation of a sound, stable and rational monetary system,
complementary currencies can continue to support
the economic body of society.
Switzerland
has had a complementary currency to the Swiss franc for about 90 years:
the WIR*.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIR_Bank
« WIR was founded in 1934 by businessmen Werner Zimmermann and Paul Enz
as a result of currency shortages and global financial instability. A banking license was granted in 1936.
Both Zimmermann and Enz had been influenced by German libertarian socialist economist Silvio Gesell;
however, the WIR Bank renounced Gesell’s “free money” theory in 1952, opening the door to monetary interest.
“WIR” is both an abbreviation of Wirtschaftsring and the word for “we” in German,
reminding participants that the economic circle is also a community.
According to the cooperative’s statutes,
“Its purpose is to encourage participating members to put their buying power at each other’s disposal
and keep it circulating within their ranks, thereby providing members with additional sales volume.”
Although WIR started with only sixteen members, today it has grown to include 62,000.
Total assets are approximately 3.0 billion CHF, annual sales in the range of 6.5 billion, as of 2005.
As of 1998, assets held by the credit system were 885 million and liabilities of 844 million,
i.e. the circulating WIR money, with equity in the system of 44 million.
These WIR obligations being interest free have a cost of zero.
Income from interest and credit clearing activities were 38 million francs.
The currency code is CHW as designated by ISO 4217.
The WIR Bank was a not-for-profit entity, although that status changed during the Bank’s expansion.
The bank considers themselves as stable, claiming being fully operational during times of general economic crisis
and may dampen downturns in the business cycle, helping to stabilize the Swiss economy during difficult times.
It is cited as an example in the documentary film Demain (2015). »
The WIR enables Switzerland to weather financial shocks
better than any other country in the world
because when a crash occurs,
the lack of Swiss Francs is made up for by the WIR,
which takes its place and keeps the economy going.
It’s as simple as that.
Jobs are safeguarded and the vital needs of citizens are met,
even in the face of financial disasters.
Wherever necessary or in the general interest,
the introduction of complementary or parallel currencies
is a fair and enlightened idea.
Once again,
complementary currencies are not there to compete with the legal tender.
Complementary currencies are less necessary and in use
when things are going well.
On the other hand,
when a crisis hits,
complementary currencies are there to mitigate its devastating effects.
Money is to the economy
what blood is to the body.
When a person is bleeding,
we give them a blood transfusion to prevent them from dying.
Similarly,
when the economy is short of money,
so that the economy does not die, and we with it,
it urgently needs a transfusion.
It’s as simple as that.
*
A mistake not to make
Some existing complementary currencies around the world
are issued when they are purchased:
One unit of this currency is purchased
with one unit of the current national currency.
This is a big mistake.
In no case can or will the complementary currency in this way
fulfil its role as a substitute for the national currency
when the need arises.
There are only two possibilities:
First, everything is fine.
Who under such circumstances would exchange a currency
which, although imperfect, works well year in year out,
which is used almost exclusively by all economic actors
for a currency which hardly anyone uses?
Second possibility:
The current national currency is running out.
Who would exchange money
that he or she no longer or almost no longer has
for another piece of paper or digital numeral
whose intrinsic value we are not even sure of
and whose acceptance by anyone as a bargaining chip
is highly doubtful?
Consequently,
a complementary currency, like any sovereign currency,
must be free and free of charge.
The fairest, most efficient and quickest way
to create a complementary currency,
in order for it to achieve its objectives,
is to give it to the citizens,
without any discrimination.
As long as everyone has some,
everyone knows that everyone else will accept his or her piece of paper
as representing a unit of that value.
If the awareness of the intrinsic value of the new local currency
is shared by all
then the new currency can begin to circulate
and the system start to work.
Imagine, Euros, if you are in Europe, Dollars in the USA, Yuan in China, etc., etc., etc,
are running out.
A local currency is created.
It is shared among all households as a unit of value for trade.
Since everyone has them,
everyone knows that everyone else will accept them.
If nothing else,
the new local currency will fulfil its proper function:
to facilitate trade.
Rather than the necrosis of the economic body,
a transfusion is always preferable, isn’t it?
We graft one system onto another, purely and simply.
Once again,
the quantity of money must be created
according to the rules of sovereign money
in order to avoid the inflation trap.
As with all currencies,
we must strive to find the right balance:
Don’t create too much,
but create enough of it.
Therefore,
as local authorities have all the economic statistics at their disposal,
they are in the best position to provide the best possible service.
They become, in effect, local central banks.
In this sense,
the currencies they would issue
would not differ from sovereign currencies.
Once again,
if by any chance,
local authorities decided not to fulfil this beneficial role,
then it would have to be taken on
by the citizens organized in local groups.
*
Mr Bernard Lietaer,
former director of the Central Bank of Belgium,
explains the technical simplicity with which they can be created
by observing existing complementary currencies in his enlightening books
‘The future of money’* and ‘Rethinking money’**.
*The Future of Money,
Bernard Lietaer, Century London, 2001
**Rethinking Money
Mr Bernard Lietaer et Ms Jacqui Dunne,
Bernett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2013,
There are already abundant and very well-documented educational resources
on their actual implementation, pre-existing throughout the world,
and their diversified, technical and practical modes of operation*.
* http://www.complementarycurrency.org/ccDatabase/les_public.html
http://www.complementarycurrency.org/helpdesk.html
http://complementarycurrency.org/materials.php
http://www.appropriate-economics.org
*
Local currencies, global currencies.
By strengthening the social relations of a community, of a local area,
not only are local currencies a response to the problems of social divisions,
insecurity, fear, loneliness, poverty and unrest,
not only do they beneficially participate
in the economy of a sector or a community,
in addition to promoting short exchanges, local economy,
relative independence and resilience,
they undeniably have enormous environmental virtues.
They promote self-reliance everywhere in the world
and thus contribute to significantly reducing unnecessary transportation
and thus greenhouse gas emissions.
Isn’t independence synonymous with freedom?
Integrated autonomy is the path to freedom.
Complementary currencies should be encouraged throughout the world
in order to make up for the lack of money generated by the current system.
In fact, the current system ‘degenerates’ money
and corrupts the system,
isn’t it true?
Conversely, wisely administered,
complementary currencies would be legitimate and beneficial to everyone,
in that they would democratize money and the monetary system.
The democratization of money,
the purification of finance and the economy
will benefit everyone, without exception.
Of course,
the macro-monetary system of sovereign currencies
would be the best way to solve major global problems.
Otherwise,
complementary local currencies are another answer.
As we have said,
the solutions to the greatest challenges
humanity has faced since the dawn of time
will come from everywhere at once.
Just as all the planets in the solar system hang suspended in the void
because they all hold together,
because they have found a perfect balance,
a perfect interaction with each other,
with the sun and with everything in the universe,
they are stable on astronomical time scales.
It can be the same, it must be the same,
for the monetary system, on all scales.
*
See
We need to abandon our prejudices and see a new world.
A vision offered to our eyes
if only we could open our eyes to see,
a vision that perhaps you have never had before,
perhaps not because you cannot open your eyes and see,
but because you have never thought of doing so;
because they have succeeded in convincing you
that we must never look on that side,
on the side of wisdom and existence,
so that we never think of turning our eyes to see
that on the side of justice, of humanness,
there is a bliss that no one can sell us;
so that we never look on the side of happiness and benevolence,
of mysticism and affection, of the intimate and the collective,
of freedom and human wealth.
