Never let your schooling get in the way of your education!
Source: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/04/05
Education Reform
Date:04-05-09
Host:George Noory
Guests:John Taylor Gatto
Appearing during the middle two hours, education reformer John Taylor Gatto offered a critique of the American school system. Compulsory education has been set up to render the population manageable, and instill a reflexive obedience to a factory/corporate hierarchical system, he said. Yet, this kind of modality has become hopelessly out of sync with what the world has become, he argued.
Standardized testing is a scam that reveals worthless information, rather than actual performance, Gatto commented. It's easier for students to learn in a more customized environment such as home schooling, he noted, adding that "open source learning" is a valid alternative to forced education. In open source learning, the student becomes the active initiator in their education, and chooses who they'll learn from and what they wish to study.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
Source: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2004/12/06
Date:12-06-04
Host:George Noory
Guests:John Taylor Gatto
Legendary teacher and reformer John Taylor Gatto(1) presented a scathing critique of our compulsory education system. He told how in 1991 when he won the award of New York's Teacher of the Year, he audaciously quit the profession, saying that he could no longer abide by the faulty structure.
Schools turn out "incomplete people" who become indoctrinated into the work force, he declared. Citing the educational focus on memorization and short answer tests, these "weapons of mass instruction," turn out a more docile population, that has not learned the skill of thinking comprehensively, said Gatto.
Over the years, he has been impressed with many home schooling efforts. Freed from the strictures of the institutional settings, these students often show much more progress in intellectual and character development, he said. He recommended the book Hard Times in Paradise(2) by David and Micki Colfax for their insights into the home schooling process.
1. http://www.johntaylorgatto.com
2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446514896/ctoc
Related Articles
TV Addiction
"It wasn't until I became a teacher that I began to be driven crazy by TV," wrote John Taylor Gatto in an article(1) for American Enterprise. He claimed that kids who were heavy TV watchers were often "malicious to each other and sunk in chronic boredom."
The average person in the industrialized world watches three hours of TV per day, which amounts to about half of their leisure time. At that rate, if you live to 75, you'll spend a total of 9 years glued to the tube! Studies have associated TV's drawing power with our biological "orienting response," which is an instinctive attraction to certain types of visual stimuli. In an exploration of TV addiction, published in Scientific American(2), the authors found that people reported feeling more relaxed and passive while watching TV. But the relaxed feeling ended when the set was shut off and many participants said they felt as though their energy was sucked out of them.
A mountain community that previously had no TV, was studied to see how they changed after they were hooked up with cable. Over time it was found that both adults and children became less creative in problem solving and showed less perseverance at tasks. --L.L.(3)
1. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2185/is_2_10/ai_54062713
2. http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0005339B-A694-1CC5-B4A8809EC588EEDF
3. http://archive.coasttocoastam.com/info/about_lex.html
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Slave-Programming
Source: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2010/09/16
Rethinking Education
Date:09-16-10
Host:George Noory
Guests:Tom Berg, Bart Kosko
Retired San Francisco school teacher Tom Berg discussed why he believes the public school system is highly problematic. Children (particularly C, D, and F students) are being dis-empowered, having their spirits squelched, and turned into slaves, he said. There was more freedom in classrooms in previous decades, but starting with the No Child Left Behind program, there has been more emphasis on test scores, and conformity, Berg commented. "It was getting to the point where we didn't even have freedom to speak our mind at all-- we were given scripts," to teach from, he lamented.
This focus on standardized curriculum sends a message to kids that "you're going to be in a highly competitive society, and have to fight your way to the top. And you're going to have to be either a really good athlete or a really good people pleaser," and if you don't succeed at this "you're going to have to work at Walmart for the rest of your life." Berg shared details of seeing a secret report shown to him by a Superintendent who was quitting. It detailed the economic aspects of education since 1957, and predicted that the need for low-paying, low-skilled jobs would mushroom by the millennium.
In a sense, the American education system serves to create compliant social classes that serve the military industrial complex, he argued. But rather than terrorize students into submission, we should help them discover their "cosmic superself," and to develop their passions and talents, such as through apprenticeships, Berg shared.
Brain Growth & Exercise
First hour guest, Prof. Bart Kosko talked about surprising new studies that correlate physical exercise with the raising of children IQ's. Exercise pumps more red blood cells into the brain, he noted, and sections of the brain related to memory and decision making can actually grow larger in children with higher fitness levels.
Website(s):
thomasalanberg.com
uncletomsclassroom.com
sipi.usc.edu/~kosko
Book(s):
Uncle Tom's Classroom
Rethinking Education
Date:09-16-10
Host:George Noory
Guests:Tom Berg, Bart Kosko
Retired San Francisco school teacher Tom Berg discussed why he believes the public school system is highly problematic. Children (particularly C, D, and F students) are being dis-empowered, having their spirits squelched, and turned into slaves, he said. There was more freedom in classrooms in previous decades, but starting with the No Child Left Behind program, there has been more emphasis on test scores, and conformity, Berg commented. "It was getting to the point where we didn't even have freedom to speak our mind at all-- we were given scripts," to teach from, he lamented.
This focus on standardized curriculum sends a message to kids that "you're going to be in a highly competitive society, and have to fight your way to the top. And you're going to have to be either a really good athlete or a really good people pleaser," and if you don't succeed at this "you're going to have to work at Walmart for the rest of your life." Berg shared details of seeing a secret report shown to him by a Superintendent who was quitting. It detailed the economic aspects of education since 1957, and predicted that the need for low-paying, low-skilled jobs would mushroom by the millennium.
