Articles by Ellen Brown
We found 129 results.
Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2024
5 Nov 2024 – North Carolina: The raging floods were triggered by unprecedented rainfall and winds. On Sept 27, when the floods hit, evacuation orders were issued to residents near a number of critical dams due to their reported “imminent failure” or “catastrophic collapse.”
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The Florida State Sunshine Bank: How a State-Owned Bank Can Protect Free Speech
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2024
14 Sep 2024 – Fifteen years have passed since the Occupy Wall Street movement focused attention on the inequities and hazards of large Wall Street banks, particularly those risky banks with trillions of dollars in derivatives on their books.
→ read full articleHow Unelected Regulators Unleashed the Derivatives Monster – and How It Might Be Tamed
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Aug 2024
4 Aug 2024 – While the world is absorbed in the U.S. election drama, the derivatives time bomb continues to tick menacingly backstage. Warren Buffet famously labeled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002. Twenty years later, financial commentators have put it as high as $3.7 quadrillion.
→ read full articleThe Supreme Court Takes on the Administrative State
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2024
15 Jul 2024 – In a highly controversial decision, the Supreme Court on June 28 reversed a 40-year old ruling, reclaiming the Court’s role as interpreter of statutory law as it applies to a massive body of regulations imposed by federal agencies in such areas as the environment, workplace safety, public health and more.
→ read full articleWhy Does the US Government Borrows when It Can Print?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jun 2024
19 Jun 2024 – In the first seven months of FY 2024, net interest on the US federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined.
→ read full articleTackling California’s Budget Crisis: Raise Taxes, Cut Programs, or Form a Bank?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 May 2024
8 May 2024 – The usual solutions are to cut programs or raise taxes, but both approaches are facing an uphill battle. The remedy for unemployment is employment, and the remedy for the unhoused is affordable housing. An I-Bank expanded into a state-owned depository bank could provide both.
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By the Dawn’s Early Light: On the Fall of the Francis Scott Key Bridge
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2024
7 Apr 2024 – The Baltimore bridge that collapsed on 26 March was named for Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the US national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814. His inspiration was the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the critical port of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The British had just burned the U.S. Capitol and the White House.
→ read full articleThe Public Bank That Wasn’t: New Jersey’s Excursion into Public Banking
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Mar 2024
9 Mar 2024 – In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials.
→ read full articleDefusing the Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2024
16 Feb 2024 – The “protected class” is granted “safe harbor” only because their bets are so risky that to let them fail could crash the economy. But why let them bet at all?
→ read full articleCasino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2024
In 2008, derivatives brought down investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer A.I.G. They could not fail because the trillions of dollars in credit default swaps would have been wiped out, forcing banks and financial institutions to write down their own risky and now “unhedged” loans. Bear and A.I.G. were bailed out; but the Treasury drew the line at Lehman Brothers, and the market crashed.
→ read full articleThree US Presidents Who Made Thanksgiving a National Holiday — and What They Were Thankful for
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2023
24 Nov 2023 – All three were giving thanks for bringing the country through a major financial crisis related to war, and they achieved it through the “American system” of banking and finance.
→ read full article“The Great Taking”: How They Can Own It All
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2023
3 Oct 2023 – The derivatives bubble exceeds one quadrillion dollars. The GDP of the world is $105 trillion, or 10% of one quadrillion; the collective wealth of the world is $360 trillion. The bubble looks ready to pop. We need to design an alternative financial system that is equitable and sustainable.
→ read full articleMore Banks to Fail? Not in North Dakota
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2023
1 Sep 2023 – North Dakota has the fastest growing GDP per capita in the country and its banks are thriving, backstopped by the nation’s only state-owned bank.
→ read full articleWar by Other Means: Short Selling JPMorgan
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2023
10 Aug 2023 – As was said of Lehman Brothers fifteen years earlier, the targeted banks did not fall; they were pushed. One blogger shows how even JPMorgan Chase, the US largest bank, could be pushed — not perhaps by local short-sellers, but by China. And that is another good reason not to provoke the Chinese Dragon into “war by other means.”