*
Birth and life of dynamics.
Since everything in this world is movement,
everything is dynamic.
The forces of every dynamic are only fertile and perennial
when they find the relative interactional, ‘inter-reactional’ balance.
Their balance, however fragile, is perfect
in that fluctuations, contingencies, imperfections of balance
offer a certain freedom of movement.
Like the habitable zone of a planet in relation to its sun,
all fertile dynamics benefit from a certain latitude
in participating in cosmic harmony.
In harmony with all the planets and cosmic stars,
in harmony with the infinitely large as well as the infinitely small,
for the Earth to float in the void and give birth to life
is a form of perfect harmony
in that it is fruitful.
A fragile but generous, vast and fertile balance.
Harmony is both source and fruit
of multiple cosmological balances:
Harmony of every part and every dynamic towards each other;
harmony of the whole towards every part and every dynamic;
harmony of the great whole towards itself.
Harmony is not only natural, fruitful and fertile,
it does not have to be perfect to be probable or possible.
Harmony exists
because it is a constant search for an optimal balance by nature impossible
because otherwise the optimal balance would freeze the whole
in a too rigid structure
that would not allow any freedom for the parts to blossom.
Imperfection is a fact of the cosmos, life and the living
that we must accept…
Imperfection is an unavoidable parameter of the cosmos and of the living.
It is imperfection that is at the origin of biodiversity,
and which allows the appearance of complex or even sophisticated species
such as animals, mammals, plants and humans.
We will never be able to know in the minutest details
what needs to be done.
But we do know the general direction
necessary to help life and humans flourish.
Let us take it
and we will always know how to adapt to positive dynamics
that we will have set in motion.
Let’s not be afraid to change the system.
For if we do not gather the courage to do so,
imbalances will destroy us.
Macrocosmic dynamics affect us all.
They affect all life on earth.
From the infinitely large to the infinitely small, without exception,
working towards balance
means creating virtuous dynamics, positive systemic dynamics
for the sake of everything and everyone.
*
A new systemic balance:
No-growth and progress.
The constant search for a balance
between our needs and our real capacity to satisfy them
in a peaceful manner is the ultimate goal of the best way of doing business.
That is its definition.
Thus,
not only must our capacity to satisfy our needs progress,
but we must also reduce the most superfluous of them
so as to achieve a kind of happy and dignified sobriety
where everyone has a minimum to survive and flourish
and no one has more than he or she needs ever again.
This is a target,
a guideline that we should take into account
as an ultimate economic goal.*
*The rules we have also set out for money creation go exactly in that direction,
taking into account not only the Genuine Progress Index,
but also the ecological footprint.
It remains to be defined, of course,
what our incompressible basic needs and our superfluous desires are,
exacerbated as they are by the spiritual lack
created by a mercantile, ultra-productivist,
ultra-materialist and ultra-consumerist society
regulated by the sole maximisation of profits.
Certain rights and needs are inalienable:
food, clothing, shelter, personal hygiene,
as much as possible, physical and mental health,
education, living and thriving in the community.
That’s a fact.
Beyond that, everything becomes superfluous.
Even though the notion is vague, subjective and open to interpretation,
it nevertheless remains relevant in the very sense that desire itself is subjective,
its intrinsic subjectivity being perhaps the best proof of its superfluity.
Indeed,
what is not superfluous is necessarily universal.
Food, clothing, shelter, hygiene, physical and mental health,
education, living and thriving in the community:
Who doesn’t need all this?
There is no one who doesn’t.
Who needs more?
Not everyone.
Nevertheless,
having a big SUV when you live in the city
and never go to the country undoubtedly is superfluous.
Having three TVs when we could only have one is superfluous.
To have 15 empty residences or dwellings
when homeless people sleep in the cold is not only superfluous,
it is also unfair.
We don’t need to replace our laptop we bought 6 months ago
with the latest one because it’s more stylish.
Having 70 pairs of shoes is superfluous.
To replace a washing machine instead of repairing it
because the producers have programmed its obsolescence
is useless and superfluous.
Billions of plastic advertising goodies
are the symbol of the superfluous par excellence
that invades, like a tsunami, our drifting civilization
and leaves an imprint of our mortal presence on earth
that is both disastrous and ridiculous.
This does not mean that we should not replace existing equipment
or stop consuming altogether,
it does not mean that we should give up technology or progress,
it just means that we should limit pollution,
pollution being the direct consequence of our ultra-consumerism.
And since certain rights and needs are incompressible,
we cannot act on them,
so, we have to make a choice:
Either we choose to moderate ultra-consumerism,
or injustice, inequality, pollution and absurdity will persist
and eventually our irrational and unrealistic way of life
will reach its limits anyway
and we will lose everything.
This is not a figure of speech.
We will lose everything, absolutely everything.
What major difference would it really make
if we chose to limit ultra-consumerism
so that we could all, all around the earth, live reconciled,
not only with our planet, but also with ourselves?
Thus,
we have no choice but to invest consciously and decisively
in order to satisfy our incompressible needs
in the most universal way possible
rather than indulging our most absurd, compulsive, useless and superfluous desires.
It is not so much no- or de-growth that seems to be required,
but a kind of dematerialization of world civilization,
dematerialization through individual fulfilment,
through the respiritualization of humanity
in a process of mutual recognition and understanding
that we form a universal whole.
A whole in harmony that will no doubt be described as utopian,
yet whose consequences and dynamics have the power, the undeniable potential
to transcend the limits and divisions of humanity,
right down to the flesh, heart, blood and soul of every human being.
I repeat,
just because wisdom, earth and life
force us to put a stop to ultra-consumerism
does not mean that we should decide to stop enjoying
the benefits of progress and technology.
On the contrary.
Today,
technology leads us at best to servitude and non-selective addiction,
at worst, to our perdition.
The goal is to continue to use it
by becoming the master of progress and of our destiny again
in order to liberate ourselves,
to free our hearts and minds from matter.
The solution lies in the balance within all human beings,
on the one hand in the balance between self and self,
between our needs and the satisfaction of our needs,
and on the other hand in the balance between ourselves and others,
in the balance of honest and just, meritorious and egalitarian redistribution,
without dogmatism or egalitarianism,
but with realism, justice and humanism
so as to provide what is necessary for all human beings.
It is also under the terms of this equation
that an index covering these two parameters could be created.
Indeed,
it is when human beings no longer have to fend for themselves so much
that human beings can not only do their best for themselves
but also give the best of themselves to their fellow citizens.
Exacerbate needs no longer.
Aim for fulfilment.
These two parameters can be complementary to the Genuine Progress Index
to guide us in our economic, monetary and investment policies,
to guide us in our common destiny.
Today,
everything is measured on the scale of the planet and humanity.
It’s so right, and so obvious.
This balance between need and fulfilment is not only rationally clear,
it is not only possible,
it is also indispensable and life-saving.
Of course,
selfishness will probably never be eliminated,
but in this equilibrium
where individualism is conjugated and blended with altruism,
where selfishness becomes more or less equal to altruism,
a moderate and assumed individualism
is a free and transfigured individualism.
We see every day that those who trust
both their material situation and their psychological and spiritual nature
tend to be beneficent, efficient and generous,
and do their best.
Life has so much to offer.
So much is offered to us.
That’s true for an individual.
That’ s true for our community.
That’ s true for our civilization.
