It's pure fiat money (i.e., money simply printed on paper without value
other than that which law gives it).  The entire U.S. (and European) system
is based upon debt, not value.  If all debt were paid, under the current
system of banking, there would be no money at all.

The money is created from debt and then used as a "reserve" to create
further debt under a fictitious fractional reserve (fictitious because the
reserve doesn't actually exist except as previous debt), which in turn is
used as a reserve upon which fractional loans and so forth again and again
up to, if memory serves me, 23 times, when it exhausts itself.  Of course,
new debt is simply issued by the government (bonds, bills, notes) and new
money is printed to buy it and the whole shebang starts again.  Banks charge
interest on all of it.

The classic case of usura.

Since debt is the standard, precious-metal charge cards are directly to the
point, since debt has more value to banks than gold (or any other commodity)
does.

Dirk Johnson
Assistant Vice President
Kelling, Northcross & Nobriga
A Division of Zions First National Bank

-----Original Message-----
From: charles moyer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2000 9:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Slouching toward Bedlamham


    Merry Christmas, Pounders and other Personae who have found a medium for
projecting themselves (in their plurals) through the Internet. Today's words
of wisdom come from Mark Twain who wrote that "It is by the fortune of God
that, in this country, we have three benefits; freedom of speech, freedom of
thought, and the wisdom never to use either."
    Twain again makes me aware of my shortcomings. Nevertheless, if the
bankers are still on line maybe they could explain what was meant by the
following discussion which took place between Congressman Wright Patman,
chairman of the Banking and Currency committee and Marriner Eccles, Chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board in 1913.

    Mr. Patman: "Mr. Eccles, how did you get the money to buy these two
billion dollars of government bonds?
    Mr. Eccles: "We created it."
    Mr. Patman: "Out of what?"
    Mr. Eccles: "Out of the right to create credit money."

    Don't get me wrong. I'm as willing as the next guy to be  a "believer",
and I wouldn't want to think that some group of cyclical, precession of the
equinoxes, "occult" nuts have a monopoly on the poetic truth, nor would I
want to throw a wet blanket on the chrematistical meliorists' burning embers
of faith in the goose; but why do we never see a bank call itself "The First
Fractional Reserve Bank"?  And why is it inversely true that as the standard
of money goes from the most precious metal to the lesser, and then to none
at all that the credit card advertising hype proceeds from nothing of value
to the "Silver Card", to the "Gold Card", to the "Platinum Card" on to a
"God-knows-what-metal-next Card". Some like it shiney?
    Any comments or should I borrow Joe Brennan's copy of "Nostrodamus" for
answers?

CDM