→ read full articleThe Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2023
14 Jul 2023 – The US achieved its greatest-ever infrastructure campaign in the Great Depression. We can do that again with the same machinery: off-budget financing through a government-owned financial institution. It is good to have viable alternatives when, as in the 1930s, politicians are compelled to seek them out.
→ read full articleAnother Look at the U.S. Financial Transactions Tax That Could Eliminate Need for All Others
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2023
2 Jun 2023 – A small financial transactions tax could correct a number of maladies in the US economic system, from the federal debt crisis to the widening wealth divide to the rampant financialization of the economy, while eliminating taxes on income and sales.
→ read full articleSqueezed by the Shorts: Time to Ban Short Selling?
Ellen Brown | ScheerPost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2023
17 May 2023 – Short sellers have made a killing in the recent banking crisis, scalping $14.3 billion from bank stock owners just in March of this year. Short sellers “borrow” stock they don’t own and immediately sell it, driving the price down. Then they buy it back at the lower price, return the stock, and pocket the difference.
→ read full articleHow the War on Crypto Triggered a Banking Crisis
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2023
29 Apr 2023 – Facts & Info – Expert Analysis
→ read full articleThe Cobalt Gold Rush and the East Palestine Train Disaster
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2023
13 Apr 2023 – Holidays in my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ farm in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania, 35 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. I have therefore taken a keen interest in the toxic chemical disaster in East Palestine on 3 Feb. The official narrative doesn’t seem to add up. Something else must have been going on, but what?
→ read full articleBanking Crisis 3.0: Time to Change the Rule[r]s of the Game
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2023
Bail In, Bail Out, or “Socialism for the Rich”?
→ read full articleThe Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2023
On10 March Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest in the country, collapsed. This was the second largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, following Washington Mutual in 2008. Despite its size, SVB was not a “systemically important financial institution” as defined in the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires insolvent SIFIs to “bail in” the money of their creditors to recapitalize themselves.
→ read full articleWhat Will Happen When Banks Go Bust? Bank Runs, Bail-Ins and Systemic Risk
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2023
25 Feb 2023 – “Bail-ins:” the provision allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. So how big is the risk to your deposit account? From Bailouts to Bail-Ins.
→ read full articleSolving the Debt Crisis the North American Way
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2023
20 Jan 2023 – Our forefathers turned their debts into currency. That Constitutional approach could work today.
→ read full articleUSA: How to Green Our Parched Farmlands and Finance Critical Infrastructure
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2022
2 Sep 2022 – There are work-arounds the U.S. can use to fund affordable housing, drought responses, and other urgently-needed infrastructure that was left out of the two recent spending bills.
→ read full articleInterest Rate Hikes Will Not Save Us from Inflation
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2022
27 Jul 2022 – Rather than making money harder to get, the U.S. government needs to focus on the other side of the demand vs. supply inflation equation.
→ read full articleAchieving Self-Funding Local Sovereignty as Global Food Systems Collapse
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2022
9 Jul 2022 – The solution to the current food crisis is small and local, including growing food locally. But how to fund local food co-ops without pricey loans from big banks? “Deglobalizing” and “dedollarizing” have been much in the news.
→ read full articleThe Food Shortage Solution in Your Own Backyard
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2022
9 Jun 2022 – A confluence of crises—lockdowns and business closures, mandates and worker shortages, supply chain disruptions and inflation, sanctions and war—have compounded to trigger food shortages; and we have been warned that they may last longer than the food stored in our pantries. What to do?
→ read full articleA Reset That Serves the People
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2022
19 May 2022 – Instead of buying into the World Economic Forum’s dystopian “Great Reset,” we can build an alternative system with a mandate to serve the people.