In a sense, the American education system serves to create compliant social classes that serve the military industrial complex, he argued. But rather than terrorize students into submission, we should help them discover their "cosmic superself," and to develop their passions and talents, such as through apprenticeships, Berg shared.
Brain Growth & Exercise
First hour guest, Prof. Bart Kosko talked about surprising new studies that correlate physical exercise with the raising of children IQ's. Exercise pumps more red blood cells into the brain, he noted, and sections of the brain related to memory and decision making can actually grow larger in children with higher fitness levels.
Website(s):
thomasalanberg.com
uncletomsclassroom.com
sipi.usc.edu/~kosko
Book(s):
Uncle Tom's Classroom
The Fork in the Road
David Icke - Listen To Your Heart
Saturday, 18 September 2010 11:06
Please circulate far and wide ... this is the link to send:
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/38646-david-icke-listen-to-your-heart-
Saturday, 18 September 2010 11:06
Please circulate far and wide ... this is the link to send:
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/38646-david-icke-listen-to-your-heart-
A Short Lesson on Debt - Personal and National
A Short Lesson on Debt - Personal and National
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/38619-a-better-way
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/38619-a-better-way
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Mysteries of Mastership
Dr. Frank E. Stranges. The Mysteries of Mastership, DVD.
A review.
This lecture is one hour and twenty minutes long and is available from this
webpage: http://www.nicufo.org/videos.htm
Topics:
-Angelic Assistance
-Meditation
-Defeating the dark forces
-You Have the Power to Obtain the Good Things of Life and How to Use this Power
-Gifts
-Mastery
-The Third Eye (spiritual eye: "If your eye is single, your body will be full of light.")
-Divine Power
-The Secret of Wealth and Prosperity
-The Ring of Fire Prayer
-Questions and Answers (including who killed John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy)
Some quotes from Dr. Frank E. Stranges in this lecture:
"This world is in need and if you achieve mastership, you will receive the tools, the equipment, the gifts to pass on to people who are sick, lonely, discouraged, despondent, financially embarrassed to say the least, some on the point of suicide... YOU! will be given the equipment, the power, the authority as Peter and John have...."
"Prove all things. Hold fast to that which is good."
"The Spirit of Truth within you will bear witness."
HH: Before attempting to practice the teachings in the Mysteries of Mastership, you should first study and practice the teachings in Outwitting Tomorrow by Dr. Frank E. Stranges. Outwitting Tomorrow is about beginning to walk the path of Divine Truth. It is the foundation on which mastery is built on. I did an earlier review of Outwitting Tomorrow previously in this year of 2010.
A review.
This lecture is one hour and twenty minutes long and is available from this
webpage: http://www.nicufo.org/videos.htm
Topics:
-Angelic Assistance
-Meditation
-Defeating the dark forces
-You Have the Power to Obtain the Good Things of Life and How to Use this Power
-Gifts
-Mastery
-The Third Eye (spiritual eye: "If your eye is single, your body will be full of light.")
-Divine Power
-The Secret of Wealth and Prosperity
-The Ring of Fire Prayer
-Questions and Answers (including who killed John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy)
Some quotes from Dr. Frank E. Stranges in this lecture:
"This world is in need and if you achieve mastership, you will receive the tools, the equipment, the gifts to pass on to people who are sick, lonely, discouraged, despondent, financially embarrassed to say the least, some on the point of suicide... YOU! will be given the equipment, the power, the authority as Peter and John have...."
"Prove all things. Hold fast to that which is good."
"The Spirit of Truth within you will bear witness."
HH: Before attempting to practice the teachings in the Mysteries of Mastership, you should first study and practice the teachings in Outwitting Tomorrow by Dr. Frank E. Stranges. Outwitting Tomorrow is about beginning to walk the path of Divine Truth. It is the foundation on which mastery is built on. I did an earlier review of Outwitting Tomorrow previously in this year of 2010.
Classified Dead Sea Scroll Information Revealed!!!
"We are not alone in the universe. We never shall be."
This is a review on the very important classified information on the Dead Sea Scrolls by Dr. Frank E. Stranges in his three-volume, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls DVD series. These Dead Sea Scrolls reviews may be freely reproduced.
These DVDs can be obtained from the following webpage: http://www.nicufo.org/videos.htm
I will give the general contents of the three DVDs, below.
HH
---
Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, DVD Volume One, by Dr. Frank E. Stranges.
some quotes:
Mr. Ray's Introduction:
"Dr. Stranges has enjoyed the privilege of receiving undecoded classified information regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls which have never been revealed to the world. You will enjoy much Dead Sea Scroll information regarding the relationship between Almighty God and His people, angelic messengers and God's people and further revelations regarding the ministry of Jesus Christ coupled with the ministry of his angels in direct assocation with certain types of fiery space vehicles, wheels and chariots not manufactured on this planet Earth...."
Dr. Frank E. Stranges:
"...We have received telephone calls in our office, warning us not to proclaim these things you are about to hear today... I believe that the people have the right to know the truth..."
"The information that I'll be sharing with you from the Dead Sea Scrolls today has been considered by many experts in Jerusalem and Israel as classified information... I am concerned about the scrolls that have never been revealed to the world. Why? Because they are going to rock the boat and be prepared today to hear some de-classified information, de-classified by one of the highest authorities on this planet, not myself.... ...and when the good rabbi called me from Israel he demanded that I give him the name of the individual who DARED to release this information to me without the authority of the Israeli individuals in charge of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem. I said why? He said this individual must be put to death immediately...."
