michael journal september-october 2008 # 351

8/14/2019 Michael Journal September-October 2008 # 351

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For th e Trium ph of th e Im m aculate

A journal of Catholic patriotsfor the kingship of Christ and Mary

in the souls, families, and countries

For a Social Credit economy

in accordance with the teachings of the Church

through t he vigilant action of heads of families

and not through polit ical parties

Pilgrims of Saint M ichael, 1101 Principale Street

Rougemont, QC, Canada J0L 1M0

Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal aera (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601Publicat ions Mai l Reg. N40063742. (PAP) reg. N09929

website: ww w.michaeljournal.org Printed in Canada

Edition in English. 53rd Year. No. 351 September-October, 2008 4 years: $20.00

Is it the end of the present

financial system?

Cardinal Agre at t he headquarters of the Pilgrims of St. Michael

Social Credit is based on the Social Doctrine of the Church

see pages 3 to 6Cardinal Agre w ith t he edito rs of M ichael (from leftto right: Jacek Moraw a, Polish; Alain Pilote, English,Therese Tardi f, French, and Carlos A. Reyes, Spanish)

Pope Benedict in Francesee pages 12 to 14

Throwing t rillions of dollars at the banks wont save the systemSee arti cle page 2


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Page 2 September-October 2008Michael Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada J0L 1M0Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

Conten ts Michael. September-October, 2008

Pages

Is it the end of the financial system ? A.P. 2How to save the U.S. economy. R.C. Cook 2-3Social just ice established. Fr. Savadogo 3

The Social Credit lessons. Cardinal Agr e 4 to 6Fight t he North American Union.M .S. 6Buildi ng a DNA database. W. D. Alston 7From debt to prosperi ty. J.C. Larkin 8 to 11Pope Benedict in Paris and Lourdes 12 to 14John Paul Is legacy: humilit y 15The imp erialism of money. Alonso 16-17Woman, Gods last creation. R. Salbato 18-19Encyclical Vix Pervenit . Benedict XIV 20The book The Secret . C.A. Reyes 21Vocation and mission. Fr. Savadogo 23Death w ish! Fr. John Corapi 24

by Richa rd C. CookThe crashing stock market has given its

verdict. The financial rescue plan current-ly being implemented by the U.S. Treas-ury Department and the Federal ReserveSystem will fail to revitalize the producingeconomy, even with continued interest ratecuts. This is because the banking system isessentially a supply-side, trickle-down mechan-ism with a currency based on a pyramid of banklending and debt. All the current plans being sug-gested by economists and others to save the fi-nancial system by varying degrees of tinkeringare useless. Similarly useless is the pump ing in o fcredit or liquidity by Treasury or the Federal Re-serve because it is no more than new debt to rollover old debt.

The cause of the financial failure is that theproducing and consumer economy is maxedout and is unable to repay existing loans muchless new ones. This is because purchasing powerin the U.S. has collapsed.

Purchasing power has collapsed not only be-cause we have outsourced our industry abroadand allowed our infrastructure to crumble, but alsobecause of structural defects identified decadesago by C.H. Douglas and John Maynard Keynes.

These defects occur due to the need forretained earnings (i.e. savings) to over-come the Law of Diminishing Returns.This leads to insufficient aggregate de-mand; i.e., the gap between prices andpurchasing power that is endemic in anindustrial economy.

The problem is not the collapse ofthe stock market w hich simply reflects the defla-tion of the bubble economy. The problem is theoncoming recession/ depression caused by theabsence of an economic engine to generate newproducing power.

Keynesian plans for top-down creation of jobsby governm ent deficit spending has never workedand has always ended in an attempt by the govern-ment to inflate its way out of debt. Everything be-ing suggested by the Obama/McCain campaignsis based on the failed Keynesian form ula.

Still, the gap (in the purchasing power) hasbeen filled, except it has been filled by debt, byconsumer borrow ing, and by the hundreds of dif-ferent kinds of exotic debt instruments dreamedup by Wall Street firms since Reagan t ook offi cein t he 1980s. This debt pyramid is w hat is crash-ing t oday.

How t o save t he U.S. Ec onom y

(conti nued on page 3)

After the recent bank failures and unpreced-ented losses on the stock markets in New Yorkand elsew here, people are gett ing nervous: isit t he end of t he present financial system as weknow it ? Is the whol e economic system on theverge of tot al collapse? The answer is definit ely:yes unless the present-debt money system isreplaced w ith a debt-free money system, accom-panied by dividends given to every citizen.

The news media reported that banks made badloans that could not be repaid and so they couldno longer lend any money, and therefore neededto be rescued by governments. Financial author-ities threatened governments by saing that that ifthese bailouts were not approved, to tal chaos andthe collapse of the entire economic system wouldensue. So the U.S.A. voted in an unprecedented$700 billion rescue program, followed the weekafter by an even bigger rescue plan by Europe:$2,300 billion. Will this be enough?

No, throwing trillions of dollars at banks willnever save the system, it will only delay its col-lapse for a few weeks. And if one studies how thepresent debt-system operates, these huge bail-outs aggravate the situation even further.

The regular readers of the Michael Journal,and those who have studied the 10 lessons on So-cial Credit know that in the present financial sys-tem, all money i s created as a debt in the form ofloans. Commercial banks create the money theylend, but not the interest they ask in return. If oneborrower succeeeds in paying back his loan, boththe principal and interest, someone else must gobankrupt because, all together, we are not ableto repay more money than has been made. Ifno money was borrowed from the banks, therewould be no money at all in circulation. They onlyway to keep the present system go ing is to createmore money and therefore more debt. The timecomes when this system reaches its mathematicallimit, when even paying the interest on the debt isimpossible: we have reached that point.

When one understands that to come intoexistence, all money has to be lent by the banksas a debt, these so-called government rescueplans are complete nonsense: governments haveto borrow money from the banks to come to hebanks rescue! Governments just get deeper intodebt to the private corporations that have usurpedthe power to create money for the nation.

Those in charge of the present banking sys-tem know perfectly that there is no way thesedebts can ever be paid, and that we are head-ing for a deadend, but this is precisely what theywant: they create the problem to be able to thenimpose their own drastic solution.

As Clifford Hugh Douglas, the founder of theSocial Credit school, said: The Money Power

does not, and never did, want to improve themoney system its consequences in w ar, sabo-tage and social friction are exactly what is de-sired. Why? It is because the Financiers believethat they are the only ones capable of governingmankind properly. They want to bring every na-tion in t he world to such a state of crisis that these

countries will think they have no alternative but toaccept the solution of the Financiers to save themfrom disaster: complete centralization, a singleworld currency, and a one-world government, inwhich all nations will be abolished, or forced togive up their sovereignty.

The real solution would be for each nation tobe truly sovereign and issue its own debt-free cur-rency, which would not stop commerce betweennations, but even make it easier. But this is notwhat the Financiers want: they claim that for aglobal problem, there can only be a global solu-tion (a single world currency).

David Walker, U.S. Comptroller Generaland chief of the Government Accountability Of-fice (until M arch 2008) has said t hat t he UnitedStates could no longer service its debt beyond2009. As reported on the halturnernshow.com

w ebsite, the plan is to int entionally bankrupt theUnited States to force integration with Canadaand M exico. Once merged, the U.S., Canada andMexico would be a new entity called the NorthAmerican Union. The U.S. Treasury w ill declarethat the U.S.A. has to default it s debt, the pres-ent U.S. Dollar w ill be demonetized (declared tobe not money by t he U.S. Treasury), and a newcommon currency imposed for the t hree mergedcountries: the Amero (just as there is the Eurofor Europe). Old dollars will be devalued byninety percent (90%): in other words, you willget only 2 cents on the dollar

Since the Chinesepresently hold about$2.3 TRILLION U.S. Dol-lars in cash from U.S.trade imbalance, the Chi-nese demanded and gotbillions of the new AM-ERO currency in advanceof everyone else. The20 AMERO coin shownon the picture was minted at the Denver Mint in2007, which proves this collapse of the U.S. Dol-lar had been planning for over a year! Here is thechoice offered by the Financiers: people will beleft instantly, totally, destitute, unless they acceptthe merging of the U.S. with Canada and Mexicointo something called the North American Union(NAU) and take the new AMERO currency fo r pen-nies on the dollar.

The psychological moment

Is this choice acceptable (to have your pres-ent money devaluated by 90%)? Is there no otheralternative? Yes, to apply the Social Credit prin-ciples, and guarantee enough purchasing powerto every citizen.