→ read full articleA Monetary Reset Where the Rich Don’t Own Everything
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2022
5 May 2022 – We have a serious debt problem, but solutions such as the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” are not the future we want. It’s time to think outside the box for some new solutions.
→ read full articleThe Coming Global Financial Revolution: Russia Is Following the American Playbook
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2022
5 Apr 2022 – No country has successfully challenged the U.S. dollar’s global hegemony—until now. How did this happen and what will it mean? it could well mean the end of the petrodollar as sole global reserve currency, and the end of the devastating petroleum wars it has funded to maintain its dominance.
→ read full articleRather Than Sink Main Street by Raising Interest Rates, the Fed Could Save It. Here’s How.
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Feb 2022
Today’s price inflation was triggered not so much by “too much money” as by “too little supply,” due to U.S. lockdowns and mandates. The Fed can help restock consumer supplies using tools that include Open Market Operations to counteract speculation, and the Discount Window to purchase loans from local banks willing to fund Main Street businesses if they had some help from the national Lender of Last Resort.
→ read full articleThe Real Antidote to Inflation: Stoking the Fire without Burning Down the Barn
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Dec 2021
24 Dec 2021 The Fed has options for countering the record inflation the U.S. is facing that are more productive and less risky than raising interest rates.
→ read full articleThe Case for a Central Bank Digital Currency
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2021
23 Nov 2021 – Whether the U.S. should have its own Central Bank Digital Currency is hotly debated. Several countries, including China, already have CBDCs in operation. Prof. Saule Omarova, President Biden’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency, is in favor and has made a strong case for it.
→ read full articleConservation or Land Grab? The Financialization of Nature
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Nov 2021
5 Nov 2021 – Just in time for the UN’s policy push for “30 x 30” – 30% of the earth to be “conserved” by 2030 – a new Wall Street asset class puts up for sale the processes underpinning all life.
→ read full articleA New Water Source That Could Make Drought a Thing of the Past
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Oct 2021
1 Oct 2021 – Oceans of water are beneath our feet, and new technologies are extracting it economically without ecological damage.
→ read full articleNature’s Own Fuel Could Save Us from the Greenhouse Effect and Electric Grid Failure
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Aug 2021
30 Jul 2021 – On July 14, the EU unveiled sweeping climate change and emissions targets that would mean “the end of the internal combustion engine.” Hemp fuel and other biofuels could quickly reduce carbon emissions while saving the electric grid, but they’re often overlooked for more expensive, high-tech climate solutions.
→ read full articleHow America Went from Mom-and-Pop Capitalism to Techno-Feudalism
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 May 2021
19 May 2021 – The crisis of 2020 has created the greatest wealth gap in history. The middle class, capitalism and democracy are all under threat. What went wrong and what can be done?
→ read full articleWill 2021 Be Public Banking’s Watershed Moment?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Mar 2021
4 Mar 2021 – Just over two months into the new year, 2021 has already seen a flurry of public banking activity. Sixteen new bills to form publicly-owned banks or facilitate their formation were introduced in eight U.S. states just in Jan and Feb. Faced with the dire Covid-19 crisis, some lawmakers are starting to see publicly-owned banks as the key to ensuring an equitable economic recovery.
→ read full articleThe Gamers’ Uprising against Wall Street Has Deep Populist Roots
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
11 Feb 2021 – A short squeeze frenzy driven by a new generation of gamers captured financial headlines in recent weeks, centered on a struggling strip mall video game store called GameStop. Wall Street may own the country, but a new generation of “retail” stock market traders is fighting back.
→ read full articleTackling the Infrastructure and Unemployment Crises: The “American System” Solution
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
18 Dec 2020 – A self-funding national infrastructure bank modeled on the “American System” of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt would help solve not one but two of the country’s biggest problems.
