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Actually that was not the statement that got him killed. It was his attempt to trade oil in EUR instead of USD.

https://www.globalpolicy.org/c...
http://www.monetary.org/was-th...

The difference is that there will be a limited total amount of bitcoins compared to the unlimited amount of dollars (or euros) that the government can print whenever it wants.

I thought the US government couldn't create US dollars, only the US federal reserve which is not part of the US government?

Or did I miss understand this article?

This allowed them to print money with nothing backing it.

Money is always backed by human labor, if you go back far enough. Money-backed-by-stuff doesn't work anymore, because stuff no longer needs (very much) human labor to create. I wrote a letter to the editor back when the crazies in Congress were fighting over their lines-in-the-sand (debt ceiling), so I'll just quote myself here:

Money is nothing more than a medium that allows humans to exchange their labors.

Gold used to be the western world's standard form of money... People would dedicate their lives to extracting it from the earth.

Gold extracted with human labor was traded for mining supplies created by human labor... Gold spread from the mine into every corner of the economy.

Gold-as-money had it's problems, of course. The gold rushes (California, Alaska, etc) flooded the economy with extra gold...

Then someone figured out how to extract gold from the earth with Caterpillars and chemistry instead of shovels and slush boxes. The process of disconnecting the government's currency from gold started during the Civil War, with Lincoln's Greenbacks... progressed with FDR's gold freeze... and ended with the de-pegging of the dollar under Nixon.

-fixing the government's finances

The folks at Monetary.org and those who advocate Publicly-owned Banks are on the right track, methinks. There are some more important articles at the bottom of my blog post about fixing the governments finances - "bailout for the people", "money and the crisis of civilization", and "I want the earth plus 5%". .

thanks for responding (these stories usually die after 12 hours...). It's been a while since I read those two links - it's always a rush to get something posted when one of these stories comes up where I have something to say, lest my comment get buried 1/2 way down the page. :)

Your pdf mentions that since the 70's, nearly all regulation and tax structures have been based on 'trickle down'. Well, we know how well that works (not at all).

The Federal Reserve system was started in 1913. The oligarchy has had a good idea of how to rig the game (the economy) for their benefit. Some decades they give a little, so the next they can accumulate more.

If you liked the first two links, I also suggest Ellen Brown's book, Web of Debt, and also her blog: http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/.

Was about to submit this comment, then another site came to mind: The American Monetary Institute is worth recommending too.

Thanks again. :)

Really smart tech people stoop to balancing nominal bookkeeping numbers? beyond belief!!

What part of simple logic don't these people understand? My faith in tech CEOs is demolished.

Their efficiency tactics are all admirable, & to be encouraged - but their stated policy & goal reasoning is so naive it's embarrassing!
We should be spared the shame of hearing them try to speak in public about fiscal policy (not that Obama or Geithner are any better, but .... no further comment).

For god's sakes, someone PLEASE ask them to review the following links before EVER opening their mouths about fiscal policy again! PLEASE!

Sample references on basic monetary operations.

"Almost everybody talks about budget deficits. Almost everybody seems in principle to be against them. And almost no one, literally, knows what [they are] talking about."
http://books.google.com/books?id=jTSddYcGA6gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Robert+Eisner,+The+Misunderstood+Economy&source=bl&ots=nz6wJ-sCnK&sig=6Vli8JdSQLSwlg9K1rVcdnW2SIc&hl=en&ei=KeQx6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Public initiative and the beginning of US currency: A confused electorate can end up pretending to borrow it's own currency, instead of creating it? http://www.monetary.org/briefusmonetaryhistory.htm

Understanding Modern Money [a historical guide] http://books.google.com/books?id=6PMuExCtMe8C&pg=PA18&dq=Understanding+Modern+Money:+The+Key+to+Full+Employment+and+Price+Stability&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Fiscal sustainability 101, by Bill Mitchell http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=2943

Teaching the Fallacy of Composition: The Federal Budget Deficit, by Randy Wray http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/pn-pdf/PolicyNote2006-1.pdf

The 7 Deadly, Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy, by Warren Mosler http://moslerforsenate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/7DIF.pdf

"ECCLES: We [the Federal Reserve] created it.
PATMAN: Out of what?
ECCLES: Out of the right to issue credit money.
PATMAN: And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our government's credit?
ECCLES: That is what our money system is."
- Federal Reserve Board Governor Marriner Eccles in testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1941, during questioning by Congressman Wright Patman about how the Fed got the money to purchase two billion dollars worth of government bonds in 1933. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Federal+Reserve+Board+Governor+Marriner+Eccles+in+testimony+before+the+House+Committee+on+Banking+and+Currency+in+1941
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriner_Stoddard_Eccles

“When our Federal Government, that has the exclusive power to create money, creates that money and then goes into the open market and borrows it and [pretends to pay]interest for the use of its own money, it occurs to me that that is going too far. I have never yet had anyone who could, t

It seems to me that Governments should wield the power to make money, and politicians should debate about where to spend the newly created money.