Douglas predicted that the present debt-money system of the Bankers would become un-workable and fall by itself, because of all of theunpayable debts that it creates. He added that apsychological moment will come, a critical mo -ment when the population, given the gravity of thesituation, and despite all the power of the Finan-ciers, will have suffered their debt-money systemlong enough, and will be disposed to study andaccept Social Credit. Douglas wro te the follow ingin 1924, in his book Social Credit:

The position will be tremendous in its im-port ance. A comparatively short period w ill prob-ably serve to decide whether we are to masterthe might y economic and social machine that w ehave created, or whether it is to m aster us; and

during that period a small impetus from a bodyof men who know w hat to do and how t o do it,may make the difference betw een yet one moreretreat int o t he Dark Ages, or the emergence intothe full light of a day of such splendour as wecan at present only envisage dimly. It is this ne-cessity for the recognition of the psychologicalmoment, and the fitting to that moment of ap-propriat e action, w hich should be present in t heminds of that small minority which is seized ofthe gravity of the present times. This momentis now !

Alain Pilote

Is it the end of the present f inancial system?

DEBT-MONEYSYSTEM

SOCIAL CREDIT

Which boat do you prefer?


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Page 3September-October 2008 Michael Journal, 1101 Principale St., Rougemont, QC, Canada J0L 1M0Tel.: Rougemont (450) 469-2209; Montreal area (514) 856-5714; Fax (450) 469-2601; www.michaeljournal.org

I had the joy o f accompanying Cardinal Agre,who was your guest of honor for this Congressand week of study. You know, when we have thejoy of accompanying someone, we have the joy ofseeing where he is going, and sometimes of eat-ing what he eats. It is the history of the Apostlesof Jesus. The Pharisees wanted to know why theapostles who where the family of Jesus did notfast, while those of St. John the Baptist did. Butthe friends of Jesus were given the grace to ac-company Jesus. They accompanied the spouse,so it was not the time to fast, but the time to eat.

Dear brothers and sisters, I love you. I tellyou this because during the two trips that I did to

Canada, I learned that Canadians are direct. Theyare not poets, they are not d reamers, but they arepeople who are concrete. And that is what is writ-ten in the ten lessons of Social Credit for whichwe have been invited.

I would l ike, at the end of m y greetings, to tellyou of my gratitude to my brothers and sisters thePilgrims of St. Michael. Thank you for your senseof openness, of welcome, sharing, and charity.Thank you for what we have seen. Thank you forwhat we have not seen. The welcome that youhave reserved for us brings me to ask a question,because we were invited to discover Social Creditand to certainly adhere to Social Credit and evenmore than that, to spread Social Credit.

We take the time, we the Africans, to listen,

to say yes because it is wisdom. When we sayyes, it is right, we go forward. But in fact I wouldlike to share with you something that concernsme personally. And what concerns me is the fol-lowing. With the Pilgrims of St. Michael, we havebeen invited to go towards tomorrow. (Vers De-main, the name of our journal in French.) But whattomorrow? A tomorrow with the Word of God,or a tomorrow with a project for society? A newproject. What is the tomorrow to which we are in-vited? That is the question that I ask myself.

I find the first answer in the formation thatwe have received from our master, Mr. Pilote. Itis he who we must applaud. As I am a bit curi-ous, I went to go see when it was that this hist-ory started w ith Louis Even. I came to realize thatwe are in the 70th anniversary of the work of thePilgrims of St. M ichael. You have accomplished alot and gained ground over the past 70 years. 70years is quite something in the life of a man. Thepsalmist salutes this, for the psalmist, it is a bigachievement.

But after 70 years we see that God helps thetravelers, the Pilgrims who leave their homes,their chains of slavery, and head for the Prom-ised Land. In this march for the Promised Land,there are those who fall and others w ho take upthe banner, there are those who continue thefight, but this land is alw ays promised to t hem. Ithink w e wi ll soon share this Promised Land. Wewill share it because it is not the promised landof a project of society, but the promised land ofthe Word of God. It is from the Word of God that

the light has made a click; that it shone in thespirit of Louis Even. It is from the Word of Godthat this new fire will come and cover the entireworld, in the expression of Social Credit, whichis making its w ay.

To see the light, with the permission of Pro-fessor Pilote, I have two or three proposals. I hadthe occasion to exchange words with our brotherand sister Pilgrims. The first proposal would be tointegrate into the formation of the weeks of study;Bible study and formation on the Word of God,

because it is this Word of God that we should re-ceive in all truth, without choosing only the partsthat please us, and pu tting aside those that upsetus.

This simply means that in the Word of God,there is the story of the Parable of the talents thatwe listened to yesterday in the Gospel. They aretalking about interest here. We received five tal-ents, we have to mult iply these talents and gatherfive more. There are those who received one tal-ent, but they did not work to multiply the talentthat they received. God will not be happy withthose people, the Parable tells us.

But these words should not disturb us; why?This is why we must have Bible formation; Bibleformation will open our eyes to say that the Bible

is not a book on economics. The Bible traces theroad to go towards God and it gives images andexpressions even from economics. It is the sameWord of God that speaks of the dishonest butshrewd steward, who owed a large sum of m oneyto his master and his master called him but he wasnot able to reimburse him. What did he do? Quick-ly, he called all those who owed something to hismaster. He said: Come, come, come: How muchdo you owe my master? 100 barrels of oil. Sithere, and write 50. This steward received praisefrom his master because he was shrewd.

Should a parable like this one di sturb us? No,it should not because it always traces the idealroad to go t o God. The Word of God will not dis-appoint us. It does not contradict Social Credit,but it opens our eyes to the imperious urgencyfor us here to convert w ith t he talent of our int el-ligence and the ardor of our commit ment, in theway that Marcel Lefebvre does, so that SocialJustice w ill advance.

I will finish with the other parable of the manwho wanted to put Jesus on the spot and set atrap for Him. He said, Lord, shouldnt we paytaxes to Cesear? So Jesus said to his question-er: Give me a coin. And when he had the coin,Jesus responded to His questioner and told him:

We must give to Caesar what is Caesars and toGod what is Gods.

It is on this that I wish to conclude, to tell youPilgrims that I am in agreement with all that I haveheard here during this week of study on SocialCredit. Social justice precedes charity, the falla-cious charity that is given to our countries of Af-rica. It is high time that Social Justice was estab-lished as a priority and primary goal. If this socialjustice is put first, we will be more comfortable inbelieving in the charity that ensues.

The second small lesson that Social Credithas left us, it is that we must not be mistakenabout charity: it is easy to do charity with thegoods of others, but what is more difficult is topractice charity with our own goods. Social Credithas just opened our eyes to what we are receiving

in our African countries, which does not corres-pond to the charity that comes from the pocketsof our benefactors, but of the charity that comesfrom fictitious numbers that do not correspond tothe goods. What is crucial is that not only thesefigures are fallacious, from what we have justunderstood, but that these figures maintain us ina sealed, a very well sealed tomb. When will webe able to leave it? When will we have the right toa better life, if we are forced to remain under theyoke of this financial and economic law; wherethe credits and interest on credits will never letus free, and will never let us see a better tomor-row? These are the few reflections that I wantedto share with you.

I dared to speak just after His Eminence the

Cardinal but believe me, all that I have just toldyou has the blessing of Cardinal Agre.

Fr. Patr ice Savadogo

It is high t ime social just ice w as established

Fr. Patri ce Savadogo of Ivory Coast

Rougemont monthly meet ings

House of t he Immaculate1101 Principale St .

November 23, December 28, 2008

Simultaneous translation int o English

10:00 a.m. Opening. Rosary. Lectures5:00 p.m. Holy Mass

And behind all the exoticism is the debt-basedmonetary system run by the banks who own theFederal Reserve, because it is these banks thatprovided the leverage for it all to happen... Justremember, its the big banks that are really theones behind the bailouts. They are the ones whocall the shots with the Bush administration andthe leadership of both the Republican and Demo-cratic parties. I

(continued from page 6) And what is a real solution? Its a dividend-based economy, as I have written many times,and as the Social Credit movement in GreatBritain , Canada , Australia , and New Zealandhave known for decades... Among many otherbenefits, we would have a rebirth of local andregional economies as w ell as family farmi ng, allof w hich the banks, under the global monetaristregime, have wiped out.

Richard C. Cook


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(continued from page 4)

When we, the five Cardinals, were given thefirst draft of the Compendium of the Social Doc-trine of the Church, it was a big book, we re-ed-ited (to reduce the number of pages) and effec-tively when you read it you see each moment areference to the New Testament and Old Testa-ment. This means that everything which had beenrevised and corrected was from this fundamentaltext of the Gospel.

When I saw you here, living this way, I no-ticed that you live the Gospel and you pray toJesus Christ and t he Virgin M ary, and it goes to-gether.