→ read full articleWhy the Fed Needs Public Banks
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
3 Dec 2020 – The Fed’s policy tools – interest rate manipulation, quantitative easing, and “Special Purpose Vehicles” – have all failed to revive local economies suffering from government-mandated shutdowns. The Fed must rely on private banks to inject credit into Main Street, and private banks are currently unable or unwilling to do it. The tools the Fed actually needs are public banks, which could and would do the job.
→ read full articleFrom Lockdown to Police State: The “Great Reset” Rolls Out
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
22 Aug 2020 – Questioning the unreliability of the tests in a Wired interview, even Bill Gates acknowledged that most US test results are “garbage.” The Polymerase Chain Reaction technology used in the nasal swab test for COVID-19 detection was regarded by its own inventor, Nobel prize winner Kary Mullis, as inappropriate to detect viral infection. “Excess mortality rates are caused by therapy and lockdown while death statistics include diseases redefined as COVID-19 only because of a “positive” test result whose value could not be more doubtful.”
→ read full articleMeet BlackRock, the New Great Vampire Squid
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
22 Jun 2020 – BlackRock is a global financial giant with customers in 100 countries and its tentacles in major asset classes all over the world; and it now manages the spigots to trillions of bailout dollars from the Federal Reserve. The fate of a large portion of the country’s corporations has been put in the hands of a megalithic private entity with the private capitalist mandate to make as much money as possible for its owners and investors; and that is what it has proceeded to do.
→ read full articleWhen Profits and Politics Drive Science: The Hazards of Rushing a Vaccine at “Warp Speed”
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2020
4 Jun 2020 – More than 100 companies are competing to be first in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market. It’s a race against time, not because the death rate is climbing but because it is falling – to the point where there could soon be too few subjects to prove the effectiveness of the drug.
→ read full articleAnother Bank Bailout under Cover of a Virus
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
18 May 2020 – Insolvent Wall Street banks have been quietly bailed out again. Banks made risk-free by the government should be public utilities.
→ read full articleCrushing the States, Saving the Banks: The Fed’s Generous New Rules
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
2 May 2020 – The banks are making extremely well in this crisis. The Federal Reserve has dropped interest rates to 0.25%, eliminated reserve requirements, and relaxed capital requirements. Banks can now borrow effectively for free. Following the playbook of the 2008-09 bailout, they can make the funds available to their Wall Street cronies to buy up distressed Main Street assets at fire sale prices, while continuing to lend to credit cardholders at 21%.
→ read full articleA Universal Basic Income Is Essential and Will Work
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 – A central bank-financed UBI can fill the debt gap, providing a vital safety net while preventing cyclical recessions. Spain is slated to become the first country in Europe to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) on a long-term basis. Its Minister for Economic Affairs has announced plans to roll out a UBI “as soon as possible,” with the goal of providing a nationwide basic wage that supports citizens “forever.”
→ read full articleWas the Fed Just Nationalized?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
3 Apr 2020 – Did Congress just nationalize the Fed? No. But the door to that result has been cracked open.
→ read full articleSocialism at Its Finest after Fed’s Bazooka Fails
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2020
21 Mar 2020 – In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.
→ read full articleThe Fed’s Baffling Response to the Coronavirus Explained
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
11 Mar 2020 – The next time the country’s largest banks become insolvent, rather than bailing them out it should nationalize them. The banks could then be used to fund infrastructure and other government projects to stimulate the economy, following the model of China.
→ read full articleMexico’s President AMLO Shows How It’s Done
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
8 Feb 2020 – While U.S. advocates and local politicians struggle to get their first public banks chartered, Mexico’s new president has begun construction on 2,700 branches of a government-owned bank to be completed in 2021, when it will be the largest bank in the country. At a press conference on Jan. 6, he said the neoliberal model had failed; private banks were not serving the poor and people outside the cities, so the government had to step in.