But as it is, in the UK, the United States, and elsewhere, banks create money, and decide who to loan it to. Governments have no other choice but to levy taxes on the economy.

Like Colbert said in his testimony about migrant farm workers (8:54), the political game is all about power, and the biggest economic power of all is "who gets to create money first." Whatever happened to that bill to 'Audit the Federal Reserve" (which is owned by private member banks)? I haven't kept up... Whatever you think about the Fed, at least its profits are returned to the U.S. Treasury now.

Richard C. Cook's Bailout for the People (pdf) has a really nice overview of an economic system that would work for the benefit of everyone...

Some other sites:
http://www.monetary.org/
http://www.webofdebt.com/

http://www.monetary.org/index.html

"I often do wonder how we ended up here."

The short answer is that any system which allows for monopolizing of land and capital (by the state, it's Soviet-style communism, by the corporation, it is our present corporate fascist state system) always has this end result.

For the longer answer you'll want to pay attention to this site and this site.

The first site is phase I while the second site is phase II; both worthwhile reading. I'd recommend examining the original reason for the creation of holding companies, but you've already explained that quite well.

We Don't Have Any Money!

Exactly. And why don't we have any money? BECAUSE THE BANKS WON'T LEND IT TO US!

The obvious followup question is, why are we dependent on banks to create money?

So that we can better concentrate wealth, of course!

There's a better way to create money, of course, but the plutocracy won't be happy...

While I'm thinking about it...

so that'd be a good Swan candidate, methinks.

Another would be the impact of House Resolution 1207, Ron Paul's bi-partisan bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It currently has 91 cosponsors, and if/when it passes, it will result in a seismic restructuring of the financial system. Fractional Resrve banking is on the way out. I don't believe Gold == Money like some do - I'm more a fan of The American Monetary Institute's comprehensive banking reform. Anyways, if monetary reform gets passed soon, the world economy won't have to collapse like the Soviet Union did 20 years ago.

Here's hoping for this swan to arrive soon.

So, I am sitting in a youth hostel in good old Chi-Town(Chicago) checking out slashdot and what do I see. Well it is a book review on the monetary system. This may not seem to funny to most but what they don't know is that I am in Chicago for a reason. I am at a American Monetary Institute Conference on Monetary Reform. Ha what a day. Well the conference starts tomorrow, so I shall see how it goes. If you are interested check out http://www.monetary.org/.

"fractional reserve banking as economic parasitism"

endorsed by two phd economists. printed in nexus magazine, 60k world circulation. #1 top downloaded economics paper. used by economics teacher in australia as standard classroom material.

more info on request.

as for the book, for those saying that it is a conspiracy theory, who says? which part? it is true that history in retrospect often looks like a conspiracy.

as for those who ask, whats the point? well think about it this way. theres a lot of new online services that are experimenting with currency and microcurrency. consider Linden Labs & 2nd life. they have a fully functioning online/cyber economy with an exchange rate. what is the dynamics of that system? the paper considers that.

also, economics is a complex system. there is a new science of complex systems. cyberspace is a complex system. the web is a complex system. understanding one complex system will help us understand other complex systems. the economic system has many parallels to engineering fields also, such as electrical engineering. but because there is so far no science of "money engineering", few are aware of this connection.

many slashdot readers are interested in security, such as regarding viruses etcetera. the paper reveals that the banking and economic system can have worms, viruses, parasites, trojan horses, very much like cyberspace. in fact the security of our banking system may be very poor, and in dire need of improved engineering approaches to increase its security. it really needs the kind of first rate minds that build complex software systems.

the money system is in fact very much like a massive electrical or energy system. if you are concerned with cooling your cpu or optimizing its performance, imagine a machine that spans entire states, countries even. how can it be optimized? to what degree is it failing us? what are its design deficiencies?

consider the goethe quote. "none are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"

some very interesting recent supporting material:

• The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
• John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption"
• Video, senator/pres candidate Dennis Kucinich at last years 2005 Monetary Reform Conference
• money as debt video by Grignon