"The truth is out about money" a must-read by David Graeber

[Alison H]

I don't know if you-all know David Graeber, often referred to as occupy's main theorist.  He has this new piece in the London Guardian.  This should become common knowledge... as common as the fact the NSA is using facebook to spy on us.

 

Alison

The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it

The Bank of England's dose of honesty throws the theoretical basis for austerity out the window

 

Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford is supposed to have remarked that it was a good thing that most Americans didn't know how banking really works, because if they did, "there'd be a revolution before tomorrow morning".

 

Last week, something remarkable happened. The Bank of England let the cat out of the bag. In a paper called "Money Creation in the Modern Economy", co-authored by three economists from the Bank's Monetary Analysis Directorate, they stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong, and that the kind of populist, heterodox positions more ordinarily associated with groups such as Occupy Wall Street are correct. In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window. 

 

Rest of the story at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity

[Alison H]

Hey Barbara and everyone,

The David Graeber article reminded Barbara about Occupy's Rolling Jubilee and she asked me if it still existed.  Rolling Jubilee buys up debt on the cheap and forgives it.  I googled and found it's still going strong.  It was a wild success even hailed by Forbes magazine occupy's best idea!  An occupy sister org called Strike Debt did it once and are now doing it over and over, so you can take part.

More at http://rollingjubilee.org/ & https://www.facebook.com/RollingJubilee.

And about Strike Debt "Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand."  There's a national and a Bay Area http://strike-debt-bay-area.tumblr.com/.  Maybe we can join.  Here's how they describe themselves:

"Debt is a tie that binds the 99%. With stagnant wages, systemic unemployment, and public service cuts, we are forced to go into debt for the basic things in life — and thus surrender our futures to the banks. Debt is major source of profit and power for Wall Street that works to keep us isolated, ashamed, and afraid. Using direct action, research, education, and the arts, we are coming together to challenge this illegitimate system while imagining and creating alternatives. We want an economy in which our debts are to our friends, families, and communities — and not to the 1%."

Al

From: Barb Goodwin <bgo...@comcast.net>
To: alis...@pacbell.net
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [OccupyMV] "The truth is out about money" a must-read by David Graeber

Allison would you happen to know the status of Rolling Jubilee...still possible to buy distressed debt and fund strangers???????Barbara Goodwin

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Occupy Mountain View Events" group.
 
Send event information to our community at occupy-mou...@googlegroups.com
 
Send other items of interest to our community at occupy-moun...@googlegroups.com
 
Visit Occupy Mountain View at http://www.occupymv.org/
Find an Occupy event in your community by visiting http://www.occupytogether.org/
 
Visit us on
Facebook www.facebook.com/groups/occupymv
Twitter www.twitter.com/occupymv
 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to occupy-mountain view+uns...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/occupy-mountain-view?hl=en?hl=en

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Occupy Mountain View" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to occupy-mountain-...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.