For example, if you read the Compendium;it is full of Bible quotations. There are Bible quo-tations and there is the Second Vatican Council,the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and theCompendium. Today you should have, for yourChristian and permanent formation, four manu-als: 1. The Bible, 2. the decrees of the Council, 3.the Catechism o f the Catholic Church, (I supposeyou have all read it, and that you have it in yourlibrary) 4. You have a goldm ine in the Compendi-um that assembles all what the great Popes spokeand said about society, starting with those whospoke most: Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VIwho also wrote a lot, and John Paul II. It is all ofthis together that m akes the Social Doctrine of the

Church. We must remember this.Money is not to be rejected, but earned hon-

estly, and one must be careful. I leave you withthis phrase: We must dishonor money earnedthrough evil. This means that today all the bankscreate money, but there is clean money and dirtymoney. Dirty money creates nothing, dirty moneyof prostitution, of all kinds of evils that we cannotname. It exists, the banks create money. All mon-ey that the banks receive is money that is cleanand earned, but the money that banks create outof nothing is dirty money.

I come back to what the Church has donefrom the social point of view. There is the SocialDoctrine of the Church. But also there is also thesocial action of the Church. Starting from all that

we have learned, we have seen this action bearfruit.

In the history of humanity, that is long andodious, the Catholic Church has instilled the Gos-pel, little by little. While looking at the misery ofman, she said as her Master said: I have pity forthis crowd. (Mt 9:36.) When there was slavery,what did the Church do? She did everything sothat the owners did not keep all of the slaves orservants at work. She instituted what? She insti-tuted feast days. The feast days were multipliedand the Church then demanded that they observeSundays. There was a long battle so that Sundaywould be institutionalized as a day of rest for allpeople. It was to give relief to the workers; it wasto give relief to the slaves.

And the Church started to build schools anduniversities that are issued in direct line from theChurch, from the modern part of our history. Theuniversities and schools, you have them every-where, plus hospitals and leper-houses, so thatwe can gather the poor. Give them somethingto eat, says Jesus Christ; give them somethingto eat and do not content yourselves only withspeaking, but give them something to eat.

Very often people were waiting. In certain re-gions they waited for the priests who are reallythe benefactors of all. In a certain village that wasvery poor, the people did not eat every day andso when Lent came the priest explained to all the

people that they had to fast, they had to eat onlyonce a day. When he finished his homily one of thefaithful came to tell him: Ah, Father, you said thatwe could only eat once a day, but do you have agranary where we can find rice to eat at least oncea day? They had no need to fast, because theyfasted all the time since they could not even affordone meal per day.

Dishonor money that is ill-gained and ill-em-ployed as well, because money that is ill-employedbecomes noxious. That is what you read in the tenlessons on Social Credit and other teachings.

Like everyone else, I came looking for hope.My hope is that no matter what, by dint of talking,educating, creating study circles, we will finallymanage to break this law of iron and fire of mon-ey, of a international financial house that controlsall of us; w e will succeed, it is certain.

But it takes what exactly ? It takes apostles,prophets, hardheads, we must have a hardhead-ed love, a hardheaded love.

It is a bit like that with mothers, they have ahardheaded love. Look at St. Augustine, leavingfor adventure in Rome to a very infamous circleof people and St. Monica was crying; she criedand finally someone said to her: The child whocost so many tears cannot be lost. And Augus-tine was not lost.

So blow s you wi ll receive; incomprehension,

it is certain; even threats, threats of death; youw ill have them. But in t he end the Holy Spirit w illact, the Virgin M ary and St. Michael as well.

I read recently 33 proposals that are the or-ders given by the power of darkness. I mean theFreemasons who want to destroy, take away whatis sacred from the Mass. Inside (these proposals)it is written that everything must be done so thatat the Mass, we do not pronounce the name ofSt. Michael because in years past, after the Mass,there was a prayer to St. Michael to prevent thedemons from attacking. The people must knowthat St. Michael has a great impor tance.

So when you founded your Movement, youhave started to call your journal Vers Demain(Towards tomorrow), towards tomorrow and ac-companied by St. Michael who covers you withhis wings and prepares the ground before you.When I say you, I should really say we be-cause I believe t hat w e have the same cause. Iwill never be a Full-Time because I am retired.I finished my official apostolate; I pray, I havefriends and contacts, but I think that what weare doing will bear fruit. All of t he people wil l notput themselves under t he guidance of St. Mi chaeland his sword right away, but little by litt le, the

Before going back to Ivory Coast, CardinalAgre wrote the follow ing text, to be included inthe Polish edition of the Social Credit propos-als explained in ten lessons:

At the request of the Pilgrims of St. Mi-

chael, I have decided to compose this smalltext as a foreword for the edition i n the Polishlanguage of the Social Credit proposals ex-plained in ten lessons.

This 150-page manual guides the anima-tors for the weeks of study and the meetingsin Rougemont .

With the participants who came from thecontinents of Africa, America, Europe andAsia, I had the pleasure of taking part in thislively and instructi ve teaching.

In the line of Louis Even, the founder ofthis strongly Marian organization that drawsits major themes from the Social Doctrine ofthe Catholic Church, we salute the relevanceof t he dominant features of Social Credit t hatcalls for a new social world of justice andcharity.

Fort unately, the Compendium of theCatholi c Church in it s recent edition, offers asource that enlight ens the w ork that you nowhold in your hands in its four fundamentalprinciples, namely:

The respect of the human person

The search for the comm on good

The principle of subsidiarity

And solidarity

The ten lessons on social credit and theCompendium are available in m any languag-es in order to be precious instruments of per-sonal and communal reflection.

We are all concerned by the recurrent mis-

ery and poverty of peoples.How can t he lack of the necessities of life

on an earth that is so fertile be understood?How can we understand that milli ons of adult sand children die of hunger and malnutrition?How can we understand that countries whoare extremely rich, collapse under debt s thatcannot be paid, due to a global viciated fi-nancial system that holds these countries incapitivity, thanks to a handful of of powerfulindividuals who stand together in evil?

This allow s us to hope for our our liberationfrom the banks and their merciless intermedi-aries. It requires millions of men and womenwho are enlightened, organized, filled withfaith and love, who ri se from everywhere to cry

out t heir discontent and build a new nationaland international environment w here no onegoes wi thout the necessities of life. (BenedictXVI, Deus carit as est, 25.) The Pilgrims of St.Michael have started the fight seventy yearsago. There is still a lot a work ahead.

Apostles, men of fait h, specialists, men ofgood will, stand up, it is your turn. Do not beafraid, Christ is alive, and He is the Master oftim e and history.

Bernard Cardinal AgreEmeritu s Archbishop of Abidjan

With the editors of our edition in Polish: JacekMoraw a (left) and Janusz Lewicki (right).

Words of appreciation for Social Credit

(Continued on page 6)


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Toronto monthly meetingsDecember 14, 2008, Feb. 8, 2009

Lithuanian Hall, 2573 Bloor St. W.(One block west Dundas Subway Station)

Rosary at 2: 00 p.m. Meeting at 2:30 p.m.Information: (416) 749-5297


leaders, the priests and the faithful w ill be morenumerous with you in your initiatives,to carryhigh the flag of the Gospel that passes throughthe Compendium and Social Credit with the tenlessons.

I say to you a big, big thank you for everythingand for the love that we have for each other. Onceagain, thank you. May Almighty God bless you,in the name of the Father, the Son, and the HolySpirit. Amen.

Cardinal Agre came for the first time to Rouge-mont last June to see the Pilgrims of St. Michaelfor three weeks, on the occasion of the Inter-national Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City. Hehad already attended the week of study about theSocial Credit proposals explained in 10 lessons,viewed in the light of the Social Doctrine of theChurch. Here are some extracts of a speech hegave during his first visit:

I found in you brothers and sisters, whoteach with simple words. We went through abeautiful book: Social Credit explained in tenlessons. You have taught us w ell in a languagethat is simple and clear. This is w hat Ive found.The teaching is lim pid, profound and nourishing.You are people who make us reflect. I reflectedmuch. It has given me a hope, a great hope ...

That which you call Social Credit is not impos-sible, it is not at all impossible; it is in the pos-sible of God.

Yes, we can change and we should change.We should change and it will come from us, fromeach one of us. Before my brother w ho was speak-ing was saying: I gave a trilogy, and this trilogy i ssomething very serious. We should be prophets.What does a prophet do? The prophet denounc-es, but from whom does he have the authorityto denounce? He must denounce; and when hehas renounced and denounced, after he must an-nounce. It is a trilogy, it goes together. If he doesnot renounce the situation that he denounces, ifhe himself is in the system and is comfortable init, he has privileges; he takes away all the authori-zation to denounce to others what he cannot seehimself. If his family eats the golden calf or if atwork he eats the golden calf that we all have inour plates, and continues to do so; he can neversay: here is the new Jerusalem, it is not possiblebecause he is in (the system) himself ...

Come to see us, why no t send Pilgrims to Ac-frica, and we can arrange that they give courses,because these courses must be given. Our peoplewho are in parliament and finance must hear an-other speech then the one they are used to hear-ing.

I also want to do something, I do not want toremain silent, although I do not promise anythingbecause I am old... but I also want to contr ibute tomake Social Credit a little more known.

