USA can begin to cancel it's debt... "Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style" by Ellen Brown
Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation.
Let’s face it. There is no way the US government is ever going to pay back a $20 trillion federal debt. The taxpayers will just continue to pay interest on it, year after year.
Ellen Brown is a prolific writer, lawyer, founder of the Public Banking Institute and am proud to say, a friend of mine for a number years.
Ellen is currently traveling and may very well be in Asia at the moment. Ellen usually goes to Europe 2 to 3 times a year to offer consultation to large Corporations, Banks and sometimes Heads-of-State, as well.
While the US government is busy driving up its “sovereign” debt and the interest owed on it, Japan has been canceling its debt at the rate of $720 billion (¥80tn) per year. How? By selling the debt to its own central bank, which returns the interest to the government.
While most central banks have ended their quantitative easing programs and are planning to sell their federal securities, the Bank of Japan continues to aggressively buy its government’s debt. An interest-free debt owed to oneself that is rolled over from year to year is effectively void – a debt “jubilee.”
As noted by fund manager Eric Lonergan in a February 2017 article:
The Bank of Japan is in the process of owning most of the outstanding government debt of Japan (it currently owns around 40%). BoJ holdings are part of the consolidated government balance sheet. So its holdings are in fact the accounting equivalent of a debt cancellation.
If I buy back my own mortgage, I don’t have a mortgage.
If the Federal Reserve followed the same policy and bought 40% of the US national debt, the Fed would be holding $8 trillion in federal securities, three times its current holdings from its quantitative easing programs.Eight trillion dollars in money created on a computer screen! Monetarists would be aghast. Surely that would trigger runaway hyperinflation!
But if Japan’s experience is any indication, it wouldn’t. Japan has a record low inflation rate of .02 percent. That’s not 2 percent, the Fed’s target inflation rate, but 1/100th of 2 percent – almost zero. Japan also has an unemployment rate that is at a 22-year low of 2.8%, and the yen was up nearly 6% for the year against the dollar as of April 2017.
Selling the government’s debt to its own central bank has not succeeded in driving up Japanese prices, even though that was the BoJ’s expressed intent. Meanwhile, the economy is doing well. In a February 2017 article in Mother Jones titled “The Enduring Mystery of Japan’s Economy,” Kevin Drum notes that over the past two decades, Japan’s gross domestic product per capita has grown steadily and is up by 20 percent. He writes:
It’s true that Japan has suffered through two decades of low growth . . . . [But] despite its persistently low inflation, Japan’s economy is doing fine. Their GDP per working-age adult is actually higher than ours. So why are they growing so much more slowly than we are? It’s just simple demographics . . . Japan is aging fast. Its working-age population peaked in 1997 and has been declining ever since. Fewer workers means a lower GDP even if those workers are as productive as anyone in the world.
Please find the web link below of the complete and recently published article by Ellen Brown:
https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee-japanese-style/
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If this doesn't underscore the absolutely lunacy of our current financial system, I don't know what does. It's just a matter of moving around a bunch of numbers on paper, what a joke.
Now, I'm going to go move a bunch of numbers around on my computer with Poloniex!
This post has received a 3.92 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @sacred-agent.
Could you invite her? I really love her work. Steem on my friend!
@TeamSteem... Have emailed her but she is out of the USA at the moment.
Will try calling her when she gets back home but she is becoming more & more in demand.
I can share this after knowing her for a number of years, she has the highest integrity, is exceptionally intelligent and is genuinely a nice person.
Thank You @TeamSteem for Your continuing guidance & support... still have much to learn.
Interesting article.
Any idea why this isn't discussed more broadly - in other forums?
STEEM On!!
Dave
@DaveBrewer... That's an excellent question and am not sure why this & other topics Ellen Brown has written about for many years, have not really been discussed...
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning"... Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Will continue to do my Best to get the word out and perhaps, people like Yourself, can also get this information out there for much more public discussion/awareness.
Thanks Again 4 coming by... Have a Great Week !!
Debt is what holds the people by their balls. I will follow you because you have a fair view of things.
@IzBing... Yes, agreed. Really appreciate the follow AND...
Thank You, hope to do my Best to bring an assortment of interesting & hopefully important topics to consider at the STEEMiT Community.
Have a Good Week !!
Nice article.
Congratulations!
@rtdcs Thank You... much appreciated.
They never intended to pay off any of our debt , only grow it bigger and larger. You see our system is a debt based system and can only grow and succeed as is by adding new debt. Twenty trillion is nothing compared to the derivatives on that original money. The smoke and mirrors of it all for the sheep who listen to the bullshit is every new politician who talks of paying it off while year after year, term after term, president after president it only grows larger. That's the game........................
Fellow SteemitBC member. Interesting I'm here in Japan and haven't heard about this yet. Too much shit going on. Great article Agent.
@RT395 Always Good to see a Fellow SteemitBC member.
Thanks 4 coming by...
Nicely explained !! nice post
@Blazing Thank You... Have a Great Week !!
Curious... Where do you suppose they're getting the cash from to buy the debt?
@BioPhil... The $$ comes from the same place that originally created the bonds... out of thin air.
Thanks for coming by. Have a Good Week despite the downturn. Cheers !!
"out of thin air" is fine, but we have a word for that - quantitative easing or inflation. The article made it sound like that's not what was happening.
And what do you mean that bonds come out of thin air?