Planning post-Truth economic reform: Top 10 Americans for monetary reform: #3 Andrew Jackson

hyperlinks and video live at source: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m9d21-Top-10-Americans-for-monetary-reform-3-President...

The financial crisis in America today could be over almost instantaneously through monetary reform. Monetary reform is a fundamental shift in how America creates money. The shift is from a Robber Baron-era design of banks creating credit to lend to us at interest and ever-increasing debt, to our community (government) creating it for the direct payment of public goods and services. The benefits of monetary reform are conservatively $1 TRILLION every year, the end of the national debt, and full employment.

Please review the links above to fully understand this idea.

The power of monetary reform is evident in history. Napoleonic France quickly became the world’s leading economy and Paris its most beautiful city after ten years of violent revolution that killed or drove-off their economic leadership. Nazi Germany overcame tragic-comic hyperinflation to become the model economy during the Great Depression. These nations were in worse economic conditions than America today (economic power needs to be invested in the public good, not for empire).

This top 10 list of Americans who understood monetary reform deserve your attention. Given our economic condition, you literally have nothing more valuable for your attention.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) is the last US President to pay-off the national debt. He did so only after ending the Federal Reserve of his day, the privately-owned Second Bank of the United States. The story is told in the 10-minute video below from the Money Masters. As did Thomas Jefferson, Jackson understood the subversive act and perpetual national debt with banks creating money to lend to the government. He did not understand the positive policy response of the government creating money directly for the payment of public goods and services. Jackson critics would respond that he was proficient in killing, and indeed less than capable with constructive policy. In fact, in 1836 President Jackson issued an Executive Order called the Specie Circular that required payment to the government for land to be only in gold or silver. This increased demand and emptied the banks of the day of the fractional gold and silver backing their bank notes, causing bank runs. Jackson and Congress could have issued money directly, as had Napoleon, and then accepted this fiat currency for all payments.

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“The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.” (referring to the Second Bank of the US) . - Said to Martin Van Buren (July 8, 1832), quoted in The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, published in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918, vol. II (1920), ed. John Clement Fitzpatrick, ch. XLIII (p. 625)

“I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.” - From the original minutes of the Philadelphia committee of citizens sent to meet with President Jackson, February 1834, according to Stan V. Henkels, Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States, 1928

The following two paragraphs are President Andrew Jackson in his veto message for the renewal of the privately-owned Bank of the United States, which would have continued their private monopoly of creating US money. July 10, 1832.

“It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power ‘to coin money and regulate the value thereof.’ Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution. But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional…

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.”

“I have no hesitation to say if they can re-charter the bank (2nd Bank of the US – a privately-owned central bank) with this hydra of corruption they will rule the nation and its charter will be perpetual and its corrupting influence destroy the liberty of our country. When I came into this administration…I had a majority of 75. Since then it is now believed it (the bank) has bought over by loans, discounts, etc until…there were 2/3 for re-chartering it.” – President Andrew Jackson, April 7, 1833 letter to R. H. M. Cryer referring to votes in Congress. Ralph Catterall, The 2nd Bank of the U.S., Univ. of Chicago Press, 1902.

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing." - Farewell Address, March 4, 1837.

After President Jackson vetoed Congress’ re-charter the 2nd Bank of the US and paid-off the national debt, President Van Buren (elected 1836) and Jackson’s Vice President, was confident the goal of defending the US from a privately-owned central bank was won:
“The practice of funding the public debt…has long been discontinued…A National Bank has become a completely ‘obsolete idea’ among us, as thoroughly condemned in public opinion as a national debt.” – Catterall, p. 431.

Are you listening?

“It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power ‘to coin money and regulate the value thereof.’ Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution."

...which constrasts with your statement:

"Jackson and Congress could have issued money directly, as had Napoleon, and then accepted this fiat currency for all payments."

Are you listening to Jackson and the Constitution?

I think so :)

Jackson didn't understand the power to create money as Napoleon had, true. He could have coined it, or printed it, if Congress wanted to interpret "coin." Jackson understood to kill the bank and that the Constitution didn't allow for a private bank. I don't know what he would have said if he understood the public benefits of government-created money. The bottom-line that we should embrace is a cost-benefit analysis of our options.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...