A monstrous lie - revolt now or we are doomed

Rodney Shakespeare        

We are being told a monstrous lie. We must revolt now against that lie or we are doomed.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, a UK government body, says the UK faces decades of austerity.

One part of the monstrous lie is that it’s all the fault of an aging population. The other part is that huge austerity is the only answer.

‘Decades’ means twenty, thirty, forty, even more years with no clear indication of there ever being relief. ‘Decades’ means misery, poverty, social disorder, vicious suppression, and some form of nasty, fascist state.

Yes, fascism is coming if the British public does not take immediate, tough, political action and demand that recognition be made that there is no need for the austerity. More than sufficient physical and human resources exist to solve any material problem, including that of an aging population (which the Office is claiming is the cause of the problem).

The factories exist; the farms exist; the talented people, wanting to work, exist; the technology exists, and, apart from existing technology, mind-boggling new technology is coming along all the time. How dare they condemn the nation to poverty forever!

Yet even the Office of Budget Responsibility does not believe its own lie. If even forty years of austerity do not solve the problem then it cannot be the solution.

It’s not the fault of the aged; it’s not the fault of the unemployed; it’s not the fault of the poor; it’s not the fault of immigrants; it’s not the fault of Muslims; it’s not the fault of Iran (yes, they’re warming up for that one); or malicious gods - give them time, they’ll eventually get round to claiming that mystical forces are at work and we had better placate them with a bit of human sacrifice.

No, no, NO! It’s THEIR fault! It’s the fault of all those who claim that there is nothing basically wrong with the existing system which is the most efficient system ever conceived in the history of the human race and one which always has just outcomes. It’s the fault of the arrogant, self-righteous bankers - Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Bob Diamond - claiming they do God’s work. It’s the fault of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Barclays. It’s the fault of the bumptious, complacent politicians, controlled by the bankers, who, not suffering themselves, think it a good idea to make others suffer. It’s the fault of the academics in the universities who uphold mainstream economics.
And, yes, it’s the fault of everybody who is not now standing up to be counted before it’s too late and the internet is shut down, every moment of our lives is spied on, and we have entered a mixture of 1984 and Brave New World.

We must DEMAND that the banks, the zombie banks - the main, but not the only, cause of the present, deepening crisis - be controlled. It is the arrogant, outrageous belief that banks are at the heart of an immensely efficient, eternally just, economics system implementing a ‘free market’ benefiting everybody which is the main cause of the trouble.

It is this belief that enables their money supply (which, in reality, is not theirs but society’s money supply which they have misappropriated) to be used for casino gambling, trillions of false derivatives, the fraudulent selling of financial instruments, rising asset prices, consumer credit which ends up impoverishing the poor, and always, always debt - compound interest-bearing debt. This debt is only issued for the benefit of the 1% and is now largely, if not wholly, un-repayable causing a collapse of the present financial system.

We must CONTROL the banks. That means a small Tobin tax on trillions of computer-generated contracts. It means the re-implementation of Glass-Steagall. It means a gradual rise to 100% banking reserves so that the banks cannot create money out of nothing (a power which they have humungously abused). Let the banks lend their own money (and lose it, if they want) and let them lend, with permission, the deposits of their customers. But never, ever, let them again have complete control of a money supply which they create merely by the pressing of computer buttons.

Moreover, if the banks refuse Tobin, Glass-Steagall and the 100% rise then that leaves the last option - nationalise them.

With the banks under control a new interest-free money supply can be opened up. This would originate from the national bank and be only for the real economy (of goods and services) and the spreading of the real economy to every person in society. Yes, for the real economy of goods and services so that we use the factories, the farms, the talented people wanting to work, the existing technology and the mind-boggling new technology. The interest-free supply can be administered by the commercial banks charging only a fair administration cost.

However, the coming disaster is so rapidly approaching, the new supply must be opened up NOW - even before the banks are controlled. Austerity (and subsequent fascism) must not be allowed to grip civilisation around the throat.

The new (repayable) interest-free loan supply (plus a fair administration charge) can be used for:
a) Public capital projects such as bridges, roads, hospitals, fire stations, waterworks, and sewage systems - at one half or one third of the usual cost. For a start, this will create millions of people in work who, from their spending (the ‘multiplier’ effect), create more jobs.
 

b) Micro credit. NB. Nowhere in the world (including the Bangladesh Grameen Bank which has to borrow its money at interest) is there a genuine, large-scale, interest-free lending for micro-credit. So-called ‘Islamic’ micro-credit uses different legal contracts but battens on to the poor just as conventional banking (minimum 50-60% interest rates) does.
 

c) Small businesses and farms. A little-known fact is that small Indian farmers commit suicide at the rate of one every thirty minutes. If they don’t do that, they have to sell a kidney.
 

d) Environmental capital projects - a mangrove-crested sea barrage can never be built using interest-bearing money.
 

e) Clean electricity generation e.g. the River Severn estuary barrage (or tidal lagoons which would have minimal environmental impact) project which would cleanly generate 10% of the UK’s electricity supply has been cancelled because the cost is un-repayable using interest-bearing money. The barrage is completely viable using interest-free money.
 

f) Student loans.
 

g) Spreading ownership in medium and large corporations This area has vast implications and is the main way by which (over time, without in any way spoiling market mechanisms) all people can be connected to the huge productive power of modern technology which, more and more, is eliminating traditional jobs.
 

h) Public and private housing (80% of valuation only; criminal penalties for false valuations and income declarations).The use of interest-free loans will cut housing costs to about one third of the traditional cost.
Either we revolt now and demand control of the banks and the opening up of the new interest-free money supply for the spreading of the real economy or we are finished.