>>The world has obviously desperate and clutching the thinnest straws, if it's waiting for me to offer a solution
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>>The world wants no such thing; I'm just interested to know whether you have a solution in mind- IOW whether you're looking to "Fix the problem, not the blame." ;-)
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>>Bring back the greenbacks. The buck should stop on Capitol Hill, as it did before 1913. The funny fiat money of today is a weapon of mass theft and should be abolished. It should be replaced with solid greenbacks in the amount that citizens have on hand, or the amount of wealth that corporations have publicly stated on their tax forms, let's trust them that those numbers were right.
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>>So you want the Dept of the Treasury to issue notes rather than the Fed? The colorful descriptions are good fun but how exactly would that have prevented speculative trading in shonky loans? If you're saying "ban shonky loans" I think we'd all agree with that ;-) but how will changing the currency source achieve it? Besides, in what respect was society better off in 1913- was there less poverty and less "mass theft" as you describe it? Bearing in mind that US women did not yet have the vote in 1913, perhaps we can agree that things were not peachy just because notes were issued by Government.
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>This very much looks like the consensual economy we had in the last years of our self-managed market socialism. It was supposed to be a way of social contract between players in the market, where they'd get into long term cooperation instead of day-to-day market trickery, and we'd all live happily ever after. Except that these contracts were the trickery; the big honchos would make backroom deals in the conference room instead, and have their workers' councils sign them in public, and the market was gradually getting forgotten. We called that "agreement economy".
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>Which is basically what's happening now. The guys who were capable of inventing financial instruments, whichmost people (including most politicians and buyers) don't understand, were surely capable of knowing who's actually being shortchanged, who's winning, who's losing. But as long as they, as a guild, control the coining of money, they can do what they want. They only need to find customers who'd give something real for that money, and that's us.
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>In case when there's real hard money, not fiat money, there's no fooling around. No matter whether you're the worst loan shark or workers' paradise all-for-one-and-one-for-all self-managed enterprise, with real money and a flat market, there's no cheating, there's no smoke and mirrors - you're worth what you are worth on the market, not what your friends up high are willing to print for you, or to coerce others into giving to you. Both self-managed agreement economy and smoke-filled-room-agreement economy are diversions from the market, ways to rig the game.
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>The US of 1913 was not good enough, of course, or else it would find in itself enough power to resist this kind of arm/ear twisting that led to the creation of The Fed. If there was ever a practical conspiracy, which then gave birth to endless spawn of theoretical ones, that's this: that the mint of the wealthiest and so far the most powerful nation in the world is owned by private and/or foreign banks. That's the scam of the century, and it seems it's playing an all-or-nothing now. I'd gladly be on the side of US once more, if they chose to give them the latter.
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>>I'm not trying to get at you, all I'm saying is that the proposed response seems a good one to me. Had a similar response been possible last century the Great Depression might have been avoided. Presumably we can agree that the Great Depression was not a success for society even if it did carry thunderous consequences and blame for some of those responsible. IMHO we need to be very careful what we wish for.
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>I'm not religious, and not Christian as a consequence of that, so "careful what you wish for" is not something that would shake me, but yep, culturally this saying is a way to impose some responsibility upon planners and inventors.
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>BTW... had some distraction here -- a Skype call from an old friend from home, then links getting passed back and forth etc... eventually stumbled upon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcVjPo0luBs&feature=related - sen. Kucinic (I'd spell that right, but Michel's new warez no support utf-8) on The Fed.

It's funny (not really), but back when there were more in the presidential race, I took the quiz to see which candidate you agree with most. It was a quiz of issues and policies for those issues. You didn't know which candidate had which policy. Kucinich was the one I agreed with most. I did some research on his policies and voting record after that. I think most thought him a flake because he once stated he had seen a UFO. He didn't last long in the race after that.

I think if you look at the history of the federal reserve and it's original purpose, you can see why it is the way it is now. Good ideas not panning out and all that...

I don't think the current Federal Reserve is anything like the strong national bank that John Quincy Adams had in mind...

BcVjPo0luBs