Council of Canadians

[Ken Hanly]

I should have said that according to the Monetary Reform Magazine Guernsey is a
historical example of the successful application of their suggested reforms. According to
the magazine a group of concerned citizens gathered together in 1815 in order to solve
the problem of how to finance dykes(sp?). There were enough workers and materials to fix
dykes but not enough money to pay for labor and materials. Guernsey was able to make its
own laws and issued six thousand pounds of Guernsey notes, accepted as payment for taxes.
By 1837 fifty thousand pounds of Guernsey notes were spent on fixing sea wall, roads, a
church, and colege. By 1990, Guernsey with 60,000 permanent residents has a flat income
tax of 20%
(Comment: seems like a bad idea), no public debt, no General Sales Tax, no inheritance
tax (comment: bad idea) no capital gains tax (another).

   Cheers, Ken Hanly

Ken Hanly wrote:


> I am not at all sure that the Council of Canadians has any direct relation to what is
> being discussed. An online source for monetary reform of this sort is:
> http://www.monetary-reform.on.ca/main.shtml
>     Guernsey is a historical example of the successful application of the principle
> of issuing a wealth-based public mint system rather than a private debt-driven
> privatate mint system. (Monetary Reform Magazie 1996). It should be in the archives
> on the website
>    CHeers, Ken Hanly
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> >
> > > Ok - what would the problem be for the Bank of Canada to buy up the loans from
> > > private institutions?  Then the "public" debt would be owed to "public" bank?
> > > This is done for RRSP's (say, when you use your RRSP to purchase a house) - why
> > > can't a (theoretically democratic) national bank do the same thing? If the gov
> > > needs money, it's just stupid to go to a private institution.
> > >
> > > somewhat perplexed,
> > > ken
> >
> > I think one of the economists on the list better take the time to
> > answer this in some detail. Through years of reading Pound,
> > Pound's critics, and some of Pound's sources I know to mly
> > own satisfaction (a) how impossible this is (b) how politically
> > dangerous it is and (c) how appealing it can be to someone
> > outraged by conditions but not familiar enough with the
> > right history and with counter-arguments.
> >
> > >From the *Cantos*
> >
> >         A factory
> >         has also anothe aspect, which we call the financial aspect
> >         It gives people the power to buy (wages, dividends
> >         which are power to buy) but it is also the cause of prices
> >         or values, financial, I mean financial  values
> >         It pays workers, and pays *for* material.
> >         What it pays in wages and dividends
> >         stays fluid, as power to buy, and this power is less,
> >         per forza, damn blast your intellex, is less
> >         than the total payments made by the factory
> >         (as wages, dividends AND payments for raw material
> >         bank charges, etcetera)
> >         and all, that is the whole, that is the total
> >         of these is added into the total of prices
> >         caused by that factory, any damn factory
> >         and there is and must be therefore a clog
> >         and the power to purchase can never
> >         (under the present system) catch up with
> >         prices at large,
> >
> >                     and the light became so bright and so blindin'
> >         in this layer of paradise
> >                     that the mind of  man was bewildered.
> >                             (Canto XXXVIII)
> >
> > And, in the Pound tradition, one unclogs it with money created by
> > the state, which is what Ken is proposing. But the state of course
> > must be prepared to make that money be honored. Hence, from
> > a later Canto:
> >
> >         Story told by the mezzo-yit:
> >         That they were to have a consortium
> >         and one of the potbellies says:
> >                     will come in for 12 million"
> >         And another: three millyum for my cut;
> >         And another: we will take eight;
> >         And the Boss [Mussolini] said: but what will you
> >                     DO with that money?"
> >         "But! but! signore, you do not ask a man
> >         what he will *do* with his money.
> >         That is a personal matter.
> >         And the Boss said: but what will you do?
> >         You won't really need all that money
> >         because you are all for the *confine*."
> >                         (Canto XLI)
> >
> > >From the state loaning money to the state (i.e., issuing
> > fiat money)  almost always flows some form of authoritarian
> > utopia.
> >
> > Carrol