→ read full articleThe Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
10 Jan 2020 – This does not serve the real economy, in which products, services and jobs are created. However, the Fed is trapped into this speculative monetary expansion to avoid a cascade of defaults of the sort it was facing with the long-term capital management crisis in 1998 and the Lehman crisis in 2008. The repo market is a fragile house of cards waiting for a strong wind to blow it down, propped up by misguided monetary policies that have forced central banks to underwrite its highly risky ventures.
→ read full articleThe Key to the Environmental Crisis Is Beneath Our Feet
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2019
28 Dec 2019 – The problem may be that a transition to 100% renewables is the wrong target. Reversing climate change need not mean emptying our pockets and tightening our belts. It is possible to sequester carbon and restore our collapsing ecosystem using the financial resources we already have, and it can be done while at the same time improving the quality of our food, water, air and general health.
→ read full articlePaul Volcker’s Long Shadow
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
13 Dec 2019 – Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called Paul Volcker “the most effective chairman in the history of the Federal Reserve.” But while Volcker, who passed away Dec. 8 at age 92, probably did have the greatest historical impact of any Fed chairman, his legacy is, at best, controversial.
→ read full articlePublic Banks: Good Solution or Dangerous Gamble?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019 – What is a public bank and how does it differ from private banks? I just finished a run of 11 presentations and in-person interviews. Here’s a video from one, a debate with a county official sponsored by the League of Women Voters, and two power points from another, the Soil and Nutrition Conference.
→ read full articleIs the Run on the Dollar Due to Panic or Greed?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
7 Nov 2019 – Why are banks no longer lending to each other? Are they afraid that collapse is imminent somewhere in the system, as with the Lehman collapse in 2008? Perhaps, and if so the likely suspect is Deutsche Bank. But it looks to be just another case of Wall Street fattening itself at the public trough.
→ read full articleRestoring the Korean Economic Miracle
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
This paper was written for the Economics of Happiness Conference co-sponsored by Local Futures, held in Jeonju, Korea, on October 16-17, where I was the keynote speaker — a wonderful city and great experience!
→ read full articleThe Disaster of Negative Interest Rates
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
29 Sep 2019 – President Trump wants negative interest rates, but they would be disastrous for the U.S. economy; his objectives can be better achieved by other means.
→ read full articleDesperate Central Bankers Grab for More Power
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
18 Sep 2019 – Conceding that their grip on the economy is slipping, central bankers are proposing a radical economic reset that would shift yet more power from government to themselves.
→ read full articleThe Key to a Sustainable Economy Is 5,000 Years Old
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2019
30 Aug 2019 – We are again reaching the point known as “peak debt,” when debts have compounded to the point that their cumulative total cannot be paid. Student debt, credit card debt, auto loans, business debt and sovereign debt are all higher than they have ever been. As economist Michael Hudson writes, “Debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid.” The question, he says, is ‘how’ they won’t be paid.
→ read full articleNeoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
9 Aug 2019 – America’s chief competitor in the trade war is obviously China, which subsidizes not just worker costs but the costs of its businesses. The government owns 80% of the banks. Typically, if the businesses cannot repay the loans, neither the banks nor the businesses are put into bankruptcy. The non-performing loans are just carried on the books or written off. No private creditors are hurt, since the creditor is the government, and the loans were created on the banks’ books in the first place (following standard banking practice globally).
→ read full articleThe Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
25 Jul 2019 – Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis. For skeptics who reject the global warming thesis, reforestation also addresses the critical problems of mass species extinction and environmental pollution, which are well documented. Rather than engaging in endless debates over carbon taxes and Silicon Valley-style technological fixes, we need to be regenerating our soils, our forests and our oceans with nature’s own plant solutions.
→ read full articleLibra: Facebook’s Audacious Bid for Global Monetary Control
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jul 2019
On June 18, Facebook unveiled a white paper outlining ambitious plans to create a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, to be launched in 2020. It has high hopes that Libra will become the foundation for a new financial system free of control by Wall Street and central banks. But it will not be competing with Visa or Mastercard, which are among its 28 soon-to-be co-founding members, including Paypal, Stripe, Uber, Lyft and eBay.
