New Zealand already under TPPA International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration tribunal that operates under the umbrella of the Worldbank.

For my fellow citizens and businesses of honest enterprise being eaten alive by foreign financial ticket clipping middlemen, this is for you.

British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network have control of New Zealand under conditions of receivership via its International Monetary Fund (IMF) receivership branch backed up by its old boys Commercial Contract Law network legal branch known as the International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that operates under the umbrella of the Worldbank.

The Worldbank and IMF are conduit institutions that can be traced back to the senior most institutions of the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network that are owned by the family trusts of the worlds ultra-inter-generational-wealth-families.

The Worldbank gives out the predatory interest bearing loans of counterfeit credit in excess of the productive natural resource capacity of the target nation to ever be able to repay. Then when the mathematically inevitable bankruptcy receivership occurs, the IMF is put in charge of bankruptcy receivership, supposedly attempting to trade you out of your financial troubles.

But former Worldbank Vice President Joseph E. Stiglitz has stated that the IMF is the hospital that makes you sicker and quite clearly has ulterior motives than those that are publicly stated by it;
http://newint.org/features/2004/03/01/imf-failure/

Joseph E. Stiglitz - "I watched carefully what the IMF had done, the mistakes that it had made in crisis countries in East Asia, Latin America, Africa and the economies in transition. The mistakes were sufficiently frequent that they clearly weren’t just an accident – as an academic you look for patterns.

There were a couple of obvious explanations. One was that they were incompetent, stupid people. But that argument is just not persuasive – they pay among the highest wages, they get good people.
You could say it was bad economic models. But there is an array of economic models out there and they chose to use ones that led to wrong predictions, wrong policies and really negative consequences.
So why did they choose them? One is left with a possible answer that they had different objectives, that their objective in going into a country was not, for example, to keep employment as high as possible or to minimize poverty."

And then of course it all starts to make sense. You ask: ‘Who makes the decision, and on whose behalf do they make those decisions?’ You look at the decision-making structure – at the IMF the United States is the only country with a veto, other countries are represented by central bank governors and finance ministers. They were looking at the world with a particular perspective, a particular ideology that was in accord with their interests. And their interests were to make sure the creditors got paid. That took precedence over what would be good for the country.
End quote

In New Zealand by 1961 the predatory lending of counterfeit credit from the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network had run New Zealand into bankruptcy receivership. At which time it was put into the hands of there receivership branch the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under a Structural Adjustment Program that I would argue, as former WorldBank Vice President Joseph E. Stiglitz does, that they have since on purpose traded New Zealand even deeper into further bankruptcy receivership's and demanded that its essentials of life public assets be sold on the open market.

These procedures are enforced by international arbitration courts in which commercial contract law supersedes individual human rights common law.
All governments of New Zealand have since officially denied the growing influence of the conduit institutions of the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network over its economic model, as evidenced here;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/rob-muldoon-new-zealand-prime-minister.html
The New Zealand Economy, A Personal view, by Rob Muldoon 1985
Page 33-34;
page 52;
The fact that even in good years we did not show an overall surplus on our external current account and had to borrow and even draw from the IMF was also of concern, so that we were forced to move to restrain not just consumption, but capital development as well.
page 61;
It was in 1967 that, as a result of the wool slump, we borrowed into the higher tranches by way of drawings from the International Monetary Fund and gave the fund a controversial letter of intent. The semantics of a letter of intent as debatable then as they are today when the Fund has some 40 such arrangements. When the left wing politicians and academics claimed that the Fund had laid down conditions before permitting us to draw in the higher tranches, I insisted, as did the Fund, that it was up to the Government of the member country to indicate the policies that it would pursue in order to restore balance to its economy, while the Fund made its decision on whether or not to agree to the drawings in light of the policies that were proposed.
End quote

I Iain Parker sent this email to Minister of Finance Michael Cullen 4 September 2007 ;
Regards Dr Cullen,
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?
Yours sincerely
Iain Parker

I received this reply from the Acting Minister of Finance Trevor Mallard 2 October 2007 ;
Dear Iain Parker
Thank you for your letter which was received on 5 September 2007 concerning an Official Information Act request. You requested:
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?

New Zealand joined the IMF and the World Bank in 1961. There was no financial crisis in New Zealand at the time and New Zealand did not restructure its debt as a result of joining. There are no secret memoranda of understanding and no structural adjustment programmes were imposed on New Zealand. All the documents related to the decision to join the two institutions are publicly available from Archives New Zealand.
In June 1984, New Zealand drew down its Reserve Tranche at the IMF. The Reserve Tranche is essentially a countries foreign currency deposit with the IMF and can be drawn on at any time for balance of payments reasons without requiring approval from the IMF board. There is no conditionality attached to such a drawing and so no structural adjustment programme was imposed.
Once again, all relevant documents are publicly available at Archives New Zealand.
Accordingly, I have decided to refuse your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act 1982 - that the information you requested is or will soon be publicly available.
In response to your second question, registered bidders in New Zealand government Bond tenders purchase New Zealand government bonds using cash which they get from their shareholders, from profits on their operations or from borrowing against future income. Please note that bidders may purchase bonds on their own behalf or on behalf of other investors. The bonds are issued on behalf of the Crown by the New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO). The Reserve Bank conducts the bond tenders as agent for the NZDMO. When the bonds mature, the Crown repays them with funding from a variety of sources, such as its cash surplus, revenue from taxation and other sources or by undertaking new borrowing. Interest on the bonds is paid from the same sources.
This fully covers the information you requested.
Yours sincerely
Hon Trevor Mallard
Acting Minister of Finance.

On the 5 October 2007 I sent this reply to Trevor Mallard;
Regards Hon Trevor Mallard,
could you please advise me, as to whether you researched and provided this answer yourself, thus are prepared to stake your present and future political reputation on it, or was it provided by one of the many State Sector advisers at your disposal. If the latter is the case, could you please provide me with the name and department of the author.
Thank you
Iain Parker

I then received on 10 October 2007 this reply from Michael Cullen;
Dear Mr Parker
I have received your email regarding the answer to your Official Information Act Request which was signed out by the Hon Trevor Mallard in my absence.
I am satisfied with the contents of the reply that you received from my acting minister. This request was dealt with under the standard procedures for replying to requests under the Act.
In this case, the draft reply was prepared on my behalf by Andrew Turner, Head of Portfolio Management at the Treasury.
Yours sincerely
Hon Dr Michael Cullen
Minister of Finance
end quotes

This information below from the New Zealand parliamentary record makes it clear that the above rebutting of the growing control by the IMF over New Zealand economic affairs was misleading and makes very clear that IMF regulation now becomes automatic financial system law within New Zealand without having to pass through the New Zealand parliament to be debated or voted upon;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/new-zealand-international-finance.html
New Zealand Minister of Finance the Hon BILL ENGLISH said in the debate;
“I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Our commitments to the IMF are effectively premiums to an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world....... New Zealand has already agreed to these changes, and adopting the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill simply puts that agreement into practice......The bill also creates a regulation-making power in the principal Act so that further updates to the articles can be made by regulation. This power will simplify the process by which New Zealand meets its obligations. Once changes to the articles are agreed to by the requisite majority of members of the international financial institutions, New Zealand will be bound by the amendments, which means that we are required to bring our domestic legislation into line with our international obligations.”
end

New Zealand opposition party finance spokesperson Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) said in debate;
“I rise to speak to this bill, the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill, on behalf of the Labour Party. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The Labour Party supports the function of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and broadly agrees with the Minister of Finance that these are good institutions that assist the conduct of international economic affairs in a way that benefits New Zealand as well as other countries......I think New Zealanders will have more confidence in our participation in these international fora if they think that Governments are being transparent about changes to those international agreements and the effect of those changes on New Zealand. There is already enough suspicion out there as to the effect of international agreements. We breed further suspicion if we are not open and transparent about changes to those rules......For those reasons, amongst others, the Labour Party opposes future changes to this legislation by way of the statutory regulation-making power that this amendment Act creates. We believe that future amendments ought to come back to this Parliament. If we look back in the history, it has not been an onerous task for New Zealand to amend this legislation through annual amendments or anything like that. It is relatively rare that we have amendments to this International Finance Agreements Act, which dates back to 1975. “
end quotes

New Zealand Green Party Co-Leader - Russel Norman - having displayed a sense of growing environmental and social injustice - had “come out” - asking hard questions of the current money system orthodoxy after his 21 Feb 2013 International Finance Agreement Amendment Bill third reading - in which Russel Norman admitted to having only recently gained an understanding of just how New Zealand money supply originates and under what terms and conditions;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/new-zealand-international-finance.html
"The other thing that comes out of, I think, the IMF that surprises a lot of people is when the IMF says things like most of the money that is generated is generated by the private banks. Most of us, I think—and I was certainly one of these people, until reading IMF papers—always assume that the Government created the money. That is just because I actually did not follow it closely enough, whereas the IMF is very clear that it is the private banks that create most of the money. What the IMF—or, at least, some of the researchers within the IMF—is now saying is that the Government should use its ability to create money, so that there is some publicly created money as well as the privately created money, most of which is created by the private banks.
This, of course, is a pretty radical proposition, and the IMF, in putting forward this proposition, has certainly been shaking the policy debates around monetary policy all over the world, except in New Zealand, of course, where we are kind of locked into some weird backwater where the Government does not want to have a debate around any of this kind of stuff. But if you read the international literature, it is pretty good."
end quote

Russel Norman made clear his views again - and clearly had not yet buckled - in this 27 May 2013 article;
"In the debate around monetary policy, it is often forgotten that the default position is that the private banks create most of the money and lead the increase in the monetary supply. They then charge interest to the users of the money that they have created......The debate should be: what constraints should apply to the private creation of money given the banks’ irresponsible behaviour in the past; and should the public institutions be expanding money supply as a policy tool, to what extent, and to what purpose? Should the state be allowed to also increase the money supply for public purposes such as refilling the Natural Disaster Fund and to see what effect it can have on reducing the very damaging high NZ dollar?
The answers to these questions aren't black and white but for my pick I think we need to restrain the banks lending into the housing bubble and use a trial public creation of money to restock the Natural Disaster Fund – both to be prepared for future disasters and to see what impact it would have on the dollar.
It is of course difficult to have a rational conversation around these issues in the current political context (ie Key’s scaremongering) but it is an important conversation for rational adults to have. We do have an out of control current account deficit and if we want to be masters of our own destiny we need to change policy settings as under Key’s plan our deficit and debt increase dramatically."
end quote

This is like the pot calling the kettle black, but sadly George Soros would know better than most that nothing has changed since 2008. Maybe he is trying to distance himself from what he has been a big part of?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10684896/George-Soros-blasts-parasite-banks.html
George Soros, the billionaire investor, believes the banking sector is a “parasite” holding back the economic recovery and an “incestuous” relationship with regulators means little has been done to resolve the issues behind the 2008 crisis.
“The banking sector is acting as a parasite on the real economy,” Mr Soros said in his new book “The Tragedy of the European Union”.
“The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. For a while 35pc of all corporate profits in the United Kingdom and the United States came from the financial sector. That’s absurd.”
Mr Soros outlined how the problems that caused the Eurozone economic crisis remain largely unresolved.
“Very little has been done to correct the excess leverage in the European banking system. The equity in the banks relative to their balance sheets is wafer thin, and that makes them very vulnerable.
End quote

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is an organization akin to the Board of Directors representing the network of nations that have private owned and controlled money systems said in its 2014 annual report;

"The overall, somewhat gloomy message from the central bankers was that the world is drunk on easy money and has already forgotten the lessons of recent years.
Instead of adding to productive capacity, large firms prefer to buy back shares or engage in mergers and acquisitions.
The temptation to postpone adjustment can prove irresistible, especially when times are good and financial booms sprinkle the fairy dust of illusory riches.
The consequence is a growth model that relies too much on debt, both private and public, and which over time sows the seeds of its own demise.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/business/international/central-bankers-issue-strong-warning-on-asset-bubbles.html?_r=0

The 2014 BIS warnings are very similar to back in 2007 prior to the 2008 Global Credit Crisis here;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2811081/BIS-warns-of-Great-Depression-dangers-from-credit-spree.html

The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.
"Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived", said the bank.
The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
"Behind each set of concerns lurks the common factor of highly accommodating financial conditions. Tail events affecting the global economy might at some point have much higher costs than is commonly supposed," it said.
End quote

I allege the warnings put out by the Bank of International Settlements in 2007 was a dog whistle for those out side of the insider British colonial heritage old boys private central banking families, that had helped those families set up another pyramid fraud scam, to now cash out their gains from financial markets because they were set to spring the trap.

The predatory trap being they had again authorised more credit than there existed the productive natural resource collateral means of repayment. That they had collected a fortune of purchasing power by way of interest repayments gained on the counterfeit credit. That they were now about to start calling in loans or increasing the interest charged on credit under the guise of stabalising the financial system. Thus causing a recession involving much bankruptcy receivership's in which they and those who assisted them would use their proceeds of crime purchasing power they had gained to buy up at quickfire sale prices the assets that borrowers had built with their blood-sweat and tears.

Now take a look at more of the warnings from the BIS recent 2014 annual report;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/business/international/central-bankers-issue-strong-warning-on-asset-bubbles.html?_r=0
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) provides financial services to national central banks and also acts as a setting where central bankers can discuss monetary policy and other issues like financial stability or bank regulation. The board of directors includes Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve; Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank; and the heads of central banks from Japan, China, India and many other countries.

The organization, which reflects a widespread view among central bankers that they are bearing more than their share of the burden of fixing the global economy, often uses its annual reports to send a message to political leaders, commercial bankers and investors. But the B.I.S.’s language in the 2014 edition was unusually direct, as was its warning that the world could be hurtling toward a new crisis.

“There is a disappointing element of déjà vu in all this,” Claudio Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the B.I.S., said in an interview ahead of Sunday’s release of the report.

He described the report “as a call to action.”

The organization said governments should do more to improve the performance of their economies, such as reducing restrictions on hiring and firing. The report also urged banks to raise more capital as a cushion against risk and to speed efforts to deal with past problems. Countries that are growing quickly, like some emerging markets, must be alert to the danger of overheating, the group said.

“The signs of financial imbalances are there,” Mr. Borio said. “That’s why we are emphasizing it is important to take further action while the time is still there.”

To understand how a New Zealand old boys network of lawyers are already busy on global arbitration panels confiscating the commonwealth essentials of life natural resources of nations on behalf of intra-national corporations that are party related to the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network please read the details below of the New Zealand Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act 1979 and loss of economic sovereignty that has resulted.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1979/0039/latest/whole.html
An Act to implement an international Convention on the settlement of investment disputes between States and nationals of other States
1Short Title
This Act may be cited as the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act 1979.
2 Interpretation
In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
award means an award made pursuant to the Convention; and includes—
(a)any decision made pursuant to the Convention that interprets, revises, or annuls an award; and
(b)any decision as to costs that, pursuant to the Convention, is to form part of an award
Centre means the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes established pursuant to the Convention
Convention means the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States that was opened for signature in Washington on 18 March 1965, a copy of the English text of which is set out in the Schedule.
3Act binds the Crown
This Act binds the Crown.
Section 3: substituted, on 15 November 2000, by section 3 of the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Amendment Act 2000 (2000 No 52).

The Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Trade-Agreement (TPPA ) being negotiated by governments behind closed doors in secret, put very simply in my opinion, is an attempt by the British colonial heritage private central banking network pyramid scammers to boost the power of intra-national commercial contract law institutions that they implemented post World War 2 at the 1945 Bretton Woods monetary system conference, in order to make it harder for nation states to take back what they have had stolen from them under false pretenses in repeated financial system pyramid frauds ever since.

The New Zealand government signed up to the International Committee for the Settlement of Investment Disputes - ICSID - in 1970 - ratifying in 1980 – that has seen New Zealand lawyers involved global arbitration processes that have more often than not seen the findings fall in favour of corportions under very questionable circumstances;

http://www.chapmantripp.com/news/Pages/Chapman-Tripp-acts-in-first-ever-bilateral-investment-treaty-hearing-in-NZ.aspx

Chapman Tripp acts in first ever bilateral investment treaty hearing held in New Zealand
27 April 2012
Leading New Zealand law firm Chapman Tripp, acting as co-counsel with international law firm Salans, have secured a successful decision in the first ever bilateral investment treaty arbitration hearing held in New Zealand.

Look what the New Zealand arbitrators have been up to in our good name!
https://icsid.worldbank.org/ICSID/FrontServlet?requestType=CasesRH&actionVal=OpenPage&PageType=AnnouncementsFrame&FromPage=Announcements&pageName=Announcement152

NEW ZEALAND
Panel of Arbitrators
Designation effective November 12, 2013:
Campbell Alan McLachlan
http://www.essexcourt.net/news/424/professor-campbell-mclachlan-joins-essex-court-chambers

Panel of Arbitrators
Designation effective June 10, 2013:
David A.R. Williams
http://www.bankside.co.nz/Latest/tabid/87/id/43/title/largest-award-ever-in-bilateral-investment-treaty-case-at-icsid/Default.aspx

http://www.bankside.co.nz/Barristers/HonSirIanBarker.aspx

http://insider.thomsonreuters.co.nz/author/rthonsirpeterblanchard/

ICSID: Details of operation and costs of cases.
By Inna Uchkunova, International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA)

“Research is formalized curiosity…” – Z. Hurston

In what follows I have tried to gather information from publicly available sources regarding some of the questions which have troubled my mind lately. It is hoped that the results would be of interest to the readers. For me, this proved to be one of my most exciting projects so far. The idea was conceived during my work in the IMCCA – Bulgaria (International Moot Court Competition Association) which unites past and present Ph. C. Jessup Moot Court participants (as well as participants from other moot courts) who share their love for International Law in a country where it is not lectured in-depth in universities. IMCCA and America for Bulgaria Foundation provide us with the necessary stimuli to learn more and to achieve more.

The information presented is subject to the caveat that not all ICSID awards are public or may have otherwise escaped my acquisition efforts. In this and any other regard, I would appreciate further supplement or corrections.

Which arbitrators have sat the most in ICSID cases?
(in alphabetical order, including cases which have been settled)
Alexandrov, Stanimir A.
Álvarez, Henri C.
Berg, Albert Jan van den
Berman, Franklin
Bernardini, Piero
Böckstiegel, Karl-Heinz
Brower, Charles N.
Crawford, James R.
Cremades, Bernardo M.
El-Kosheri, Ahmed Sadek
Fernández-Armesto, Juan
Fortier, L. Yves
Gaillard, Emmanuel
Griffith, Gavan
Guillaume, Gilbert
Hanotiau, Bernard
Kaufmann-Kohler, Gabrielle
Lalonde, Marc
Lowe, Vaughan
McLachlan, Campbell
McRae, Donald M.
Naón, Horacio A. Grigera
Oreamuno, Rodrigo
Paulsson, Jan
Stern, Brigitte
Tercier, Pierre
Thomas, J. Christopher
Veeder, V.V.
Vicuña, Francisco Orrego
Williams, David A.R.
Wobeser, Claus von
Who is the first woman to sit as an arbitrator in an ICSID case?
Mme Rosalyn Higgins in 1987, in the resubmitted Amco case.
It is noticeable that international arbitration remains a man-dominated profession.
Which is the Claimant which has filed the most applications?
Impregilo, S.p.A has appeared as Claimant in 5 cases so far (most of them discontinued):
Impregilo S.p.A and Rizzani De Eccher S.p.A. v. United Arab Emirates(ICSID Case No. ARB/01/1)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/2)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/3)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/17)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/08/14)

Which is the State appearing the most times as a Respondent?
(includes cases which have been settled or discontinued)
Argentina 49
Venezuela 36
Egypt 17
Ecuador 12
Congo 12
Peru 11
Ukraine 10

Curious facts regarding the composition of some of the Tribunals
● All the initially appointed arbitrators in the cases MTD v. Chile (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/7), Vannessa Ventures v. Venezuela (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/04/6) and Víctor Pey Casado v. Chile (ICSID Case No. ARB/98/2) resigned.
● Two of the three arbitrators in the annulment proceedings in the cases of MTD v. Chile and CMS v. Argentina were the same which made the outcome of e.g. the later-in-time decision on stay of enforcement.
● The arbitrators in the Malaysian Historical Salvors v. Malaysia (ICSID Case No. ARB/05/10) annulment proceedings were all past and present Judges from the International Court of Justice.
● The arbitrators in the cases of Pioneer v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/12) and Pan American v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/13), and Alcoa Minerals v. Jamaica (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/2), Kaiser Bauxite Company v. Jamaica (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/3) and Reynolds v. Jamaica(ICSID Case No. ARB/74/4), respectively, were all the same.
Which law firms have served the most times in ICSID cases?
(in alphabetical order)
Arnold & Porter LLP
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
King & Spalding LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Sidley Austin LLP
White & Case LLP

Which prominent scholars have served as party-representatives or counsels in ICSID cases?
Judge Stephen M. Schwebel
Prof. Dr. James R. Crawford
Prof. Christopher Greenwood
Prof. Alain Pellet
Prof. Philippe Sands, QC
Prof. Antonio Crivellaro

In which fields of economic activity most of the cases find their origin?
Hydrocarbon concessions, petroleum and oil exploration and production, gas supply and distribution 71
Electric power generation, distribution and sale 39
Mining concessions and mineral exploration 31
Construction contracts, including real estate, dams, etc. 21
Highway construction contracts 14
Telecommunications 13
Water services 12

Which is the first ICSID award?
The Award rendered on August 29, 1977 in the case of Adriano Gardella S.p.A. v. Côte d’Ivoire (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/1).
What is the highest award amount so far?
The highest award amount of US$ 1,769,625,000 was awarded in the case of Occidental v. Ecuador (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/11) Award of October 5, 2012.

What is the lowest award amount so far?
It seems that the lowest award amount of US$ 460,000 (as principal) was awarded in Asian Agricultural Products Ltd. v. Sri Lanka (ICSID Case No. ARB/87/3) Award of June 27, 1990.

How much does an ICSID case cost in terms of legal costs?
The information below was intended to bring light to the question how much does an ICSID case cost in terms of legal representation. The information provided must be retained with caution since legal costs depend, among others, on the duration and the complexity of the case. Moreover, many awards are not publicly available and most Tribunals order that each party bears its own costs of legal representation without mentioning the sums.
Here are some examples of the practice of ICSID Tribunals:
● In CDC v. Seychelles (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/14) Award of December 17, 2003, Seychelles were ordered to pay the Claimant the sum of £ 100,000 representing legal fees.
● In Pantechniki v. Albania (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/21) Award of July 30, 2009, the cost claims of the parties were among the lowest – EUR 154,523 and EUR 269,657, respectively.
● In Telenor Mobile v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/04/15) Award of September 13, 2006, the Counsel for Hungary demanded the reimbursement of US$ 1,249,340.29.
● In Siag v. Egypt (ICSID Case No.ARB/05/15) Award of June 1, 2009, Egypt was ordered to pay the the sum of USD 6,000,000 in legal costs.
● In Spyridon Roussalis v. Romania (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/1) Award of December 7, 2011, the Claimant had to pay 60% of the Respondent’s legal fees in the amount of EUR 6,053,443.78.
● The Tribunal in Cementownia Nowa Huta S.A. v. Turkey (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/06/2) Award of September 17, 2009 found that:
“the Respondent’s legal fees and expenses are not unreasonable having regard to the course of these proceedings and that, therefore, the Claimant is to bear such costs in the amount of USD 4,904,822.06.” (para. 178)
● In Kardassopoulos & Fuchs v. Georgia (ICSID Case Nos. ARB/05/18 and ARB/07/15) Award of March 3, 2010, the Respondent was liable to pay the Claimants their costs for the proceedings in the total amount of US$ 7,942,297.
● In ADC v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/16) Award of October 2, 2006, the Claimant demanded US$ 7,623,693 in respect of the Claimants’ costs and expenses. The Tribunal found
“no reason to depart from the starting point that the successful party should receive reimbursement from the unsuccessful party.” (para. 533)
See also Abaclat et al. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/5) at para. 682.
● The Tribunal in Gemplus & Talsud v. United Mexican States (ICSID Cases Nos. ARB (AF)/04/3 & ARB (AF)/04/4)) Award of June 16, 2010 recognized that:
“It is well-known that legal costs incurred by respondent-state parties are usually much lower than costs incurred by claimant-private parties, partly because a claimant bears a greater burden in presenting and proving its case, partly because a state’s billing practices with its legal representatives are different and partly, as here, where there is more than one claimant bringing claims under more than one treaty.” (para. 17-25)

Which is the most invoked BIT?
From the information available it may be concluded that this is the Argentina – U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaty which was relied upon,inter alia, in the following cases:
CMS v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/8)
Azurix Corp. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/12)
Continental Casualty Company v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/9)
Pan American Energy LLC and BP Argentina Exploration Company v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/13)
Enron v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/3)
LG&E v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/1)
Sempra v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/16)
AES Corporation v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/17)
El Paso Energy v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/15)
How long does an ICSID case take?
Approximately 3.6 years. See Sinclair, A., ICSID Arbitration: how long does it take?, 4:5 GAR J. (2009), available here .
Which is the shortest merits award (in terms of length)?
CDC v. Seychelles (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/14) Award of December 17, 2003 – 23 pages.

Which is the longest merits award (in terms of length)?
Gemplus & Talsud v. United Mexican States (ICSID Cases Nos. ARB (AF)/04/3 & ARB (AF)/04/4)) Award of June 16, 2010 – 382 pages
Are there claims filed by a State against an investor?
Gabon v. Société Serete S.A. (ICSID Case No. ARB/76/1)
The basis of jurisdiction was a contract. The case was eventually settled.
Romania’s counterclaim in Spyridon Roussalis v. Romania (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/1) was admitted on the basis of the umbrella clause found in Article Article 2(6) of the Romania-Greece BIT. (Award of December 7, 2011, para. 781)
Which cases may be called landmark cases?
While it may be said that every decision and award rendered by an ICSID Tribunal (or committee) contains interesting findings of law, among them the following may be mentioned as particularly interesting:
● Santa Elena v. Costa Rica (ICSID Case No. ARB/96/1) Final award of February 17, 2000, on the compound interest. Up until this point, most of the ICSID Tribunals denied awarding compound interest relying on a citation from Marjorie Whiteman in her book Damages in International Law vol. III (1943) at p. 1997:
“[t]here are few rules within the scope of the subject of damages in international law that are better settled than the one that compound interest is not allowable.”
This is, among other things, evidence of the influence a scholar can have on international law.
● Maffezini v. Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/97/7) Award of November 9, 2000, as to attribution of State responsibility.
● Salini v. Morocco (ICSID Case No. ARB/00/4) Decision on Jurisdiction of July 23, 2001, regarding the so-called Salini test for the notion of investment.
● Vivendi v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/97/3) First Annulment, Decision on Annulment dated July 3, 2002, as to the relation between treaty and contract.
● SGS v. Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/13) Decision of the Tribunal on objections to jurisdiction of August 6, 2003 and SGS v. Philippines(ICSID Case No. ARB/02/6) Decision of the Tribunal on objections to jurisdiction of January 29, 2004, with regard to the so-called umbrella clause.
● ADC v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/16) Award of October 2, 2006, in relation to valuation in cases of unlawful expropriation.
● Phoenix Action v. the Czech Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/5) Award of April 15, 2009, as to bona fide investments.
● Abaclat et al. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/5) Decision on jurisdiction and admissibility August 4, 2011, regarding admissibility of mass claims of 60,000 Claimants (the total number of whom at the time of initiation of the arbitration exceeded 180,000) mostly natural persons of Italian nationality relating to bonds issued by Argentina.

Which States have refused to comply with ICSID awards or have considerably obstructed compliance?
Argentina is well known for its interpretation of Articles 53 and 54, i.e. that the successful Claimant’s recourse to enforcement in its national courts is a pre-condition for payment of the award (See for e.g. Enron v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/3) Decision on the Argentine Republic’s Request for a Continued Stay of Enforcement of the Award, 7 October 2008, available here).

Which States have withdrawn from the ICSID Convention?
Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Which States are not parties to the ICSID Convention?
Brazil and India are not among the 158 Members to the ICSID Convention.

Other curious facts
● After the award in the RSM v. Grenada (ICSID Case No. ARB/05/14) was rendered, RSM tried to sue Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP counsel for Grenada alleging that Freshfields conspired to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by, for e.g., Jan Paulsson and Brian King being part of the conspiracy to bribe Grenada officials and deny RSM its licensing rights. RSM claimed the excess of US$500 million in damages. The claim was dismissed. See US District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 10-00457 availablehere.
● Both the Claimant and the Respondent in the Europe Cement Investment v. Turkey (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/07/2) Award of August 13, 2009, ended up claiming that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction. This is one of the Uzan family-related cases against Turkey. The Claimant wanted to discontinue the proceedings but the Respondent State disagreed. (See para. 139 of the Award)

Funniest quote from an ICSID award
“[H]appiness is multiple pipelines”
Mentioned in the case of Kardassopoulos & Fuchs v. Georgia (ICSID Case Nos. ARB/05/18 and ARB/07/15) Award of March 3, 2010, para. 5, in relation to the Western Route which was of
“significant national and strategic importance for Georgia as a means of securing its sovereignty following the break up of the Soviet Union and deepening its ties to the West.” (para. 3)
Recommendations
The site of ICSID is informative and accessible. Still it may be improved by, for e.g., adding information as to the basis of the jurisdiction in the particular case, nationality of the Claimant, amount claimed, amount awarded, who represented the parties, which was the successful party, costs of the proceedings, etc.
End

Largest Award Ever in Bilateral Investment Treaty Case at ICSID
07 November 2012
In the largest arbitral award ever to be rendered by a tribunal at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Republic of Ecuador has been ordered to pay $1,769,625,000 (US) for terminating an oil production investment held by the U.S. company, Occidental Petroleum. Arbitrators in the case were Canadian lawyer, L. Yves Fortier QC, retired New Zealand judge David AR Williams, and retired French law professor Brigitte Stern.
Occidental filed for arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty (BIT) following Ecuador’s May 2006 decision to terminate a participation contract for Block 15 located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Authorities blamed the move on Oxy’s having improperly transferred a share of its Ecuadorian production activity to a Canadian energy firm.
In a 336 page award an ICSID arbitral tribunal conceded that Occidental had breached the terms of the participation contract by failing to obtain government authorization for the transfer of rights. However, arbitrators held that Ecuador’s decision to strip Occidental of its investment and its failure to pay compensation were disproportionate, and in breach of Ecuador’s treaty obligations to provide for “fair and equitable treatment” and to refrain from expropriating assets without compensation. Arbitrators also found that Ecuador’s actions breached its own laws.
The damages awarded by arbitrators reflect the value of Occidental’s investment as of May 2006 when its contact was terminated, minus a 25% deduction due to Occidental’s own breach of the participation contract. Ecuador must also pay interest of 4.18% on the awarded sum, compounded annually, to reflect the increase in value of the damages from May 2006 until the time of the arbitral award.
In a dissenting opinion Ecuador’s nominee to the three member arbitral tribunal, expressed her agreement with the majority’s analysis of the facts and the law, including its finding that Ecuador acted disproportionately in response to what she termed Occidental’s “serious violation” of Ecuadorian law.
However, Prof. Stern expressed “complete disagreement with the way damages have been calculated”, and would have favoured a 50/50 approach to damages similar to that in an earlier ICSID arbitration (MTD v Chile), so that Oxy’s damages would be halved as a result of its having “acted both very imprudently and illegally.”
End quote

Anyone wanting to know much more detail of exactly how the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network has put New Zealand under the control of their receivership branch the - International Monetary Fund (IMF) - alongside their legal branch the - International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) - please read this document;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/universal-public-credit-public-policy.html

and many more informative global money system structure articles here;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/

New Zealand International Finance Agreements Act Amendment Bill 2013

New Zealand International Finance Agreements Act Amendment Bill 
In 2013 the New Zealand Parliament passed an amendment bill into law, making any regulation changes of the International Monetary Fund(IMF) from then on become automatic New Zealand financial system regulation, without having to any longer pass through the New Zealand House of Representatives - as irrefutably evidenced here;

Web link http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislation/bills/00DBHOH_BILL11131_1/international-finance-agreements-amendment-bill List of all parliamentary debates on lower right hand side.

New Zealand Minister of Finance the Hon BILL ENGLISH said in debate; 
 “I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Our commitments to the IMF are effectively premiums to an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world....... New Zealand has already agreed to these changes, and adopting the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill simply puts that agreement into practice......The bill also creates a regulation-making power in the principal Act so that further updates to the articles can be made by regulation. This power will simplify the process by which New Zealand meets its obligations. Once changes to the articles are agreed to by the requisite majority of members of the international financial institutions, New Zealand will be bound by the amendments, which means that we are required to bring our domestic legislation into line with our international obligations.”

New Zealand opposition party finance spokesperson Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) said in debate;
 “I rise to speak to this bill, the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill, on behalf of the Labour Party. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The Labour Party supports the function of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and broadly agrees with the Minister of Finance that these are good institutions that assist the conduct of international economic affairs in a way that benefits New Zealand as well as other countries......I think New Zealanders will have more confidence in our participation in these international fora if they think that Governments are being transparent about changes to those international agreements and the effect of those changes on New Zealand. There is already enough suspicion out there as to the effect of international agreements. We breed further suspicion if we are not open and transparent about changes to those rules......For those reasons, amongst others, the Labour Party opposes future changes to this legislation by way of the statutory regulation-making power that this amendment Act creates. We believe that future amendments ought to come back to this Parliament. If we look back in the history, it has not been an onerous task for New Zealand to amend this legislation through annual amendments or anything like that. It is relatively rare that we have amendments to this International Finance Agreements Act, which dates back to 1975. “
end quotes

In the description of the bill it was said that indepth discussion of New Zealand money system structures were not needed because apparently a 'majority' of New Zealand people already know how it works as said here;
"The Act does not mention monetary policy. The majority of us understand that in doing so, the bill aims to ensure that governments take explicit note of the fact that fiscal policy and monetary policy are interdependent; and that different fiscal strategies can prompt different monetary policy responses."
end quote

New Zealand Green Party Co-Leader - Russel Norman - having displayed a sense of growing environmental and social injustice - had “come out” - asking hard questions of the current money system orthodoxy after his 21 Feb 2013 International Finance Agreement Amendment Bill third reading - in which Russel Norman admitted to having only recently gained an understanding of just how New Zealand money supply originates and under what terms and conditions;

"The other thing that comes out of, I think, the IMF that surprises a lot of people is when the IMF says things like most of the money that is generated is generated by the private banks. Most of us, I think—and I was certainly one of these people, until reading IMF papers—always assume that the Government created the money. That is just because I actually did not follow it closely enough, whereas the IMF is very clear that it is the private banks that create most of the money. What the IMF—or, at least, some of the researchers within the IMF—is now saying is that the Government should use its ability to create money, so that there is some publicly created money as well as the privately created money, most of which is created by the private banks.
This, of course, is a pretty radical proposition, and the IMF, in putting forward this proposition, has certainly been shaking the policy debates around monetary policy all over the world, except in New Zealand, of course, where we are kind of locked into some weird backwater where the Government does not want to have a debate around any of this kind of stuff. But if you read the international literature, it is pretty good."
end quote

Russel Norman made clear his views again - and clearly had not yet buckled - in this 27 May 2013 article;
"In the debate around monetary policy, it is often forgotten that the default position is that the private banks create most of the money and lead the increase in the monetary supply. They then charge interest to the users of the money that they have created......The debate should be: what constraints should apply to the private creation of money given the banks’ irresponsible behaviour in the past; and should the public institutions be expanding money supply as a policy tool, to what extent, and to what purpose? Should the state be allowed to also increase the money supply for public purposes such as refilling the Natural Disaster Fund and to see what effect it can have on reducing the very damaging high NZ dollar?
The answers to these questions aren’t black and white but for my pick I think we need to restrain the banks lending into the housing bubble and use a trial public creation of money to restock the Natural Disaster Fund – both to be prepared for future disasters and to see what impact it would have on the dollar.
It is of course difficult to have a rational conversation around these issues in the current political context (ie Key’s scaremongering) but it is an important conversation for rational adults to have. We do have an out of control current account deficit and if we want to be masters of our own destiny we need to change policy settings as under Key’s plan our deficit and debt increase dramatically."
end quote

What is made clear from Russel Norman's musings of our current money supply being 'partly funded offshore' is that he does not yet fully comprehend just how it works - and is very poor at being able to articulate the various forms of monetary easing - those that only favour the private bankers and those that dont.

New Zealand mainstream media senior editors have let New Zealand down no less than Russel Norman who they set out to ridicule.

TV3 Patrick Gower & TV1 Corin Dann just might be the highest paid clowns in New Zealand's economic circus! Radio New Zealand Jim Mora - I am quessing one of the lowest paid clowns - knows who the ring master is - but chooses to sweep it under the carpet?

New Zealand Prime Minister and former international investment banker John Key 17 November 2012;
“Our (Govt) debt to GDP levels by then will top at just under 30 percent, in other words, um, we'll be relatively lowly indebted compared to countries like America and Europe, but I put it to you we are a small open economy, we have high levels of private sector debt, we, mum and dad have borrowed that debt effectively from foreigners because their local bank has sourced that from foreigners.”

TV3 Patrick Gower;
"The Prime Minister lost use of one of his favourite political weapons today, thanks to a policy U-turn by the Greens over printing money to improve the exchange rate."
"Known as 'quantitative easing', it's been done by some of the world's big economies."
http://www.3news.co.nz/Greens-U-turn-wont-quiet-Key/tabid/1607/articleID/302045/Default.aspx

TV1 Corin Dann;
"It is after all exactly the policy that's been used by the US Central bank for the last couple of years to prevent deflation and keep the US economy afloat."
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/corin-dann-greens-had-drop-money-printing-5469780

RNZ Jim Mora;
"Banks have ended up in the position, as Bernard Hickey has said a time or two on the panel, where they have the franchise on the creation of money"
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/westpac-new-zealand-senior-economist.html

You lazy fools - its not 'exactly' the same at all - you have the same problem in reporting on this matter as Russel Norman did trying to sell it as policy - you have not done you research - because if you had you would discover the truth is not hard to find - as documented beyond any reasonable doubt in my research here;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/universal-public-credit-public-policy.html

What dictates if Quantitative Easing benefits your nation or only private bankers - is if the money trail of your central bank traces back to your public institutions being the lender of last resort or if your public institutions have contracted out that privilege and become just a conduit of the international private banking network.
QE occurs when even if interest rates are heading to zero the economy remains flat because society has no more compacity to borrow money into circulation - so the lender of last resort then simply gets to type some money into their computer and start directly buying distressed assets of all kinds out in the market as direct stimulus. If your central bank - as is the case in New Zealand - has just become a conduit for private banking institutions - the private banking institutions gain heaps for nothing - but if your money issuance trial leads to a public institution - such as in the case of Japan who's government is typing the money into their account and buying up distressed assets - it will internally re-balance your economy.

Olivier Blanchard the current IMF Chief Economist on the record admits the shortcomings of the private central banking network administration of money systems in its area of influence in this article;
Five Lessons for Economists From the Financial Crisis
By David Wessel of Wall Street Journal re;

London School of Economics and Political Science
What should economists and policymakers learn from the financial crisis?
Monday 25 March 2013

What did the worst financial crisis and deepest recession in 75 years teach academic economists and policymakers on whose watch it happened? At a recent London School of Economics forum, convened to honor Bank of England Governor Mervyn King,Olivier Blanchard offered some answers.

Mr. Blanchard, 64 years old, is well positioned to offer such reconsideration. An internationally prominent macroeconomist, he spent 25 years on the MIT faculty before becoming chief economist at the International Monetary Fund in September 2008, just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Here are Mr. Blanchard¹s five lessons in his own words, lightly edited by The Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel:

#1: Humility is in order.
The Great Moderation [the economically tranquil period from 1987 to 2007] convinced too many of us that the large-economy crisis -­ a financial crisis, a banking crisis ­- was a thing of the past. It wasn’t going to happen again, except maybe in emerging markets. History was marching on.
My generation, which was born after World War II, lived with the notion that the world was getting to be a better and better place. We knew how to do things better, not only in economics but in other fields as well. What we have learned is that¹s not true. History repeats itself. We should have known.
#2: The financial system matters — a lot.
It’s not the first time that we¹re confronted with [former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld called “unknown unknowns,” things that happened that we hadn’t thought about. There is another example in macro-economics:
The oil shocks of the 1970s during which we were students and we hadn’t thought about it. It took a few years, more than a few years, for economists to understand what was going on. After a few years, we concluded that we could think of the oil shock as yet another macroeconomic shock. We did not need to understand the plumbing. We didn’t need to understand the details of the oil market. When there’s an increase in the price of energy or materials, we can just integrate it into our macro models -­ the implications of energy prices on inflation and so on.
This is different. What we have learned about the financial system is that the problem is in the plumbing and that we have to understand the plumbing. Before I came to the Fund, I thought of the financial system as a set of arbitrage equations. Basically the Federal Reserve would chose one interest rate, and then the expectations hypothesis would give all the rates everywhere else with premia which might vary, but not very much. It was really easy. I thought of people on Wall Street as basically doing this for me so I didn¹t have to think about it.
What we have learned is that that’s not the case. In the financial system, a myriad of distortions or small shocks build on each other. When there are enough small shocks, enough distortions, things can go very bad. This has fundamental implications for macro-economics. We do macro on the assumption that we can look at aggregates in some way and then just have them interact in simple models. I still think that¹s the way to go, but this shows the limits of that approach. When it comes to the financial system, it¹s very clear that the details of the plumbing matter.
#3 Interconnectedness matters.
This crisis started in the U.S. and across the ocean in a matter of days and weeks. Each crisis, even in small islands, potentially has effects on the rest of the world. The complexity of the cross border claims by creditors and by debtors clearly is something that many of us had not fully realized: the cross border movements triggered by the risk-on/risk-off movements, which countries are safe havens, and when and why? Understanding this has become absolutely essential. What happens in the part of the world cannot be ignored by the rest of the world. The fact that we all spend so much time thinking about Cyprus in the last few days is an example of that.
It’s also true in trade side. We used to think if one country was doing badly, then exports to that country would do badly and therefore the exporting countries would do badly. In our models, the effect was relatively small. One absolutely striking fact of the crisis is the collapse of trade in 2009. Output went down. Trade collapsed. Countries which felt they were not terribly exposed through trade turned out to be enormously exposed.
#4 We don’t know if macro-prudential tools work.
It’s very clear that the traditional monetary and fiscal tools are just not good enough to deal with the very specific problems in the financial system. This has led to the development of macro-prudential tools, which what may or may not become the third leg of macroeconomic policies.
[Macroprudential tools allow a central bank to restrain lending in specific sectors without raising interest rates for the whole economy, such as increasing the minimum down payment required to get a mortgage, which reduces the loan-to-value ratio.] In principle, they can address specific issues in the financial sector. If there is a problem somewhere you can target the tool at the problem and not use the policy interest rate, which basically is kind of an atomic bomb without any precision.
The big question here is: How reliable are these tools? How much can they be used? The answer — from some experiments before the crisis with loan-to-value ratios and during crisis with variations in cyclical bank capital ratios or loan-to-value ratios or capital controls, such as in Brazil — is this: They work but they don’t work great. People and institutions find ways around them. In the process of reducing the problem somewhere you tend to create distortions elsewhere.
#5 Central bank independence wasn’t designed for what central banks are now asked to do.
There is two-way interaction between monetary policy and macro prudential tools. When Ben Bernanke does expansionary monetary policy, quantitative easing, and interest rates on many assets are close to zero, there’s a tendency by many players to take risks to increase their rate of return Some of this risk actually we want them to take. Some we don¹t want them to take. That is the interaction of monetary policy on the financial system.
You also have it the other way around. If you use macro prudential tools to, say, slow down the building in the housing sector but you have an effect on aggregate demand, which is going to decrease output.
The question is: How do you organize the use of these tools? It makes sense to have them under the same roof. In practice means the central bank. But that poses questions not only about coordination between the two functions, but also about central bank independence.
One of the major achievements of the last 20 years is that most central banks have become independent of elected governments. Independence was given because the mandate and the tools were very clear. The mandate was primarily inflation, which can be observed over time. The tool was some short-term interest rate that could be used by the central bank to try to achieve the inflation target. In this case, you can give some independence to the institution in charge of this because the objective is perfectly well defined, and everybody can basically observe how well the central bank does..
If you think now of central banks as having a much larger set of responsibilities and a much larger set of tools, then the issue of central bank independence becomes much more difficult. Do you actually want to give the central bank the independence to choose loan-to-value ratios without any supervision from the political process. Isn’t this going to lead to a democratic deficit in a way in which the central bank becomes too powerful? I¹m sure there are ways out. Perhaps there could be independence with respect to some dimensions of monetary policy -­ the traditional ones — and some supervision for the rest or some interaction with a political process.
End quote

In July of 2014 the New Zealand TV1 news ran a completely inaccurate misleading article about the structures of the New Zealand banking system. The following week it is the turn of New Zealand TV3 news who ridiculed a New Zealand First MP for saying that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is foreign controlled in this video link below;
http://www.3news.co.nz/NZ-First-MP-confused-over-bank-ownership/tabid/1607/articleID/353729/Default.aspx

when the foreign control of the RBNZ is something former RBNZ Governor Alan Bollard made very clear in 2010 book he wrote titled – Crisis – excerpts below;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/book-excerpts-crisis-by-new-zealand.html
*Pg 19-20 - “Banking practices differ around the world, but we ensure ours meet international standards. These are set by a somewhat shadowy group called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Comprised of representatives of large countries( not including New Zealand ), the group meets in Switzerland at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).”

*pg 98 - Agreed convention at the Bank of International Settlement means that what is said in the room stays in the room.

*pg 69 - We had lived through the biggest shock to the financial system since the Great Depression. But a financial shock of this magnitude was clearly also going to cause significant economic damage. This effect first showed in the large, northern, developed economies with the biggest financial sectors. The festering finance problems were flowing into the non-financial sectors, what we call the “real economy”.

*pg 186 - The worlds financial system and the worlds economy are inextricably linked; a banking crisis hurts growth in the “real economy”.

*pg 145 - For the first time as an economist, I started seriously to wonder about just how tenuous our Western market-based world might be.
End quote

New Zealand really is presently very poorly served by its public service and media who in pursuit of the quickest way to pay day are to quick to swallow and regurgitate second hand summarised information without researching the veracity of it. 

Submission to Strategic review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s payment and settlement systems.

From: Mike Firth
Date: Thursday, July 31, 2014 7:25am
To: Parkers
Subject: RE: Please confirm you received my submission sent 18 July 2014
Dear Mr Parker
Apologies for not responding earlier
Yes your submission has been received
Thank you

Regards
Mike Frith
Reserve Bank of New Zealand

From: Parkers [mailto:parkersnz1@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 29 July 2014 5:35 p.m.To: PASSreviewSubject: Please confirm you received my submission sent 18 July 2014

----- Original Message -----

From: Parkers

To: PassReview@rbnz.govt.nz
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2014 5:50 PM
Subject: Iain Parker submission to Strategic review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's payment and settlement systems.




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notify the sender immediately and delete this message from your system.

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Iain Parker submission to Strategic review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s payment and settlement systems.
RBNZ details of Strategic review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s payment and settlement systems here http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/news/2014/5724020.html

To whom it may concern;
I Iain Parker wish to register my concerns at any suggestion of the passing of New Zealand's payment and settlement system into private hands – domestic or otherwise.

The RBNZ discussion paper often refers to knowing of the economic sovereignty issue of maintaining control of our payment settlement system – but then seems to attempt to soften the stance toward privatisation of the system by just as often pointing out the issue of ongoing financial cost of maintaining the system.

The economic sovereignty issues have been confirmed valid by events in other financial system ructions in other parts of the world at present – such as;
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/05/14/swift-way-to-get-putin-to-scale-back-his-ambitions in which it was stated;
“Western governments have the power to exclude Russia from the world’s financial system. The key to that system is based in Brussels. It is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift).”

I allege that much of the reason that the elements of the Anglo-Saxon heritage private central banking network that 'cooked the credit books' beyond the level of natural resource collateral in physical existence to ever cover leading to the greatest yet ever credit fraud crisis in history in 2008 not being held to account too the full extent of civil law within other nations of which the frauds were seated was because of the lack of any ready available other means of payment settlement system than that of which the criminals could flick the switch upon.

I already have grave concerns about the present structures of where New Zealand's base accountancy of credit and issuance of currency reside within our money system. My concerns are that I do not believe under present terms and conditions growth can ever exceed the debt you are forced to take on to attempt to achieve the growth.

So not only do I protest any thought of privatisation of New Zealand's payment settlement system – but I also advocate a reforming of our entire financial system as evidenced as too cause and solution below;

Cause;

Here is on the record official documentation making clear that the Anglo-Saxon heritage private central banking network model is a systemic pyramid fraud is stealing under false pretenses amounts of the honest New Zealand citizen and business earners purchasing power from income when it is understood who supplies the collateral - where the risk in the system sits and just what that is;

1 - the Bank of England is one of the senior most international financial institutions recently made this amazing - amazing historical admission in its March 2014 quarterly bulletin that what they tell government officials about how the private central banking network funds itself has been a lie;http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf

• This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans.

• Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits.

• Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.
Page 2 

Two misconceptions about money creation
The vast majority of money held by the public takes the form of bank deposits. But where the stock of bank deposits comes from is often misunderstood. One common misconception is that banks act simply as intermediaries, lending out the deposits that savers place with them.......Saving does not by itself increase the deposits or ‘funds available’ for banks to lend.

Indeed, viewing banks simply as intermediaries ignores the fact that, in reality in the modern economy, commercial banks are the creators of deposit money. This article explains how, rather than banks lending out deposits that are placed with them, the act of lending creates deposits — the reverse of the sequence typically described in textbooks.(3)
Another common misconception is that the central bank determines the quantity of loans and deposits in the economy by controlling the quantity of central bank money — the so-called ‘money multiplier’.......In reality, neither are reserves a binding constraint on lending, nor does the central bank fix the amount of reserves that are available. As with the relationship between deposits and loans, the relationship between reserves and loans typically operates in the reverse way to that described in some economics textbooks.
End

2 - Official Bank of England Central Banking Handbook makes very clear New Zealand's place in the scheme;http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Documents/ccbs/handbooks/pdf/ccbshb06.pdf
International And Local Level Lending Practice Secrecy
Centre For Central Banking Studies Bank of England
Primary Dealers In Government Securities Markets
Handbooks In Central Banking No6 1996
Pg 6-7
PRIMARY DEALERS IN GOVERNMENT
SECURITIES MARKETS

1 General
The basic objective of a government debt manager is to cover the government's borrowing needs as cheaply as possible....There are several ways of trying to achieve this but many OECD countries appoint a group of highly qualified financial firms to play a role as specialist intermediaries in the government securities markets between the authorities on the one hand and the market on the other. These are generally called primary dealers - as for example in. the United States - but they are sometimes referred to simply as market-makers. In the government securities market in the United Kingdom they are known as gilt-edged market-makers (or GEMMS - the term "gilt-edged" is used to describe government securities), while in France they are called specialists in Treasury securities (SVTs). In this Handbook the terms "primary dealer" and "market- maker" are used largely without distinction.
In return for a set of obligations, such as making continuous bid and offer prices in marketable government securities or submitting reasonable bids in the auctions, these firms receive a set of privileges in the market. The nature and content of these obligations and privileges varies greatly from country to country. In some cases there are firms which play the role of primary dealers without formal official recognition but nevertheless with a degree of official encouragement.

2 International practice
Primary dealers have existed for some time, for example in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. These countries all use official recognition as an incentive: it is granted under specific conditions and the "licence" thus created is reviewed from time to time. Ireland has recently introduced this system as appropriate to the stage of development of its market.
By contrast, in Australia, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and New Zealand there are no formally designated primary dealers, although in these countries a group of firms do collaborate in the allocation and proper development of the market in an informal way.
end

3 - Banking in New Zealand Fourth Edition - published by the New Zealand Bankers Association in 2006 - makes it very clear that presently every dollar of currency circulating in New Zealand's money system originates as an interest bearing loan owed to a private owned lending institution and - that New Zealand's money system is presently administered by an international private central banking network - of which currently sits at the end of a wholesale credit liquidity discount interest chain - an accountancy system of credit weighed against available natural resources - as opposed to the re-lending of already existing pools of liquidity as often portrayed - Chapter 4 - The Creation of Money and Credit - is especially enlightening;http://www.johnpemberton.co.nz/Banking_in_NZ-06-final.pdf
THE CREATION OF MONEY AND CREDIT
what Actually Happens in reality, although the process outlined in the previous sections could occur, cash balances in bank vaults no longer act as a constraint on bank lending in the way that they might have up until the latter part of the 20th century.......
in such an environment, there is still scope for a bank to expand its lending and create credit, but it is dependent on there being net inflows of funds into the banking system as a whole. These inflows of funds may come from depositors from outside new Zealand (and we have seen significant inflows of funds from such sources in recent years), or from the government making net deposits of funds into the banking system (through its fiscal policy, as outlined below).
We also have a situation where, since 1985, new Zealand banks have not had any specific reserve requirements applied to their deposit liabilities. This means that, in theory, banks could keep on creating credit and expanding their loan portfolios indefinitely. in such an environment, it is the cost of credit, based upon the costs that banks have to pay to raise the deposits, that becomes the constraint on the quantity of credit that is created.
end

4 - The contracting out of central banking in New Zealand by its public money system administration authority - the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) - to the international private central banking network - represented in New Zealand by the New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) that operates under the umbrella of the New Zealand Treasury advisers - is acknowledged by New Zealand Treasury in official document here;http://www.nzdmo.govt.nz/securities/tendering/pdfs/info-tendering-18feb08.pdf
18 February 2008
GOVERNMENT SECURITIES TENDERING IMPORTANT CHANGES IN TENDERING OPERATIONS
The New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) will be assuming responsibility for the tendering of New Zealand Government Bonds and Treasury Bills from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ). The transfer will be a staged process that will take place over the next two months. This follows many years of the RBNZ acting as an agent for the NZDMO.
end

5 - The identity of the foreign Wholesale Credit Liquidity Providers that supply our entire currency in circulation as interest bearing loans for all production and consumption - thus making our national debt as a whole mathematically unrepayable and natural abundance will never be able to head off the compounding interest hurdle as they tell us it will - is kept secret by this parliamentary legislation meaning you will not even be told when asking under the Official Information Act here;http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2009/0224/latest/DLM2303519.html
Statement of reasons
This notice, which comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette, amends the Securities Act (Crown Wholesale Debt Securities) Exemption Notice 2004 (the principal notice) to extend the expiry date of the principal notice from 31 August 2009 to 31 August 2014. The principal notice exempts the Crown, and certain other offerors of specified debt securities, from regulation 7A(1) and clause 5(1)(b) of Schedule 3D of the Securities Regulations 1983. These provisions relate to the content of investment statements.
The Securities Commission considers it appropriate that the principal notice be renewed because the reasons justifying the original exemptions remain valid. They are as follows:
where Part 2 of the Securities Act 1978 applies to an offer of previously allotted securities to the public, both the person offering the securities and the original allotter of the securities have a responsibility for the offer as issuers. In this case, the more relevant information for disclosure to investors is about the Crown. Information about the wholesale investors (being the persons offering the securities) as issuers may not be useful to the retail investors and may also be confusing. The conditions of the exemption from regulation 7A(1) of the Securities Regulations 1983 require potential investors to be advised that the offerors remain legally responsible as issuers:
the investment statements for the offers of debt securities to the public made by the wholesale investors are prepared by the Crown. The exemptions in the principal notice recognise that certain information relating to the wholesale investors is not available to the Crown at the time the investment statement is prepared. The exemptions enable information to be given to investors in a form other than the investment statement, so long as it is given prior to subscription.
End

6 - The foreword to this 2007 New Zealand Auditor-General report Effectiveness of the New Zealand Debt Management Office. makes very clear how dependent upon second hand advice the New Zealand public service are and - how susceptible to being mislead that they are;
Foreword
The New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) is a unit within the Treasury. It is responsible for the efficient management of the Crown’s debt and associated financial assets within an appropriate risk management framework. Its broader responsibilities include providing capital market advice and financial transaction services to other agencies of the Crown. NZDMO manages gross debt of about $40,000 million and financial assets of approximately $18,000 million.

In carrying out a performance audit of NZDMO, my overall objective was to determine NZDMO’s level of performance, under the authority of the Minister of Finance, in managing the Crown’s public debt and financial asset portfolios.

Given the specialist technical functions of NZDMO, I sought expert technical assistance with the audit. I appointed KPMG under section 33(1) of the Public Audit Act 2001 to carry out the performance audit on my behalf under section 16(1) of the Act.

The material in my audit report is of a very technical nature because of the specialist functions undertaken by NZDMO. The non-technical reader can be assured that the audit did not identify any fundamental concerns with the performance of NZDMO.

end

Please just type - KPMG fines - into Google search - read the many cases of financial fraud that KPMG and the often referred to 'big four' global accountancy houses have been involved in and - then please consider how prudent it is to be taking second hand auditing advice from them upon financial system issues so crucial to the equal economic opportunity of our society?

Flawed statistic methodologies designed to make things appear that they better than they actually are – Employment stats and Consumer Price Index Interest Inflation Rate Targeting;

7 - Bogus employment statistics

- On the 8th November 2004 I sent an e-mail to Steve Maharay, the then Minister for Social Development and Employment, asking him what the minimum number of hours you have to have worked in a week to be deemed to be employed?

-On the 3rd December I received a reply from Steve Maharey;

Dear Iain

Thank you for your e-mail 8th November 2004 concerning the definition of employment.

For benefit purposes section 3 of the Social Securities Act 1064 defines "employment" as paid employment.

The Social Security Act also defines full employment and part-time work as;

Full employment or part-time, in relation to any person, means-

(a)employment under contract or service or apprenticeship which requires the person to work, whether on time or piece rates, no less than an average of 30 hours each week; or

(b)self-employment of the person in any business, profession, trade, manufacture, or undertaking carried on for pecuniary profit for no less than an average of 30 hours each week; or

(c)employment of the person for any number of hours which is regarded as full-time employment for the purposes of any award, agreement, or contract relating to that employment.

part-time work[...]means work that averages not less than 15 hours a week when calculated over the preceding 3 months...

(a)under a contract of service, whether on time or piece rates ; or

(b)as a self-employed person in any business, profession, trade, manufacture, or undertaking.

I trust this has been helpful.

Yours sincerely

Steve Maharay

Minister for Social Development and Employment.

-To which I replied 3rd December 2004;

Hi

Thanks for replying to my question.

What I am really wishing to know is, what is the minimum number of hours a person would of had to of worked, in any fashion deemed to be work, before they are deemed able to be presented to the public in government statistics, as employed.

Is it as per the statistics methods used on www2.stats.govt.nz which explains -(a)worked for 1 hour or more for pay or profit in the context of an employee/employer relationship or selfemployed.

Cheers

Iain

-I then received an e-mail 6th December 2004;

Iain, can I have your postal address so the Minister can respond to the issue you raised.

Margaret Monks

Ministerial Secretary

Office of Hon Steve Maharay

- I then supplied my postal address.

- I then received this letter in the post dated 7th December 2004;

Dear Mr Parker

On behalf of Hon Steve Maharay, Minister for Social Development and Employment, thank you for your letter 3rd December 2004 regarding employment statistics.

The matter you have raised falls within the portfolio responsibilities of the acting Minister of Statistics. I have therefore referred your letter to Hon DR Michael Cullen for his consideration.

Yours sincerely

Scott Josling

Private Secretary(Social Development)

- I then received a letter by post(not dated) from Michael Cullen;

Dear Mr Parker

Thanks for your e-mail of 3 December, enquiring about employment statistics and the definition of an employed person.

In short, the answer to your question is yes, it is as per the definition on Statistics New Zealand's website.

New Zealand's official employment counts are sourced from Statistics New Zealand's quarterly Household Labour Force Survey. In this survey, a person is deemed to be employed if they worked for 1 hour or more, for pay or profit, in the context of an employee / employer relationship, or self-employed.

This definition is used as the measurement of employment because it aligns with the standard definitions of the International Labour Organisation.

I hope this response is helpful.

Yours sincerely

Hon Michael Cullen

Acting Minister of Statistics

7 - Housing removed from CPI of New Zealand and England has allowed senior elements of the Anglo-Saxon heritage private central banking network to saturate these nations with counterfeit credit without it registering as inflationary on official inflation measurement in order to rule them via enforced bankruptcy receivership under false pretenses in order that they then use their proceeds of crime excess interest repayments received to buy up the liquidated assets at distressed prices in order to then be able to toll booth the target societies for access to their necessities of life;

20 February 2012 Deirdre Kent put this Official Information Act question to New Zealand Minister of Statistics;

- Despite the fact that section prices tripled in fifteen years to 2007, land is not now included in the Consumer Price Index. This means that the official measure of inflation is unreliable as it is far lower than the actual figure.

and received this reply;

Today I received a letter back from the Minister of Statistics, Hon Maurice Williamson. I had heard that land went out of the CPI but couldn’t remember when or why so I sent in an Official Information request. The Minister dates the letter 14 Mar 2012 and says
Dear Ms Kent
Thank you for your letter of 20 February regarding the exclusion of the price of land from the Consumers Price Index (CPI) basket of goods.
I am advised by Statistics New Zealand that land (i.e. residential section) was included in the CPI until the June 1999 quarter. Following a review of the CPI in 1997 land was excluded, taking effect from the September 1999 quarter.
The 1997 review by an external advisory committee confirmed the CPI’s main purpose as being informing monetary policy setting, and that the CPI should be focussed on the concept of acquisition. The reason given for excluding land from the CPI from 1999 was that it was considered to represent the investment component of home ownership (with dwellings representing the shelter component).
The September 1999 quarter CPI information release explained it as follows: A dwelling provides shelter over a long period of time. Over time land is not consumed and so can be considered to represent the investment component of home ownership. As investment expenses are outside the scope of the CPI the rebased CPI excludes expenditure on residential sections.
Information on the sale of land is available from QV (www.qv.co.nz) and the Real Estate Insititute of New Zealand (www.reinz.co.nz).
I trust this information meets your needs and thank you again for taking the time to write.
Yours sincerely
Hon Maurice Williamson
Minister of Statistics.

BoE boss wants house prices in inflation
This is Money
22 July 2007, 12:00am
The Governor of the Bank of England has admitted he is ‘surprised’ that rising house prices are not included in the official inflation figures, according the BBC.
Mervyn King told Radio 4’s Money Box programme that he wished the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) – the measure that tracks the cost of goods and services – did include house prices, as the previous official measure, the Retail Price Index (RPI), used to.
He said: ‘Some of these issues are controversial. I wish it did include housing, but it doesn’t – at least at present. Maybe one day it will.’
Since 1997 Mr King and the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England has had the task of keeping the CPI around a target of 2%. It has raised interest as a method to reduce inflation if prices climb too sharply.
However, critics have said that because the CPI does not include the cost of mortgage repayments, official inflation figures are artificially low. Some say this has created a bubble in the property market as house buyers are able to over-borrow with cheap loans.
Currently the CPI stands at 2.4%, but the RPI – which includes mortgage repayments – stands at 4.4%.
Economists expect the Bank of England to raise interest rates to 6% by September, something that could prove a problem for some homeowners struggling with large mortgages.
Mr King said: ‘CPI is meant to be constructed in the same manner in all European countries, and so far the European statisticians have not worked out a way of how they can calculate the cost of housing in a way that can be done uniformly across Europe.’
Notwithstanding the limitations of the CPI, Mr King defended the record of the Bank of England in setting rates. He said: ‘The track record is pretty good, so if we have made wrong decisions from time to time, there can’t have been very many of them and they can’t have been that wrong.’ ‘The Monetary Policy Committee I think was well designed. I think it’s been successful for 10 years and I see no reason to believe that it cannot be successful for another 10 years and decades after that.’

John Fullerton former Managing Director of JP Morgan after an 18-year career at JP Morgan
said in a 2011 interview;

“ I learned that a lot of what we practiced in finance through no ill intent, this is unrelated to the

financial crisis, and the ethical challenges of the financial system, but that the system itself is

designed to propel growth in the economic system with no regard to the physical boundaries of the planet and with little regard to the social criteria, social constraints of human well being and so it struck me that a lot of the symptoms that we talk about such as climate change obviously being on top of everyone’s agenda, but ecosystem degradation, soil degradation, biodiversity loss. All of these issues are symptoms of an economic system that is essentially bumping into the boundaries of the biosphere, and if you think about finance and even our money system, which is built on a money system which is created through expanding money that has interest associated, so as the money supply grows the requirement to service money grows at a compound rate. That forces at a systemic level the economy to continue growing which if the economy is related to material throughput eventually creates this conflict with the boundaries of the biosphere. So its been a very profound realisation and what I have discovered is that there are an increasing amount of people thinking about this question, but its very much outside the halls of conventional economics and very much new economic thinking.”

Reform solutions to address New Zealand's ongoing chronic balance of payments crisis;

Change of public policy proposal for nation-state government’s - including New Zealand at this time - that currently outsource the accountancy of their primary credit base - based upon value of their own natural resource collateral - to then have private banks type that value into their accounts to then lend it back to the nation-state as interest bearing loans to circulate as the nations entire currency.

To solve the seemingly impossible economic puzzle of downward pressure degradation facing most every public service sector and wider society of private central banking nations - as currently without more debt they cant have growth - with less debt they have less money causing economic contraction and what they need is more currency with less debt. 

Without reform of the entirely interest bearing private loan based money system they currently suffer - the poverty among plenty downstream of it - leading to domestic and global instability - can never be fixed!

The current money system we suffer is a relic of the days of British Imperialist Empire ruling over subservient colonies. Imperialism being the proceeds of a local wealth pyramid system based upon a fraud being used to fund its expansion across borders and has no place in any world that wants to ever call itself a free-world occupied by free societies of individuals enjoying equal economic opportunity.

Winston Churchill said:
“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

Samuel Johnson said:
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful”

Former New Zealand Governor Sir George Grey speaking in Parliament in 1883 said;
“I conscientiously believe that two or, three great’ establishments, all really under one directorate, do’ exercise in the Legislature of this country an undoubted and dangerous influence. I sincerely believe that this existing Government is maintained in its place by those bodies… I say that even among the voters it will be a long time before that independence can come about which ought to prevail, because I fear many of them are in some manner entangled with engagements’ which will place them at the mercy of those persons who rule those different great bodies of which I speak.
I go further and say and in saying this I know, of course, that I create, and must create, a great many enemies I firmly believe that the same persons by monetary influence control a great portion of the press 'One great central power in New Zealand oppresses it from end to end. That central power is moved by the Premier, and the Premier is the solicitor of these great moneyed corporations. Is it just? Does it give the people of New Zealand a fair chance? Is it not hard for a man to know that if he cries for justice some debt upon his estate may he made the cause of his ruin instantly? Is it right for us to feel degraded by knowing that such is the case here? As long as this continues I see’ no hope for ourselves or our country.”

New Zealand Prime Minister and former international
investment banker John Key said in an interview on TV3 The
Nation - 17 November 2012;

“Our (Govt) debt to GDP levels by then will top at just under 30 percent, in other words, um, we'll be relatively lowly indebted compared to countries like America and Europe, but I put it to you we are a small open economy, we have high levels of private sector debt, we, mum and dad, have borrowed that debt effectively from foreigners because their local bank has sourced that from foreigners.”

Tools needed for a transition to a Steady State Economy with a stable Honest Primary Public Money Supply Base to fund a sustainable primary economic base;

What is a Steady State Economy?

Definition
A steady state economy is an economy with stable or mildly fluctuating size. The term typically refers to a national economy, but it can also be applied to a local, regional, or global economy. An economy can reach a steady state after a period of growth or after a period of downsizing or degrowth. To be sustainable, a steady state economy may not exceed ecological limits.

Vincent Cartwright Vickers was born on 16th January 1879, and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of the City of London, a director of Vickers, Limited, for twenty-two years, and a director of the London Assurance from which he resigned in January 1939. In 1910 he was made a governor of the Bank of England, and resigned this appointment in 1919. Later, he became President of the Economic Reform Club and Institute.

Excerpts from - Economic Tribulation – by Vincent C Vickers - published 1941;

http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/roehrigw/vickers/

THE DIRECTION OF FUTURE POLICY

In the question of what steps should be taken to put matters right, I can only suggest the general direction in which our future policy should point; for I myself do not believe that there exists any perfect cut-and-dried scheme which is likely hereafter to be adopted, lock, stock, and barrel, as our future monetary system. Moreover, there are many other technical and psychological considerations which would be necessary in order to achieve peace and contentment amongst the people. The main objectives however, should include:-

1.) State control and State issue of currency and credit through a central organisation managed and controlled by the State.

2.) Stabilisation of the wholesale price level of commodities. That is to say, a fixed and constant internal purchasing power of money; so that a pound will buy to-morrow what it bought yesterday; an honest pound, not a fluctuating pound. And this can be done by so issuing and regulating the volume of available credit and currency that it shall at all times be adequate to permit of the purchasing power of the consumer being equated with the volume of production; not by limiting the purchasing power, but by firstly increasing purchasing power more in proportion to the productive capacity of industry.

3.) Fixation of foreign exchanges by foreign exchange equalisation funds, and agreement with Empire countries and all other countries willing to fall into line; and, once this was accomplished, the removal or diminution of trade barriers which to-day protect the countries from the results of a bad monetary system.

4.) Any additional supply of money should be issued as a clear asset to the State; so that money will be spent into existence, and not lent into existence.

5.) The fluctuating quantity of gold lying in the vaults of the banking system should never be permitted to govern the volume of credit and currency needed by the country.

6.) The elimination of slumps and booms; and more direct procedure for eliminating unnecessary poverty

7.) The abolition of the Debt System where all credit is created by the banks and hired out at interest to the country.

8.) Absolute State control over all foreign lending; and the adoption of the general principle that our foreign trade should be so conducted as to preserve -

(a) the interests of the Home Market,

(b) the interests of the Empire countries and the English-speaking nations,

(c) the interests of Foreign nations, and that this principle should particularly apply in the case of Home production and foodstuffs.

Public Banking System Nations past and present;

Every nation of Anglo-Saxon ancestry has at various times practiced Fully Functioning Public Banking to fund its primary economic base free of the impost of private banker interest which saw those nations experience no greater prosperity with fairer distribution of wealth than when doing so.

England - The Great War and the debt-free Bradbury Treasury Note:

The Financiers and the Nation by the Rt. Hon. Thomas Johnston, P.C., ex-Lord Privy Seal. It was written in 1934 and republished in 1994 by Ossian Publishers Ltd. Here is the link to the text of this quite remarkable and rare book:

http://archive.org/stream/financiersandthe033017mbp/financiersandthe033017mbp_djvu.txt  

In Chapter 6, entitled ‘Usury on the Great War’, I’ve selected the following paragraphs which I believe are both shocking and self-explanatory:

WHEN the whistle blew for the start of the Great War in August 1914 the Bank of England possessed only nine millions sterling of a gold reserve, and, as the Bank of England was the Bankers’ Bank, this sum constituted the effective reserve of all the other Banking Institutions in Great Britain.

The bank managers at the outbreak of War were seriously afraid that the depositing public, in a panic, would demand the return of their money. And, inasmuch as the deposits and savings left in the hands of the bankers by the depositing public had very largely been sunk by the bankers in enterprises which, at the best, could not repay the borrowed capital quickly, and which in several and large-scale instances were likely to be submerged altogether in the stress of war and in the collapse of great areas of international trade, it followed that if there were a widespread panicky run upon the banks, the banks would be unable to pay and the whole credit system would collapse, to the ruin of millions of people.

Private enterprise banking thus being on the verge of collapse, the Government (Mr. Lloyd George at the time was Chancellor of the Exchequer) hurriedly declared a moratorium, i.e. it authorized the banks not to pay out (which in any event the banks could not do), and it extended the August Bank Holiday for another three days. During these three or four days when the banks and stock exchanges were closed, the bankers held anxious negotiation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And one of them has placed upon record the fact that ‘he (Mr. George) did everything that we asked him to do.’ When the banks reopened, the public discovered that, instead of getting their money back in gold, they were paid in a new legal tender of Treasury notes (the £1 notes in black and the 10s. notes in red colours). This new currency had been issued by the State, was backed by the credit of the State, and was issued to the banks to prevent the banks from utter collapse. The public cheerfully accepted the new notes; and nobody talked about inflation.To return, however, to the early war period, no sooner had Mr. Lloyd George got the bankers out of their difficulties in the autumn of 1914 by the issue of the Treasury money, than they were round again at the Treasury door explaining forcibly that the State must, upon no account, issue any more money on this interest free basis; if the war was to be run, it must be run with borrowed money, money upon which interest must be paid, and they were the gentlemen who would see to the proper financing of a good, juicy War Loan at 31/2 per cent, interest, and to that last proposition the Treasury yielded. The War was not to be fought with interest-free money, and/or/with conscription of wealth; though it was to be fought with conscription of life. Many small businesses were to be closed and their proprietors sent overseas as redundant, and without any compensation for their losses, while Finance, as we shall see, was to be heavily and progressively remunerated.

Canada - Canadian public credit history more needed today than ever!

An Urgently Needed Change in Monetary Policy

Borrowing from Bank of Canada would make governments debt-free
by George H. Crowell
National Office | The Monitor
Issue(s): Government finance
June 1, 2011 http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/ugently-needed-change-monetary-policy
Through the publicly-owned Bank of Canada, which was established in 1935, the federal government can borrow money, essentially interest-free, and make such funds available not only for its own use, but also for provincial and municipal governments. Such borrowing helped Canada get out of the Great Depression, and to finance our participation in World War II. Continuation of this practice until the early 1970s played a key role in creating Canada’s post-war prosperity, as well as launching Medicare and other national social programs.
For the past four decades, however, our governments at all levels have increasingly been borrowing instead from the private banks, and paying steep interest on those mounting debts. Each year, governments across Canada now pay some $60 billion in interest on their debts – interest payments that need not be incurred.

This enormous debt burden deprives our governments of revenue that could be used for much-needed improvements to social and economic services – and also to help civil society groups that work for the public welfare. Such organizations depend largely on government funding, but are repeatedly told there is never enough money available.

Governments themselves also use their deliberately incurred borrowing debts as an excuse for cutting public programs and services instead of preserving and expanding them. At the same time, however, they keep cutting the tax rates on wealthy individuals and corporations who don’t need tax relief – and many of whom evade the taxes they owe, anyway, through tax loopholes or by hiding their wealth in offshore tax havens. There also doesn’t seem to be any shortage of funds for unnecessary new prisons, for unjustifiable military interventions, or the wasteful purchase of new weaponry.

One of the organizations that has tirelessly called for a return to government borrowing from the Bank of Canada is the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER). Since its formation in the 1980s, COMER has produced reams of statistics, reasons and arguments for reviving the lending powers of the Bank of Canada. It has shown how the massive interest-bearing debt now carried by our federal and provincial governments could gradually be replaced with interest-free debt.

Such a change in monetary policy, combined with crucial changes in tax policy, would make available tens of billions of dollars that are urgently needed to rebuild our public infrastructure, protect our environment, and strengthen Medicare and other social programs so vital in meeting human needs. Such expanded government spending on worthwhile projects would also create jobs, stimulate additional economic activity, and significantly increase tax revenue.

To start a campaign for the monetary reforms needed to achieve these national gains, COMER recently issued a “call for the renaissance of the Bank of Canada.” The call is directed at civil society organizations. It urges them to join with COMER in demanding that the federal government revive the power of the Bank to provide funding to all levels of government, mainly with interest-free loans, as was done between 1935 and the early 1970s. These loans, of course, would be for needed public investments, primarily to protect and improve social programs and repair and build public infrastructure. (Go to the COMER website – www.comer.org -- to read the full text of the call.)

COMER has been dismayed that civil society groups have not pushed for these changes in monetary policy on their own, since it could make abundant funding available to meet a wide range of the social and environmental needs for which they advocate. This is perhaps because they are unaware of this possible answer to their funding shortages. The COMER campaign hopes to raise their awareness as it calls for their endorsements.

Of course the COMER people have to be realistic. They know the monetary policy changes they propose challenge the power of the private banking system, and they know this system has the support of the new majority Harper government. But the enhanced status of the NDP in the new Parliament (and the election of the first Green Party candidate, leader Elizabeth May) heightens the prospect that a revival of the Bank of Canada’s lending powers will be more frequently and effectively raised in the House of Commons. (Maybe every time the Conservatives cite the debt as an excuse for cutting social programs and services.)
Significantly, the NDP convention in 1995 and the Green Party convention last year both passed resolutions calling for a return to government borrowing from the Bank of Canada instead of the private banks. It would be in accordance with those resolutions for both parties to put this key monetary policy reform on their parliamentary agendas.

Indeed, it may be essential for the opposition to take this stand in the House, if only to deter Harper from making the Bank of Canada even less beneficial to the public interest. This could happen if Harper decides to act on his earlier support for the creation of a common U.S.-Canadian currency, or to bring Canada into a proposed new global currency system – both, of course, controlled by the private bankers. Such a loss of monetary policy independence would gravely impair the Canadian campaign for monetary justice.

Right now, however, the renaissance of the Bank of Canada, though very difficult, is not beyond achievement. Particularly if the campaign garners the support it deserves from the civil society groups that now suffer so much from the Bank’s disuse.

(George Crowell is a retired University of Windsor professor who has been working with COMER on monetary policy since 1994.)

Australia - Australia's best years under public credit implemented by their Labor Party

National Banking in Australia:

The Commonwealth Bank

July 2012

By Robert Barwick 

In two distinct phases, from its inception in 1911 to 1923, and then from 1942-49, the Commonwealth Bank proved the power of national banking: it directed the public credit of Australia into the development of great infrastructure and crucial industries, including the Trans-Australian Railway; it financed Australia’s participation in WWI; and it financed the miraculous war-time economic mobilisation of WWII which transformed Australia from an agrarian backwater into an agro-industrial powerhouse, including the postwar great Snowy Mountains Scheme. Just as in the United States, the rise and fall of the Commonwealth Bank is the story of Australia’s battle for national sovereignty.

The American-inspired patriots of colonial Australia who fought for nationhood knew that national banking was the determining issue. Australia’s labour movement was born out of the bloody 1890 maritime and shearers’ strikes against the London banks, pastoral houses and shipping companies that controlled the colonial economy, and whose stranglehold would unleash the devastating crash of 1893. Already in 1891, NSW’s Labor Electoral League, one of the components which would form the Australian Labor Party, enshrined a commitment to national banking in its electoral platform, alongside a demand for “The federation of the Australasian colonies upon a national as opposed to an imperialistic basis….”

It was the expatriate American ALP politician King O’Malley who gave the Labor Party its deep appreciation of the workings and the signifi cance of national banking. In 1908 O’Malley convinced the federal Labor Party conference held in Brisbane to adopt a detailed national banking proposal in its fighting platform. In a five-hour speech in Federal Parliament the following year, O’Malley emphasised the importance of a national bank for Australia’s sovereignty:

“We are legislating for the countless multitudes of future generations, who may either bless or curse us. … We are in favour of protecting, not only the manufacturer, but also the man who works for him. ... I propose the institution of a government national bank for managing the finances of the Commonwealth and the States. … Cannot honourable members see how important it is that we should have a national banking system … —a system that will put us beyond the possibility of going as beggars to the shareholders of private banking corporations? The movement of the money volume is the vital monetary problem—the master-key to the financial situation. Through the control of this movement prices may be made to rise or fall or remain substantially steady. … Such power is an attribute of sovereignty … and ought to belong to none but the sovereign people exercised through … Parliament and Government in the interests of the whole people.”

O’Malley triumphantly proclaimed the precedent for his proposed new national bank. “I am the Hamilton of Australia”, he declared. “He was the greatest financial man who ever walked the earth, and his plans have never been improved upon. … The American experience should determine us to establish a national banking system which cannot be attacked.”

Labor vs. the Money Power

To force the ALP caucus to implement the national banking policy, over the opposition of Melbourne’s British-controlled Collins Street banks, O'Malley formed what he called the “Torpedo Brigade” among Labor MPs. O’Malley and his allies pushed through the Commonwealth Bank Act in December 1911, and O’Malley personally handpicked Denison Miller to run the new national bank, exhorting him, “You have a chance to make history, Brother Miller, Australian history, which will become world history. Think the matter over deeply. And accept the job. Decide to make history— I’m sure you’re the man to do it.” In his 1962 book, The Great Bust, former New South Wales Treasurer and later NSW Prime Minister Jack Lang documented the terror which Miller and the Commonwealth Bank had struck into the British oligarchy, until Miller’s untimely death in 1923:

“In Australia the war had been financed by the then newly established Commonwealth Bank. It had found all the money to keep the armies abroad, and also to finance the producers at home. It had financed the Commonwealth Shipping Line deal for Hughes. Denison Miller had gone to London after the war had finished and had thrown a great fright into the banking world by calmly telling a big bankers’ dinner that the wealth of Australia represented six times the amount of money that had been borrowed, and that the Bank could meet every demand because it had the entire capital of the country behind it. The Bank had found £350 million for war purposes. A deputation of unemployed waited on him after he arrived back from London at the head office of the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place, Sydney. He was asked whether his bank would be prepared to raise another £350 million for productive purposes. He replied that not only was his bank able to do it, but would be happy to do it. Such statements as these caused a near panic in the City of London. If the Dominions were going to become financially independent of the City of London, then the entire financial structure would collapse.”

Lang went on to describe the City of London’s intention to bridle the Commonwealth Bank, by creating a supranational banking structure that would take control over the finances of all nations, constituting a de facto world government. The subjugation of the banking system of Europe today, under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) demanded by London and related financiers, is a dead ringer for the process exposed by Lang:

“Basically it was a problem of banking. Some formula had to be devised which would enable such local institutions as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to be drawn into the City of London’s net. The financial experts studied the problem deeply. Out of their deliberations emerged the plan to centralise the control of all banking throughout the Empire by channeling it directly into the supervision by the Bank of England. The Bank of England was to become the super Bankers’ Bank. … The Bank of England took up the idea of Empire control most enthusiastically. It was even decided to aim at a World Bank, to be run by the League of Nations, which would control the credit of the world. The grand idea was that one single Board of Directors would make the decisions which would determine the economic policy of the world. The bankers were to be the supreme rulers. Naturally, the Governor of the Bank of England expected to be at the apex of the system. If, for example, the Bank of England could control the Commonwealth Bank of Australia there should be no impediment in the way of controlling the government of the country as well. … The death of Miller removed at a critical moment the one man capable of defending the citadel of Australian fi nancial independence.”

Notwithstanding the remarkable accomplishments of the Commonwealth Bank, its mere twelve years of operation, before private financiers seized control of it following Miller’s death, were not enough for the Bank to break the British monetary stranglehold on Australia. Frank Anstey, one of O'Malley’s former Torpedo Brigade members and the mentor of future prime minister John Curtin, showed in his 1921 book, The Money Power, that the issue was understood to be national sovereignty:

“Australia is a mere appendage of financial London, without distinct economic existence. ... London is, so far, the web centre of international finance. In London are assembled the actual chiefs or the representatives of the great financial houses of the world. The Money Power is something more than Capitalism. ... These men constitute the Financial Oligarchy. No nation can be really free where this financial oligarchy is permitted to hold dominion, and no ‘democracy’ can be aught but a name that does not shake it from its throne.”

Indeed, when Miller died in 1923 the London banks directed the Australian government to hand control of the bank to a board of private businessmen, who promptly turned off the tap of public credit. During the Great Depression, the privately controlled board of the Commonwealth Bank refused to follow a government directive to issue credit for public works— a plan to alleviate the 30 per cent unemployment, on the successful model being applied by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This defiance of government policy, by the board of the bank, caused such a scandal that in 1936 a Royal Commission was established to investigate banking in Australia. The commission found that the government should be the ultimate authority over the banking system, findings ignored by the Lyons-Menzies governments.

In a 1937 speech to the Labor Party’s election campaign launch in Fremantle, WA ALP leader John Curtin reiterated Anstey’s 1921 warning that there could be no Australian sovereignty without government control over the nation’s finances. Curtin demanded restoration of the Commonwealth Bank’s original charter, and that the Bank be freed from the vice of private financiers and put back under government control:

“If the Government of the Commonwealth deliberately excluded itself from all participation in the making or changing of monetary policy it cannot govern except in a secondary degree.”

In 1939, on the eve of the war, the aging King O’Malley again went to bat to re-establish the Commonwealth Bank under its original purpose and charter, as opposed to its domination and speculative misuse by private fi nanciers. In his pamphlet Big Battle, O’Malley insisted that the individual rights people believed were theirs could not be guaranteed without sovereign control over credit, and that the purpose of national banking was to facilitate the creation of tangible, physical wealth, as opposed to the inevitably disastrous “fog wealth” of private banking speculation:

“Permanent wealth is produced by the slow process of industry, combined with skill and the manipulation of capital. Fog wealth is produced by the rapid process of placing one piece of paper in the possession of a bank as a collateral security for two pieces of paper. Some of the enormous quantity of paper which is being created now will sooner or later collapse. But with the Commonwealth Bank capable of sustaining legitimate credits, there can come no panic which will again destroy the market value of intrinsic values, ruin debtors, deprive workers of work, and produce general distress. Oh! Would that I possessed the power to arouse the Australian people to the imperative importance of reviving the Commonwealth Bank!”

After the War

The Commonwealth Bank was indeed revived by John Curtin and Ben Chifley during and immediately after WWII, with stunning success. But the British Crown’s Privy Council overturned Chifley’s bank nationalisation legislation, which had been passed by both houses of Parliament in 1949, and soon Labor was out of power for the next 23 years. During that period Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, a professed admirer of Hitler and Mussolini during the 1930s and a notorious lackey of the anglophile Melbourne financier Sir Staniforth Ricketson, finished off what was left of the Commonwealth’s function as a national bank.4 He established the Reserve Bank as an independent central bank with control over the nation’s finances, and appointed as its first governor a British-educated Fabian, H.C. “Nugget” Coombs. As Minister of Post-War Reconstruction, Coombs had ripped up most of Labor’s grand postwar reconstruction plans. He gloated of the globalist control over banking when he said of himself, “I am a member of the international freemasonry of central bankers.”

Remnants of a public credit policy continued to exist in Australia, through the Commonwealth Development Bank, the Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC), and the various state banks, which enabled the federal and state governments to direct lending into farming, manufacturing and small business. In 1981, under the direction of a cabal of investment bankers centred in Hill Samuel Australia (later renamed Macquarie Bank), a subsidiary of the City of London’s Hill Samuel & Co., Ltd., the Committee of Inquiry into the Australian Financial System (the Campbell Committee) demanded sweeping banking deregulation, including the elimination of all such public credit institutions. To its eternal shame, it was the Labor Party, under Fabian traitors Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, that delivered on the City of London’s demands upon assuming power in 1983.

Keating deregulated the banks, exposing Australia to the predations of foreign banks; floated the dollar; amalgamated unions to bust their bargaining power; annihilated manufacturing by slashing tariffs (to “enhance competition”); and privatised major public assets, including the Commonwealth Bank. As revealed in Keating: the Inside Story, by John Edwards, Keating declared his intention to dismantle every aspect of the advanced agro-industrial economy that “old” Labor governments had used public credit to build up, proposing that Australia’s economic future should be almost solely that of a raw materials exporter, with whatever shards of manufacturing might manage to hang on with low or no tariffs: “Minerals, wool and wheat—that’s our long suit. And we have to make secondary industry competitive.” Three decades after Keating began this assault on Australia’s economic sovereignty, his intention for Australia has been realised.

New Zealand - New Zealand’s proud history of pushing for an honest money system and monetary, banking and credit reform.

Compiled by Iain Parker 2012

Note – Italic text is written by Iain Parker. Normal text is excerpts of documents as named. Bold text are points of importance;

Michael Joseph Savages (First New Zealand Independent Labour Party PrimeMinister 1935-40) said in his 1920 maiden speech to Parliament;
“The Government should create a state bank , and use the public credit for the public good as an alternative to borrowing overseas”

Twice PrimeMinister of Canada – William Lyon Mackenzie King – spanning most of period 1921 – 1948 said in 1935;
“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”

Michael Joseph Savages (First New Zealand Independent Labour Party PrimeMinister 1935-40) views as cronicled in – From The Cradle To The Grave – by Barry Gustafson 1986

Pg 146 – Savage read and quoted Keynes, and agreed wholeheartedly with Keyne’s suggestion that ‘the first necessity was that bank credit should be cheap and abundant’ if the economy was to be expanded and unemployment overcome. But he wanted a more of a permanent solution than Keyne’s subsequent suggestion of increased public investment financed through a budget deficit as a means of offsetting a temporary decline in private investment, thus maintaining or stimulating consumption and………
Pg 147….production in the short term. Savage believed in increased government expenditure on social welfare, public works, guaranteed prices to farmers and minimum wages to workers as a means of increasing consumption, demand and economic activity. But he also believed in balancing the budget as far as possible through supplementary, graduated, direct taxation; restrained borrowing; and credit creation.
Nor was Savage convinced that the answer to New Zealand’s economic problems lay in the monetary mechanism suggested by Douglas and the Social Credit movement, though he certainly shared their basic assumption that what was physically possible should be financially possible. Lee and some other Labour Mps, notably Langstone, Parry, Mason and Carr, found Douglas’s critique ‘identical with that of the Labour Party’ and Douglas’s National Dividend scheme similar ‘in every sense’ to Labours policy of increased and redistributed purchasing power. Savage, though not as critical as Holland, who believed Social Credits solution ‘would mean disasterous inflation’ had serious reservations and joined Holland in stating publicly that the Labour Party ‘ does not accept the Douglas scheme’.
Douglas emphasised a continuous creation and injection of credit to bridge what he claimed was a permanent gap between purchasing power and production, not a temporary flaw in the distribution of adequate means of exchange. Douglas also wanted an economic system that would provide the basis for individual freedom and a move away from the growing concentration of power in the hands of government, big business, banks and trade unions, all of which he regarded as conspiring against the people as a whole. Social harmony would only be possible when all the ‘useful people’ were able to enjoy the wealth they created, and that in turn would only be possible when the hidden but real government, the banks, had their financial powers stripped from them and new economic mechanisms were created to increase and distribute money and credit.
Savage, however, argued that the creation of extra currency and credit was useless and even dangerous if not accompanied by a redistribution of purchasing power and balanced by increased production. He admitted that ‘ The Douglasites have an idea that is atleast a step out of the orthodox rut, and to the extent that it is going to cause people to think we should welcome it, but to my mind it does not bridge the gap from where we are now to a free circulation of commodities, and that is the object of currency and credit generally.’ 
While Savage pressed for an increase in credit, therefore, he made it clear that, in his opinion, an increased supply of money on its own was insufficient; the use to which that money was put was all important. Savage believed that ‘ the careful use of public credit through the existing banking machinery for the purpose of national construction was paramount. what is wrong with the monetary system,’ he argued, ‘is that there is……
Pg 148….insufficient money finding its way into the pockets of the mass of the people,because I believe definitely that so long as private individuals control finance they control everything else. Banking has become an integral part of industry, and the bankers govern the situation, and whatever steps may be taken by Parliament to relieve or assist industry may be nullified by refusal of credit by those controlling it.’
Savage concluded, reflecting the influence of Fisher and Soddy rather than Douglas, ‘I do not know that there is much wrong with the present banking system except the control of it. That is what matters in the finish.’ Only when the state, not private banks, control the money supply could it be expanded when necessary and directed into productive not speculative areas of the economy. Only then, Savage believed, could there be stable, sustained sensible growth in the economy. ‘Parliament can, and should, be the master in financial affairs,’ asserted Savage, and by Parliament he meant the whole of Parliament, not ministers using regulations that led to ‘comparative autocratic Government’ or commissions and boards not directly responsible to the voters.Savage believed that credit creation, which would supplement not replace taxation and loans, would be non-inflationary only if ‘carefully applied to reconstruction purposes’ and used ‘wisely and economically.’ Over dependence on or excessive use of any single method of funding government expenditure – excessive taxation, excessive borrowing, excessive credit and currency creation – were all equally objectionable and as dangerous in Savages view as an insufficient supply of purchasing power.‘Artificially created credit must be guarded against’, especially, because it was no ‘remedy for a condition which is often due rather to insufficient collateral security, a fall in prices, or unsatisfactory farming.’

So there we have Savage in disagreement with Douglas. Perhaps that is why the next excerpt from the book – Simple On A Soap Box – by John A Lee 1963 proves that he differs and disagrees with both Savage and Douglas as to how public credit should be issued. It must be noted that Barry Gustafson implied John A Lee totally agreed with C H Douglas Social Credit when from his own writings below it is clear he did not;

Pg 133 – As the 1928-35 economic crisis receded the electorate remained pronouncedly conscious of monetary theory, of rates of interest and of development by State credit rather than by recourse to higher borrowing rates. The British Labour movement had the same lively awareness. G. D. H. Cole, Arthur Henderson and many other socialists who rejected the Douglas Credit mythology had become genuine social creditors. I distinguish between social credit and mystical Douglas Social Credit. The clamour for more intelligent use by the State of its own resources and for lower interest rates continued across the world, in the wake of the depression, until it was submerged in the clamour of the Second World War.
Our caucus resolution not only ordered exchange control but also that there should be no increase in the interest rate without the consent of caucus. But we did not trust the Old Man or Nash. Labour movements the world over had not recovered from Ramsay MacDonald’s and Philip Snowden’s determination to place the gold value of the pound above a life-time’s loyalty to Labour (even though the gold standard was abandoned a week later). During the election the Old Man at his vast evangelic meetings had made emotional affirmations, between the cheers, of his determination to use the “internal credit of the people” for public works, indeed for “loan-free public works”, and had repeated assurances that Labour intended to reduce interest rates for public development.
But from the moment the M.P.s returned to their homes inspired news paragraphs started to suggest a return to orthodoxy to deal with our exchange crisis, a greater rate of interest to attract funk deposits, and maybe a lesser use of credit in New Zealand, a policy which contradicted everything Labour had…..
Pg 134……..said about money since 1928. All this was easy for Walter Nash to swallow, but not for the rest of us. We knew that, sentimentally, the Old Man was with us, that he always talked our way, but we knew that in fact he would defend whatever brief Walter Nash put into his mouth. Any suggestion of a credit squeeze was abhorent to us.
Pg 53 – During a budget debate in the depth of the depression Savage, Nash, Parry and McCombs had tabled a resolution in caucus. They wanted the Labour Opposition in Parliament to move that a certain sum of money be borrowed on the security of the unemployment fund and used to alleviate distress. The time had arrived for a challenge. I became very active and lobbied every Labour M.P. I ensured a big caucus attendance.We would move, as an alternative,that credits be advanced by the Government-owned Reserve Bank so that we could invest our materials and idle man-power surplus in socially-owned construction. We could see no reason at that moment for borrowing at a rate of interest. Surely the time had arrived for an Issue of credit. Australian Labour was talking `issue’; in Britain tracts on money reform were flowing from Labour pens. In a world of plenty the dispossessed had no money. Even Roosevelt, later, talked our language. We thought the moment had come for the people to claim rights of issue for their own bank. The goods existed, why not create credits?
Caucus, when it met, divided in a bitter debate in which Savage organised the advocates of borrowing and I the faction in favour of the state issue of credit. Caucus was was adjourned four times. I think every member insisted on speaking. At the third meeting Harry Holland, then Leader of the Party, espoused our cause. I saw M.P.s taking their coats off to one another in that caucus, so bitter did the conflict become. The Savage-Parry-Nash-Fraser-McCombs resolution went down to a humiliating defeat, only Fred Jones of Dunedin South supporting the resolution. Nearly thirty Labour M.P.s voted for credit issue including Harry Holland himself. We moved accordingly in Parliament.
Out of that debate had come a new finance policy in which, I am convinced , Nash never believed. In 1935 the Labour Party affirmed that the Government should have sole right over the issue and control of new credit. But in the meantime Holland had died. Savage, the oldest surviving private and deputy, had become Labour Leader and was on the road to the Prime Ministership. He never forgave me the humiliating defeat I had organised. Prior to that caucus Savage used to tell everyone, both publically and privately, that I would be one of the first chosen in a Labour Cabinet. After the defeat I knew that only a caucus vote would compel Savage to accept me. He became unfriendly from that day on.
Pg 58 – Factory production had become unprofitable. I wanted to see money issued for essential works until production flowed once more. I did not want to take over factories. I did want us to take over banking and the issue of credit. I did want us to use our credit to finance work so long as unemployment existed. I objected to New Zealand being made bankrupt because prices had fallen overseas. We should maintain our own price level and with it solvency. This attitude to price was indeed the genisis to our guaranteed price scheme. Twenty other voices in caucus urged the same thing I did.
But alone, perhaps, I sensed that if we issued internal credits and did not establish exchange control and import selection our credits would create demand for imports in excess of our London funds and create a financial crisis which would bring the Labour Government to its knees when it set out to renew London loans. To me exchange control and import selections, so that we could control the flow of credits and imports and maintan a reserve, was absolutely essential to socialist financial policy.
Pg 68 – I am sure that much of Labour’s success is a consequence of good or bad times. Labour was good for business after Nationalist bad business. The average Labour MP did want to restore purchasing power to the masses and that was in itself a fruitful idea. But there were no ideas as to how to change or gradually transform the economic system so that increased production could spell expanding incomes and greater leisure and fewer depressions by breaking the cursed cycle of capitalist inflation-deflation. For half a century Labour in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand had talked of socialising ‘the system’ but when the moment came for modest doses of the socialism for which the electorate had granted a mandate Labour either did not know or where there was knowledge, did not have the courage to make changes.
Pg 77 – A few days later the PrimeMinister sent for me again. Nash had come up with a proposition. “We will make you the Under-Secretary in charge of housing. You will handle housing business as though you were a Minister. You will present housing to Cabinet, you will deal with housing business in Parliament. Walter will be your Minister, but he will be going to England by the time you get started and it will be up to you. We will introduce legislation the moment Parliament settles down. No one will get in your way.”
“Will money be available from the Reserve Bank?” I asked.
This was a contensious Party issue. With tens of thousands of men on relief work the Labour Party, Nash and Fraser apart, believed that the funds of the Reserve Bank should be used for essential capital works until available men, machinery and materials were being fully employed. We wanted to undo the politically enforced Banker’s deflation. Nash wanted to stabalize deflation. We did not want to create money when men, materials and machinery were being fully engaged; at that point we believed the cost of works should be met out of revenue. But we were not prepared to create debt as long as goods, machinery and men were idle. That was the moment to use public credit.
“Money will be made available from the Reserve Bank.” The Prime Minister made the promise.
Pg 90 – Although the power to underwrite and arrange fresh borrowings has been availed of rather than the power to make new issues, except where the issue is an overdraft, such as has been arranged for the dairy industry account, one definite issue has been arranged for. The Government has instructed the Reserve Bank to make five million pounds worth of credit available for housing purposes. These funds will be drawn upon by the Housing Account of the State Advances Corporation. All the funds so advanced will be used to create new assets in the form of houses and a straight out issue of money for the creation of such assets was considered justifiable. The instruction to the Reserve Bank, according to the Hon. Mr. Nash’s statement to Parliament, specifically prohibits the Reserve Bank from negotiating the sale of any portion of this issue, so that the whole issue is to be new money upon which the interest earned will belong in its entirety to the State. And the houses, of course, will belong to the State.
Pg 91 – In the halfway house of socialism-capitalism the evils of both systems are likely to afflict us if we are not careful. Labour must stimulate the production of such quantities of goods as are necessary to New Zealand’s welfare at an even higher standard. Capitalism cares only that the transaction yeilds a cash profit. To use a money machine to only create capital works and leave consumption goods to private finance is dangerous. Hence at some stage Labour must give effest to the Prime Ministers intention of making credit available to secondary industry. Production that may not be profitable at the overdraft rates of the trading banks may be so socially desirable as to necessitate freeing it from the profit system so that quantities can flow to the extent required by the nation.
(Incredulously John A Lee who had contributed so much to the Labour Party and kept them on track to keep their promise of needed fair-minded financial system reforms would go on to be thrown out of the party by union leaders who became all powerful due to aquiring the compolsory union block vote at Labour Party conferences and who Lee had criticised for gaining so much for contributing so little);
Pg 178 – Preparations were being made for the 1940 Conference; branches were appointing delegates in record numbers. I could count my friends by the hundred. Branches were three to one behind me (apart from areas where Catholic Action groups had intervened because of the rumour that I opposed the Old Man’s conversion). They sent me unsolicited promises of support.Dr. McMillan thought my article a good one and printed 1,000 copies of Pychopathology in Politics which he intended to distribute to Conference.
Some members of the National Executive, behind my back, grew active. Up till then there had been no card vote in the Labour party of the type that existed in Britain. Unions were allowed at Conference a number of votes proportionate to their membership. To this end their leading delegates were provided, at the opening of Conference, with a card showing the number of votes each could poll on behalf of his union. But full voting power could only be exercised if all the union’s branches were represented at Conference by delegates. Now a move was started to allow union presidents and secretaries to poll the full vote of a federation without such representation and without evidence that its members had been consulted.
James Roberts and David Wilson brought forward a proposal to allow the full card vote in such circumstances. The Party’s constitution clearly provided that alterations to the constitution had to be notified to branches by prior remit. Roberts and Wilson proposed to amend the rules by providing for the card vote in the Executive Report with which Conference opened. Endorsement of the Report would automatically amount to acceptance of the new provision. This was clearly a means of amending the constitution never contemplated. I knew that the jury was being…..
Pg 179 ……..loaded against me before Conference, but I was powerless. A member of the Labour party cannot apply to a Supreme Court for an injunction to prevent an illegal alteration of the rules, even when he knows the change is being made in order to hang him.
“They altered the rules regarding the composition of the jury after your trial was started,” a judge of the Supreme Court was to say to me later.As Conference drew near, so did Savage’s death while the Standard still assured Party members that he was in full charge of business. The daily press, however, was beginning to suggest that the Prime Minister’s condition was critical. Some of my following began to desert me. One member had written telling me he thought Pychopathology in Politics was one of the best things I had done and hoping that I would not “run away from its truth”. He went to earth as fast as political heels would carry him. It had taken him a lifetime to become an M.P., so who am I to judge him ?Nor did he ever raise his voice publicly afterwards, although he sent me many private and friendly communications. I do not blame him. The card-vote magnates were to be powerful in possession of tens of thousands of unconsulted votes of their members many of them conscripted into their unions by the compulsory legislation.Intransigent as ever, Dr. McMillan wired from Dunedin that he had been informed that the Prime Minister’s life could only last a matter of days or even hours, and that an attempt would be made to end my political life.As Savage showed signs of dying before conference ended, Fraser made up his mind that I had to be expelled before Savage died.
Expulsion from the Labour Party is much like excommunication from the Communist Party or the Mediaeval church. The world is invited to spit upon the sinner. He has passed beyond the portals of decent treatment.Pg 162 – My reason for telling the truth about the Old Man was not any wish to be a hero. I have never wanted to be one. Whenever I have heard young children recite: 
“ For how can men die better than facing fearful foes,” I have always mentally interjected, “ In bed, of old age, at peace.” I remember the day I won my D.C.M. At Messines. The line was held up, men went to earth. I jumped up. It was the only thing to do. No doubt an odd one had jumped up before me and had fallen with a gut full of machine-gun bullets. I jumped up because forward was the only way. As I jumped up to run I heard a voice, despite the thunder of the guns, say, “There goes a fellow for the V.C.” an observation that had not the slightest bearing on my conduct. I would not have risked a finger for twenty V.C.s. What I did was merely commonsense.
Pg 275 – If capitalists are still afraid of Labour as a conspiracy to overturn the profit system let them sleep in peace! The trade union magnates plan big unions and want power within their organisations. They do not inspire the Labour Party to action. They are only hangers on. They have rich appetites, they are more like the cartoonist Edgar Dysons fat man than the capitalists themselves. The idea that they are capable of a revolutionary conspiracy is unbelievably funny. Union secretaries are the new conservative class; they hate agitation. They love unions so big that the controllers are beyond reach of the rank and file, safe from criticism.Pg 276 – Is Labour a conspiracy? Labour these days accepts the existing system. The only case that Labour puts forward is about how tax proceeds shall be shared. The present important task of Labour, and I am not belittling it, is to humanise the capitalist system, not to socialise or control it. Most of the M.Ps these days know nothing of capitalism or socialism. They have never read a tract on the capitalist crisis. Their loyalty is not to an idea, but to machine, to a job as an M.P. 

Man to Man by Tom Skinner 1981 – Michael Savage explained the State housing scheme to Tom Skinner of the (New Zealand) Federation of Labour as such;
Pg 45 – “I was with Joe on one occasion when he began chatting about the ramifications of the Governments State Housing Scheme. He told me … how the construction of those houses created assets in a productive way. The Government created the money through the Reserve Bank at a moderate rate of interest to cover the contract price, which paid for materials, tradesmen’s wages, the purchase and development of the land and all the other essentials required to finish the house. On completion the house was transferred from the Housing Division of the public works department to the State Advances Corporation – in effect from one department to another. The corporation was the renting agency responsible for selecting the tenants, collecting rents and maintaining the house and the property. The philosophy was that as the money was created for productive purposes no loss could occur if it were not repaid from one department to another. Meanwhile, during construction, tradesmen had been paid wages which had been spent and absorbed into the economy. But it was solid money backed by the creation of assets. People had been kept fully employed while the government built homes for the people.
Tom Skinner;
“While Joe spoke I began suddenly to grasp the Labour philosophy related to the creation of credit. It set me off thinking about money and what it meant to the economy. The Government, figuratively speaking, could rub a state house debt out of the books because a building stood in its place. But money created by the banks in order to gain profits in the form of interest was the other side of the coin. It was unproductive, inflationary creation of money if unmatched by equivalent goods and services…..”
“I have read and believe that monetary mismanagement is the greatest evil of our time. It breeds injustice, increased costs and, as the root cause of inflation, it diminishes the value of our money. Governments should carry out their pre-election promises and take the necessary steps to reform the monetary system. It can be done only by making the State the sole authority for the issue of currency and credit….. unfortunately, in this area politicians seem to be abysmally ignorant of elementary financial and economic truths.”

From The Cradle To The Grave – A biography of Michael Joseph Savage (First New Zealand Labour Party Prime Minister 1935-1940) by Barry Gustafson 1986;
Pg 198-9
The National Opposition (1936) was astonished by the use of Reserve Bank credit for housing, which disregarded traditional principles of budget finance. Forbes (George Forbes ex Prime Minister 1930-5 Great Depression era) admitted confidentially to Stewart (William Downie Stewart Jnr – Finance Advisor);
“This places them in a unique position, the houses after erection carry no interest on capital cost, and for instance a thousand pound house can be let for 5s per week and be a financial success. The millenium seems to have arrived and it makes one wonder why we had to struggle in the bog, when there was such an easy way out of our troubles, houses, after being built with the highest paid workers in the world, at the lowest cost heard of, makes our policy of orthodox finance seem almost prehistoric.”