That’ s true for humanity.
What is good for all of us is good for each and every one of us.
And vice versa:
What is bad for the majority of the population is necessarily bad for myself.
Whether we like it or not.
It’s the frog in the boiling water syndrome.
The process of degradation is so slow
that we don’t realize that the situation is gradually getting worse,
to the point where it takes on such proportions and turns so bleak
that if we could,
we wouldn’t even want to see the situation we are in anymore.
A Chinese proverb says that fish,
because they live in water,
are not aware that water exists.
Like the fish,
they have their heads in the water
and do not have enough distance to realize
what is other than their own way of functioning,
which could give them a chance to see and understand
how much they harm themselves by harming others.
From a systemic and therefore sustainable point of view,
harmony is key,
and the balance between needs and fulfilment is crucial.
Because structural poverty
imposed by the ruthless,
inconsistent-to-the-point-of-inhumanity law of supply and markets,
is a trap for everyone,
to rebalance the balance of power between supply and demand
in favour of the majority, in favour therefore of demand,
is an urgent and compelling necessity.
If the pressure imposed by the need for money eases a little on everyone,
then the need for money also eases on each and every one of us,
then attachment to money
becomes less and less compulsive, desperate, obsessive and overwhelming.
The more our incompressible needs are met, the less desperate our need for it,
the better our perception of what is valuable and what is not.
In other words,
the more the value of money equals reality,
the less the law of supply and demand will have a dehumanizing grip
on both our individual and collective destiny,
the more we can and will be able to enrich humanity, the community,
do good work and enrich ourselves.
A decrease in the subjective value of money will be the most obvious sign
that life is both more affordable
while at the same time richer and more harmonious.
For if we need money to survive,
money has never been and never will be a condition for fulfilment.
It is because the poor flourish in what they do, in what they work on,
that they emerge from poverty with integrity.
Conversely,
how many well-to-do people sink into boredom, disarray and idleness?
It is when it blooms that the flower fulfils itself.
Blossoming
is the natural purpose of what exists,
of all that I am, of what we are.
Thus,
the resources needed to invest in the future, to invest in humanity
are all the easier to find as they already exist.
We all yearn for fulfilment.
We all crave to achieve what we are
and to accomplish ourselves.
It is the system itself
that drives human beings to consumerism,
frustration, waste, pollution and delusion,
not because humans are naturally selfish, greedy, blind and stupid.
Rather than investing in profit at all costs,
we had better use our monetary, economic, logistical, natural and human resources
to invest in knowledge, wisdom, harmony and fulfilment.
If central and private banks create money out of nothing,
if the purpose of money has been diverted to the point of losing all its meaning,
then for any project for the improvement of the human community,
it is legitimate to be able to create a new and sovereign currency of exchange
in order to put all the chances on our side, on the side of life and humanity.
What price do you put on death?
Your own death?
Life?
Joy? Love? Humanity?
What matters is not that the results of our calculations
are hyper numerous or innumerable, sharp or complex,
or even that they are precise or unpredictable,
what matters is the direction we choose to take
in our calculations, our thoughts, our behaviors
so that they take us where we want to go.
*
Confidence
Every economist agrees
dreamlithat without trust in the value of money,
a currency inevitably collapses.
Thus,
the value of a currency significantly depends
on collective and necessarily subjective perception,
all the more subjective as it is collective,
subject to powerful socio-psychological forces both in space and time.
Because we do not want,
or do not find it useful to face reality, or be interested in it,
this reality and all its consequences remain, to a large extent, unconscious.
Thus,
the real value of a currency and therefore of a monetary system
cannot be rationalized with mathematics alone
without taking into account all the psycho-sociological dimensions
of human beings, of society and of humanity.
No mathematical certainty can deliver us from uncertainty.
No mathematical certainty can exempt us from our duty as human beings.
We are not so much questioning the number as the law of numbers
decreed to be an absolute and absolutely objective science.
The prime mover is not a calculator.
The prime mover is a consciousness.
Without consciousness,
confidence is blind and excessive, even destructive.
The consciousness that sees and knows
is the only source of confidence,
confidence in what is,
confidence in what it sees,
confidence in what it knows,
confidence in itself.
If without consciousness, there is no real confidence,
only the union of consciousness and confidence can make us progress
in wisdom, harmony and humanity.
*
Cosmological and ecological mathematics
If we assume that the curve is the angle that transcends all angles,
then we can assume that the perfect curve is a sphere.
Indeed,
whatever the direction in which we turn a sphere,
each point of the sphere is by nature equal to any other point.
From a geometrical point of view,
each point of a sphere is therefore strictly similar to all the others.
And if naturally the Earth is a sphere,
wherever you are, wherever we are,
however miserable, however much you may have lost the plot,
however you may perceive or feel yourself,
you are on top of the Earth.
Think about it!
Since the Earth is curved to infinity,
then, from the point of view of the Earth,
we are all, without any discrimination whatsoever, on top of the Earth.
Every human being, every man, woman, child or living being
is therefore, in the Earth’s eyes, on the summit of existence.
Wherever we are, whoever we are, if we are all on top of her,
then the Earth opens up the sky for us, perched on the horizon,
like a lover, not only is the earth offered to heaven,
but also the earth and the vault of heaven are, to our eyes,
offered as wonders,
as offerings to contemplate, love and understand.
Because the Earth is that incessant curve that makes it a sphere,
an incalculable, unintelligible-to-indecency sphere,
all points of view, all perspectives, are surpassed, transcended,
everything that is square, linear, rectangular, partial or artificial
is surpassed, transcended, deconstructed, annihilated.
So, not only from this crazy and impossible spherical perspective
can we see and realize that we are all equal at birth and during our lifetime,
but also that it is you who, paradoxically, in the eyes of the Earth,
is at the highest, the closest to the sky,
even though we, here below,
find it hard to believe in such a collective and personal potential.
Paradox at the paroxysm of paradoxes
that can drive mad or wise
whoever takes too close and broad a look…
Irreconcilable paradox that yet reconciles everything,
not only are we all equal in the eyes of the sphere Earth,
but also this equality, because it is a reality,
is an ideal, a dreamlike ultimate aim…
An aim which
precisely because it is up to now still a dream
opens the doors to the infinite,
for indeed the limits of utopia can be constantly pushed back,
the limits of perfection and beauty
can be constantly improved and magnified…
For indeed,
only he or she who seeks universal wisdom, justice and truth
can rise sufficiently high
to see and realize the magnitude and the madness, yet wise perspective
of both the earthly and celestial sphere
according to which beauty is only possible by seeking beauty,
wisdom only possible by seeking wisdom,
justice only possible by seeking justice,
the truth only possible by seeking the truth,
the absolute only accessible by seeing the absolute,
according to which our Earth is the bearer of all gifts, of all graces, of all generosities.
In a cosmic dance
with constantly renewed harmonies
like an incredible symphony in perpetual recomposition,
each point of the earth soars and bends a little more and more to singularity
in ellipses giving birth to literally frightening, extreme
and even ‘black holean’ vortexes.
Beyond geometry, beyond theory and mathematics,
in a multiplicity of movements imprinted by its rotation and its orbit,
each point of the sphere-Earth is projected ad infinitum
to the confines of the cosmological universe.