(By the way, Dr. Stranges names this rabbi in another video of his.) HH
Next follows the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
then
Dr. Stranges says:
"Some of the information that I'm about to reveal today confirms the fact that man is not alone in the universe; that Ezekiel had more than a vision when he spoke of a wheel within a wheel. That the other prophets, that Elijah, when he saw this fiery chariot, not only did he see it, he went on-board. Now why should the authorities, the religious authorities in Jerusalem be all shook up because this information is revealed to the world... I'm opposed to any religion (I don't care what they call it) that keeps the people in darkness. I'm opposed to any religion that controls their people through fear. God is love. God operates on a love level and when you have communicated to the Almighty through that vehicle called love, you have nothing but fellowship and communion, and joy unspeakable and full of glory."
Next Dr. Stranges describes:
The contents of the hidden secret scrolls.
WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE. WE NEVER SHALL BE.
Then he reveals the "secret control room" beneath the Dome of the Rock whose multiple layers of security protect the hidden secret scrolls in the hidden chamber.
Dr. Stranges then says:
"What they fear is this... I'm speaking of organized religion, now. That they will lose their grip on the people. They will be forced to admit the truth and the truth is as follows...."
(Sorry, you'll have to purchase the volume from NICUFO. Although the late, great Dr. Frank E. Stranges is no longer with us, his family deserves your patronage and compensation for his efforts.) HH
Dr. Stranges then reveals the translated, exact words of the Copper Scroll, and Scrolls 1 and 3 from Cave number 3. These are about: Jeremiah, chapter 10-ish. Obadiah. Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel. Many mansions. John. The Temptation of Jesus by Satan. Prophecies and more.
This concludes The Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume One by Dr. Frank E. Stranges.
---
The Words of the Master, Himself.
This is a review for Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls Exposed, Volume 2.
The DVD starts off with an introduction which gives more background on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Dr. Stranges then names the four groups that controls the Scrolls. (That's one Rockin' Fella!) He then details that over 800 scrolls have been unearthed but that less than 30% of their information has been released and that only acceptable [to the status quo] information has been released.
Dr. Stranges speaks about Cave Four where these particular released classified
translations have come from. Interestingly, Cave Four contains scrolls that are written in the Hebrew script that was used before their Babylonian exile in 586 BC. He then speaks of the implications of the knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"Truth comes through Divine Revelation and will reveal the proper interpretation of the Scrolls...."
Next comes the translated words of Jesus from Cave Four.
"The words of the Master, Himself," in sayings one through fourteen.
These deal with: ethical behavior, truths, angelic assistance, and the spiritual life.
To summarize:
God is always with you. Be good. Help will always be given. Angelic beings will guide and assist.
Included are two examples:
Saying, Number Five.
"I, the Lord, shall never leave you nor abandon you, not even when the trials of life surround you. You shall seek and you shall find me always standing with you as not only your God, but also as your true friend who stands with you, ALWAYS."
Saying, Number Fourteen.
"Let your faith and confidence in me never waiver. I am with you, ALWAYS."
The DVD finishes with Cave Four sayings, numbers one to four. To summarize: Angels will help and instruct you.
Dr. Frank E. Stranges: "Let us be aware that we are not alone...."
---
"...the God of Creation is still alive and well...."
This is a review for Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume Three.
The DVD begins with a panel consisting of: Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Tim Crawford, Robert Dickson, and Dr. Michael McKenny. They discuss the reasons behind the secrecy concerning the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Some quotes:
Dr. Frank E. Stranges:
"...We're especially concerned with the mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls coming to the fore, so every man, woman and child on the face of this Earth will be able to recognize the difference between fact and fiction."
Tim Crawford:
"There's nothing more empowering than knowledge that lets people know that they are literally in control of their lives and that a connection to this intelligence that we call God is incredibly empowering and that in fact, God is working in our individual lives...."
Dr. Michael McKenny:
"...there is a real hunger and desire to be actually set free from the controls of men and religions and so forth, and we know that, that relationship of real freedom comes from the knowledge of the Lord, Himself...."
The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed section begins with a history of the scholars who studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Stranges then moves on to what the Scrolls contain, in general.
Dr. Frank E. Stranges: "In this particular presentation, I will take you behind the scenes of a [sic] sensitive, classified Dead Sea Scrolls; document and reveal for the first time ever revelations derived from the correct interpretation and translation of those top secret scrolls from a number of caves at Qumran...."
A Bible is shown in this volume which happens to be George Lamsa's Aramaic translation.
Then comes translations from Scroll Number One, Cave Number Seven, Sections 1-3. These deal with Divine Revelations. The prophet Daniel is mentioned (if I remember, correctly).
The next section is: Additional Elements of Divine Intervention.
This reveals the secret contents of The Blue Silk Jar with the Golden Cord and Outer Sheath of Silver, O7.
It contains, The Great Revelation, in sayings 1-15.
To summarize: The Blessings of True God-Followers and the defeat of evil.
The prophet Joel is mentioned.
The penultimate section deals with unusually-shaped jars with Scrolls written in Aramaic.
These contain True Words of Jesus, in sayings 1-7.
To summarize: Life and Blessings in Christ.
The DVD ends with Dr. Frank E. Stranges ending with thoughts on Jesus.
"...The God of Creation is still alive and well."
This is a review on the very important classified information on the Dead Sea Scrolls by Dr. Frank E. Stranges in his three-volume, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls DVD series. These Dead Sea Scrolls reviews may be freely reproduced.