You adocate the Social Credit p roposals in thename of the Trinity, these are technical strategiesthat we are putting into action, but he who sendsus is Jesus Christ. So I believe in your proposals,I believe because today... you know that we areprophets, and I was saying today to a brother, Idid not waste my time because I learned manythings, I saw my brothers act. This gave me agreat hope. These people (the Pilgrims of St. Mi-chael) have found a great light like their founder,and I found a great light on my path; I want tocarry this light with love in Trinitarian charity.Thank you.

+ Bernard Cardinal Agre

Moving?Make sure Mi chael moves w ith you

If you are about to move, or have just moved,it is very important to give your new address toyour post office, so that they can inform us aboutit. Otherwise, Canada Post returns your M ichaelJournal to our office with the notation moved,address unknown, and charges 95 cents for eachpaper thus returned.

Melvin Sickler is a remarkable apostle. He doesthe door-to-door Rosary Crusade all over Canadaand the United States to solicit subscriptions toMichael, and hold meetings. From September2007 to August 2008, he took 4,224 subscriptionsto Michael. Here are excerpts from his speech at

our 2008 Congress in Rougemont, Canada:People often ask the

question: Why do you dothis work? What motivatesyou to work as a missionaryfor no salary ?

In the work of the Pil-grims of St. Michael welearn to be apostles, welearn what it means to workfor the love of our neigh-bour. We learn to work forthe common good, to m akesacrifices, to renounce our-selves. In summery, wecould say that we learn tolive our faith.

We know that there isnothing more precious inthe eyes of the Eternal Fath-er then the soul. Today, we live in a world werefew people still p ray, where there is more sin thenever before. We live in an age were more soulsare daily falling into hell, like snowflakes fallingduring a winter snowstorm. Many souls fall intohell because there are so few w ho pray and makesacrifices for their conversation.

We see a great need to bring back the practiceof reciting the daily rosary in the families, to edu-cate the people on the importance of the sacra-ments of the Church, especially frequent confes-sion and to encourage adoration of the BlessedSacrament. There is a great need to evangelize all

over the wor ld, to reach out to all our brothers andsisters and to help each one experience the loveand mercy of God. With our journals in four lan-guages and our leaflets in twelve languages, wehave the means to make this kind of apostolatea reality. Saving souls from hell should be one ofour main priorities. The more we help the souls intheir spiritual life, the more treasure we will storeup in heaven.

The apostolate in the temporal field

The work of the Pilgrims of St. Michael is spe-cial because we wo rk on the temporal field. PopeBenedict XV said Many souls are lost on the eco-nomic grounds. Pope Benedict XVI just said inone of his encyclicals, In the family of God, noone ought to go without the necessities of life.

We read how each day, thousands of peopledie of hunger amidst all of this abundance. Weread also in the encyclicals of the Popes that itis the duty of every Christian to work for a bet-ter economic system and how we sin by omis-sion when we ignore the plight of these people,especially when we know the beautiful solution ofSocial Credit. We know that w ith the help of heav-en we will som e day see the philosophy of SocialCredit applied in every country of the world tobring about the triumph of the Immaculate. As Pil-grims of St. Michael, we have the grace to actuallydo something to help all the poor in the world,by educating the people with our leaflets and ourjournals on the subject of money reform.

The North American UnionAnother issue that we are concerned about is

the merging of Canada, the United States and Mex-ico into one territory called the North AmericanUnion. Our freedoms are slowly being removed,and people dont even realize it is happening. Thegovernment officials of Canada, the United Statesand Mexico have already signed agreements forthis to become a reality without consulting eitherthe Parliament of Canada or the Congress of theUnited States.

The Amero money for the three countrieshas already been printed. The micro -chip technol-ogy to replace all currencies is already in place.The European Union has been formed. The AsianUnion has been formed. Finally the three Unionswill be merged into a global government.

If we truly love our countries then we mustspeak up to our representa-tives to ban a North AmericanUnion. Through trade agree-ments the one world peoplewant to take away all of oursovereign rights and eliminatethe three countries. We mustnot let theses evil men usurpour liberties that our fore-fath-ers have fought and died forin all of our wars. Each home,each family should receiveour leaflets against the NorthAmerican Union.

This is part of a blueprintfor global enslavement. It is inthe plan of the globalists that,in the near future, the earth w illbe dominated by a powerful

world government. Once free nations will be en-slaved to the will of the elite, it will be the dawn o fa new dark age. Countries as we know them willbe a thing of the past. Every form of independencewill be under attack; the institutions, the familiesand the individual himself will be near extinction.

We will all be tested by an evil that has neverbeen seen before in the history of mankind. Wewill all need to pray hard for strength and callupon the angels to protect our souls from this on-slaught of evil.

We will need more young people to join us inthis spiritual battle against evil, for it is indeed a

supernatural war we are engaged in. I tell youngpeople to pray to the Holy Spirit to guide them inchoosing their vocation in life. Heaven has a planfor each one of us, and it is certainly in the planof Heaven that the armies of Our Lady continueto grow throughout the world to fight the forcesof evil. The Pilgrims of St. Michael is certainly oneof these armies; in fact one of the most importantones.

Think about what a privilege it is to work withHeaven for the salvation of souls. Each day thatis given to us in life is an opportunity for gracesand good deeds. At our judgement, we will beheld accountable for what we did with each dayof our lives. We will be held accountable on howwe loved God and our neighbour. We will be heldaccountable on how we used our gifts and talentsgiven to us by God. We will be held accountablefor both our sins of commission and omission.Each day we awake to is another opportunity tomake use of the grace to help people and be use-ful in helping Heaven to save souls.

Going back to the original question: Mr.Sickler, what is it that moti vates you? I guess youcould summarize the answer by saying, love ofGod, love of neighbour and love of country.

I extend an invitation to everyone to join us inthese battles to save souls and the peoples of theworld from a global dictatorship. I invite everyoneto order our leaflets to distribute in their surround-ings and to ask others to also subscribe to ourjournals. Remember that the eventual victory willbe with Heaven.

Melvin Sickler

Let us fight the North American Union

and work for the salvation of souls

Melvin Sickler


7/24


The federal government has just enacted twobills related to DNA. The first would drive the col-lection of DNA from all infants. The second wouldattempt to prevent the DNA that is collected frombeing misused.

The passage of two bills in the Senate and theHouse, and the recent signing of those bills into law

by President Bush, provides an object lesson in thetype of logic that governs the coercive state. Simplyput, the actions for an intrusive government neces-sitate further actions by that government to attemptto undo the unintended nega-tive consequences of the initialgovernment actions, but pushypoliticians simply dont care.Or so it seems.

The bills in questionare known as the NewbornScreening Saves Lives Act of2007 and the Genetic Infor-mation Non-discrimination Act(GINA) of 2008. The NewbornScreening Act passed via anun-recorded voice vote in both

houses. GINA had been underdiscussion in one form or an-other since about 1995, andpassed by a vote of 420 to 3in the House and 95 to 0 in theSenate.

The official summary ofthe Newborn Screening Actstates that is a bill to amendthe Public Health Service Actto establish grant programs to provide for educationand outreach on newborn screening and coordi-nated follow-up care once newborn screening hasbeen conducted. This is legislative codespeak forusing grant money to coerce healthcare providers toprovide outreach, i.e., collect and transfer geneticdata to the state.

The official summary of GINA states that it isa bill to prohibit discrimination on the basis of ge-netic information with respect to health insuranceand employment, meaning it uses the power of thegovernment to prevent insurance companies andemployers from actually acting upon the informationthe state collected via the Newborn Screening Act.

The Newborn Screening Act essentially createsa nationwide government databank of infant DNA,and by offering millions of dollars to healthcare pro-viders, it seeks to ever enlarge the contents of thatDNA warehouse. GINA supposedly prohibits pro-viders of insurance coverage from using this nearlymandatory information from what could quite ac-curately be called genetic testing. However, it doesnot prevent the government from using that informa-tion.

The most striking irony might be how one bill ef-fectively claims to limit the negative effects of theother. One law generates the data while a secondlaw supposedly protects the public from its use. Asusual, the state provides the worst case of severaloptionscoerced data collection, loss of privateDNA ownership, and ostensive protection from theresults of both. Why not simply allow for personalchoice and respect appropriate personal data own-ership in all cases?

Whats the worse that could happen?

The negative consequences from a state-man-dated DNA warehouse, including involuntary ge-netic research on entire populations, have alreadybeen well identified and analyzed by people likeTwila Brase, from the Citizens Council on HealthCare (CCHC). In Minnesota, where CCHC has its

national office, the DNA of 780,000 children residesin the states DNA Warehouse, and 42,210 of thesechildren have been subjects of research withoutparental consent. Brase claims DNA storage anduse violate privacy, parent, patient and DNA prop-erty rights. Similarly, the federal Newborn Screen-ing Act attempts to usurp the property rights of eachindividual by allowing the state to collect his DNA atbirth. Only two states require consent, and only afew states, like Minnesota, have an opt-out systemwhich Brase says actually assures high compliancerates because most parents going through post-par-

tum exhaustion and excitement do not realize itsthe state, not the hospital, coming in to take theirbabys blood. Afterward the State owns that DNA inperpetuity. Thus, the federal legislation, the premiseof which is little else but theft, is tragically flawed.

