Ben Bernanke, the real most powerful man on Earth (Photo Credit)
Finally a Solution to the Economic Mess I Can Get Behind...
Last month I came across an article on Arthurmag.com which presented a really great idea--
I have always admired hackers—computer hackers and social hackers. I'm just trying to expand the range of technologies and institutions we feel ready and willing to hack. We should hack money. We should hack banking. We should hack business. This doesn't necessarily mean hacking the dollar, which is just one kind of closed source currency. We should hack money by coding new kinds. Bank hacking has been around for a long time—it's just that credit unions and other local or community-based bank models were driven down by the anti-competitive practice of banking conglomerates. It's time for those institutions to be renewed, as well.
As a bohemian artist type, I've kinda been doing this off and on for years. Favors for friends repaid with favors in return, is usually what this looks like in the immediate here and now. Granted, I still need a job and I still need money, but it's important to understand that there are and have always been alternatives to the almighty USD.
Speaking of the US Dollar, you should know it's a product we are all forced to use and it represents the single most powerful monopoly that exists today. The Federal Reserve literally creates money and loans it to banks at interest. The chairman of the Fed recently said in a 60 Minutes interview (my emphasis added):
The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing.
So, why is it only the Fed that can print money? Because they are part of the government? No--because they're not part of the government. How do I know? Simple--ask yourself which member of the Fed board do we elect?
None of them.
We get to vote for the guy who names the chairman every four years in November (the POTUS) and the senators and congressmen which supposedly have oversight over the Fed, but have only once heard of Congress actually performing said oversight on the Federal Reserve. The reality is that most presidents don't get to name a chairman of the Fed because the chairmen of the Fed have terms of 14 years (yes, on paper the term is officially 4 years, but they're almost always reappointed).
So, how do we hack the economy?
That's a good question. I think the idea is to trade goods and services when ever you can. Stop going through the Dollar system for absolutely everything. Getting rid of a bookcase or couch? Don't sell it--trade it with someone. Or give it away. There are loads of sites online that help with this process. Whether it's Craigslist.org or, a site I use here in the Big Apple, NYCDailyDeals.com, there are alternatives to buying or selling everything. Another popular site is freecycle.org.
There are even people trying to get their own currency off the ground since owning gold and silver coins is still legal. LibertyDollar.org is a site that will tell you all about this new form of currency. It's legal, but no one really takes it as cash, just yet. Now, I don't approve of the Liberty Dollar because of a message engraved on each coin:
"Trust in God"
Yeah, so let's replace one BS currency with another? I think the Liberty Dollar folks are missing the point. It's not "liberty" until you're really free (to not believe if you choose).
But I digress.
The point here is ultimately this: Humanity has existed in it's current evolutionary state for something like 200,000 years. It's done most of that existing without Chase Manhattan or Citigroup or the Federal Reserve System.
We humans came up with the concept of money--why can't we come up with alternatives?
So, let's start thinking about ways around relying on money for everything. I know it's an uphill battle, but we've got to start somewhere.
Orignal From: Hack the Economy
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