“Meet the Campaign to Fix the Debt, the billionaire-funded project that uses Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles as figureheads for a fear mongering campaign to convince Americans that the deficits the United States has run throughout its history have suddenly metastasized into “a cancer that will destroy this country from within.” It is the latest incarnation of Wall Street mogul Pete Peterson’s long campaign to get Congress and the White House to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while providing tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.”  ...

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“Commercial banks create money, in the form of bank deposits, by making new loans. When a bank makes a loan, for example to someone taking out a mortgage to buy a house, it does not typically do so by giving them thousands of pounds worth of banknotes. Instead, it credits their bank account with a bank deposit of the size of the mortgage. At that moment, new money is created. For this reason, some economists have referred to bank deposits as ‘fountain pen money’, created at the stroke of bankers’ pens when they approve loans.” - - Bank of England Quarterly ...

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  It started with goldsmiths. As early bankers, they initially provided safekeeping services, making a profit from vault storage fees for gold and coins deposited with them. People would redeem their "deposit receipts" whenever they needed gold or coins to purchase something, and physically take the gold or coins to the seller who, in turn, would deposit them for safekeeping, often with the same banker. Everyone soon found that it was a lot easier simply to use the deposit receipts directly as a means of payment. These receipts, which became known as notes, were ...

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Superior has two major chain retail stores closing. Both K-Mart and Target are leaving Superior. Businesses closing in Superior are nothing new. There are empty store fronts and facilities all over town. Superior has never been a hot bed of economic vitality. But losing two long established businesses at once is unusual. Why is this happening? One might speculate that Walmart has been successful in the big-box competition for customers. This is not hard to imagine when you look at the mostly empty parking lots of K-Mart and Target on your way to the well-stocked lot ...

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Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system, only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative financial practices and virtual wealth. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated ...

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“The vast amount of money paid to Wall Street by America’s cities, counties, and states has profound impacts on our lives and local economies.” “It’s a staggering amount: Hundreds of billions of dollars move from taxpayer pockets into private Wall Street hands each year in the form of interest payments on bonds, loans, fees, and financial product costs” “The debt load is squashing local economies, ruining our school systems, letting our infrastructure crumble, and so much more.” “Breaking our dependence on Wall Street usury means reclaiming control of ...

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