FINAL STUDY QUESTIONS FOR SACRED ECONOMICS (CHAPTERS 15 THROUGH THE APPENDIX)
- What does it mean to say that a commonwealth is “the restoration of the identity of community and economy”? (Wendell Berry p. 291)
- Why have 80% of local currencies established from 1991 to 2005 failed? (p. 295-99)
- What are mutual credit systems? (p. 308-10)
- How does a public bank replace exogenous credit, and what is the benefit? (p. 314)
- Explain what it means to say that money can take on “more of the properties of gift and mediatory structures of gifting arise to take over the role of money.” (p. 319)
- What are our actual entitlements? (p. 340)
- What is the difference between true gift culture and altruism? (p. 350-51)
- Why would we want to live in a gift economy? (p. 355-63)
- What does it mean to say true wealth is “ flow rather than accumulation”? (p. 365)
- What is non-accumulation and how is it practiced? (p. 372-78)
- What does it mean to “use money to destroy money”? (p. 394)
- Explain the principles of right investing and right livelihood (p. 380-82 and 389-99)
- How do we build genuine community? (p. 419-26)
- Explain why the view that money is “something objective and discrete among a universe of other objective and discrete objects” is false, and what the significance of that is for monetary policy (p. 447-57).
Here are some resources on monetary policy that we have looked at previously:
The Korten proposal “How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule” (41 pages)(which we studied last year) is available at http://neweconomyworkinggroup.org/
Greider´s article “Dismantling the Temple” (7 pages) is available at http://www.thenation.com/article/dismantling-temple
Most of Ellen Brown´s Web of Debt which we studied in January is not available on-line, but many of her ideas are summarized in the article “The Global Debt Crisis” (5 p.) at http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/global_debt.php
Below is a list of the proposals in Chapter 47 of Web of Debt. What are their pros and cons?
- Update the Constitution to read “create national currency in all its forms”
- An independent audit of the Federal Reserve, including open market operations, Plunge Protection Team, CRMPG, creative accounting, etc.
- Repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (Federal income tax)
- Repeal or amend the Federal Reserve Act to make the Federal Reserve truly Federal, administered by the US Treasury
- Public acquisition of a network of banks to serve as local bank branches of a federalized banking system
- Elimination of private fractional reserve lending
- Authorization for Treasury to buy back and retire all Federal debt
- Authorization for Congress (through the Treasury) to issue new currency through spending on programs that promote the general welfare
- Authorization for Congress to fund programs that will return money to the Treasury in place of taxes, such as alternative energy sources
- Regulate, tax, and/or ban all derivatives trading and put insolvent banks in FDIC receivership
- Establish a new international monetary system based on fixed exchange rates and elimination of unfair international debts
- Other domestic reforms including campaign finance, affordable housing, universal health care, etc.