The Banking System In Short by Rudo de Ruijter

by Rudo de Ruijter
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Independent researcher
www.courtfool.info
Netherlands
May 7, 2013

Today’s bank system adheres to a very simple principle. When you want to borrow money, you promise the banker you will pay him back and with that promise the banker creates a balance for you. You owe interest on it.

Because so few people know how the system works, nearly nobody sees how – in an almost mechanical way – banking with thin air parasites society like a cancer tumor and reduces people to cogs to appease its financial hunger.

Bail-out Is Out, Bail-in Is In by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
April 9, 2013

Image by The Workers’ Party of Ireland via Flickr

“[W]ith Cyprus . . . the game itself changed. By raiding the depositors’ accounts, a major central bank has gone where they would not previously have dared. The Rubicon has been crossed.”

—Eric Sprott, Shree Kargutkar, “Caveat Depositor”

The crossing of the Rubicon into the confiscation of depositor funds was not a one-off emergency measure limited to Cyprus. 

Why Derivatives Threaten Your Bank Account–All Depositors May Be at Risk by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
April 9, 2013

Image by The Workers’ Party of Ireland via Flickr

Shock waves went around the world when the IMF, the EU, and the ECB not only approved but mandated the confiscation of depositor funds to “bail in” two bankrupt banks in Cyprus. A “bail in” is a quantum leap beyond a “bail out.” When governments are no longer willing to use taxpayer money to bail out banks that have gambled away their capital, the banks are now being instructed to “recapitalize” themselves by confiscating the funds of their creditors, turning debt into equity, or stock; and the “creditors” include the depositors who put their money in the bank thinking it was a secure place to store their savings.

Michael Hudson: Public Banking Needed to Stop “Cannibalization” of the Economy + Transcript

Image by The Workers’ Party of Ireland via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
March 29, 2013

TheRealNews·Mar 29, 2013

Michael Hudson: As long as finance is left in private hands, you’re going to have austerity and America ending up looking like Greece and Ireland.

It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
March 28, 2013

Image by scrappy! via Flickr

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.  

A Safe and a Shotgun or Public Sector Banks? The Battle of Cyprus by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
March 21, 2013

Image by @Popicinio via Flickr

If these worries become really serious, . . . [s]mall savers will take their money out of banks and resort to household safes and a shotgun.

– Martin Hutchinson on the attempted EU raid on deposits in Cyprus banks

The deposit confiscation scheme has long been in the making.  US depositors could be next . . . .

How the Fed Could Fix the Economy—and Why It Hasn’t by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
February 24, 2013

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real “helicopter drop” that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried. Why not?  Another good question . . . .

James K. Galbraith: Inequality and Instability: What’s Ahead for the World Economy + Sidney Gluck: Humanism and Socialism

Dandelion Salad

Image by Dean.Chahim via Flickr

SocialJusticeNOW·Feb 18, 2013

Economist James K. Galbraith, one of the country’s leading analysts of the financial crisis, speaks on the link between the growing inequality and economic instability. Galbraith, a professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, will focus on the argument in his new book, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just before the Great Crisis,

Political Football Over Disaster Relief: Most Sandy Victims Are Left Stranded by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
January 4, 2013

Image by occupy617 via Flickr

In a shameless display of putting politics before human needs, Congress began 2013 still scrapping over a $60 billion Hurricane Sandy relief bill fully nine weeks after the disaster hit. And if the Katrina experience is any indication, the bill may not bring adequate relief to struggling and displaced homeowners even when it is finally passed.

Fiscal Cliff: Let’s Call Their Bluff by Ellen Brown

Image by secretlondon123 via Flickr

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
December 20, 2012

The “fiscal cliff” has all the earmarks of a false flag operation, full of sound and fury, intended to extort concessions from opponents.  Neil Irwin of the Washington Post calls it “a self-induced austerity crisis.”  David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal calls it simply theater, designed to pressure politicians into a budget deal:

The cliff is really just a trumped-up annual budget discussion. . . . The most likely outcome is a combination of tax increases, spending cuts and  kicking the can down the road.

Ensuring Scottish Sovereignty: Exploring the Public Bank Option by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
December 8, 2012

Image by Byzantine_K via Flickr

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the Bank of Scotland have been pillars of Scotland’s economy and culture for over three centuries.  So when the RBS was nationalized by the London-based UK government following the 2008 banking crisis, and the Bank of Scotland was acquired by the London-based Lloyds Bank, it came as a shock to the Scots.  They no longer owned their oldest and most venerable banks.

Ellen Brown: Restoring Prosperity With Public Banking

with Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
Nov. 15, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Guns and Butter – | KPFA 94.1 FM
October 24, 2012

The Public Banking Institute; public versus private banking; two banking models – sustainable and extractive; the Federal Reserve; the shadow banking system; the repo market; the benefits of a public banking system; debt; the money supply, compound interest; and all things money.

It’s the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
Nov. 8, 2012

Image by wisaflcio via Flickr

In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.

Saving the Post Office: Letter Carriers Consider Bringing Back Banking Services by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
August 12, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

On July 27, 2012, the National Association of Letter Carriers adopted a resolution at their National Convention in Minneapolis to investigate establishing a postal banking system.  The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important to the effort to save the public Post Office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a successful history of postal banking, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States itself; and that postal banks could serve the 9 million people who don’t have bank accounts and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers, giving low-income people access to a safe banking system.  “A USPS bank would offer a ‘public option’ for banking,” concluded the resolution, “providing basic checking and savings – and no complex financial wheeling and dealing.”

Cooperative Banking by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
May 23, 2012

According to both the Mayan and Hindu calendars, 2012 (or something very close) marks the transition from an age of darkness, violence and greed to one of enlightenment, justice, and peace.  It’s hard to see that change just yet in the events relayed in the major media, but a shift does seem to be happening behind the scenes; and this is particularly true in the once-boring world of banking.