Because microscopic universes as well as macroscopic universes
are made up of elliptical or circular moving spheres,
at the base of matter, of your body,
right here, right now, of your own particles,
which are constantly stirring, moving and spinning,
as much as stars, planets and everything that makes up the universe,
because all these spheres, all these atoms,
in other words, all these micro-earths, these mini-solar systems,
all these gaseous, rocky or molten super-earths,
are all in equilibrium with each other, one within the other,
united in the void and the incomprehensible,
in eternal motion, in eternal evolution,
then, within the great interdimensional entanglement,
from the infinitely large to the infinitely small,
at the end of all calculations
necessarily lies
infinity.
Because by definition
mathematics can only measure what is measurable,
because what has no end nor limit
is beyond the reach of all accounting sciences,
numbers, statistics and mathematics are, by definition,
incapable of transcribing infinity.
The numerical sciences, however exact they may be,
are incapable of setting us on the path to beauty,
let alone the ideal.
Their so-called exact sciences are incapable of making sense,
of giving meaning to history and existence.
The Sphere, on the other hand, opens up infinity.
The Earth offers us the Earth, the heavens and ourselves.
How could we not want to respond to her heavenly invitation,
to her distress, to her call to intelligence, and wonder?
Wealth is defined by its radius of action on Earth
through the propagation of well-being and ‘well-living’,
thanks, among other things, to the means of exchange that we call money,
a dynamic that economists might call the fluidity of money,
whose purpose and raison d’être would be the constant renewal
of the healing and saving common bond of solidarity.
If the oceans were not liquid,
did not cover two thirds of the Earth,
and did not water the remaining third,
do you believe that there would be life on Earth?
The useful value of money is calibrated and balanced
according to the maximum number of people
with a minimum amount of money,
not according to a minimum number of privileged people
with a maximum amount of money.
We must reconcile numbers with wisdom,
draw inspiration from the Earth and reconcile economics with equality, relativity with infinity.
Only when we know how to reconcile numbers with wisdom
then humanity will be able to evolve and change history,
only then will humanity be able
to open the mythological and legendary Aladdin’s cave
and discover an immeasurable, almost infinite source of wealth,
available here and now.
You who wish to suffer as little as possible in this world,
hear the voice of balance, dignity, justice, benevolence and humanity.
It is the voice of the Earth.
Only she can save you, save us and save herself.
If we do not want the heavens to roar too loud,
and the oceans to cataclysmically overwhelm us,
inclusive humanity must shine on Earth.
Humanity alone shall save humanity.
Because we are all human beings,
deep within all of us shines the sun of humanity.
Together,
we can come to light, come to life and give birth to Humanity.
Give birth to harmony.
*
** **
* * * * *
* * *
*
Taming the markets.
Mastering stock markets.
The synchronization
of the time of ecology and the time of economy.
*
Stock market: the excesses
Both thanks to the principles of sovereign money,
a full, debt-free currency, therefore not subject to the markets,
and thanks to the principle of the separation of deposit and investment accounts,
then stock market panics would stop raising the specter of crises
as is currently the case.
Stock market panics and the crises they provoke
would become nothing more than a bad memory.
A brief analysis
of the functioning of the stock exchange as it is currently constituted
is nevertheless necessary.
As designed and currently regulated,
stock market shareholding systems
pose at least four major problems.
By observing these problems,
the resulting solutions become clear and obvious.
The benefits of taking them into account would be invaluable.
*
1
Problem number one:
High-frequency trading:
Nanosecond speculation
The speed with which investor-shareholders
can dispose of a share or a security in a matter of hours
or fractions of a second
can cause the price of these publicly traded shares to fall,
thereby jeopardizing the company
in which they are supposed to have invested
and which they are supposed to be helping financially.
This high-frequency trading
makes shareholders insensitive to the fates of companies,
and all the more prone to panic, instability and unpredictability,
since they can act quickly
but impulsively and in an uncontrolled, emotional and irrational manner,
subject to crowd movements, to collective panic movements
along with all the other financial actors
and thus jeopardize not only the destiny of the company in question,
but also create a world that is increasingly incoherent,
poorly integrated, disconnected from the earth and reality,
thus making it fragile, unstable, poor and precarious.
*La finance à haute fréquence, ARTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6jw1eEe5GI
*
2
Problem number two:
Herd behavior
In addition to high-frequency finance,
which may speculate and empty the world in nanoseconds,
the multiplicity of financial actors,
from the small carrier to the largest and most experienced trader,
creates a characteristic mob-like anonymity
that increases the feeling of irresponsibility and impunity.
Financial actors become invisible.
Since the sum of selfish and self-centered illusions
is the sum of the errors of all the judgments
and all the resulting decisions adding up to each other,
a totally blind and irrational mass phenomenon
is set in motion on a world scale
which forces the stock exchanges into insane and delirious panic
at the slightest hitch, at the slightest grain of sand
in the big money-making machine,
and thus drags the values and economies of all countries
towards the black hole of crash and depression.
Since we have no other choice but to be integrated into society
but to keep our money in the dematerialized, digitalized, ‘internetized’ vaults of institutional banks,
we are all concerned.
*
3
Problem number three:
Ratios
The notion of percentage has in fact an exponential value
depending on the amount of money initially invested,
not only in quantity but also over time.
Indeed,
interest rates are percentages:
For example, 1% of 1,000,000 Euros is 10,000 Euros,
compared to 1% of 1,000 Euros is 10 Euros.
This is the same ratio,
yet the returns are completely different.
So what?
So, the problem is this:
A person who can afford to invest €1 million
can get an extra €10,000 a month
just with a 1% return on investment,
while 1,000 people investing €1,000 will each get only €10 a month.
So, the more money I have,
the more money I can put in.
The more money I put in,
the more money I get back.
The more I collect,
the more money I can put back in.
The circle is complete.
So I can get rich exponentially just by gambling on the stock market.
Of course,
in this way inequalities can only increase,
and the energy transition can only be financed with too little or no money,
because of a lack of profitability compared to the certainty of profits provided by some major market players
such as the petrochemical industries
which have a stranglehold on a fossil economy
that they have shaped and, I’m afraid, fossilized.
Do you realize that big bank traders
can cause world market prices for a commodity to fall,
like food for example*
just by moving a few million, or billions of dollars.
* http://www.srfood.org/en/speculation
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/BN2_SRRTF_Speculation_FRENCH.pdf
« La Spéculation sur les Denrées Alimentaires et les Crises des Prix Alimentaires,
Une règlementation pour réduire les risques d’instabilité des cours »,
“Food Speculation and Food Price Crises,
A Regulation to Reduce the Risk of Price Instability”,
02, September 2010
Olivier de Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
Main Basse Sur Le Riz,
Un film de Jean-Pierre Boris & Jean Crépu
Production Ladybirds Film – Arte – 2010
FIPA d’Or, catégorie Grands Reportages et Faits de Société
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaPtQaXXqnI
https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/main_basse_sur_le_riz
*
4
Problem number four:
Profit as the only incentive to invest
The system of shareholder and financial remuneration
is inherent in the neoliberal predation system, capitalized to the extreme:
Because shareholders are remunerated
according to the increase in the value of the share of the company
in which they have most often invested
only for purely financial and monetary self-interest,
the process of making a profit at any price and as quickly as possible
is necessarily extremely increased
at the risk of damaging the company,
damaging all those who depend directly or indirectly on it,
damaging the economy of a community, damaging a people,
and, in the short or more or less long term,
damaging themselves by damaging the whole world.