These DVDs can be obtained from the following webpage: http://www.nicufo.org/videos.htm
I will give the general contents of the three DVDs, below.
HH
---
Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, DVD Volume One, by Dr. Frank E. Stranges.
some quotes:
Mr. Ray's Introduction:
"Dr. Stranges has enjoyed the privilege of receiving undecoded classified information regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls which have never been revealed to the world. You will enjoy much Dead Sea Scroll information regarding the relationship between Almighty God and His people, angelic messengers and God's people and further revelations regarding the ministry of Jesus Christ coupled with the ministry of his angels in direct assocation with certain types of fiery space vehicles, wheels and chariots not manufactured on this planet Earth...."
Dr. Frank E. Stranges:
"...We have received telephone calls in our office, warning us not to proclaim these things you are about to hear today... I believe that the people have the right to know the truth..."
"The information that I'll be sharing with you from the Dead Sea Scrolls today has been considered by many experts in Jerusalem and Israel as classified information... I am concerned about the scrolls that have never been revealed to the world. Why? Because they are going to rock the boat and be prepared today to hear some de-classified information, de-classified by one of the highest authorities on this planet, not myself.... ...and when the good rabbi called me from Israel he demanded that I give him the name of the individual who DARED to release this information to me without the authority of the Israeli individuals in charge of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem. I said why? He said this individual must be put to death immediately...."
(By the way, Dr. Stranges names this rabbi in another video of his.) HH
Next follows the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
then
Dr. Stranges says:
"Some of the information that I'm about to reveal today confirms the fact that man is not alone in the universe; that Ezekiel had more than a vision when he spoke of a wheel within a wheel. That the other prophets, that Elijah, when he saw this fiery chariot, not only did he see it, he went on-board. Now why should the authorities, the religious authorities in Jerusalem be all shook up because this information is revealed to the world... I'm opposed to any religion (I don't care what they call it) that keeps the people in darkness. I'm opposed to any religion that controls their people through fear. God is love. God operates on a love level and when you have communicated to the Almighty through that vehicle called love, you have nothing but fellowship and communion, and joy unspeakable and full of glory."
Next Dr. Stranges describes:
The contents of the hidden secret scrolls.
WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE. WE NEVER SHALL BE.
Then he reveals the "secret control room" beneath the Dome of the Rock whose multiple layers of security protect the hidden secret scrolls in the hidden chamber.
Dr. Stranges then says:
"What they fear is this... I'm speaking of organized religion, now. That they will lose their grip on the people. They will be forced to admit the truth and the truth is as follows...."
(Sorry, you'll have to purchase the volume from NICUFO. Although the late, great Dr. Frank E. Stranges is no longer with us, his family deserves your patronage and compensation for his efforts.) HH
Dr. Stranges then reveals the translated, exact words of the Copper Scroll, and Scrolls 1 and 3 from Cave number 3. These are about: Jeremiah, chapter 10-ish. Obadiah. Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel. Many mansions. John. The Temptation of Jesus by Satan. Prophecies and more.
This concludes The Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume One by Dr. Frank E. Stranges.
---
The Words of the Master, Himself.
This is a review for Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls Exposed, Volume 2.
The DVD starts off with an introduction which gives more background on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Dr. Stranges then names the four groups that controls the Scrolls. (That's one Rockin' Fella!) He then details that over 800 scrolls have been unearthed but that less than 30% of their information has been released and that only acceptable [to the status quo] information has been released.
Dr. Stranges speaks about Cave Four where these particular released classified
translations have come from. Interestingly, Cave Four contains scrolls that are written in the Hebrew script that was used before their Babylonian exile in 586 BC. He then speaks of the implications of the knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"Truth comes through Divine Revelation and will reveal the proper interpretation of the Scrolls...."
Next comes the translated words of Jesus from Cave Four.
"The words of the Master, Himself," in sayings one through fourteen.
These deal with: ethical behavior, truths, angelic assistance, and the spiritual life.
To summarize:
God is always with you. Be good. Help will always be given. Angelic beings will guide and assist.
Included are two examples:
Saying, Number Five.
"I, the Lord, shall never leave you nor abandon you, not even when the trials of life surround you. You shall seek and you shall find me always standing with you as not only your God, but also as your true friend who stands with you, ALWAYS."
Saying, Number Fourteen.
"Let your faith and confidence in me never waiver. I am with you, ALWAYS."
The DVD finishes with Cave Four sayings, numbers one to four. To summarize: Angels will help and instruct you.
Dr. Frank E. Stranges: "Let us be aware that we are not alone...."
---
"...the God of Creation is still alive and well...."
This is a review for Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume Three.
The DVD begins with a panel consisting of: Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Tim Crawford, Robert Dickson, and Dr. Michael McKenny. They discuss the reasons behind the secrecy concerning the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Some quotes:
Dr. Frank E. Stranges:
"...We're especially concerned with the mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls coming to the fore, so every man, woman and child on the face of this Earth will be able to recognize the difference between fact and fiction."
Tim Crawford:
"There's nothing more empowering than knowledge that lets people know that they are literally in control of their lives and that a connection to this intelligence that we call God is incredibly empowering and that in fact, God is working in our individual lives...."
Dr. Michael McKenny:
"...there is a real hunger and desire to be actually set free from the controls of men and religions and so forth, and we know that, that relationship of real freedom comes from the knowledge of the Lord, Himself...."
The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed section begins with a history of the scholars who studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Stranges then moves on to what the Scrolls contain, in general.
