Kucinich, Zarlenga Say Monetary Reform Needed Now

Kucinich, Zarlenga Say Monetary Reform Needed Now

By John Tiffany

According to Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: “It is long past time we look at the implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.

“The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. . . . And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars.”

AFP covered a special presentation on the American Monetary Act in Washington on April 23, hosted by Kucinich and the American Monetary Institute, the premier organization for monetary reform in America.

Kucinich’s lovely wife Elizabeth introduced the speaker, Stephen Zarlenga, director of the institute, who has been described as the man who knows more about money than probably anyone else in the United States, and going back in history to the times of the ancient Spartans and the Roman republic.

At one point Zarlenga handed around to the audience a coin from ancient Rome (probably about 225 to 217 B.C.) called an aes grave, made of bronze and weighing about 274 grams. This, he explained, is an example of how money should be made, issued by the state, not by a private bank such as the Federal Reserve, and having a value assigned by law, rather than intrinsic value like gold or silver coinage. (Rome did produce gold and silver “bullion” coins, but only for trade with foreigners, not for use inside Rome.)

Zarlenga showed numerous slides to make monetary science clear to the audience, a mixture of the general public and congressional aides and interns. He pointed out that there has never been true monetary reform in America, which would consist of three elements:

1.) We need to nationalize the Fed;

2.) Banks would no longer issue credit into circulation as “money”;

3.) The government would spend new Treasury notes into circulation, to pay for needed infrastructure construction and repairs.

Until now, every attempt at real reform in America has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity such as those of Reps. Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced.

Monetary reform has failed on a number of occasions in various countries when the reformers failed to implement all three of these elements, Zarlenga warned. For example, Britain nationalized the Bank of England in 1946, as William Temple called for in 1942, but because banks were allowed to continue to create money, within a few years everything was back to “business as usual” in Britain, and the British people enjoyed little benefit from the reform effort.

The one organization that has a reform program that is comprehensive and free of outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which drafted the American Monetary Act. The act may be found on the Internet at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf .