I don't normally reproduce comments and counter-arguments as
articles, because they tend to be incoherent and hard to understand as
standalone articles. But, in this
case, this article in the anarcho-capitalist Daily Bell Blog, when they took on
her and her run for Treasurer in California, turned into something that seemed
article-worthy.
By Staff Report - January 29, 2014
My comments and the Daily Bell's (DB) counter-responses follow. I think it is instructive to see how the anarcho-capitalist mind-set works. Progressives can't ignore these people, as they facilitate the very worst in corporate-grabbing fascism, though they would venomously deny that, and actually make the counter-argument that it is progressives, with their support of the State - sometimes called by them, the Leviathan - that leads to corporatism (the term Mussolini said should have been used instead of fascism to describe the paradigm he founded).
Credit goes to Ellen Brown for bringing attention to this article in the Public Banking Google group, which I and several hundred other PB advocates participate in. Some slight reformatting has been done to improve readability. Additional comments by me will be in parentheses and italics.
It's hard to know where to begin with this, as so
many things are simply wrong. I'll try to list them:
1. Ellen Brown is not calling for money-printing by
the State, at least not in advocating for STATE or municipal public banks (a
number of us in the Public Banking Institute are advocating for large city or
county level public banks too; hardly Big Government. See my presentation in
Philadelphia for the PA chapter of PBI here: http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Using-Existing-Government-by-Scott-Baker-Banking-Crisis_Banks_Public-Banking_Public-Banks-140119-408.html. Only the Federal government has the
power to "coin Money" constitutionally, a fact which Brown is well
aware of.
2. The parties who have been profligate with
money-creation and fraud are in the private sector, albeit abetted by both the
Federal Reserve and the government - both of which, I, and more importantly,
many economists and government watchdogs, have observed to be bought out and
corrupted (I believe DB and Brown are in agreement that Corporate Personhood
ought to be repealed ASAP). I have argued elsewhere that having a Public Option
for Money would provide some balance to having nearly all money produced in the
private sector, as would LETS and as did U.S. Notes under Lincoln during the
Civil War, when the private NYC banks (them again!) wanted to bankrupt the
North with 24-36% interest rates - hardly banks operating in the Public
Interest (pun intended)!
3. DB's solution: "The solution is a simple one,
however. People need to educate
themselves, take responsibility for their actions and also take "human
action" to support themselves, their families and their communities in
ways that provide self-sufficiency." would be laughably naive if it wasn't
so dangerous. The fact is only a strong government with regulation that works
(see Bill Black) can counter the oligopoly that is the current Big Banking
system. It hasn't done so not because Government is too big and powerful, but
because it is too small and weak, compared to the Banking-industrial complex.
Brown is trying to provide a counterbalance to both the self-seeking private
sector and ineffectual Washington Government (which she has said repeatedly
cannot be counted on to pass anything meaningful in the present polarized
environment - a fact with which Americans overwhelmingly agree, as indicated by
persistent disapproval ratings of both executive and legislative branches). She
is doing so by promoting Public Banking at the State, Regional and even, where
it makes sense, city and town level (obviously, there is a point where
economies of scale argue against Public Banking, but I just completed a
preliminary analysis on little Luzerne County, PA for the Pennsylvania chapter
of PBI, and haven't reached that point yet).
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