The premise of the Genetic Information Nondis-crimination Actthat discrimination is wrong gener-

ally, and therefore discrimination based upon ge-netic information is also wrong specificallyis alsoflawed. Claiming to protect the public from discrimi-nation is a classic Red Herring. Frankly, it is only

a coercive state that could createa situation whereby people wouldneed protection from this informa-tion.

According to a piece appearingin the New York Times for May 2:Democrats and Republicans alikecited anecdotes and polls illustrat-ing that people feel they should notbe penalized because they hap-pened to be born at higher risk fora given disease. The polls tell usthat many Americans do not want

to be automatically penalized forany aberrant geneticsunder-standable.

However, when Congress suc-cumbs to codifying this desire, itillustrates its misunderstanding ofthe economic basis of insurance:to analyze each persons risk andinsure him according to that risk.One cannot remove this basis via

legislation. If a person is at risk for a malady that willresult in higher-than-expected payouts by his insur-ance, the company shouldbe able to charge himmore for his premium. However, that is a secondarypoint.

(Editors note: Insurance companies today takeadvantage of their clients, many times forcing them

to forego medical attention because of premiumsthat are too high, or because the insurance doesnot cover the services needed. The healthcarefieldhave become corrupt because they are the ownedby large corporations who are controlled.)

Fundamentally, whenCongress creates incen-tives for the collection ofcitizen DNA, it creates asituation where govern-mentan organizationrenowned for not beingable to protect informationand for having a suspectrecord of honoring privateproperty rightsgener-ates an ever-increasingmound of stolen property.This amassed record ofinformation on private citi-zens opens the door fora troubling condition fun-damental to any large bu-reaucracy. That which issupposedly owned by ev-eryonethe basis of stateownershipwill generallybe adequately protected by no one. Ironically, it isonly the state that can create such a situation: thecollection of data that should be given by informedconsent but is not, combined with an ever-growingstockpile of data that is ostensibly protected but isnot, and cannot be.

Whose choice is it, anyway?

If there is advantage to be had by genetic testing,each individual is best suited to make his own risk/reward decision. If those advantages are legitimate,there is no need to surreptitiously drive the collec-tion of DNA via legislative sleight-of-hand such asgrants to providers, which are primarily state healthdepartments. For every patient who potentially fac-es a possible higher insurance premium, there isa corresponding patientor more likely, a bevy ofpatients, whose life would be better because he isinformed. The owner of the DNA is uniquely suitedto make this decision, if he is informed and allowedto do so.

The fundamental question is: Does it makesense for the state to require the collection of ge-netic information (or incentivize its collection), takeperpetual ownership of that information, and thenclaim to protect the citizenry from its misuse? In allcases the answer is the same. No.

If the information is important enough to collect in

the first place, shouldnt each individual decide thisquestion for his own DNA? If the answer is yes, whyshould the government collect it? And why shouldthe government do so in such a blatantly sneakymanner, at a time when few if any parents will beworrying about protecting the property of their just-born child? Why store this data in an ever-expand-ing, state-owned stockpile? Isnt it self-evident thatan individuals DNA belongs to him, not the state? Ifthat individualor his parent acting on his behalfchooses to submit DNA for testing to collection orstorage or research, it should be between the doc-tor and the patient, not the hospital and the gov-ernment. If that submission subsequently uncoverssome negative consequence, that should be left tothe market to regulate, ultimately still between theindividual and those who provide him products andservices.

In the best case scenario, the consumer is freeto decide whether or not to submit to a DNA testor to provide the text results to an insurance com-pany. An insurance company could make DNA test-ing a condition of insurancebut consumers wouldbe free to shop around for other insurance. Also,consumers could seek redress in the courts if theDNA information, which should be treated like othermedical records a health-care provider may pos-sess, is released without permission. In the worst-case scenario, the state drives the collection of theinformation on the one hand, does who-knows-whatwith it, and requires providers of insurance to act asif that information does not exist on the other hand,leaving more people with no course to redress anyunauthorized releases of their DNA. We have theftof the most basic ownershipthat of selfand an

ever-swelling pile of information in the hands of agovernment chronically unable, and quite possiblyunwilling, to protect it. Ironically, even if we are dis-satisfied with the outcome of that collection, we arestill required to fund the organization which causedthe problem in the first place.

Ultimately, a free society is based upon equalmeasure of being able to maintain ownership of thatwhich is yours, choose an action to take with thatitem, and reap the personal rewards (or endure thepenalties) of that action. These two bills usurp mostportions of that scenario. Few are likely to benefit asa resultleast of all those whom the state claims toprotectand many are likely to be harmed by theanalysis, profiling, and targeting of individuals thatmay soon result from government ownership of citi-zen DNA. The ominous question remains: why letgovernment collect data in the first place?

by Wilton D. Alston

(Used with permission, this article was published inThe New American Magazine, June 9, 2008).

Building a DNA database

Childrens DNA is beingtaken right after birth.

The structure of DNA

Books and leaflets to orderPrices of books, including shipping and handling:

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In This Age of Plenty ...................................$20.00

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Free Leaflets to order:

(NEW) The Federal Reserve

The North American Union and the Anti-Christ

The Eucharist

The Holy Mass

The Money Myth Exploded


8/24


The b ooklet th at cau sed Louis Even und erstand Social Credi t

(conti nued on page 9)

The following pages are excerpts taken fromthe 96-page booklet From Debt to Prosperity,wr itten by J. Crate Larkin of Buffalo, New York,

U.S.A. It is this booklet that changed the courseof the life of Louis Even and made him a SocialCrediter in 1934. It w as a great light on m y path,Louis Even said. Read the follow ing pages of PartI of thi s article and become inspired as Louis Evenwas. You are sure to be pleased that you took thetime to read this important information. Part II w illbe published in our next issue of Michael.

by J. Crate Larkin

Foreword

This booklet outlines briefly the econom ic an-alysis and constructi ve proposals known as SocialCredit. These are basically the work of Major Clif-ford Hugh Douglas, a Scot-tish engineer of broad prac-

tical experience in science,business, and economics.

The proposals of SocialCredit are designed to re-vive business, to preserveprivate property and theprofit system, to reducedebt, to lower taxes, and toprovide economic security forevery Am erican citizen.

These aims would be accomplished by theissuance of purchasing power directly to consum-ers in the form of credit. Three definite practicalsteps are required:

1. The establishment in the United StatesTreasury of a National Credit Account in which

the nation is credited wit h the production of r ealwealth and debited wit h its consumption.

2. The sale of all consumers goods at theJust Price, by means of a Retail Discount deter-mined by the true cost of production.

3. The issuance of monthly Dividends toevery American citizen.

Social Credit very properly comes under theheading of the new economics, which approach-es our present-day business problems from thepractical viewpoint of a civilization equipped withevery modern device of science for satisfying theneeds and desires of its members. In answer tothe problems of poverty and depression, SocialCredit proposes a definite solution, the m ost sens-ible and least difficult way out o f our financial con-

fusion. Social Credit points the way from depres-sion to permanent economic security, achievedthrough the true financial valuation of Americasreal wealth and the provision of adequate buyingpower to American citizens.

Social Credit is founded on two propositions:

First, t hat money m ust accurately reflect thetrue facts of our real w ealth. Second, that in anycivilized nation w here the money-system reflectsthe facts and performs its function of distribut-ing goods and services for consumpt ion, in t hatnation prosperity and permanent economic se-curity will be achieved, and poverty, paralyzingdebt, and depression banished.

Yet Social Credit is neither Socialism, Fas-cism, nor Communism, for it involves no confis-cation and would sacrifice neither the liberty norproperty rights of anyone. More than anythingelse it means every day comm on sense applied tomoney and business.

Should the principles of Social Credit be putinto operation today by the President and Con-gress of the United States, within six months theeconomic security of every Am erican citizen wouldbe won, and the nation could enjoy the prosperityof plenty warranted by its rich resources.

Facing the facts of t oday

In recent years we have suffered from a world-wide depression. (Editors note: this was wr itten inthe 1930s; but we m ight well suffer from similardepression very soon!) Everyone wants businessrecovery. Yet millions are hungry w hile knee-deepin wheat, lacking clothing when cotton is plowedunder, homeless while houses stand vacant. Sur-rounded by an abundance of the things we need,we experience want in the midst of plenty. What

a sad contrast !But this sorry spectacle becomes even more

vivid when we contrast producing America withconsuming America. When we compare Americathe manufacturer with America the shopper wefind that the manufacturer can produce but theshopper cannot buy. In this situation the machin-ery of business is stalled.

