While The American Monetary Institute is responsible for its present form, the Act is based on Aristotelian monetary concepts in existence since at least the 4th century BC and employed successfully in a variety of monetary systems since then, ranging from democratic Athens to republican Rome. It is not merely a theory – its main elements have a long history of successful implementation in major societies around the world, including the American Colonies and the United States. These concepts enabled us to first establish the U.S. and then to maintain it as one nation.

The following brief summary: The Need for Monetary Reform serves as a preface to the American Monetary Act. (It was written before the banks brought down the world economy!)

… The power to create money is an awesome power – at times stronger than the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers combined. It’s like having a “magic checkbook,” where checks can’t bounce. When controlled privately it can be used to gain riches, but much more importantly it determines the direction of our society by deciding where the money goes – what gets funded and what does not. Will it be used to build and repair vital infrastructure such as the New Orleans levees and Minneapolis bridges to protect major cities? Or will it go into warfare and real estate loans creating the real estate bubble – leading to a crash and depression.

Thus the money issuing power should never be alienated from democratically elected government and placed ambiguously into private hands as it is in America in the Federal Reserve System today. Indeed, most people would be surprised to learn that the bulk of our money supply is not created by our government, but by private banks when they make loans. Through the Fed’s fractional reserve process the system creates “money” when banks make loans into accounts; so most of our money is issued as interest-bearing debt (see page 14 below).

Under the Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, our government has the sovereign power to issue money and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare, for example, through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure – health and education – rather than misusing the money system for speculation as banking has historically done; periodically causing one crisis after another. Our lawmakers must now reclaim that power! …

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First, incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury where all new money would be created by government as money, not interest-bearing debt; and be spent into circulation to promote the general welfare. The monetary system would be monitored to be neither inflationary nor deflationary.

Second, halt the bank’s privilege to create money by ending the fractional reserve system in a gentle and elegant way. All the past monetized private credit would be converted into U.S. government money. Banks would then act as intermediaries accepting savings deposits and loaning them out to borrowers. They would do what people think they do now. This Act nationalizes the money system, not the banking system. Banking is not a proper function of government, but providing the nation’s money supply is a government prerogative!

Third, spend new money into circulation on 21st century eco-friendly infrastructure and energy sources, including the education and healthcare needed for a growing and improving society, starting with the $2.2 trillion that the Civil Engineers estimate is needed over the next 5 years, for infrastructure repair; creating good jobs across our nation, re-invigorating local economies and re-funding local government at all levels.

The false specter of inflation is always raised against such suggestions that our government fulfill its responsibility to furnish the nation’s money supply. But that is a knee-jerk reaction – the result of decades, even centuries of propaganda against government.* When one actually examines the monetary record, it becomes clear that government has a far superior record in issuing and controlling money than the private issuers have had.* Inflation is avoided because real material wealth has been created in the process. Research and development of superior pollution-free technologies is facilitated…

…My Friends, our Great Task is to complete that part of government left inadequately defined by the founders; to more precisely define the money power in our society and bring it securely within the proven system of checks and balances they established. History shows that the money power will act like a fourth branch whether we recognize it as such or not. It’s not safe to leave so much power and privilege in private hands! It’s counter to our system of checks and balances. The developing crisis requires us to re-evaluate and focus on it now. We must not shrink from our responsibility to begin implementing the long known solutions to this problem. We start by placing the “money power” within our government where it obviously belongs. Or would you prefer to let “Enron” continue to control it, and us? And yes – Enron was on the Dallas Fed Board!

As the late Congressman Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency for over 16 years, said, “I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money….I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.”

Friends, look around you. That time has certainly come! Awaken – get up and fight for your family and nation.

Thanks for your attention,

Stephen Zarlenga Director