8th Annual AMI Monetary Reform Conference

Elizabeth Kucinich will speak on
Advocating for Monetary Reform

Elizabeth Kucinich addresses our conference on Thursday, September 20th. She has been a key supporter in Washington, DC, helping husband Dennis Kucinich, 7th term Congressman from Cleveland's 10th District, to introduce the historic monetary reform, HR 2990, the NEED Act (National Emergency Employment Defense Act). She participated with Dennis in his 2008 run for the Presidency of the United States of America. Hopefully Dennis will also address our group later in the conference, and he has agreed to do so on a provisional basis, subject to the Congressional schedule.

Prof. Michael Hudson speaks on
The European Crises: Debts That Can't be Paid, Won't be Paid!

Author, Super Imperialism and Global Fracture; editor, Debt and Economic Renewal in the Ancient Near East; economic commentator for National Public Radio; distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Chief Economic Advisor to the 2008 Kucinich for President campaign. Dr. Hudson was the first to publicly identify the mechanism of "Dollar Imperialism" through the U.S. balance of payments deficits. Always sharp and on target, just before the conference Prof. Hudson will have returned from a trip to Russia and his talk will also focus on the coming momentous and timely monetary developments in Europe.

Prof. Nicolaus Tideman will speak on
Money, Land and Justice

Prof. Tideman received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (where he studied under Milton Friedman and others); taught at Harvard and served as Senior Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors at the White House, before moving to Virginia Tech in 1973. He has been Professor of Economics there since 1985. While his research has focused primarily on urban economics, public finance, voting rules and social justice, in 1975 he collaborated with Nobel Laureate James Buchanan in writing on “Gold, Money and the Law.” Last year his topic is Dealing with Concern for the Possible Collapse of the Dollar.
Nic is a senior advisor to the American Monetary Institute. Note - neither the AMI nor Prof. Tideman is predicting or expecting a collapse of the Dollar. This year, Nic a leading "Georgist" in America, will speak on Money, Land and Justice.

Prof. Ed Stuart speaks on
Banks and Monetary Policy as Servant Not Master

The current state of monetary policy and financial institution structure has turned the means and ends of macroeconomic policy upside down. Policy should be in the service of social goals and values. Some of those goals, are written in the Employment Act of 1946 and specify what the economy should be trying to achieve. In the current "economic culture" of the U.S.A. and other advanced market economies, goals seem to be financial sector enlargement and profits. Monetary policy and financial institutions have nearly unquestioned carte blanche to pursue the ends of a small, and highly compensated, sector of the macroeconomy. What's needed is not only financial reform and structural change but a fundamental rethinking of social goals and economic culture.
Dr. Edward F. Stuart is Professor of Economics and International/ Intercultural Studies at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). He instructs classes in Macroeconomic Theory, International Economics, and The Economics of the European Union, European Economic History, and Comparative Economic Systems at Northeastern Illinois University where he has been a member of the Economics Department faculty since 1986.

Robert Poteat speaks on
The Case for Monetary Reform

Robert Poteat is one of America's most knowledgeable, reality based experts on our money system. A long term and meticulous monetary researcher, certainly among the top half dozen in America in awareness of monetary systems, and the leader of AMI's Northwest Chapters. Money has ceased to be a just means of exchange, if it ever was, and has become, or still is, a means of power and control.
Three hundred eighteen years (Bank of England, 1694) of private monetization of government debt as a monetary base has brought the world to an unsustainable level of intellectual corruption, inequity, injustice, plunder, violence, and pollution. It is long past time to reform it. Bob discusses why the American Monetary Act is needed in order to help resolve the greatest crises we now face.

Bob is a senior advisor to the American Montary Institute, and a recipient of the AMI Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jamie Walton speaks on
The American Monetary Act - Why all three elements are necessary, and what they will do

Jamie Walton, a very serious money reformer from New Zealand, will describe why all three elements of the American Monetary Act are necessary. Those three elements of this single reform are:
* Incorporation of the Federal Reserve into the U.S. Treasury;
* Changes in lending accounting rules so that banks no longer create any part of the money supply;
* New money needed in a developing society is introduced by government spending money into circulation on things like infrastructure, starting with the $2.2 trillion our engineers (ASCE) tell us is needed over the next 5 years. Also included will be the "human infrastructure" of education and health care. Jamie is an experienced civil engineer, and an AMI Researcher; he wrote the definitive expose showing why the proposal for states to go into the banking business is a distraction that reforms nothing, at this critical moment when reform is possible (see Ami homepage). For the past year, Jamie has worked in Washington in Congressman Kucinich's Office, helping with HR 2990, the monetary reform bill.

William Bergman discusses
National Emergency Powers and their Implications for Monetary Policy

William Bergman, economist and formerly an official at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, until he became a whistleblower on improper Federal Reserve practices. Well that ended his career at the Chicago Fed! Last year he reviewed the basic forms of market failures, outlining the perspective of the public choice school of economics on market failure and the role of government. This year he will discuss a constitutional legal topic with important implications for our monetary policy: The Implications of National Emergency Powers for Monetary Policy.

Joseph M. Pijanowski presents
American Labor, Our Forgotten Cornerstone of Wealth Creation

Joseph M. Pijanowski , the Directing Business Representative of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union - Local 126, is a dynamic, highly regarded Illinois union leader, of the nationally powerful Machinists and Aerospace workers union. Joe will focus on a major part of our nation's problem, and the monetary solution.
One of our most fundamental economic transactions has long ago been corrupted and forgotten while austerity and default loom large in an era of risky financial schemes, extreme wealth concentration, and spiraling debts. A debt free monetary system can unlock a vigorous and extraordinarily stable US economy. The restoration of this fundamental and potent transaction is the key.

David I. Kelley discusses
The Politics of Monetary Reform and Economic Justice

 Dave Kelley, Legal and Economic Researcher from Ohio's Cleveland area, has witnessed firsthand the growing disparity in income and the resulting impact on wealth over the last three decades as a Certified Financial Planner. The issues advisor to presidential, senatorial and congressional campaigns, Kelley is the author of two seminal books on pensions, hundreds of articles and columns in the financial area focusing on pensions and Social Security. Last year he detailed how vicious interest rates (over 32% annually!) were "legalized" in the U.S. and how to once again make them illegal! Recently David discussed The Politics of Monetary Reform and Economic Justice. This year he will discuss ways of working toward monetary reform.

Will Abram of Canada presents
The Reforms Instituted by Gerald Gratton McGeer

Will Abram of Duncan, British Columbia, (Long term monetary scholar), cannot travel at this point, but will present by video, the neglected story of Gerald G. McGeer, "father" of the Bank of Canada, who instituted major monetary reforms on the lines of the American Monetary Act. Canada used them successfully for decades, getting out of the Great Depression before the US and Great Britain. The great unrecognized importance of this is that Canada is a big industrial country not a tiny island (Guernsey). Thus the example of workability has far reaching and unignorable consequences (except by "economists"!) for the rest of the world.
Then in the 1970s Hayekian idealogues attacked them theoretically, with negative effect on all Canadians. Same thing they did in New Zealand! This is why such economists love to wallow in theory, and ignore the facts. This factual aspect of Will's Talk is presented by video since travel is impossible. It will show the methodology error of economists, ignoring the ill effect on humanity.
Will's talk, by video, will be presented by his friend Stu Hoffman.

Greg Coleridge speaks on a crucially important theme titled
Monetary reform - HR 2990 - The Solution to Any Coming Financial Tsunami

How HR 2990 solves the potential disasters being discussed, and even predicted, out and about on the Internet. While the dangerous possibilities get much attention, whether deserved or not, the solution - HR 2990, ALREADY INTRODUCED INTO THE CONGRESS by Rep Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and co-sponsored by Rep John Conyers of Detroit, does not get the attention it deserves, to both fix and democratize the US monetary system! Certainly it is being ignored by the people who caused the crisis, the media they control, and even by some progressive elements in our society. Greg Coloridge discusses what HR 2990 will do to repair damage and move our society towards justice. He will also discuss why progressives can lead themselves astray through inadequate research, jumping to faulty conclusions.
Greg is Director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (Quakers). He is on the National Steering Committee of the Move to Amend / Campaign to Legalize Democracy Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) national collective.