→ read full articleThe American Dream Is Alive and Well—in China
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jun 2019
14 Jun 2019 – Unlike the U.S. government, the Chinese government supports its workers and its industries. Rather than penalizing China for that “unfair” trade practice, perhaps the U.S. government should try doing the same. China’s legacy is socialist, and after opening to international trade it has continued to serve the collective good, particularly of its workers. Meanwhile, the U.S. model has been regressing into feudalism, with workers driven into slave-like conditions through debt.
→ read full articleThe Bankers’ “Power Revolution”: How the Government Got Shackled by Debt
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jun 2019
31 May 2019 – The debt-growth model has reached its limits, as even the Bank for International Settlements, the “central bankers’ bank” in Switzerland, acknowledges. The BIS said that debt levels were too high, productivity growth was too low, and the room for policy maneuver was too narrow. “The global economy cannot afford to rely any longer on the debt-fueled growth model that has brought it to the current juncture,” the BIS warned. But the solutions it proposed would continue the austerity policies long imposed on countries that cannot pay their debts.
→ read full article
Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 May 2019
25 May 2019 – Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age, by Ellen Brown, Democracy Collaborative (June 1, 2019). Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.
→ read full articleThe Public Banking Revolution Is Upon Us
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2019
18 Apr 2019 – As public banking gains momentum across the country, policymakers in California and Washington State are vying to form the nation’s second state-owned bank, following in the footsteps of the highly successful Bank of North Dakota, founded in 1919.
→ read full articleWhy Is the Fed Paying So Much Interest to Banks?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Apr 2019
3 Apr 2019 – Combining postal banks with a network of local public banks having affordable access to the Fed’s deep pocket could provide a safe and efficient public banking option for individuals, businesses and local governments.
→ read full articleMonetary Policy Takes Center Stage: MMT, QE or Public Banks?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2019
21 Mar 2019 – As alarm bells sound over the advancing destruction of the environment, a variety of Green New Deal proposals have appeared in the U.S. and Europe, along with some interesting academic debates about how to fund them. Monetary policy, normally relegated to obscure academic tomes and bureaucratic meetings behind closed doors, has suddenly taken center stage.
→ read full articleQE Forever: The Fed’s Dramatic About-face
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2019
21 Feb 2019 – Loans create deposits, and deposits make up the bulk of the money supply. Money today is created by banks as a debt on their balance sheets, and more is always owed back than was created, since the interest claimed by the banks is not created in the original loan. Debt thus grows faster than the money supply. When overextended borrowers quit taking out the new loans needed to repay old loans, the gap widens even further.
→ read full articleThe Venezuela Myth Keeping Us from Transforming Our Economy
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2019
9 Feb 2019 – Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule.
→ read full articleWhy Germany Leads in Renewables: It Has Its Own Green Bank
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2019
26 Jan 2019 – The leader in renewable energy is Germany, called “the world’s first major renewable energy economy.” Germany has a public sector development bank called KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau or “Reconstruction Credit Institute”), which is even larger than the World Bank. Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while turning a blind eye to external costs, including those imposed on the environment.
→ read full articleUniversal Basic Income Is Easier Than It Looks
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2018
28 Dec 2018 – The pros and cons of a UBI are hotly debated and have been discussed elsewhere. The point here is to show that it could actually be funded year after year without driving up taxes or prices. New money is continually being added to the money supply, but it is added as debt created privately by banks.
→ read full articleThis Radical Plan to Fund the ‘Green New Deal’ Just Might Work
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2018
17 Dec 2018 – With what Naomi Klein calls “galloping momentum,” the “Green New Deal” promoted by newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop.
→ read full articleCentral Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Sep 2018
14 Sep 2018 – Central bankers are now aggressively playing the stock market. To say they are buying up the planet may be an exaggeration, but they could. They can create money at will, and they have declared their “independence” from government. They have become rogue players in a game of their own.