Business recovery means economic recovery.Economics is a matter of everyday business ex-perience for it is only the business housekeepingof society. Everyone in business is familiar witheconomics by practical experience. We needntfear economics as something difficult to under-stand for we can talk about it in simple everydaywords. Instead of struggling to grasp a mass of

abstract ideas it is much better to think of eco-nomics simply as everybodys business.

If we are to talk about business we had betterbegin by defining it so that we may know just whatbusiness is. The process of satisfying desires withgoods in exchange for money is called trade orbusiness.

Business must be carried on because its trans-actions actually do satisfy our desires for goods.We know that we have constant needs for goodsand abundant means for producing them. So tounderstand the meaning of any sort of economicrecovery requires first that we know what is thepurpose of the economic system.

Purpose of t he economic system

Let us picture in our imagination a vast plateglass shopw indow, reaching all the way across thecontinent f rom New York to San Francisco. Insidethat window are all the goods that America makes.Outside it are millions of us, would-be shoppers,all of us with our noses flattened against the win-dow just as we used to do when we were chil-dren.

Lets go into the shop and see what we findthere. The first thing that impresses us is theamazing variety of goods that are on sale in the

shop. There are millions of items offered for sale everything that we need in order to live in com-fort and convenience and satisfaction.

Suppose we ask the shopkeeper how he canmaintain this supply of goods? He will show uswarehouses bulging with goods. Behind the ware-houses is a chain of factories and behind the fac-tories are farms and mines, and behind those, lab-oratories and schools, and in the back of all thesethings the American people themselves with their

ambition, their enthusiasm, their inventivenessand their history. With these resources the shop-keeper can guarantee to prov ide us with a supplyof goods beyond the limits of imagination.

That supply of goods and services is Amer-icas real wealth. The ability to produce and deliv-er these goods and services is the only true limitof our real credit. There is no question about theabundance of our tangible real wealth.

As we look around in this workshop of w ealth,we remark how few people are working in it. Every-where we look we see labor-saving machinerythat has been designed and installed purposelyto eliminate human drudgery. Thanks to science,the curse of Adam has been lifted from the backsof men and transferred to the broader backs of

natures forces by means of power: steam andelectrical energy. Our control over these forcescan keep the shopwindow filled with goods, yetwe have just begun to use our servants efficiently.The sight of all the goods they can produce in thestore of plenty should make us feel very wealthy.

Now lets join the millions of shoppers out-side the window. What a change we find here!Instead of the orderly scientific cooperation ofthe productive system and all the abundance ofgoods created by it, when we get outside we finda struggling mob of worried people. Everybody isfighting everybody else and most of us seem tobe getting the worst of it.

All of us are shoppers and consumers ofgoods. We need food; clothing and shelter in or-

der to live. Wehave many other desires besidesthat we would like to satisfy. Why have we builtup this vast store of wealth and all the activitiesnecessary to maintain its supply ?

As shoppers and consumers of goods, if weask ourselves this question the answer is obvious.We produce goods in order that we may consumethem. The purpose of production is consumption.All of us know from experience that there are manygoods and services that we must obtain from

FROM DEBT TO PROSPERITY

C.H. Douglas


9/24


(Continued on page 10)


others who are better able to supply them thanwe are. Some systematic process for the produc-tion and distribution of these goods is necessaryif we are to work together in an orderly and in-telligent fashion. So modern business developedand its enormous capacity to produce goods andrender services is now

,highly specialized.

Briefly, we may define the purpose of theeconomic system by saying that it exists to de-liver goods and services as, when, and wherethey are required for consumption.

With this purpose clearly in mind, and remem-bering that we are to contrast America the manu-facturer with America the shopper, let us look atour economic system of today.

The general facts of our present diffi culties arepainfully familiar to all of us by personal experience.They may be classified in four main groups: Pov-erty, Debt, Taxation, and Depression. Of these it ishard to say which is the heaviest curse on our 20thcentury civilization. But it is significant that all fourare found together in the greatest age of scienceand power over nature that man has ever known.

The paradox of plenty

Thanks to science we have at last achieved thelong-desired age of plenty. Inventions and techno-logical advances have, almost unbelievably, in-

creased our capacity to produce real Wealth in theUnited States, yet we cannot distribute the con-sumable goods that even now we produce. Andat least half of this immense productive ability liesidle.

Producers wish to sell. Their salesmen offergoods to distributors, who dare not buy becausethey cannot sell to consumers. Shoppers are eagerto buy. Many are hungry and cold and homeless.But they cannot eat or clothe themselves or findshelter, for they have no money to purchase whatthe producer wishes to sell them.

This is the famous paradox, poverty in themidst of plenty of which we have all heard ahumiliating state of suffering and misery in therichest nation on earth. The Rt. Rev. C. E. Riley,

Dean of Niagara, has referred to this paradox asa damned blasphemy. Those are strange wordsfrom a clergyman. But stranger still, it seems thatall this suffering is due to a glut of goods, to thevery surplus of w ealth itself.

Ninety percent of the population of the UnitedStates does not manage to get enough to live indecent security. Worse than this, mo re than thirt ymillion people, nearly one quarter of our` totalpopulation, are living on a mere subsistence level,with barely enough food to keep them alive, a roofover their heads, and clothing to cover their bod-ies.

Taxation and debt and more to come

Meanwhile business stagnates for lack ofsales, and we struggle under an increasing bu-

rden of heavy taxation and debt. Today (in 2008)every person at work gives one day out of two forthe payment of taxes alone.

As tax-payers we are all headed for the dayof drawing our belts still tighter over an alreadyempty stomach. For the skyrocket of climbingtaxation is on the way up, and the zenith of itscourse will bring an explosion of national bank-ruptcy. Must we patiently sit by waiting for this tohappen?

Every man, woman and child in this coun-tr y today (October, 2008) is $33,875 in debt forFederal Government indebtedness alone andthat figure is going up (the federal debt of 10.3tri llion, is increasing by $3.44 billion every day).How can it ever be repaid ? How can more debt

be the way out of our present indebtedness? Wemight as well try to stop t he weather from get-ting cold by t aking off more clothes.

We also have the surprising spectacle of anorganized and government-sanctioned plan ofsabotage the deliberate destruction of agricul-tural wealth to restrict production to the level ofcurrent consumption. How can wealth be madeavailable to needy consumers by destroying it ?Obviously the destruction of wealth also destroyscorresponding human satisfactions.

Plain facts

Certainly our r ich natural resources, our fieldsand mines and factories, with all their productiveability, exist today as they did in 1929. Yet we aretold now that we are in debt. From 1929 to 1935,the value of our national wealth, measured inmoney, has shrunk by more than 100 billion dol-lars nearly one-third o f its to tal 1929 value. Thefinancial experts report that in terms of moneyalmost one-third of our wealth has vanished intothin air.

Now, if one-third of our country had been

destroyed by earthquake, fire, or flood we couldunderstand how one-third of our wealth mighthave been destroyed. But there has been no suchcatastrophe. Nature has been kind to us. Am ericais here as beautiful and plentiful as ever with herrich crops and her factories filled w ith machinery.

What has happened to this wealth that hasmade it lose its value? Nothing at all. The wealthitself still exists, but its value in terms of moneyhas been destroyed. We have made the fatal mis-take of confusing our wealth with money, and wehave thus deprived ourselves of the wealth weneed.

Outside the shopwindow of plenty we standlooking in and wishing for more m oney, for morebuying power. Discouraged and bewildered, we

yearn for the wealth of goods in the window whenit is denied us simply by the limitations of our owncreation, the Money System. What a tragic ab-surdity! And it is doubly stupid because it can bechanged whenever we decide to change it.

Under-consumpt ion and w hy

Now we are getting close to the heart of theproblem. Apparently our difficulty is concernednot with over-production but rather with under-consumption. To be able to buy goods consumersmust have buying pow er. But there is a shortage ofthis necessary buying power. Under-consumpt ionexists because we have not sufficient purchasingpower to buy the total of the goods we produce.

There is ample provision for financing pro-ductionbut little and faulty provision for finan-cing consumption. Producers can produce butconsumers cannot consume.

And why do consumers lack buying power?The answer is to be found in the financial systemitself. This constant lack exists because the moneysystem, which was designed to accomplish thesmooth flow of goods from p roducer to consum-er, has inherent in its naturetw o fundamental de-fectsso serious that the system has broken down.These disastrous defects are the root causes ofdepression, poverty, debt, and taxation, becausethey give birth to a chronic shortage of buyingpower. The shortage has been with us both intime of depression and of prosperity.

The failure of finance

With the coming of power, money has failedman. So long as production remained difficult, andgoods were relatively scarce, our antiquated moneysystem could operate well enough to enable busi-ness to continue. New markets were constantly be-ing opened up to absorb the surplus of our produc-tion. But today, when we are able, through the useof power machinery, to produce on the greatestscale in history, the money system has not beenadjusted to these new conditions. Science and in-vention have outgrown our old ideas of money.