Indeed,
if I invest a million dollars in a company,
and my goal is to have as high financial profitability as possible,
then I don’t care how that profitability is made, as long as it is made.
Whether this involves laying off staff,
disregarding the environment, disregarding safety regulations,
disregarding the quality of the product or service, disregarding customers,
if all I care about is maximizing my investment
and not the long-term survival of the company in question,
then everything is good for maximum profitability.
All the more so if I can resell my shares at any moment, at the nanosecond.
This is all the more true
because when a company reduces the number of its employees,
its stock market price usually rises
because investors know that in the short term
there will be a bigger share of the cake to be made
since there will be fewer employees to pay,
relying of course on management
to make the employees who have been lucky enough to stay on,
in addition to their own, do their former colleagues’ jobs.
We make the most of a production site,
we make it a miserable place to work,
and we throw it away,
along with its employees and the local economy,
by reselling it and, or forcing it to relocate
to a place where the cost of labour is cheaper,
and where quality and environmental standards are lower or even non-existent.
After that,
they’re going to talk to us about corporate values and culture.
Funny them.
Undoubtedly,
growth at all costs and as quickly as possible
is one of the primary and structural causes of the destruction
of the planet, of life, of humanity
and of any beauty that remains in this world.
All this because the big banks and financial institutions’
dogma and practices
have deregulated, disrupted and plundered money,
money creation, markets, stock exchanges,
governments, economies, industries, societies, peoples, nations and humanity.
Free and unfettered markets are perfect,
they say.
You gotta be kidding me.
*
Growth or stability?
Overgrowth or serenity?
Is it possible for an investor-shareholder to enjoy the profits of a company,
without necessarily sentencing it to growth,
by being satisfied with a certain stability,
stability linked to the maturity of its growth,
like any self-respecting organic complex being?
Even when the price of this share or this security, whatever it is,
does not increase or increases only slightly,
in other words when the economic activity neither grows nor declines,
when the results remain stable, if not in perpetuity, at least for as long as possible,
is it possible for the person who has invested to still receive a profit from it?
What does it matter to get ever more
if we keep on getting what we need to live.
What does it matter
that shareholders no longer earn money in an exponential way,
if they keep a stable income and still have what they need to live.
If stability necessarily leads to serenity,
stability is the condition for peace.
If stability leads to lasting and fruitful peace,
instability leads to misery, war and destruction.
It works both ways.
While stability breeds trust, hope and serenity,
instability necessarily breeds insecurity, fear and violence.
Dynamics all the more powerful
as they are shared by the greatest number.
This is true for a human being, for a company,
for a country, a nation, for humanity, for the world.
Money is the means
and not the end of the economy, of life, of the world.
The meaning of life is to live.
It is not to be as rich as possible.
It is even less so
when it is to the detriment of the well-being and the right to live
of all my fellow citizens around the world.
Thus,
the answer is necessarily yes:
Not only can a stable company benefit itself,
its investors, its customers, its members, all citizens, in all countries around the world,
it is also our only chance to continue to live all over the world.
*
Solutions
Once the findings are established, the solutions are self-evident.
Only one imposes itself.
And it’s enough.
To achieve our one goal, it is enough.
It comes in four shades.
It overlaps and intertwines in four variations:
One for each problem.
The solution is as follows:
The framework for returns on investment in the stock market
through taxation.
This is not a new measure and many are advocating it.*
*First and foremost, the Tobin tax on financial transactions,
which dates back to 1972 and is still not implemented,
except in a few countries, in a timid and imperfect manner, to say the least.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxe_Tobin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax
Please allow us, however, to put forward some enlightened ideas,
because taxation and remuneration cannot be the same
depending on the problem under consideration and the objective in question.
Two intangible realities impose themselves on our consciousness:
Time and sustainability, ecology and humanity.
Time and sustainability, ecology and humanity
bear an inherent, mathematical, beneficial measure,
a measure capable of revealing a scientific method
capable of measuring progressive and degressive amounts of remuneration
based on the common interest of all humanity.
We will therefore present these two realities
from the perspective of the single solution of taxation,
after which we will return
to our original four major problems by way of conclusion.
*
Time and sustainability
The time we spend alive
is always a cosmic, existential, miraculous, mystical offering.
Economically speaking,
the time that passes by is always our ally.
The more the investment is promised for a certain time,
the greater the reward must be.
The shorter the investment,
the smaller the financial reward must be.
That goes without saying.
If I were to lend you 10,000 dollars for one day, or for two years,
in which case would you owe me the most?
In which case could you put this loan to good use?
When would you be most grateful?
For how long?
For a few days or for several years?
Paying for investments
according to the time that this financial contribution stays with the company
means fighting against speculation
and putting a strong brake on short-term and high-frequency finance,
purely and simply means de facto making stock market panics much more unlikely
as it is an incentive to be loyal to the companies
in which investors invest their money.
It is therefore serving the interests of companies which,
by benefiting from medium to long-term investments,
rather than short-term or even very short-term investments,
will be able to adapt to changing times,
and thus be able to work towards their own sustainability,
the sustainability of their investors, the sustainability of the economy
and the sustainability of the community.
When the time of ecology and the temporality of the economy are aligned,
then we will be saved.
Thus,
supporting through taxation
investments made over a long period of time,
and therefore, curbing market greed at its source,
we will work for sustainability, for nature, for the earth,
for the living and for humanity.
*
Ecology and Humanity
In the same way,
the more the company in which one invests
is respectful of the earth, of life and of humans,
the less tax there should be.
And conversely,
the more polluting and destructive the company is to the environment,
the more the returns on investment should be taxed.*
*In a wise world,
these companies would be regulated anyway
and severe, chronic and destructive pollution would be outlawed.
Indeed,
what real wealth is created
when a company receives gigantic investments to produce
by polluting and contaminating?
Thus,
by discouraging speculation and profit at all costs,
the measures that are dictated by our reason
will encourage investment, real investment.
The hard, long-lasting one.
And vice versa.
The right measures will foster rational investments.
Taxation should no longer be seen as an exception or a punishment.
It is not an exception.
It is the rule.
It is the universal law of the species’ right to live.
When taxation on stock exchange transactions becomes the law,
profit becomes an offering, a privilege.
If taxation becomes the law,
maximum profitability is therefore no longer a mandatory consequence.
Thus,
taxation is not a punishment,
profit is a reward.
Like any reward, it has to be earned.
Such is justice.
*
Four problems,
four variations.
As we have said, there is one solution,
the taxation of stock exchange transactions,
which is divided into four branches, four measures, four nuances,
one for each problem.
1 High-frequency trading:
the faster the resale, the higher the tax.
2 The longer time:
This is the mandatory counterweight of the first law:
the more long-term the investment, the lower the tax.
3 The exponentiality of returns on investment
The more money you earn, the more you are taxed,
on a proportional system similar to income tax:
the more money one makes, the more one gets taxed.
It goes without saying that such a measure could not be implemented
if tax havens continued to exist.
Is it better for my country to be a tax haven
and thus condemn humanity to be deprived of a crucial solution
for the salvation of the entire human species,
or is it better for my country to also contribute
to the mission of saving humanity?
4 Respect for the earth, the living and the human being:
The more virtuous the company in which we invest,
the less tax we pay.
The goal is not to discourage investments,
but to make them as virtuous as possible
and to protect ourselves from the excesses of the stock market.