Dr. Frank E. Stranges: "In this particular presentation, I will take you behind the scenes of a [sic] sensitive, classified Dead Sea Scrolls; document and reveal for the first time ever revelations derived from the correct interpretation and translation of those top secret scrolls from a number of caves at Qumran...."
A Bible is shown in this volume which happens to be George Lamsa's Aramaic translation.
Then comes translations from Scroll Number One, Cave Number Seven, Sections 1-3. These deal with Divine Revelations. The prophet Daniel is mentioned (if I remember, correctly).
The next section is: Additional Elements of Divine Intervention.
This reveals the secret contents of The Blue Silk Jar with the Golden Cord and Outer Sheath of Silver, O7.
It contains, The Great Revelation, in sayings 1-15.
To summarize: The Blessings of True God-Followers and the defeat of evil.
The prophet Joel is mentioned.
The penultimate section deals with unusually-shaped jars with Scrolls written in Aramaic.
These contain True Words of Jesus, in sayings 1-7.
To summarize: Life and Blessings in Christ.
The DVD ends with Dr. Frank E. Stranges ending with thoughts on Jesus.
"...The God of Creation is still alive and well."
How to Save the U.S. Economy
How to Save the U.S. Economy
Another example article from: http://www.michaeljournal.org/articles.htm
Source: http://www.michaeljournal.org/howtosave.htm
How to save the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook
The crashing stock market has given its verdict. The financial rescue plan currently being implemented by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System will fail to revitalize the producing economy, even with continued interest rate cuts. This is because the banking system is essentially a supply-side, trickle-down mechanism with a currency based on a pyramid of bank lending and debt. All the current plans being suggested by economists and others to save the financial system by varying degrees of tinkering are useless. Similarly useless is the pumping in of credit or liquidity by Treasury or the Federal Reserve because it is no more than new debt to roll over old debt.
The cause of the financial failure is that the producing and consumer economy is “maxed out” and is unable to repay existing loans much less new ones. This is because purchasing power in the U.S. has collapsed.
Purchasing power has collapsed not only because we have outsourced our industry abroad and allowed our infrastructure to crumble, but also because of structural defects identified decades ago by C.H. Douglas and John Maynard Keynes. These defects occur due to the need for retained earnings (i.e. savings) to overcome the Law of Diminishing Returns. This leads to insufficient aggregate demand; i.e., the gap between prices and purchasing power that is endemic in an industrial economy.
The problem is not the collapse of the stock market which simply reflects the deflation of the bubble economy. The problem is the oncoming recession/depression caused by the absence of an economic engine to generate new producing power.
Keynesian plans for top-down creation of jobs by government deficit spending has never worked and has always ended in an attempt by the government to inflate its way out of debt. Everything being suggested by the Obama/McCain campaigns is based on the failed Keynesian formula.
Still, the gap (in the purchasing power) has been filled, except it has been filled by debt, by consumer borrowing, and by the hundreds of different kinds of exotic debt instruments dreamed up by Wall Street firms since Reagan took office in the 1980s. This debt pyramid is what is crashing today.
And behind all the exoticism is the debt-based monetary system run by the banks who own the Federal Reserve, because it is these banks that provided the leverage for it all to happen... Just remember, it’s the big banks that are really the ones behind the bailouts. They are the ones who call the shots with the Bush administration and the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
And what is a real solution? It’s a dividend-based economy, as I have written many times, and as the Social Credit movement in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have known for decades... Among many other benefits, we would have a rebirth of local and regional economies as well as family farming, all of which the banks, under the global monetarist regime, have wiped out.
Richard C. Cook
www.globalresearch.ca
---
A Bailout for the People
Source: http://www.michaeljournal.org/econodividEN.htm
A Bailout for the People:
Dividend Economics
by Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst. He can be contacted through his website at www.richardccook.com.
The lack of individual and family income security in the midst of a highly-developed economy is a travesty under any circumstances, but the basic contradiction of "poverty in the midst of plenty" that has plagued the world since the start of the Industrial Revolution is becoming much worse in the early years of the 21st century as the Recession of 2008 picks up speed.
Winston Churchill spoke on the subject when giving the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University on June 19, 1930, a few months after the crash of the U.S. stock market that started the Great Depression. He said:
"Who would have thought that it would be easier to produce by toil and skill all the most necessary or desirable commodities than it is to find consumers for them? Who would have thought that cheap and abundant supplies of all the basic commodities would find the science and civilization of the world unable to utilize them? Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has failed. Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. They include every form of fiscal policy and currency policy. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times. Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated."
Evidently we’ve learned nothing since Churchill spoke. Isn’t it shameful – or just surprising – that since the proponents of "post-modern" economics restructured the U.S. economy around the concept of a deregulated financial sector over the past 30 years, income and wealth disparities between rich and poor have become much worse?
Perhaps we are finally ready to reopen the question of whether human beings have a right to a sufficient income to keep body and soul together... Today it is not difficult to see that implementation of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), had it been put in place when the concept still had political life in the 1960s and early 1970s, would have gone a long way toward ameliorating human distress from poverty along with assuring a degree of economic justice. And we would clearly be much better off today.
Yet even in the midst of massive government bailouts for the banks and the as-yet-to-be-implemented economic stimulus proposals for the people, a BIG is never mentioned, not even by progressives. One problem with BIG is that its proponents always presented it as a transfer-of-wealth program, where a portion of the earnings of people with earned incomes would be diverted to support those in need.