In July 1962 the leader of the Labour Party, the Rt. Hon. W. Nash, made a lengthy statement in which he said;
“Consistent with the needs of a sound economy, the State should create and use credit at the cost of issue for purposes of approved capital development. We are satisfied that the use of Reserve Bank Credit, within the limits set out is not only justified, but has already contributed much towards the Nation’s economic well-being.”
Thus, 27 years too late, Nash accepted the policy on which Labour was elected in 1935.

Ellen Brown March 7, 2012

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/brics.php

It turns out that globally, not only are publicly-owned banks quite common but that countries with strong public banking sectors generally have strong, stable economies. According to an Inter-American Development Bank paper presented in 2005, the percentage of state ownership in the banking industry globally by the mid-nineties was over 40 percent. The BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—contain nearly three billion of the world’s seven billion people, or 40% of the global population. The BRICs all make heavy use of public sector banks, which compose about 75% of the banks in India, 69% or more in China, 45% in Brazil, and 60% in Russia.

Focusing on the financing of real businesses and economic growth seems to be the secret of the BRICs, which are leading the world in economic development today. But the BRIC phenomenon is more than just a growth trend identified by an economist. It is now an international organization, an alliance of countries representing the common interests and goals of its members. The first BRIC meeting, held in 2008, was called a triumph for former Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy of promoting multilateral arrangements that would challenge the United States’ concept of a unipolar world.

The BRIC countries had their first official summit and became a formal organization in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. They met in Brazil in 2010 and in China in 2011, and they will meet in India in 2012. In 2010, at China’s invitation, South Africa joined the group, making it “BRICS” and adding a strategic presence on the African continent.

The BRICS seek more voice in the United Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank. They are even discussing their own multicultural bank to fund projects within their own nations, in direct competition with the IMF. They oppose the dollar as global reserve currency. After the Yekaterinburg summit, they called for a new global reserve currency, one that was diversified, stable and predictable; and they have the clout to get it.According to Liam Halligan, writing in The U.K. Telegraph:

The BRICs account for around three-quarters of total currency reserves. They have few serious fiscal issues and all are net external creditors.

Western financial interests have long fought to maintain the dollar as global reserve currency, but they are losing that battle, despite economic and military coercion. Russia, China and India are now nuclear powers. The BRICS will have to be negotiated with, and the first step to forming a working relationship is to understand how their economies work. Rather than declaring war on their more successful practices, we may decide to assimilate some of them into our own.

How might a dialysis of Sovereign Dollars work to achieve a Steady State Economy?

Raf Manji Sustento Institute 16-8-2011

Slowly but surely mainstream commentators, economists and policy analysts are all starting to realise that exponential debt is the core of our current economic malaise. This is great news to those of us who have been banging on about this for many years.

But still there is confusion around what to do about it. “Saving” has become the new buzzword, sitting squarely alongside “austerity”, as private individuals are urged to save more and governments are urged to spend less. That sounds like a sensible way forward. But watch the economy tank when that happens. Why?

Simply because when debt is paid down (and no corresponding new loans made) the money supply contracts as the debt is destroyed. The debt never existed as “money” in the sense of notes and coin but as an asset and liability for the bank. The interest is collected and the debt destroyed, leaving the profit for the bank. A monetary system based on debt will always lead to booms and busts as the interest charged overwhelms the ability of the productive sector to pay it. Ironically the system always needs infusions of new debt to stay afloat as the amount of money in the system declines.

Of course, when companies start to lay off workers (their first cost saving option) this creates uncertainty and an unwillingness for new borrowing to take place. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle which in some cases leads to recessions and occasionally to depressions. So what’s the best way out of this?

Austerity? No. Austerity will keep some investors happy but generally this will simply lead to slower growth and higher unemployment. But austerity is also a fact of life. When you have borrowed money and spent it, you know one day you have to pay it back. If you haven’t saved for that day then you will have to forego consumption for repayment. If you are in that position, which many governments are, you have, in fact, over consumed your income and eaten into your future. That’s not a pleasant space to be.

Is there an alternative?

Yes there is. I’d like to propose what I term “Monetary Dialysis“. This process seeks to replace debt money with real money (let’s assume for the moment that fiat money is real). The difference between debt money and real money is two fold: firstly, real money is permanent and once it enters the banking system it remains there; secondly, real money enters the banking system without interest, with no charge for its creation.

This two key differences will lead to new outcomes: a more stable money base and a less inflationary one.

How will this process take place?

http://sustento.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-Manning-Plan.pdf (for full detail of below)

THE MANNING PLAN FOR PERMANENT DEBT REDUCTION IN THE NATIONAL ECONOMY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. This plan offers a very low risk way to resolve the world debt crisis without sudden or radical change to the world financial system. It brings together a number of ideas such as Universal Basic Income (UBI), Debt Jubilee Income (DJI), and Quantitative Easing (Monetary Dialysis) that are already receiving some attention but cause concern to some policy makers when they are considered in isolation. The plan can be implemented quickly and unilaterally.

2. The plan is based on specific forms of UBI and DJI structured to avoid inflation. The plan avoids most inflation because it can easily be adjusted so that incomes match the physical and human resources available to the economy.

3. The Manning Plan sets out implementation details for New Zealand. Each New Zealand legal resident will receive about $100/week in a special Basic Income Account, and each business will receive about $100/week in a special Debt Jubilee Income account for each Full Time Equivalent employee employed by that business who is paid wages and salaries under the PAYE (Pay as You Earn) tax system.

4. The total Universal Basic Income payments are initially about NZ $23 billion/year and the total Debt Jubilee Income payments are initially about NZ$7 billion/year. The money to make the payments will be created debt-free and interestfree by the Reserve Bank and administered by a New Zealand Debt Management Authority (NZDMA).

5. The payments made to indebted persons and businesses will be used to retire their bank debt. The payments made to non-indebted persons and businesses will be invested in a New Zealand Public Development Fund (NZPDF) that will pay tax-free interest on the deposits at around 2.3%/year, a figure comparable to the existing average deposit interest rate after taking into account reduced inflation and taxation.

The NZDPF money will be used to fund new productive development both public and private. NZPDF acts as a publicly owned Savings and Loan institution for the purposes of new productive investment.

6. About NZ$ 15 billion of bank debt will be retired during the first year, leaving new deposits of about NZ$15 billion, roughly similar to the present financial system.

7. Bank deposit holders will be able to invest in a Public Investment Trust Account (PITA) that will act as a publicly-owned Savings and Loan institution to manage the on-lending of deposits to fund the exchange of existing assets and to provide personal loans (including student loans and credit cards).

8. Bank balance sheets will still grow, but there will be little bank debt. Instead, secondary lending will be 100% backed by monetary deposits. Banks will be paid a spread of around 1.7%/year for their services, comparable to what they get now after taking into account that their lending becomes largely risk free. Normal debt repayment is guaranteed through the Universal Basic Income and Debt Jubilee

Income accounts.

Natural Stabilizers to achieve a Steady State Economy.

http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/Interest-and-inflation-free-money.pdf  (for full details of below)

Prof. Dr. Margrit Kennedy is an architect, an ecologist, a financial expert and a critic of the prevailing economic system. As a Professor she headed the department of "Technological Advancement and Resource Efficient Construction" at the Universtiy of Hannover's architecture school. As early as 1982 she recognized that the broader application of ecological principals was inhibited by fundamental flaws in the monetary system, especially the consistent need for economic growth resulting from interest and compound interest.

Through her continuous research and scrutiny she became an expert on the subject, working on practical solutions for essential Problems:

How can we create a sustainable monetary system?

What characterizes monetary systems which do not collapse repeatedly and which serve us rather than control us?

Where can we find examples of well-working monetary systems in the past and present?

Within our monetary system we allow the operation of a hidden redistribution mechanism which constantly shuffles money from those who have less to those who have more money than they need: Thus, on the one hand, large amounts of money concentrate in the hands of ever fewer individuals and multinational corporations and, on the other, Third World Countries. will never be able to get out of debt in the current system, as by now they have to pay back several times the amount of what has been loaned to them.

The interest and compound interest mechanism not only creates an impetus for pathological economic growth, but also works against the constitutional rights of the individual in most democracies. If a constitution guarantees equal access of every individual to governmental services - and the money system may be defined as such - then it is illegal to have a system in which 10% of the people continually receive more than they pay for that service and 80% of the people receive less than they pay.

Many of the great political and religious leaders like Moses, Mohammed, Luther, Ghandi and most of the churches and spiritual groups throughout history have tried to reduce social injustice by prohibiting interest payments. They understood it as the main cause of social injustice. However, they did not come up with a practical solution to keep money in circulation. Thus, the archaic flaw in the system remained unchanged. The prohibition of interest payments among the Christian community by the Popes during the Middle Ages in Europe, for instance, just shifted the problem to the Jews. While the Jews were not allowed to take interest from each other, they could do so from the gentiles. If they took interest from each other they allowed a remission of debts every seventh year. Islamic banks, which follow Muslim law, are not allowed to take interest from their clients. Instead they become partners in the business to which they make a loan. Whether or not this is a better solution depends on the partners, but it certainly creates a more direct link between creditor and debtor.

3. A last misconception relates to the role of inflation in our economic system. For most people, inflation seems like an integral part of any money system, almost natural, since there is no country in the world without inflation. Few realize that this is just another form of taxation through which governments manage to overcome the worst problems of an increasing interest burden. Between 1950 and 85 the GNP in Germany increased 18 times, interest paid on debt, however, 51 times (Figure 5). Since the largest borrower on capital markets is the government, it pays the highest share of interest.

Obviously the larger the gap between increases in government income and government debt the higher the inflation needed. Printing money enables the government to reduce its debts. This is another way of making those 80% of the people who pay more interest than they gain, pay even more, since they cannot withdraw their assets into inflation resistant investments like those who are in the last 10% income bracket.

Two Further Effects:

Arms Race and Ecological Exploitation

Besides the social injustice of a constantly widening gap between the rich and the poor in industrially developing and industrialized nations alike, two further problems associated with the interest system need to be identified: the arms race and ecological exploitation of the earth.

1. The present concentration of money in the hands of ever fewer people or large multinational corporations creates a constant pressure for large-scale investments, e.g. atomic power plants, huge dams for hydroelectric power, and arms. Seen from a purely economical angle, the politically contradictory behaviour of the U.S. and Europe installing bigger and better weapons against Russia on the one hand, and sending butter, wheat and technological know-how to Russia on the other, made perfect economic sense: military production was one area where the saturation point could be postponed indefinitely as long as the enemy was equally able to develop faster and better weapons. And profits in the military sector were far beyond any profits made in the civil sectors of our economy. While capital investments in the latter often have returns around 2-5%, the military sector often averages returns around 50%.

2. A further problem may be seen in the vast field of ecological investment. Let us take an investment in solar collectors as an example. If they only allow a 2% return on our money, it would be economically unwise to invest in this sensible, ecological technology for preparing hot water, since in a bank it returns at least 6%.The bank in turn usually has to invest it in less ecological projects. Therefore, as long as every investment must compete with the money making power of money on the money market, most ecological investments, aimed at creating sustainable systems (i.e. stopping quantitative growth at an optimal level, see curve a Figure 1), don't have a chance.

The Solution 

At the beginning of this century, a practical solution was formulated by a German merchant, called Silvio Gesell, which would eliminate the problems caused by interest. Instead of paying people a reward (= interest) in order to bring surplus money back into circulation he suggested that they would have to pay a small penalty if they did not. He proposed to use money as a public service instead as a private good.

An Example

Between 1932 and 1933, the small Austrian town of Worgl started one of the first model experiments, which has been an inspiration to all who have been concerned with the issue of monetary reform, up to this day. Within one year, the 12 .600,- “Free Schillings”(i.e. Interest free Shillings) circulated 463 times, thus creating goods and services worth over 2.547.360,- Schillings.(valued in 1995 at approx. 63.684.000,- Schillings) At a time when most countries in Europe had severe problems with decreasing numbers of jobs, Worgl reduced its unemployment rate by 25% within this one year. Income from taxes increased by 35% and investments in public works by 220%. The fee collected by the town government

which caused the money to change hands so quickly amounted to a total of 12% of the12.600,- Free Schillings, which is 1.512,- Schillings. This was used for public purposes and thus no single individual gained by it, but the community as a whole. In addition, the need for exchanging goods and services determined the pace of circulation and not the fee. If the town would had borrowed the 12.600,-Schillings on the money market they would have paid back three to four times the same amount over 10 to 20 years.

When, however, over 300 communities in Austria began to be interested in adopting this model, the Austrian National Bank saw its own monopoly endangered. It clamped down on the town and prohibited the printing of its own money.

Practical Possibilities Today

As 90% of all monetary transactions are just numbers in a computer, the payment modalities of today would make a “use-fee”on money technically a much simpler issue. Everyone would have two accounts: one current account and one savings account. The money on the current account which is at the disposal of the owner continually would be treated like cash and lose as little as 1/2% per month or 6% per year. Anyone with more money in his current account than needed for the payment of all expenses in a particular month would be prompted by this small circulation fee or demurrage to transfer the amount not needed for some time to a savings account. From there, the bank would be under the obligation to pass this money on to those who needed it for a certain amount of time and, therefore, on the savings account it would not be debited with a fee.

By the same token, the money owner would not receive any interest on his or her savings account - but the money would retain its value. (As soon as interest is abolished, inflation becomes unnecessary - see above.) Equally, the person receiving credit would not pay interest, but a risk premium and bank charges quite comparable to those contained in every bank loan today. It amounts to about 2.5% of normal credit costs.

Thus, very little would change in practice. Banks would operate as usual, except that they would be more interested in giving loans, because they too would be subject to the same use fee that everyone else would have to pay, were they to sit on their money. In order to prevent the hoarding of cash, one additional technical aspect of the implementation of such a monetary reform would be to recall one particular series of banknotes once a year, or all bank notes every second year without prior announcement.

The basis of this reform would be a fairly accurate adaptation of the amount of money created to the amount of money needed to handle all transactions in the exchange of goods and services within and without a given geographical area, region or nation. Money would now follow a “natural” physical growth pattern (curve a, Fig. 1 ) and no longer an exponential one. When enough money has been created to serve all transactions, no more would have to be produced.

Prospective Results

Within the larger context of a global transformation of values and behavioural patterns as well as other changes such as land and tax reforms the change in our monetary system will hopefully assist the switch from quantitative growth to qualitative growth. As people would have the choice of leaving their money in a savings account where it would keep its value, or to invest it in a beautiful piece of furniture, an art work or a solidly-built house which equally would keep their respective values, they might well opt for those investments which would enrich their daily lives. Moreover, the more that lasting quality is asked for, the more it would be produced.

My question for any public representative that has shown the respect of my efforts to read the above is;

“If you continue to support the status quo of New Zealand's entirely interest bearing private, mainly foreign originated, loan based money system, can you please give me your explanation of how under the current terms and conditions that growth can exceed the debt you are forced to take on to attempt to achieve the growth.?”

If you cant? Can you please use the time, money and resources the citizens and businesses of legitimate enterprise provide for you - to protect them from financial free raiders!

Thank you for your time

Iain Parker