Tuesday 16 September 2008

A New Wall Street Crash?


One of the US’ biggest banks, Lehman Brothers, has gone bankrupt, sending shockwaves through the world. The bank is over 150 yeares old and has survived many bad recessions in the past. Many commentators are comparing this with the prelude to Stock Market Crash of 1929 that caused the Great Depression, where the global economy virtually collapsed, people were destitute and it sowed the seeds of World War II. There’s an atmosphere of dread and insecurity hanging over everyone. What about our debts? Our household bills? Our jobs?

But the source of this fear comes from the fact that we do all our business in the official currency of our country. I earn pounds and pence, I spend pounds and pence. I borrow loans of pounds and pence. What if we chose to use a different currency, one of our own making that is independent of any state or corporate financial institution? What if? We know because we have! In the wake of the 1929 Crash some people realized this and started establishing small, local private economies. One of them is still going today, the Ithaca Hour: http://www.ithacahours.org/ . Taking control of our own economic activity not only protects us from the dangers of economic recession, but frees us from the financial control of the global economic system, that is penning us into smaller and smaller boxes of currency choice: the Euro has replaced dozens of national units of exchange. No doubt a world currency will follow, to completely tie up the economic lives of the populace and give total control to the Global Elite. It doesn’t have to be like that. See what I wrote about Workers Cooperatives (http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/09/workers-cooperatives.html) and Basic Income (http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/basic-income.html). Most important of all, read my srticle on "Williams the Wad" and the Welsh Pound: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/04/welsh-pound.html . We can take the initiative and calmly step out of the financial prison of the world banking cartel. No need for violent revolution or insurrection. We simply stop forging our own shackles. Who’s in?

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