Instead of taking as a measure the increase in values
decided by the law of supply and demand alone,
the reference values for remuneration on stock exchange investments
are time and the environment.
The longer the invested time is,
the more interesting the investment must be.
The more the investment is in favour of the preservation
of the human species and the planet,
the more interesting it has to be.
The longer the duration of the investment,
the more it aligns itself with the longer time frame of the environment.
This is the certain goal.
The mission is not only possible,
it is vital.
Its realization is not only indispensable,
it is also and above all possible.
Revealing humanity in its best, most beautiful light
is changing humanity.
Seeing that we are worthy of it is making the miracle a reality.
Seeing that it is possible will make us worthy of it.
That is the way.
That is the only way.
Wisdom and justice show us the way.
Wisdom and justice are our guides, our compasses, our lights.
In the name of all that exists,
see.
*
Ideological mathematics
The ideological basis for capitalism is greed.
So why should we be surprised
that the world and humanity are being plundered?
To solve this problem from an ideological starting point
would solve the major problem of the Human being in the 21st century
on the whole Earth.
It is not a mathematical equation that we have to solve.
It is an ideological problem.
Nevertheless,
we would be happy and flattered
if maybe a mathematician and, or a pro of finance
could be inspired enough to give us at least a reasonable range of financial return
in exchange for a promise of duration of the investment,
neither too high so that the current system will not be repeated
in a new, perhaps worse form,
nor too low so that the economy does not dry up by lack of money.
The question arises, however,
whether the stock exchange is an institution
that is not more destructive than creative.
This is a relatively simple thing to measure.
We need to know whether the stock exchange is more destructive
than it is useful.
Indeed,
because stock exchanges most often only fund giant corporations
that resemble quasi-monopolies in their respective markets,
don’t stock exchanges kill free competition
and therefore the principle of free entrepreneurship?
Moreover, and for the same reason,
because stock exchanges often only fund giant corporations
that are akin to quasi-monopolies in their respective markets,
these behemoths prevent the system from transforming itself.
Rich and powerful,
they do everything they can to keep the banking system unregulated.
Rich and powerful,
they do everything they can
so that the good health of the earth and of humans is not respected.
Rich and powerful,
they do everything they can to ensure that nothing changes.
Therefore,
should the stock market continue to exist as itself, as an institution?
If it were to cease to exist,
should it be replaced?
If so, by what?
The purpose of stock exchanges is the movement of capital around the world.
If this is its objective,
then why not create one or some institutions with clear purposes:
the good health of the economy and the environment around the world.
Right now,
it doesn’t matter whether stock exchanges stay or die.
Four things matter:
1. The reversal of values.
2 Time
3 Earth and Life
4 Humans
Aligning those four points is aligning the planets.
If the taxation of stock exchange transactions
is the condition to the planets’ alignment,
then so be it.
If sooner or later,
the disappearance or replacement of stock exchanges
must be a condition for the planets’ alignment,
then so be it.
*
To be born or not to be born
A few new rules shared around the world
and the world is saved.
A few new rules shared by all humanity
and humanity is saved.
As long as there is air to breathe, plants to feed and sustain us,
as long as our rivers flow to give us water,
humanity will survive.
As soon as humanity is born,
humanity will be able to face all challenges.
When the waters rise,
we will be able to cope because we will know how to prepare for it,
the earlier we get it done, the better.
Let us not fear,
once humankind has come into the world,
humankind will have regained control of the markets.
As soon as humankind has regained control of the markets,
it will have regained control of its destiny.
Freed from the cyclical and chronic violence of the financial markets,
it will have found wisdom, harmony, justice and freedom.
We will then be able to face the greatest disasters,
the worst viruses and epidemics
such as the coronavirus ones.
Verily,
the worst thing that humanity has to fear
is never to come into the world.
*
* * *
* * * * *
** **
*
Fragments of thoughts
*
What is money?
How many of us know what money is?
How many of us can answer these few absolutely crucial questions
as to the global understanding of a world ruled by money?
1. What is the nature of money?
2. What is its function?
3. What is its purpose?
4. What are its properties and characteristics?
5. How is it calculated? How is its value defined? In relation to what?
6. Who decides on its creation, control and management?
What is the nature of money?
It is an ex-nihilo man-made creation, a paper transaction.
Money is a large-scale collective agreement.
Nothing else.
It is not impossible to change a collective agreement.
We do it on a regular basis.
Go back in time and see all the successive changes
that have taken place over and over again throughout the history of the species,
everywhere and all the time.
Nothing real prevents us from choosing wisdom.
Quite the reverse, actually.
Because necessarily reality exists in and of itself,
it is the truth itself that dictates it to us.
It would give it back to us
a hundredfold, a thousand times over, to infinity.
One law gives way to another law.
The thinkers of sovereign money offer us a turnkey solution.
It’s all in there, or almost all of it.
All you have to do is apply the recipes:
The nation becomes sovereign again in monetary terms
when it regains monetary sovereignty.
What is the function of money?
To be exchanged.
What is its purpose?
To promote the optimum of human civilization
in the commercial, banking, financial, economic,
corporatist, industrial and social spheres…
To the point of contributing to saving humanity?
What are its properties and characteristics?
When money is monopolized by private interests,
then the nation is free no longer.
Enslaved,
it is in great danger of annihilation or disintegration.
One of the major properties of money
is that it aggravates, multiplies and intensifies the consequences
of its unjust and ignorant mismanagement on all the citizens of our world
all over the world.
This is the dark, obscure side of money,
as our greatest common curse of all ages.
However,
there is also a bright side to money.
Managed with wisdom, consciousness and justice,
the entire monetary system can find its coherence, its balance, its harmony.
The true nature of money, its true purpose, its true raison d’être
is the facilitation of exchanges between all members of the community
in order to absorb all forms of exclusion and tyranny
– monetary, financial, economic and, by extension, political.
It is nothing more than that.
It is what it is all about:
A system where money is comparable to the water cycle on earth.
Like water, like a network of rivers and tributary streams,
as land is irrigated,
irrigating the economy means creating breeding grounds for activities
to make the earth fruitful.
This is the only way.
The more we are committed to the path of justice and harmony,
the sooner the balances and solutions
will reveal themselves to us as a matter of course.
The capacity of money to intensify its effects in all dimensions of human life,
in all social, economic, collective, and intimate spheres,
is true in both directions.
Giving the Earth, the living, humans and ourselves
their authentic value back
is undoubtedly our greatest wealth.
It is, until proven otherwise, obviously our best chance.
Of course,
a piece of paper or a number on a computer,
has no use, and as such, no value in itself.
Yet, as a species, we sacrifice everything to it:
our fellow humans, our children, our lives, our souls.
A piece of paper, a piece of encrypted information,
money as a symbol has value only as an instrument of exchange
among the members of a community of nations
that accept it as such.
Sadly,
in this world where the reign of money is almost total and totalitarian,
hardly anyone can do without it to survive,
and thus money also has, paradoxically, an absolute value.
Like a motor, money should be used to oil the economy,
that is to say, to enable the various economic agents
to put their resources and know-how at the service of the community.
It is by being useful to the vast majority
that money takes on a real and measured value.
If, because stolen from the immense majority,
money, wealth, capital and resources are truly useful only to a powerful minority,
then perceptions of values, currencies and wealth are distorted
according to whether we belong to this or that group,
as in a schizophrenic and destructive collective psychological delirium
that leads us to a self-destructive society.