But there are other ways to look at the problem. One way is that of the Social Credit movement, where a regular dividend payment to individuals is seen not only as fair but is viewed as a necessary balancing force within a developed economy.
I call this program, based on dividend-type approaches, a "Bailout for the People," as opposed to the bank bailouts that are adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. I have presented it previously in articles on the internet as "The Cook Plan." (Richard C. Cook, "How to Save the U.S. Economy," globalresearch.ca.)
The Failure of Economics
So what is really wrong with the economy? What is puzzling is (the economic commentators’) apparent failure to recognize the role of collapsing consumer purchasing power as a principal cause of the freezing of the markets. Individuals can no longer get loans because they can’t afford to repay them. Businesses can’t get loans because consumer income is insufficient to buy their products. Within the U.S., consumer purchasing power has fallen not only because of the export of so many manufacturing jobs to low-paying overseas labor markets like those in China, but also because workers have not shared in the benefits of constantly rising productivity.
As stated, for commentators like Stiglitz, or like Paul Krugman, another Nobel Prize winner who writes for the New York Times, the debt-based monetary system run by the banks is a "given" as the unchallenged centerpiece of the world economy.
But even as Krugman and others argue for more government spending to prime the economic pump and restore employment – a few more trillion added to the national debt can’t hurt, they say – such spending can only take place through deficit financing funneled through the banking system. So their answer to a crisis marked by overwhelming public and private debt is more debt.
Cancer
What we are seeing is a rapidly metastasizing case of terminal cancer. The host of this cancer is the population of the U.S., and the cancer of debt is deadly. The progressive prescriptions of people like Stiglitz and Krugman, and even those of president-elect Barack Obama, are like offering a pair of crutches to a cancer patient so ill he can no longer even stand up.
The international empire of usury has a long pedigree. It goes back to ancient Sumeria, when debtors first began to be sold into slavery. Excessive debt ruined many of the Greek city-states and helped wreck the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, usury was such a scourge that the Catholic Church outlawed it.
The current phase of the empire dates to the creation of the Bank of England, which was a privately-owned banking institution that made its money by lending to the British government so it could fight its wars. The Bank of England was cloned on American soil when the Federal Reserve System was created by Congress in 1913. The bankers had previously tried take control of the U.S. through the First and Second Banks of the United States but had been defeated by democratic forces led initially by President Thomas Jefferson (1801-09) and later Presidents Andrew Jackson (1829-37) and Martin Van Buren (1837-41).
Since the founding of the nation, there has been a struggle within the U.S. between pro-and anti-bank forces. After a dramatic see-saw battle lasting two centuries, the banks finally saw complete triumph in the 1970s when the philosophy of monetarism took over and assured that a chronic insufficiency of real money in the economy would be answered by an exponentially growing amount of bank-generated debt. The flood of petrodollars overseas was paradoxically mirrored in reverse by a growing shortage of consumer purchasing power at home.
Monetarism was not directed solely by figures within the U.S. Rather it was part of a worldwide financier conspiracy. The "Reagan Revolution" which facilitated it was matched by "Thatcherism" in the U.K. and similar pro-bank regimes around the world.
Revolution
The bankers’ takeover of the world economy that gained a complete triumph in the 1970s cannot be undone by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program or any other progressive nostrum. Even the goal of creating millions of new jobs, should it succeed, is not likely to compensate in the long run for the enormous amount of debt the productive economy is carrying. But then again, Obama does not intend to overthrow the Empire of Usury. After all, a main source of campaign funds for the Democrats in 2008 was Wall Street bankers and financiers.
Bailouts financed by the government must be repaid with interest by the taxpayers. But the taxpayers are already overburdened by debt. Because the bankers are so untrustworthy and motivated by self-interest, they must be removed from power. This requires a political revolution that may already have begun.
The attack on the bankers’ power must be broad, persistent, and far-reaching. Today they control the political process in the U.S. and around the world. Their power is guarded by the laws and regulations of the Western nations. They control international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. They also influence the Western military and intelligence machines, with NATO now being sworn to protect Western "neoliberalism," which means the bankers’ Empire.
What Must be Done: Dividend Economics
The way to generate income security is not to give someone a job. It is to put money – cash – in his pocket. If we began with this simple fact, the economy would soon generate far more jobs than people could fill. Of course some of these jobs would be low-paying or even volunteer jobs, which would be acceptable provided that people still had enough to live on and had opportunities to earn more.
For the world economy to function, and for there to be enough goods produced to support everyone at a decent standard of living, not everyone has to work. In fact too many workers get in each other’s way.
The productivity of a modern industrial economy is phenomenal. It surpasses the wildest dreams of generations past. The problem today is not a shortage of goods and services. It is too many goods and services. There is a worldwide glut of automobiles. The same goes for most consumer products. This does not mean that threats like climate change or resource depletion should be ignored. The reason these threats are not being faced is that industry must work so hard to cut costs and keep prices down in the face of the catastrophic shortage of consumer purchasing power.
So why do we need more jobs? Only because we are too cheap and so poorly informed that we fail to realize that a cash payment to everyone, at least at a subsistence level, should be viewed as a dividend. It’s something everyone should receive as the benefit of our incredible producing economy. It should be treated as a HUMAN RIGHT.
But the situation does not require that someone else should be taxed in order for that dividend to be provided. A BIG does not have to be a transfer payment or a share-the-wealth scheme. Rather it should reflect an acknowledgement by the economic system that the universe is bountiful and abundant. Modern industry has tapped into that abundance.