→ read full articleHow China’s Mobile Ecosystems Are Making Banks Obsolete
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2018
23 Aug 2018 – Giant Chinese tech companies have bypassed credit cards and banks to create their own low-cost digital payment systems.
→ read full article
The Bayer-Monsanto Merger: Empowering a Life-Destroying Cartel
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Ellen Brown, Nick Meyer and Michael Welch– Global Research,
28 May 2018
20 May 2018 – This merger has implications not only for what goes on our dinner plate. There are questions of economic and political control that need to be addressed. Critics argue that the power of these economic giants is such that they have ‘captured’ regulatory agencies. Limitless financial resources permit these and similar companies to buy off academics, media and politicians.
→ read full articleFox in the Hen House: Why Interest Rates Are Rising
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2018
22 Apr 2018 – The Federal Reserve calls itself “independent,” but it is independent only of government. It marches to the drums of the banks that are its private owners. Congress needs to nationalize the Fed and turn it into a public utility, one that is responsive to the needs of the public and the economy, not of the banks.
→ read full articleThe Bayer-Monsanto Merger Is Bad News for the Planet
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Apr 2018
4 Apr 2018 – Bayer and Monsanto have a long history of collusion to poison the ecosystem for profit. The Trump administration should veto their merger not just to protect competitors but to ensure human and planetary survival.
→ read full articleFunding Infrastructure: Why China Is Running Circles around America
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2018
“One Belt, One Road,” China’s $1 trillion infrastructure initiative, is a massive undertaking of highways, pipelines, transmission lines, ports, power stations, fiber optics, and railroads connecting China to Central Asia, Europe and Africa. “It is the largest infrastructure project initiated by one nation in the history of the world and is designed to enable China to become the dominant economic power in the world.”
→ read full articleHow Uncle Sam Launders Marijuana Money
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 – In a blatant example of “do as I say, not as I do,” the US government is profiting handsomely by accepting marijuana cash in the payment of taxes while imposing huge penalties on banks for accepting it as deposits.
→ read full article
Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young (Part 1)
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
26 Dec 2017 – Higher education has been financialized, transformed from a public service into a lucrative cash cow for private investors.
→ read full articleStudent Debt Slavery: Time to Level the Playing Field (Part 2)
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
5 Jan 2018 – The lending business is heavily stacked against student borrowers. Bigger players can borrow for almost nothing, and if their investments don’t work out, they can put their corporate shells through bankruptcy and walk away. Not so with students.
→ read full articleCentral Bank Digital Currencies: A Revolution in Banking?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2016
Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse).
→ read full articleThe War on Weed Part II: Monsanto, Bayer, and the Push for Corporate Cannabis
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2016
California’s “Adult Use of Marijuana Act” is a voter initiative characterized as legalizing marijuana use. But critics warn that it will actually make access more difficult and expensive, squeeze home growers and small farmers out of the market, heighten criminal sanctions for violations, and open the door to patented, genetically modified versions that must be purchased year after year.
→ read full articleBrexit and the Derivatives Time Bomb
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2016
Brexit could trigger a $500 trillion derivatives meltdown, by forcing the EU to allow insolvent member governments and banks to write down debt. Italy is in financial crisis and is already petitioning for that concession. How to avoid collapse of the massive derivatives house of cards? Alternatives are considered.
→ read full articleThe War on Weed Is Winding Down – But Will Monsanto Be the Winner?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
The war on cannabis that began in the 1930s seems to be coming to an end. Research shows that this natural plant, rather than posing a deadly danger to health, has a wide range of therapeutic benefits. But skeptics question the sudden push for legalization, which is largely funded by wealthy investors linked to Big Ag and Big Pharma.
