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Summary:
EXPLODING THE MYTHS ABOUT MONEY Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been "privatized," or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions -- including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices -- and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
The best book to date on the subject.
Customer Rating:
Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System -- The Sleight of Hand That Has Trapped Us in Debt and How We Can Break Free (Paperback) -This is a book that should be taught in every school in my opinion, I know of University Economics professors who are unaware of how the banking system really operates, it is not just the "man in the street" who still erroneously believes that banks loan out their depositors funds. There are some minor factual errors in the book, as can be read in the 1 star reviews, but nothing that detracts from the main thrust that this crooked system is robbing the life blood of society and must stop. The book is well written in a flowing easy style that doesn't skip facts and does give references, together with the historical background for the events that lead us to this latest crisis point, where we are today. These crises occur every 20-25 years because of the banking system and each is worse than the previous in terms of the size of the "losses" which are then foisted on to the shoulders of the public, citizens, taxpayers or whatever label is in vogue for the sheeple. Thereby shifting the "Wealth to the bankers and the debts to the people". (to reference another work on the subject that can be found on the web) Even "Primitive" peoples would think us crazy to realize that people were dying in the 1930s crash because they couldn't buy food because they had no job to earn money and yet farmers were leaving food to rot in the fields because they didn't have the money to pay workers to harvest it! For the lack of this thing we call Money, families were starving to death and yet the public could have created it themselves, and still can. (as alluded to as Dorothy's "silver slippers" in the Wizard of Oz). Families and real people, old and young, are going to die in the West in 2009, as they have been in Third World countries, because of this "Phantom Capital" game that benefits a small clique at the expense of the vast majority. It is already happening where people can afford either Heating OR Food, but not both. Such a grotesque imbalance cannot be allowed to continue, with the internet and mobile phone technology we should be able to devise an electronic form of Tally Stick using encryption in place of the unique split of the wood of the Tally Stick. Get us back to "interest free" Tally Stick system of the 13th -15th Century where the single bread winner of the family only had to work 25% of the year to meet all the families needs. (this allowed workers to volunteer for communal projects such as the great cathedral building of the time). We are so conditioned by the massive debts created by this phantom money system where we have to work harder and harder for less and less that we find it hard to remember that both parents didn't have to work to meet the bills in times gone by. Heads of families in tribes up the Amazon only have to work 8 hours a week to meet their needs, I know that they don't have the standard of living expected in the west, but with the mass production and automatic factory technology we have today we should be able to do better in modern society than the 25% per year work load of the 13th Century with their "interest free" Tally Stick system. There is a huge abundance that nature gives us, mankind has the ingenuity to capitalize on that even further and produce sustainable bounty in harmony with the earth to elevate the quality of life of all, but there are a small number of schemers that would rather prey on mankind itself, like some sort of soul parasite. We need to find the silver bullet that rids us of this vampire. (Please don't write that silver is for werewolves, I know) The book exposes the Phantom Money clubs' global cancerous spread via IMF, BIS, WTO and World Bank tendrils enabling it to spread the system to other countries and suck the life blood from them with this usurious debt, under the campaign labels of "free trade" and "floating currency". More importantly for today it details the Banksters' mechanisms for moving the Stock markets with their trillions of phantom dollars and how "naked" share trading is another form of counterfeiting used. The game has got so big that the markets are no longer moved by market forces, but by the machinations of the Banksters. The technical analysts who earn a living predicting stock movements, based on historical market forces, are throwing up their hands in despair as the rules have jumped out of the window and the markets rise and fall totally without rhyme or reason as far as they can see. Demand for gold is unprecedented, some mints are totally sold out, yet the price of gold is being held down at the $850/Oz level by the Banksters phantom trillions shorting on futures options, which unbalances the supply and demand mechanism that erroneously assumes the cost of money is the same for all players in the market. It is time to stop the mixing of this phantom capital with real work and value. This capital is created out of thin air and presently is treated the same as real money that is generated by real work by people with a limited time of life, the only real value on earth. This virtual money should be consigned to a virtual world where it can't rob real people of their time and effort. The only way this is going to happen is by the majority becoming aware of the con trick being played on them and this is why this book needs to be taught in schools and put in everyone's hands. If not, welcome to the plantation planet, now get to work or you don't get fed today.
Web of Debt
Customer Rating:
This is one of the best books I have ever read. Ellen Brown has managed to bring together history and finances in such a way that is so interesting that this book is totally addictive. I couldnt put it down. I highly recommend it - and if only more people would read this book, there would be a higher chance that our financial systems could change for the better. Thank you
A book we all need to read US citizen or not
Customer Rating:
I started reading on our monetary system to make myself a personal idea on the current international financial crisis. And what a surprise! We would be far better off if, we citizens, had a better knowledge on the history of the international monetary systems. The problems we are facing are only there because we left the issue of money to politics and bankers. This book retraces the US history related to monetary creation, and explains clearly where we come from, and where we are going... We all need to read this book if we desirer to free ourselves and our countries from the artificial and oppressive debts that are making us slaves of the Banks and Bankers. This book is not about literature it's about our children's future. Very educative and easy to read.
Excellent Contribution
Customer Rating:
This is a monumental, thorough - going critique of some of the ills of our economic system. While it doesn't seek to explain tendencies to war and environmental destruction like neo-Marxian theories attempt to do, for people who want to persuade others that there are fundamental problems with our system, it has a dialectical virtue: It can't be dismissed out of hand the way thoughtless people do by accusations that the persuader is a "communist," "socialist," "leftist," whatever.
The Intelligent Backlash Has Begun !!!!!!!!!
Customer Rating:
I was thrilled to find this author's webpage: webofdebt dot com, and find out about this book.
My exposure to the content of this book has been gleaned from her webpage, which contains five lengthy excerpts... and my perusal of amazon's Look Inside This Book feature.
These two means have allowed me to read a great deal of the content, and whetted my appetite for the balance of the book. I have it on backorder here at amazon.
So my current 5-STARS rating is based upon what I've read so far from these two detailed sources... as well as the content on the author's webpage. After I receive my own copy and have read the book in its entirety, I will edit this review accordingly. I contribute this review for purposes of encouraging others to do as I have done, and put in your back-order to receive this book as soon as it is back in stock.
Meanwhile, I recommend the following two books concerning this same topic:
DEFAULT !!! Escaping the Debt Trap and Avoiding Bankruptcy
This ground-breaking book about avoiding both debt collection and bankruptcy includes complete, step-by-step info about how an ordinary middle class couple defeated a $35,000 collections lawsuit and forced the collections attorney to dismiss his case. A must-read for anyone drowning in credit card debt who doesn't believe they can stand up to the Debt Dragons!!! YES WE CAN. You just need to learn HOW to defend yourself, and avoid the rip-off "debt elimination" scammers.
ALSO:
The Bunnibank - A 24 Carrot Parable
"BunniBank" could well become the next Animated classic... and it does what the author of Web of Debt tells us that The Wizard of OZ" once did -- it teaches us about the evolution of banking through a more easily understood illustrated parable that the whole family can share together.
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