To understand why this has happened, and tosee clearly the basic cause of our chronic short-age of buying power, wemust first know how themoney system w orks in practical operation. Sinceits operation has resulted in failure we must dis-cover the facts behind this failure. We have seenthat the lack of buying power is responsible forunder-consumption. Now let us determine whatcauses the chronic shor tage of money.

Wealth, credit, money

In every discussion about the money systemwe find three words frequently recurring. These

three words are put to a great deal of abuse. Andif we are to understand clearly why the operationof the money system produces a chronic and in-creasing shortage of purchasing power, we mustfirst have a definite understanding of these threewords. They are all vitally related to each other.But their meaning has become confused.

The first of these words is wealth. Wealth hasbeen defined by Webster as large possessions,a comparative abundance of things desired, es-pecially of worldly estate. From this definition itis apparent that wealth consists largely of goods.All things possess the attribute of wealth if theycan be used directly or indirectly for the satisfac-tion of human desire. The term wealth is thus aword used to express the total of goods whichcan satisfy hum an desire, as well as the means of

producing such goods.

In considering our wealth as a nation w e mustinclude as a very important part the great culturalheritage that has been handed down to us by ourforefathers. The rich natural resources, the farmsand factories which make America wealthy, wouldbe of little use and could never have evolved wereit not for the organized scientific knowledge be-queathed to us by our ancestors. This part of ourwealth is an asset belonging to the entire nation.

The modern economic production systemis not a system of individual production andexchange of production between individuals. Itis more and more the synthetic assembly, in acentral pool, of wealth consisting of goods andservices which are preponderatingly due to the

use of power, to modern scientific processes andall sorts of organizations. (C. H. Douglas, Oslo,Norway. Feb. 1935.)

The real w ealth of any person, of any nation,may be measured by his or its ability to deliverw anted goods and services.

It is not always easy to measure wealth, forthe value of any one article of Wealth depends dir-ectly upon the desire that people have for that arti-cle. But since we must all deal in wealth to satisfyour desires, it is essential to have some means ofmeasuring its value in relation to our desires forthe goods which compose wealth.

The necessity for dealing with wealth leadsdirectly to the second of the words we must de-fine in order to understand the money system.

This word is credit .

Credit real and fi nancial

Credit is the vital air of modern commerce.The word credit com es from the Latin crederemeaning to believe.

Credit... is something founded on belief.All of us use the word credit, and when we saya mans credit is good we mean simply that wehave confidence in his ability to make good on

The National Debt Clock, a billboard-style sign, is seen near Times Square inNew York City October 9, 2008. The sign,which was installed in 1989 by the lateSeymour Durst, a Manhattan real estatedeveloper, has run out of digits to showthe growing number and has had the dol-lar sign replaced by the figure 1 to countabove $10 trillion. When the sign was putup in 1989, the national debt was a glori-ously modest $2.7 trillion. The Durst or-ganization says it plans to update the signnext year by adding two digits.


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From debt t o prosper i t y(continued from page 9)

(cont inued on page 11)

his promise to pay. In other words credit restsupon the ability to pay or to deliver the goodsas promised.

But it is not generally realized that there aretwo different and distinct kinds of credit, knownrespectively as real credit and financial credit.Real credit m ay be defined as the rate at w hichgoods and services can be delivered as, when,

and where required. Financial credit may simi-larly be defined as the rate at w hich money canbe delivered ... The inclusion in both definitionsof the word rate, is of course, important. (C. H.Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit p. 21.)

Thus real credit depends upon the ability todeliver goods or services. Financial credit de-pends upon the ability to deliver money, as re-quired. This distinction is very important, and wemust have it clearly in mind as we consider themonetary system. Let us note it well, for we shallrefer to it later.

What is money

The third word we must understand clearly ismoney. Money is the title to life in modern soci-ety. But there is probably no other word in our

language about w hich there is so much confusionand mudd led thinking. It is no exaggeration to saythat most of the wreckage in our stalled economicmachinery is due to misunderstanding of the truenature and function o f money. Therefore it is vitalto understand money itself, even though thi s mayrequire some revision of our former notions.

Money has been defined as a m edium of ex-change, a means of expressing an effective de-mand for goods. In these days of economic hys-teria this simple definition will remove much ofthe confusion that shrouds money in mystery.

We read and hear a great deal about soundmoney. What is this sound money the expertstalk about? Certainly it is sensible to say that asound money system is a system that works a

system that makes effective the existing demandfor goods.

The nature of money

We know then that goods are conveyed fromproducer to consumer by means of money. Moneyis thus the connecting link between productionand consumption. It acts as a bridge between thedesire for goods on the part of the consumer andtheir supply on the part of the producer. We mightsay that money is the equalizing medium betweendesire and goods, enabling the one to be satisfiedin terms of the other. It functions as a force which,like electricity running a motor, is invisible, and wesee only its effects transforming desire, which ismental, into physical goods which represent thesatisfaction of that desire.

From this it should be plain that money issomething num erical, not a material substance.Money is not w ealth, but a symbol of wealth anda means of measuring its value. Money gives usa method for applying number values to goods.

If we stick to our personal experience, we can-not fail to realize that money is on ly a ticket, a ticketauthorizing us to go shopping in the nations storeof wealth. Money entitles us to claim the wealthof goods in the store. A money-ticket is exactlylike a railroad ticket except that a railroad ticket isonly good for transportation while a money-ticketis good for anything in the store up to its statedvalue in prices.

We thus arrive at a true conception of thenature of money; money is simply a social mech-

anism designed to facilitate orderly productionand distribution. The money system is to all in-tents and purposes merely a system of tickets en-titling the holders to goods and services. Aboveall, money as such is not a commodity; it has nointrinsic value apart from the function it performs,and to regard money asa commodity is proof of aradical misunderstanding of that function.

Money is not a commodity with substance,size and weight , like wheat or steel. Thinking aboutmoney as a commodity, such as gold, instead of as

a measure of value, has caused much of our con-fusion today. For even financial experts agreethat commodities fluctuate in value according tosupply and demand, and thus no one commodityby itself is suitable as a single absolute measure-ment o f value for all others. Prof. Frederick Soddysays, Gold i s in all respects about the worst com-modity to choose as a money standard. (Moneyversus Men, p. 53.)

Money is so important in our lives that wemay well think of it as the keystone which holdstogether the whole of our economic structure.The reason why money is so important thatpeople quarrel about i t, is t hat t hese money-tick-ets are indispensable to our shopping. Money-tickets are just as necessary to our shopping asshopping is to our lives. In civilized society ourlives depend on money and t he money system.For w ithout m oney that works, that is sound,we cannot touch any of the wealth that fills theshopwindows of America.

But to deserve the name sound, moneymust possess two important qualifications. Forone thing it must have acceptability, which meanssimply that everyone who uses it has confidencethat it can be exchanged for wanted goods or

services. And secondly since it is the medium ofexchange, we should expect to find m oney accur-ately expressing the current demand fo r availablegoods.

Any sort of a sound money system, in short,must reflect the t rue facts of product ion. It mustprovide enough of the means of exchange tokeep goods moving fr om producers to t he shop-pers who consume the goods.

Tw o kinds of m oney

There are mainly two kinds of money in usetoday. The first of these is currency, or tangiblegovernment money which circulates as coins;pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar b ills.The second is credit-money, or bank deposits cir-

culating in the form of cheques.Currency is only the pin-m oney of business.

Credit-money (or cheques) is used in practicallyall large transactions, where coins or bill s are notconvenient. In fact, more than 90% of our busi-ness is done with cheques, or credit-money.

We know that currency is issued by the gov-ernment as coins or printed bills, but many peopledo not know just where or how credit-moneycomes into existence. Weuse cheques becausethey are safe and handy, they can be written forpaying an exact amount to specific individuals,and so long as they are acceptable we think nomore about it.

The birth and death of credit-money

Suppose we look into the source of this cred-it-money with which we do at least 90% of ourbuying and selling. Where is it born? We knowthat a cheque is an order against a bank balance.The bank balance consists of deposits credited t oan account. These deposits themselves may be in

the form of cheques drawn upon other accounts.No currency actually changes hands in paying fo rgoods or services with this kind of money. Com-plicated transactions involving immense sums ofmoney are handled purely by means of the book-keeping carried on by the banks, entering creditsand debits on their books. In their bookkeepingthe banks credit and charge the accounts of theircustomers.

It is clear from this that whatever money wasonce intended to accomplish, by means of cur-

rency, it is a different story now that we writecheques. The cheque system today is simply aseries of bookkeeping entries, and our monet-ary system functions mainly as the circulation ofthese cheques. We do almost all our business bymeans of bits of paper, which are evidences ofFinancial Credit. And this credit is itself createdor destroyed in the bookkeeping process of thebanks. The cheque system is in it self a greatadvance upon the use of tokens in many ways.But its invention has resulted in the banks, notindeed coining money as that is quit e unneces-sary, but creating m oney wit hout even the issue

of print ed notes... (Prof. Frederick Soddy, Moneyversus Man, pp. 31-32.)

