Peace Dollars
Weaning America off a “financialized” war economy, rebuilding its manufacturing sector, putting citizens before corporations, promoting the welfare of all U.S. citizens — not just the rich and powerful — will understandably require money.
How do we do any of this without burying ourselves further in debt, consigning us to insolvency and economic collapse? How will we afford transitioning our industries, training our people, investing in productive — not destructive — industries? How do we install an economy that works for everyone, without chaining ourselves further to the debt treadmill?
Special use currency is not unprecedented.
Abraham Lincoln used “greenbacks” – the paper currency shown below – backed by nothing more than confidence in the government – to finance the Civil War. He printed $449,338,902 of this currency, a lot of money at the time.
Then, a century later, on June 4, 1963, John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 which set in motion the issuance of silver certificate notes, currency backed by silver reserves being held at that time by the U.S. Treasury.
Records show that Kennedy initially issued $4,292,893,825 worth of cash money. This bypassed the established procedure of borrowing money into circulation from the Federal Reserve. $20 billion of such United States Notes were eventually put into circulation before he was assassinated. It has been suggested it was Kennedy’s and Lincoln’s introduction of such interest-free, debt-free currency which was the primary reason both of them were murdered.
Understand that their actions were completely within the framework of the Constitution. Presidents must seek Congressional approval, as the ultimate authority for creating money properly resides with Congress, as delineated in Article 1: The Legislative Branch, Section 8: Powers of Congress.
However, it is in the interest of members of Congress, as it will curry unparalleled approval and enormous favor among voters, to support a president’s leadership and initiative in inaugurating such a powerful mechanism for economic growth and national renewal.
There is no question that what both Lincoln and Kennedy did, while anathema to private banking interests, was entirely legal. In fact, progressive economists would argue that money creation never should have been ceded to the private banks in the first place. Moreover, that it is incumbent on our current elected officials to again secure absolute control of the currency.
Risk of assassination aside, no legal case or compelling argument can be made against using this power. Our current debt-driven system requiring us to borrow from the private banking institution misleadingly named The Federal Reserve, in order to inject money into the economy, is absurd and over the long term counter-productive.
While ultimately our goal should arguably be to totally eliminate the Federal Reserve’s role in this process, at least for now we can pick up where Kennedy left off, prudently introducing what we call U.S. Peace Dollars, to cover a sizable portion of the federal government’s budgeting requirements.
U.S. Peace Dollars would look almost exactly like their Federal Reserve Note counterparts. Same layout, same denominations, same founders-of-the-nation and presidential images. Where U.S. currency now says …
FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE
… U.S. Peace Dollars not surprisingly would say …
U. S. PEACE DOLLARS
Where U.S. currency now says …
IN GOD WE TRUST
… U.S. Peace Dollars would say …
PROMOTING PEACE
Where in nearly microscopic print U.S. currency now says …
THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
… U.S. Peace Dollars would say …
THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DOMESTIC FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
Which brings up a critical feature of this financial instrument: U.S. Peace Dollars would be for domestic use only! This is to prevent them from being shipped overseas or being fed into the ongoing frenzy of currency speculation. Banks would be instructed to block the transfer of U.S. Peace Dollars equivalencies to non-domestic banking institutions.
For example, if a person deposited $8,000 of U.S. Peace Dollars into a domestic account, transfer of funds to non-domestic banks or use of funds for purchases outside the U.S. could only be made from balances of his or her account in excess of $8,000 accruing from regular Federal Reserve Note deposits.
This restriction is to guarantee that U.S. Peace Dollars exclusively promote America’s domestic economy, meaning only purchasing goods and services “Made in the USA”. This precludes exporting any newly generated Peace Dividend wealth, which would only exacerbate our already excessive trade deficit and facilitate capital flight from the country.
Private banks would be incentivized to create U.S. Peace Dollars credit cards. If there is institutional resistance to this by private banks, the U.S. government can fill that need by issuing through its own agencies such credit instruments.
A host of small-business and employee-owned business incentives could be built around U.S. Peace Dollars, for example giving matching federal grants or at least preferential treatment for investing U.S. Peace Dollars in job-creating domestic business start-ups. Worker-owned businesses, co-ops, and sole proprietorships could be high on the priority list for such support.
All of this points the economy in a hopeful and highly constructive, new direction. Further expanding general usage of U.S. Peace Dollars down the road could gradually dismantle the current Debt Doomsday Machine of the Federal Reserve paradigm. We could begin to wind down our $34+ trillion dollar deficit and balance the annual federal budgets using U.S. Peace Dollars to fill in the gap between tax revenue and overall spending.
Imagine Congress arguing over the size of budget surpluses instead of budget deficits!
Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
The point is, there are actionable solutions to our problems, even those deep systemic flaws in our system. But we have to act and we have to start somewhere. Peace Dollars is one small but positive step in unraveling the web of debt which shrouds our economy and makes access to a fair share of the enormous wealth of our nation impossible for the vast majority of citizens.
People need to wake up, yes. But they need concrete steps to take when they realize how rigged the system is and how it is entirely on their shoulders to do something about it.
U.S. Peace Dollars represent just such a concrete step.
We the people need to take a stand and stand our ground. We the people need to inaugurate genuine alternatives to the status quo. We can do that by introducing real choice at the polls, i.e. finding individuals who will support innovations like the Peace Dollar initiative, getting them on the ballot, and replacing in elected positions our current lapdogs to the ruling elite with such individuals: Candidates of the people, by the people, for the people.
True representative democracy!
There is no other way.