Like any material possession,
money has a relative value.
Money:
everything and nothing at the same time.
Money is nothing and yet we are ready to ransack everything,
to sacrifice everything on the altar of money,
in the name of a tyrannical and, in the final analysis, evil system?
Money is not a form of wealth in itself
but a simple vector of information of wealth.
Its value is therefore not only relative and subjective,
it is also and above all by nature dependent
on resources, on the earth, on living things
and their capacity to renew themselves.
Money and other various means of transaction or payment
have natures and dynamics that are too different from real wealth
to be evaluated in a rational, harmonious, sustainable,
transparent and trustworthy manner.
Without trust in the Earth and in time,
in the short, medium and long term, without trust in each other,
there can be no harmony, no well-being,
no real wealth and no sustainability.
Without trust,
there can only be suspicion, mistrust, predation.
Our economic, financial and monetary system
makes humanity lose all confidence in its own future and in itself.
If the values of our currencies
are based only on the arbitrariness of institutions and markets,
it is not surprising that such dynamics are leading us into the abyss.
Blinded by our vanity,
entrenched in our predatory relationship to money and nature,
we omit from our equations that all that humanity can offer
is first and foremost a product of the Earth, of nature and of itself.
Rich, we are already rich.
The only problem is that we don’t know it.
*
In order for justice and economy
not to be an oxymoron anymore.
As much as systemic injustices spare no one on Earth,
justice at monetary, banking and financial levels
would benefit everyone without exception.
Putting money back in the right place and on the right path,
thanks to these few laws,
would be simple.
Monetary sovereignty frees nations from banks and debt.
It is the key to the greatest revolution of all time.
The more justice is applied in the world,
the more it will touch the whole world with its grace and fertility.
At all levels and scales,
monetary sovereignty is both the technical and metaphysical condition
for our personal and collective liberation.
The idea is very simple:
The power to create money is transferred from the banks to the nation.
The truth always is clarity, certainty and simplicity.
It is only and inevitably by regaining control of money
and freeing ourselves from the shackles of money
that the people of the Earth will be free.
It cannot be otherwise.
The experiment of monetary sovereignty and sovereign currencies
must be carried out as quickly as possible.
The other virtue of sovereign money
is that it transforms the system without killing it.
Thus,
it makes the transition possible.
More than possible,
it is the only possible one.
*
100% money:
A monetary revolution.
The concept of full or 100% money
was first advocated by the Chicago Plan
during the great crisis of the 1930s in the United States,
following the collapse of the financial markets in 1929*.
Today it is an integral part of the concept of Sovereign Money.
The principle of full money is simple:
It puts an end to the fractional reserve system
by decreeing that the banking institution issuing a loan
has 100% of the money it lends in its accounts.
* « The long list of academic treatments in the 1930s, almost universally
sympathetic, includes Whittlesey (1935), Douglas (1935), Angell (1935), Fisher (1936) and
Graham (1936). Advocacy for the Chicago Plan continued after the war, with Allais
(1947), Friedman (1960), who was a lifelong supporter, and Tobin (1985). »
* “Chicago Plan”,
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf
The irony of history is that it is from this same Chicago School of Economics
that the dominant economic ideology was born,
”neo-liberalism” whereby the market must be deregulated,
have all the powers, and must dictate all its laws, the laws of money
in order to impose them on all spheres of life and society in its entirety,
and thus make itself responsible for a large part of most of the ills of our 21st century.
Great neoliberal if ever there was one, Milton Friedman himself,
was nevertheless in favour of the Chicago Plan, bank reserves on 100% deposits
and of the state as the holder of the power to create money.
Irony of History which leads us to believe that the Chicago plan is not only possible
but that it is also beneficial to reconcile the public and private economy,
to reconcile sovereign democracy, where economic policies are rationally chosen
in the sense that they are decided by conscious, scientific, and democratic reason
with the dynamism of a free economy,
in a dynamic system based on a sound, solid and balanced foundation
where the general will and vested interests are no longer antagonistic,
where the greater good no longer contradicts the good of a few.
A full or 100% money system
would thus keep us safe from the current systemic excesses
which are due to the multiplication of credit that feeds itself,
to speculation, to the bursting of financial bubbles and thus of stock market collapses
with cataclysmic fallout.
In conjunction with the separation of deposit banks and investment banks,
it protects us from bank-runs and credit crunches,
mistrust in currencies and all financial institutions,
mistrust in the democratic State itself.
It finally frees us from the economic cycles
that in some books and in almost every school in the world,
we are taught to accept as inevitable:
the cursed cycles of booms that,
in an out of control, unstable, volatile, extreme, and inordinate way,
always end up bursting and turning into planetary depressions,
like toxic financial bombs that spread their poison throughout the world,
necessarily resulting in crashes, clashes, injustices and devastation,
because indeed the root cause of financial crashes and the ensuing economic depressions
is due to the fact that bankers lend and speculate
with more than what is on their books,
historically hiding from their clients the actual figures in their accounts,
with the obvious and documented purpose
of making money by and for money.
Thus,
the rule of 100% reserves of all bank deposits, in every bank
that the Chicago Plan and the Sovereign Money recommend
not only puts out of the picture the system of fractional reserves,
but also makes the revolution soft,
because even if it transforms it profoundly,
it does not annihilate the current system:
it grafts itself onto it in order to metamorphose it.
* “Chicago Plan”,
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf
*
The caterpillar and the butterfly
Without a helm or direction, without good governance,
human beings are miserable.
Whoever we are, wherever we are,
whether we are at the top in palaces,
in unconsciousness and/or indifference,
or whether we are at the very bottom,
at the very bottom of the ladder, at the bottom of the earth,
rotting in hunger and thirst, in mud and misery, in the most inhuman sufferings,
the curse of the world affects everyone without exception,
no matter how big or small.
Even though the consequences differ
depending on whether one is a citizen or a member of the oligarchy,
whether one is rich or poor,
the manifestations of chaos are being felt all over the world.
Depriving a country of its monetary sovereignty
is a betrayal of the nation and the world
and always results in the systematic plundering of the State and the population,
of the Earth, the Living, and the Human Species.
Because without it,
everything becomes injustice, lies and manipulation,
because without it,
everything becomes more absurd and chaotic and violent and scary,
the right of a nation to create its own currency
is inalienable and sacred, just and legitimate, absolute and incompressible.
As a woman carries her child in her womb before giving birth,
monetary sovereignty is by nature and by definition fertile with equilibria
and fruitful of dynamic virtues
destined to develop and grow stronger and stronger over time.
Because it is fair and serves everyone’s interests,
a democratic and sovereign currency is the universal and divine right
not only of the sovereign nation but also of the world.
If humanity is universal and if the deity is also universal,
then universal and humanistic sovereign rights are sacred and divine.
What is at stake is liberation or suffering, death or freedom.
Universal wisdom applied to money and economics
is our only salvation.
There will never be any other way out.
A nation without the power to create money cannot be sovereign.
A nation that has surrendered its sovereignty
is by nature and definition
a slave nation.
More than grave,
it’s dramatic and tragic,
in every way and in every respect.
To create sovereign currencies around the world
within a coherent, non-monopolistic system,
to harmonize monetary and financial systems
as much as possible in the world,
will benefit everyone:
investors, banks, businesses, industries, large or small, markets,
citizens, people, the future, our children, everyone,
here and now, always and everywhere.
What’s more valuable?
