Greening the Dollar: Green Party Monetary Reform Plank

GREENING THE DOLLAR MONETARY REFORM PLANK

Approved by the Platform Committee on July 11th, 2008 in Chicago.

To reverse the privatization of control over the money issuing process of our monetary system; and to reverse its resulting concentration of wealth and income; and to place it within a more equitable public system of governmental checks and balances; and to end the regular recurrence of severe and disruptive banking crises (such as the current so called “Sub Prime” mortgage crisis);

the Green Party will move to:

• Nationalize the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, reconstituting them and the Federal Reserve Systems Washington Board of Governors under a new Monetary Control Board in charge of the U.S. Treasury’s Comptroller of the Currency division, presently responsible for U.S. Government oversight of banking. All new money is to be created and initially put into circulation only by the U.S. Government. The private creation of money, or credit which substitutes for money will cease.
• The Monetary Control Board will redefine bank lending rules and procedures to end the privilege banks now have to create money when they extend their credit, by ending the fractional reserve system in an elegant, non disruptive manner. Banks will be encouraged to continue as profit making companies, extending loans of real money at interest, but no longer creating what passes for money by loaning their credit.
• The new money that must be regularly added to the system as population and commerce grow will be created and spent into circulation by the U.S. Government on infrastructure, including the “human infrastructure” of Education and Health Care. This begins with the $1.6 trillion the American Society of Civil Engineers warns us is needed to bring existing infrastructure to safe levels. Per capita guidelines will assure a fair distribution of such expenditures across the U.S.A., creating good jobs; revitalizing regional and local economies and the local governmental bodies serving them, from school boards to states.

(As this money is paid out to various contractors, they in turn pay their suppliers and laborers who in turn pay for their living expenses and ultimately this money gets deposited into banks, which are then in a position to make loans of this money, according to the new regulations).