C. H. Douglas stated in Oslo, in 1935, that themethod by which the banker makes money isingenious and consists largely of bookkeeping. This kind of money is born in a bank and dies in abank. And the bank is responsible both for it s birthand its death. The banker creates the means ofpayment out of nothing.

The fact that banks create and destroy moneyby the bookkeeping process of issuing or cancel-ling credits is illustrated by any ordinary bank loan.Suppose we go to the bank to bor row $1,000. Thebanker passes judgment on our credit rating, ac-cepts our note, and grants the loan, crediting ouraccount exactly as though we had deposited thissum in cash. We are now in debt to our friendthe banker. We owe him the $1,000 we have bor-rowed, plus the interest he charges for its use. Wecan then write cheques against our new account,and these cheques are acceptable as money.

Now the banks are permitted to lend up toten t imes their actual cash reserve, and in so do-ing t he banker creates i n the case of our l oan,$1,000 (less int erest) in new money.

But when the time comes to repay this sumthe credit he has extended to us is destroyed. Wecan no longer w rite cheques against it. Indeed, wemust pay the banker promptly or forfeit whateversecurity has been placed with him as collateral. Ifwe cannot pay, our security then passes into hishands. In other words, every bank loan createsa deposit and every repayment of a bank loan

destroys a deposit .

Loans are made and deposits created by cred-iting the borrowers account in the bankers book.And the money thus created is destroyed in thesame way, by debiting the borrowers account.What has it cost the bank to lend us $1,000? Noth-ing but the expense incurred in its bookkeeping.

As a result of the bookkeeping process of thebanks, new m oney is constantly being created anddestroyed. And this money, said by the Encyclo-pedia Brittanica to be created out of nothing, isreally being manufactured out of little more thanpen, paper, confidence, and a bottle of ink.

This bookkeeping process, the banking meth-od governing the birth and death of money, isclearly descr ibed by Reginald McKenna, Chairmanof the Midland Bank of London and former Chan-cellor of the Exchequer: The amount of moneyin existence varies only with the action of thebanks. Every bank loan creates a deposit... andfurther, t here is only one method by which w ecan add t o or dimi nish the aggregate amount ofour m oney . . . The amount of money in existencevaries only with the action of the banks in in-creasing or dim inishing deposits. We know howthis is effected. Every bank loan and every bankpurchase of securities creates a deposit, andevery repayment of a bank loan and every banksale destroys one. (Speech at General M eeting,Midland Dann, Ltd., Jan. 25, 1924.)

When we think of our own hard-earned per-sonal bank accounts we perhaps imagine that

our deposits are used by the banks to create newcredit-money. But the banks do not, as manypeople believe, lend such deposits. By virtue oftheir privilege of lending up to ten times their

The process by w hich banks create moneyis so simple t hat t he mind is repelled. U.S.economist John K. Galbraith, in Money:Whence it came, where it went, p. 29.


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cash reserves, banks create financial creditwhichin their bookkeeping becomes a debt against theborrower.

It is not unnatural to think of the depositsof a bank as being created by the public throughthe deposit o f cash representing either savings oramounts which are not for the time being requiredto meet expenditure, but the bulk of the depositsarises out of the action of the banks themselves,for by granting loans, allowing money to bedrawn on an overdraft or purchasing securitiesabank creates acredit in its books which is the

equivalent of a deposit. (Report of the MacMillanCommitt ee on Finance and Industry, presented toParliament, June 1931, Paragraph 74.)

Although, then, we are stressing the func-tion of t he banking system as a manufacturer ofmoney, it is far from our object to im press thereader w ith any suspicion that such manufactureis criminal. Our object is to impress the readerwith the importance of the fact that it is a pri-vate body, not responsible to the nation, whichactually manufactures and controls the manu-facture of money, and by so doing controls thenations means of l ife.(Maurice Colbourne, Eco-nomic Nationalism, p. 138.)

Our economic blood

Money circulates. This is a fact familiar to everyone. In the economic system money may well becompared to the blood of the human body. Moneyin business is equally as vital as the blood in ourbodies. It circulates, carrying l ife and vitality in it sflow. Money is the medium of exchange. Busi-ness cannot survive without exchange. Exchangeimplies activity, and this activity is the flow ofmoney, its circulation. The flow cannot cease, formoney satisfies desire only when it is exchangedfor goods and services. It has no inherent value initself. Money itself cannot be worn or eaten but itcan buy clothing to wear and food to eat. Whenmoney ceases to flow, its power to satisfy desiredies, exactly as we die when our blood stops cir-culating. Only so long as money circulates is busi-ness alive and healthy.

We know the time blood takes to circulatethrough the human body. We measure its circula-tion by our pulse rate. And in just the same wayit takes time for money to circulate through busi-ness. Time and flow taken together give us a rateof flow, and this rate of flow is the way we meas-ure the speed of the circulation o f money.

But the likeness between money and bloodis still closer. For both of them circulate; that is,the course of their flow is circular. Money tendsto flow in a circle through business. Its circula-tion begins in a bank, since it is in the bank thatmost of our money is born. The banker, for ex-ample, makes a loan to a producer. The producerpays his workmen, executives and shareholders,who presently appear as shoppers, consumers of

goods in the retail market. The retailer then paysthe wholesaler, who in turn pays the producer,who at length repays his loan to the bank. Where-upon that amount of credit is destroyed until thebank makes a new loan, when it creates more newcredit. Then the circle is repeated. And business isdependent for its existence on this life-blood cir-culating in its economic body.

Business versus debt

Now our study of money grow s exciting, forhere we come face to face with Debt. We knowdebt well, for it is always at our door. And it posesas our friend credit, a wolf in sheeps clothing.More than that, debt plagues us always, sinceevery bank loan, in creating a deposit, at once putsthe borrower into the clutches of debt. Banks, it is

true, create credit , w hich they are said to extendto borrowers. But the banks credit becomesthe borrowers debt. Strictly speaking, therefore,most of our business is done on debt, becausethe money thus created is issued as loans whichmust be repaid with interest.

The deluge of debt

The old Biblical tale of Noah and the Flood hasits modern parallel. Weare told that in Noahs daythe world was submerged under great waters. But

our m odern flood is even greater than Noahs andjust as real. For in our day we are steadily sink-ing under a deluge of debt. We are not thinkingof war debts, or of international debts, or of anyrelatives of these which may be in the limelightat any given moment, but of the system itself bywhich all money is debt. It is adebt to the bankingsystem.

Struggle against this as we may, so long asmoney comes into being as a debt to the bankingsystem we are its slaves. As Maurice Colbournesays, Even our vocabulary is perverted. Whena bank is said to extend you credit it is doing

nothing of the kind; it is extending you debt. (Economic Nationalism, p . 147.)

It may be a disturbing thought to realize thatthe bulk of our money is debt-money, created bythe banking system on the basis of the countrysresources and its ability to deliver wanted goods.But however disturbing it may be, it is neverthe-less true. Our money is a circulating evidence ofdebt to the banking system. This is the solid factwhich we must grasp: The bulk of our money isdebt-money.

How can we ever hope to get out of debtwhen all the money to pay off the debt is creat-ed by creating a debt ? When banks create newmoney in the form of loans, they ask the bor-rowers to pay back more money than what wascreated. (The banks create the principal, but notthe interest.) Since it is impossible to pay back

money that does not exist, one must borrowagain to feed the monster (the debt), and debtspile up, to the point of a world-wide bankruptcy.(Picture taken from the video M oney as debt. )

Unpayable debt

Is it any wonder that we sink in a flood o f debtwhen every article of wealth we buy must be paidfor with money which itself is debt ? Debt sur-rounds us from birth to the grave. We cannot berid of its grip because of the ingenious financialdevice called interest.

The deluge of our present debt can never bedrained away because interest requires that thedebtor repay more than has been loaned him.The process by which debt-money is created iscumulative it grows. The debt cannot be liquid-

ated because it grow s faster than business can re-pay it. It can never be repaid, now or at any othertime.

Thomas A. Edison is the author of the state-ment, In all our great bond issues the interestis always greater than the principal. The totalof principal and interest, which is more than theoriginal loan, can be met only by the creation offresh debt. Thus debt breeds more debt, and themore we struggle the deeper we sink.

But our situation, bad as it appears now, is growing worse. For example, when we try to usethis borrowed money to draw wealth from theshopwindows of the nation it becomes impos-sible, at the same time, to use the money to drawwealth from the shopwindow and to repay the

debt.But this isnot the whole story. Business de-

pends upon the debt-money of the banking sys-tem. Every dollar loaned to business must berecovered in prices. Now, money is never bor-rowed except to be spent; but, as it must subse-quently be rep

michael journal september-october 2008 # 351

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