→ read full articleThe War on Savings: The Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, and the Push to Go Cashless
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
In an April 3 article titled “Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak,” UK blogger Craig Murray writes that the whistleblower no doubt had good intentions; but he made the mistake of leaking his 11.5 million documents to the corporate-controlled Western media, which released only those few documents incriminating opponents of Western financial interests.
→ read full articleReinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2015
11 Dec 2015 – Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items:
→ read full articleHang Onto Your Wallets: Negative Interest, the War on Cash, and the $10 Trillion Bail-in
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
The War on Cash is advancing on all fronts. One region that has hogged the headlines with its war against physical currency is Scandinavia. Sweden became the first country to enlist its own citizens as largely willing guinea pigs in a dystopian economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society. As Credit Suisse reports, no matter where you go or what you want to purchase, you will find a small ubiquitous sign saying “Vi hanterar ej kontanter” (“We don’t accept cash”) . . . .
→ read full articleThe Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
‘Let’s have an independent commission look into how on earth it is possible that a cabal of unelected movers and shakers gets full control over the entire financial structure of a democratically elected eurozone member government.’ As Canadian PM William L. M. King warned in 1935: “Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation.”
→ read full articleGrexit or Jubilee? How Greek Debt Can Be Annulled
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
Greece’s creditors have finally brought the country to its knees, forcing President Alexis Tsipras to agree to austerity and privatization measures more severe than those overwhelmingly rejected by popular vote a week earlier. For Greece, leaving the EU may be perilous; but it opens provocative possibilities. The government could nationalize its insolvent banks along with its central bank, and start generating the credit the country desperately needs to get back on its feet.
→ read full article“Guerrilla Warfare against a Hegemonic Power”: The Challenge and Promise of Greece
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
9 Jul 2015 – Banks create money when they make loans. Greece could restore the liquidity desperately needed by its banks and its economy by nationalizing the banks and issuing digital loans backed by government guarantees to its ailing businesses. Greece could provide an inspiring model of sustainable prosperity for the world. But it is being strangled by a hegemonic power in a financial war that is being waged against us all.
→ read full article“Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards”: The Alice in Wonderland World of Fast-tracked Secret Trade Agreements
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
21 Jun 2015 – The terms of the TPP and the TiSA are so secret that drafts of the negotiations are to remain classified for four years or five years, respectively, after the deals have been passed into law. How can laws be enforced against people and governments who are not allowed to know what was negotiated?
→ read full articleFast-tracking TiSA: Stealth Block to Monetary Reform
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
Money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. So wrote David Graeber referring to a paper called “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.” The paper stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong. The result was to throw the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.
→ read full article(Français) Partenariat Trans-Pacifique et mort de la République
Ellen Brown, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2015
La juge Ellen Brown relève comment cet accord ferait passer le droit des multinationales avant celui des citoyens. Un problème qui se pose aussi à travers le TTIP.
→ read full articleThe Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the TPP, a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers. The TPP would elevate the rights of investors – also called the rights of “capital” – above the rights of the citizens.
→ read full articleThe ECB’s Noose around Greece: How Central Banks Harness Governments
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2015
Remember when the infamous Goldman Sachs delivered a threat to the Greek Parliament in December, warning them to elect a pro-austerity prime minister or have central bank liquidity cut off to their banks? The European Central Bank (headed by Mario Draghi, former managing director of Goldman Sachs) has now made good on the threat. ECB goons are demonstrating once again that toxic central banking is a mortal enemy of democracy.
→ read full articleRussian Roulette: Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Dec 2014
19 Dec 2014 – The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivative losses; and the FDIC could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act last weekend.
→ read full articleThe Global Bankers’ Coup: Bail-In and the Shadowy Financial Stability Board
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Dec 2014
For three centuries, private international banking interests have brought governments in line by blocking them from issuing their own currencies and requiring them to borrow banker-issued “banknotes” instead. Under the new FSB guidelines, nations could still be held in feudalistic subservience to foreign masters.
→ read full article