Today the abundance is being stolen by the bankers and their debt-based monetary system. This is what must be taken back by on behalf of "We the People." This can be done by payment of a BIG as a dividend. It would not be inflationary, because it would not result in "more money chasing the same amount of goods." Rather it would replace money borrowed from the banks or would generate new production.
If you want to read the history of dividend-economics, study the history of the worldwide Social Credit movement. I am not going to repeat that history here. I have written about it in many articles over the past two years, most of which can be found at www.GlobalResearch.ca. It’s one of the basic themes in my new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (Tendril Press, 2008). You can find a lot of information about Social Credit on the internet, including the website for the Michael Journal in Canada at www.michaeljournal.org.
Richard C. Cook
Another example article from: http://www.michaeljournal.org/articles.htm
Source: http://www.michaeljournal.org/howtosave.htm
How to save the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook
The crashing stock market has given its verdict. The financial rescue plan currently being implemented by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System will fail to revitalize the producing economy, even with continued interest rate cuts. This is because the banking system is essentially a supply-side, trickle-down mechanism with a currency based on a pyramid of bank lending and debt. All the current plans being suggested by economists and others to save the financial system by varying degrees of tinkering are useless. Similarly useless is the pumping in of credit or liquidity by Treasury or the Federal Reserve because it is no more than new debt to roll over old debt.
The cause of the financial failure is that the producing and consumer economy is “maxed out” and is unable to repay existing loans much less new ones. This is because purchasing power in the U.S. has collapsed.
Purchasing power has collapsed not only because we have outsourced our industry abroad and allowed our infrastructure to crumble, but also because of structural defects identified decades ago by C.H. Douglas and John Maynard Keynes. These defects occur due to the need for retained earnings (i.e. savings) to overcome the Law of Diminishing Returns. This leads to insufficient aggregate demand; i.e., the gap between prices and purchasing power that is endemic in an industrial economy.
The problem is not the collapse of the stock market which simply reflects the deflation of the bubble economy. The problem is the oncoming recession/depression caused by the absence of an economic engine to generate new producing power.
Keynesian plans for top-down creation of jobs by government deficit spending has never worked and has always ended in an attempt by the government to inflate its way out of debt. Everything being suggested by the Obama/McCain campaigns is based on the failed Keynesian formula.
Still, the gap (in the purchasing power) has been filled, except it has been filled by debt, by consumer borrowing, and by the hundreds of different kinds of exotic debt instruments dreamed up by Wall Street firms since Reagan took office in the 1980s. This debt pyramid is what is crashing today.
And behind all the exoticism is the debt-based monetary system run by the banks who own the Federal Reserve, because it is these banks that provided the leverage for it all to happen... Just remember, it’s the big banks that are really the ones behind the bailouts. They are the ones who call the shots with the Bush administration and the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
And what is a real solution? It’s a dividend-based economy, as I have written many times, and as the Social Credit movement in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have known for decades... Among many other benefits, we would have a rebirth of local and regional economies as well as family farming, all of which the banks, under the global monetarist regime, have wiped out.
Richard C. Cook
www.globalresearch.ca
---
A Bailout for the People
Source: http://www.michaeljournal.org/econodividEN.htm
A Bailout for the People:
Dividend Economics
by Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst. He can be contacted through his website at www.richardccook.com.
The lack of individual and family income security in the midst of a highly-developed economy is a travesty under any circumstances, but the basic contradiction of "poverty in the midst of plenty" that has plagued the world since the start of the Industrial Revolution is becoming much worse in the early years of the 21st century as the Recession of 2008 picks up speed.
Winston Churchill spoke on the subject when giving the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University on June 19, 1930, a few months after the crash of the U.S. stock market that started the Great Depression. He said:
"Who would have thought that it would be easier to produce by toil and skill all the most necessary or desirable commodities than it is to find consumers for them? Who would have thought that cheap and abundant supplies of all the basic commodities would find the science and civilization of the world unable to utilize them? Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has failed. Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. They include every form of fiscal policy and currency policy. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times. Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated."
Evidently we’ve learned nothing since Churchill spoke. Isn’t it shameful – or just surprising – that since the proponents of "post-modern" economics restructured the U.S. economy around the concept of a deregulated financial sector over the past 30 years, income and wealth disparities between rich and poor have become much worse?
Perhaps we are finally ready to reopen the question of whether human beings have a right to a sufficient income to keep body and soul together... Today it is not difficult to see that implementation of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), had it been put in place when the concept still had political life in the 1960s and early 1970s, would have gone a long way toward ameliorating human distress from poverty along with assuring a degree of economic justice. And we would clearly be much better off today.
Yet even in the midst of massive government bailouts for the banks and the as-yet-to-be-implemented economic stimulus proposals for the people, a BIG is never mentioned, not even by progressives. One problem with BIG is that its proponents always presented it as a transfer-of-wealth program, where a portion of the earnings of people with earned incomes would be diverted to support those in need.
But there are other ways to look at the problem. One way is that of the Social Credit movement, where a regular dividend payment to individuals is seen not only as fair but is viewed as a necessary balancing force within a developed economy.
I call this program, based on dividend-type approaches, a "Bailout for the People," as opposed to the bank bailouts that are adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. I have presented it previously in articles on the internet as "The Cook Plan." (Richard C. Cook, "How to Save the U.S. Economy," globalresearch.ca.)
The Failure of Economics
So what is really wrong with the economy? What is puzzling is (the economic commentators’) apparent failure to recognize the role of collapsing consumer purchasing power as a principal cause of the freezing of the markets. Individuals can no longer get loans because they can’t afford to repay them. Businesses can’t get loans because consumer income is insufficient to buy their products. Within the U.S., consumer purchasing power has fallen not only because of the export of so many manufacturing jobs to low-paying overseas labor markets like those in China, but also because workers have not shared in the benefits of constantly rising productivity.