Mark Pash speaks on
Can Progressives Guide Macroeconomic Decision Making?

"Progressive Economics answers the failures of both socialism and laissez-faire, libertarian economics," writes Mark Pash, who will highlight those key principles. A Certified Financial Planner; Bachelors and Masters in Business Administration, from UCLA and USC respectively; served as an officer in the US Army Quartermaster Corp. For 40 years he has helped clients in all areas of financial planning, founding several financial organizations. Managing Director of NPB Financial Group LLC; served as an officer of various industry associations. His unique background brings together the practical and theoretical. Mark has been active in politics and was once a Congressional candidate. He has politically advocated monetary reform for almost twenty years. The title of his talk is not merely rhetoric but will be considered.

Stephen Zarlenga spoke in 2010 on how
"Economics Has Become a Clandestine Religion, Not a Science."
In 2011 he focused on The Chicago Plan - precursor to the American Monetary Act
This year he will discuss the severe damage caused by economists who don't distinguish
between money and debt; and why this is always a formula for disaster.

The world economy is wrecked by false monetary, banking and economic theories, yet major media continues to evaluate economists' proposals as though they know what they're doing. The farce continues partly because it would be scary to admit how mismanaged the nation's economy really is! In the Lost Science of Money we examined how it happenned - and how Ayn Rand and her disciple Alan Greenspan managed to bring down the world economy, with merely logomachy - a bunch of words!
Last year he spoke on avoiding the mistakes made by supporters of the 1934 "Chicago Plan;" with similarities to the American Monetary Act, and HR 2990.
With the Federal Reserve System starting in 1913, the shift began away from the error of using gold for money and towards the even worse error of using credit/debt as money! THIS YEAR Zarlenga presents The Critique of A. Mitchell Innes' view that money must be debt, and the damage it has done!

Carol Brouillet discusses
Strategy for the Monetary Reform Movement

Carol Brouillet has worked on monetary reform since 1993 as an organizer, writer, speaker, and radio show host. She ran for Congress three times on the Green Party ticket. She has organized three conferences on "Strategies to Transform the Global Economy." She championed the idea of local currencies in the 1990s to raise consciousness on how we can reinvent money to serve rather than enslave humanity. Carol published and distributed over 7,000,000 "Deception, Conception, and Perception Dollars" to draw attention to these issues. She organized the San Francisco International Inquiry into 9/11 in 2004. One of her mentors, Bill Moyer, authored the book "Doing Democracy - The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements." She will discuss how social movements work, recognizing where the monetary reform movement is at this point in time, identifying effective strategies to advance monetary reform and the roles that the times demand of us. The title of the talk will be "Strategy for the Monetary Reform Movement."

Steven Walsh, AMI researcher, will speak on
How the 29,000 Strong Chicago Teacher's Union Came to Support HR 2990

Steven Walsh, Long time Chicago educator will discuss in detail how the Chicago Teachers Union, one of the most powerful in the City, learned of and then came to support Congressman Dennis Kucinich's HR 2990. He will focus on the detailed steps he took to help this come about. All participants have some contacts that might be developed similarly and our hope is that those who strive for action, can benefit from his experience.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich has provisionally agreed to address our
conference if the Congressional Schedule allows. He has been at two
of our previous conferences in person and at 5 more by video and phone.
His wife Elizabeth presents to us on Thursday.

Congressman Kucinich has become the most vocal force for monetary reform in the Congress, and he really "gets it," down to the core. Have you watched some of his YouTube Congressional Hearings? Link to them from our our website at http://www.monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HR-2990_KucinichVideos.pdf Kucinich is the 7th term Congressman from Cleveland; Ranking member of House Subcommittee on Governmental Reform; 2004 and 2008 Candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America; leading peace advocate; Introducer of Articles of Impeachment against Bush and Cheney.
Dennis Kucinich, who with his wife Elizabeth have addressed three previous AMI Conferences, will speak on:
"The Necessity for Monetary Reform
and the shape it should take."