The stability of a system and therefore the assurance of profits
that are certainly reasonable, moderate, but continuous,
or exponential, increasingly rapid and delirious,
increasingly unstable and destabilizing institutional greed,
maximum personal profit to the breaking point
of terrible, apocalyptic, titanic magnitude?
Who will be swept away by the next global financial storm?
When the capitalist system has stopped rotting and collapses for good,
no one will earn anything anymore.
There will be nothing left to profit from,
because there will be a system no more.
One would have to be crazy
to choose the unpredictability of a system
whose catastrophes are already taking shape
over justice, freedom, law, stability, harmony of balances,
and the understanding of flows, scales and mastery of the great currents
of the great monetary, economic, financial,
sociological, psychological, political,
collective, intimate and emotional dynamics.
To establish Sovereign Currencies
around the world is a relevant first step in all areas:
economic, monetary, social, political, geopolitical,
human and psychological, relational…
Because it shapes tomorrow’s world
by helping the world out of its crisis,
this simple and realistic paradigm shift
is the first step from the present to the future.
It is the economic breeding ground
on which the world of the future
will be built and can quietly be born and grow.
Sovereign Money is necessary for capitalism to change.
Already as a caterpillar,
the caterpillar is a butterfly.
Like a caterpillar that remains a caterpillar in the cocoon
that transforms it into a butterfly,
as soon as it is ready,
the great hatching begins
and the miraculous transformation takes place.
Already humanity carries within itself
the intelligence and reason, the wisdom and vision to transform itself.
What makes sense is possible.
It is its very coherence that makes it possible.
The harmonization, the humanization of laws and systems
in the fields of currency and good governance
in a multi-scale system of nations among themselves
by mastering the dynamics
and interconnected social, economic, political, monetary,
concrete and abstract, material and spiritual structures
bears in itself an undeniable, irrefutable coherence
that one would have to be crazy or blind or corrupt or all three
not to see.
At all scales,
choosing sovereign money is entering the cocoon of evolution.
Following this,
a second turn will be possible for capitalism to transfigure itself
and perhaps accomplish its great metamorphosis,
law after law, benefit after benefit,
towards a world that is not post-apocalyptic,
but simply post-capitalist.
It is possible
and it will be much easier than leaving things as they are,
in universal competition
and the race towards the wretchedness of peoples and nations,
not to mention all the ecological and financial dangers.
The world is a universal, exceptional, exponential power.
We cannot go back in time.
But we can bend it.
We cannot go back in history.
But we can change its course.
Realizing what we are is realizing ourselves.
As a second birth, of mind and consciousness,
to see it is to come into the world.
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All roads lead to Rome.
It doesn’t matter where we start
when we know the destination and are going in the right direction.
It doesn’t matter where we start our journey.
The destination will lead us in its direction.
And even when it is unreachable, when the goal is known,
the path is life-saving.
We will never be able to predict the future in detail,
it’s impossible.
Mastering time seems quite improbable,
if not impossible until the end of time.
And yet,
like birds dance with the wind, to adjust over time is possible.
Not only is it possible,
but it’s also vital and indispensable.
All it takes
is to let ourselves be guided by the best that time,
our time has to offer
for it to come true.
That is the whole subject of this book.
Here and now, solutions exist.
To make them come true is not only possible,
it is our only possible future.
It is human nature to seek answers and solutions
to problems and questions that arise here and now.
If in order to find, one must seek,
then is seeking already finding?
The realization of Human, of the human species
is the ultimate condition for its survival, the condition for life,
or the condition by which the human species dies.
Even if the world is plagued with lies,
the Truth exists.
Truth be told,
only truth is real.
If only the Truth exists,
then seeking the Truth means finding the path
to Realization, to Wisdom, to Justice, to Harmony on Earth.
Looking for the solutions is finding them.
Solutions exist,
conceived, discovered by humanists who have sought and found.
They are there, right in front of our eyes.
We just have to lay our eyes on them.
If they were applied, they would make history.
Until the end of time perhaps.
Salvation is always a milestone in history.
Then never,
until the end of the human race,
will we be able to stop marveling at this possibility
that time can offer us.
Today,
the solution is universal wisdom, full of hope and wonder.
When we are on the road, at the wheel of our vehicle,
we must first and foremost see the curve ahead, and keep our eyes on it
in order to enter it at the right speed and on the right trajectory.
Once we see that we can do it,
we will be mature enough to consider the big curve.
Monetary Sovereignty is a first corner.
Another one awaits us after it:
to reveal the beneficial power of international cooperation.
By definition,
international cooperation is universal.
By definition,
what is universal is wisdom.
One of the definitions of the Universal
is that it reconciles the whole and the parts,
from the biggest to the smallest ones.
Thus,
while the universal is certainly transferable to a nation,
regardless of the world around it,
surely the most accomplished, perfect, absolute form of the universal
is the world.
All the more so
since technology and globalization make all the nations of this world
in permanent interaction with each other,
whether we like it or not.
Because its word is universal,
because it speaks the language of all kinds of rhetoric,
all kinds of theories, all kinds of logics, all kinds of ideologies,
all kinds of economic consequences and applications,
monetary sovereignty is applicable
wherever money is used as a means of exchange,
whatever its jurisdiction or sphere of application.
Because Sovereign and Democratic Money
gives the currency to the People’s Democracy,
then it gives wealth, justice, wisdom, sovereignty, harmony and life
back to Democracy
and the people it is supposed to embody.
Wherever it comes from,
harmony is always universal.
Justice and truth are the path to the universal.
The universal is the way of the universe.
The harmony of the whole always transcends
the state and condition of the subsets and units of the whole.
Harmony is always a transcendence.
If the harmony of the whole is the harmony of the subsets,
then the effort to harmonize the nations with one another
is self-evident.
Because it manifests itself
through systemic economic, financial and monetary dynamics,
a real people’s democracy,
once again the master and sovereign of its own currency,
has the intrinsic power to reconcile not only the private and public spheres,
but also industry and ecology,
nations among themselves, humans among themselves.
Verily,
for free and enlightened peoples,
regaining monetary sovereignty means making the exercise of democratic,
free, popular and universal power
possible once again.
It’s a whole.
One doesn’t go without the other.
The best guarantee of national sovereignty
is international sovereignty.
And vice versa.
Wisdom, justice, humanity and harmony are a whole.
This whole is the prerequisite
for the blossoming and happy vibrancy of a nation,
of nations and of a world, of this world,
revealed to each other, unveiled to each other.
So that at last a return is possible.
The return of human beings, like the return of the prodigal son,
on the path of truth and reason, of wisdom and intelligence,
of light and consciousness, of justice and harmony.
The understanding of major systems, flows, dynamics and macro-economic currents
is key to systemic harmony and effectiveness.
Because sovereign money gives monetary sovereignty
back to peoples and humans,
sovereign money liberates nations and the world
from the grip of money, markets and corruption.
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Freedom
Freedom is the power to make the best possible choices.
Making the best possible choices
is a condition for our survival and salvation.
Freedom is salvation.
Salvation is a self-evident condition.
Salvation is liberation.
The two faces of the same reality,
the end and the means.
Because justice gives the world back to humans,
the humane vision gives justice back to the world.
The creation of sovereign currencies in the world
is a first step.
A first step towards liberation.
A first step towards freedom.
A first step towards justice.
A first step towards wisdom.
A first step towards harmony.
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