As stated, for commentators like Stiglitz, or like Paul Krugman, another Nobel Prize winner who writes for the New York Times, the debt-based monetary system run by the banks is a "given" as the unchallenged centerpiece of the world economy.
But even as Krugman and others argue for more government spending to prime the economic pump and restore employment – a few more trillion added to the national debt can’t hurt, they say – such spending can only take place through deficit financing funneled through the banking system. So their answer to a crisis marked by overwhelming public and private debt is more debt.
Cancer
What we are seeing is a rapidly metastasizing case of terminal cancer. The host of this cancer is the population of the U.S., and the cancer of debt is deadly. The progressive prescriptions of people like Stiglitz and Krugman, and even those of president-elect Barack Obama, are like offering a pair of crutches to a cancer patient so ill he can no longer even stand up.
The international empire of usury has a long pedigree. It goes back to ancient Sumeria, when debtors first began to be sold into slavery. Excessive debt ruined many of the Greek city-states and helped wreck the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, usury was such a scourge that the Catholic Church outlawed it.
The current phase of the empire dates to the creation of the Bank of England, which was a privately-owned banking institution that made its money by lending to the British government so it could fight its wars. The Bank of England was cloned on American soil when the Federal Reserve System was created by Congress in 1913. The bankers had previously tried take control of the U.S. through the First and Second Banks of the United States but had been defeated by democratic forces led initially by President Thomas Jefferson (1801-09) and later Presidents Andrew Jackson (1829-37) and Martin Van Buren (1837-41).
Since the founding of the nation, there has been a struggle within the U.S. between pro-and anti-bank forces. After a dramatic see-saw battle lasting two centuries, the banks finally saw complete triumph in the 1970s when the philosophy of monetarism took over and assured that a chronic insufficiency of real money in the economy would be answered by an exponentially growing amount of bank-generated debt. The flood of petrodollars overseas was paradoxically mirrored in reverse by a growing shortage of consumer purchasing power at home.
Monetarism was not directed solely by figures within the U.S. Rather it was part of a worldwide financier conspiracy. The "Reagan Revolution" which facilitated it was matched by "Thatcherism" in the U.K. and similar pro-bank regimes around the world.
Revolution
The bankers’ takeover of the world economy that gained a complete triumph in the 1970s cannot be undone by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program or any other progressive nostrum. Even the goal of creating millions of new jobs, should it succeed, is not likely to compensate in the long run for the enormous amount of debt the productive economy is carrying. But then again, Obama does not intend to overthrow the Empire of Usury. After all, a main source of campaign funds for the Democrats in 2008 was Wall Street bankers and financiers.
Bailouts financed by the government must be repaid with interest by the taxpayers. But the taxpayers are already overburdened by debt. Because the bankers are so untrustworthy and motivated by self-interest, they must be removed from power. This requires a political revolution that may already have begun.
The attack on the bankers’ power must be broad, persistent, and far-reaching. Today they control the political process in the U.S. and around the world. Their power is guarded by the laws and regulations of the Western nations. They control international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. They also influence the Western military and intelligence machines, with NATO now being sworn to protect Western "neoliberalism," which means the bankers’ Empire.
What Must be Done: Dividend Economics
The way to generate income security is not to give someone a job. It is to put money – cash – in his pocket. If we began with this simple fact, the economy would soon generate far more jobs than people could fill. Of course some of these jobs would be low-paying or even volunteer jobs, which would be acceptable provided that people still had enough to live on and had opportunities to earn more.
For the world economy to function, and for there to be enough goods produced to support everyone at a decent standard of living, not everyone has to work. In fact too many workers get in each other’s way.
The productivity of a modern industrial economy is phenomenal. It surpasses the wildest dreams of generations past. The problem today is not a shortage of goods and services. It is too many goods and services. There is a worldwide glut of automobiles. The same goes for most consumer products. This does not mean that threats like climate change or resource depletion should be ignored. The reason these threats are not being faced is that industry must work so hard to cut costs and keep prices down in the face of the catastrophic shortage of consumer purchasing power.
So why do we need more jobs? Only because we are too cheap and so poorly informed that we fail to realize that a cash payment to everyone, at least at a subsistence level, should be viewed as a dividend. It’s something everyone should receive as the benefit of our incredible producing economy. It should be treated as a HUMAN RIGHT.
But the situation does not require that someone else should be taxed in order for that dividend to be provided. A BIG does not have to be a transfer payment or a share-the-wealth scheme. Rather it should reflect an acknowledgement by the economic system that the universe is bountiful and abundant. Modern industry has tapped into that abundance.
Today the abundance is being stolen by the bankers and their debt-based monetary system. This is what must be taken back by on behalf of "We the People." This can be done by payment of a BIG as a dividend. It would not be inflationary, because it would not result in "more money chasing the same amount of goods." Rather it would replace money borrowed from the banks or would generate new production.
If you want to read the history of dividend-economics, study the history of the worldwide Social Credit movement. I am not going to repeat that history here. I have written about it in many articles over the past two years, most of which can be found at www.GlobalResearch.ca. It’s one of the basic themes in my new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (Tendril Press, 2008). You can find a lot of information about Social Credit on the internet, including the website for the Michael Journal in Canada at www.michaeljournal.org.
Richard C. Cook
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