Image by ScheerPost.com.
Discussions of artificial intelligence typically begin with the question, What happens when the machines take our jobs? For thousands of years, work has been the means by which we fed our families, earned our place in society, and gave structure to our lives. We have come to equate paid employment with identity.
That presumption may soon be obsolete.
When Elon Musk proposed replacing Universal Basic Income with what he calls a Universal High Income—a level of income sufficient for everyone to live comfortably while intelligent machines produce much of the goods and services society requires—critics warned that people would become lazy. They would stop pursuing college degrees, stop starting businesses, stop inventing, stop contributing. Without jobs, it was argued, life itself would lose meaning and purpose.
Interestingly, humanity’s oldest written history begins with the premise that the purpose of humans is to work. The earliest known writing was impressed into clay tablets in ancient Sumer more than five thousand years ago. The Sumerian Atrahasis tablets tell of sky-deities called Annunaki, cast in modern “ancient architect” scenarios as extraterrestrial engineers. The heavy labor required to maintain life on earth was delegated to junior gods called Igigi, who finally grew weary of the arduous work, laid down their tools and rebelled.
The remedy was to create a new being to carry their burden. This was done by genetic manipulation to upgrade the highest life form found here, creating the human species. Whether we read that as history, allegory, or mythology, its underlying message is that humanity was conceived as a labor force – and human civilization begins with a control system to manage the laborers.
Continue readingFiled under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Self-directed Education, UNEMPLOYMENT, Universal basic income, Universal High Income | 3 Comments »
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The Sovereign Reset: Escaping the Interest Trap with Greenbacks
Lincoln Breaks the Interest Trap – image by ScheerPost
In August 2026, the U.S. debt reached a gravity-defying $40 trillion, with an estimated fiscal year 2026 deficit of $2.1 trillion. Interest on the debt hit a record $1.4 trillion over the last 12 months and now consumes more than any federal program except Social Security and Medicare, eclipsing defense spending for the first time in U.S. history. Paid with borrowed money, interest compounds exponentially, making it the fastest-growing part of the budget, far outpacing economic growth. By 2036, the Congressional Budget Office projects that interest costs will double to $2.1 trillion, with debt held by the public reaching 120 percent of GDP. The CBO director has declared the trajectory to be “not sustainable.”
Increasingly, prominent analysts are saying the United States will have to “print” its way out. But using whose printing press, printing what?
Today, “printing” normally means Federal Reserve monetization (Quantitative Easing or QE). The Treasury first issues debt – bills, bonds and notes – which are sold by primary dealers on the open market. If there are insufficient buyers, the Fed as “lender of last resort” may buy the securities with “reserves” created with accounting entries in bank reserve accounts. But Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is trying to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet by selling federal securities, not buy them. And even if the Fed did engage in QE, it would not work today to reduce the debt or the interest. The Fed is required to return its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs, but ever since 2008 it has paid the banks interest on their reserve balances (IORB) as a policy tool to control inflation; and since 2022, the total sum the Fed has paid in IORB has been higher than the interest it received from the Treasury on its securities. The net result is that instead of the Fed remitting profits to the Treasury, the Treasury now owes the Fed money to cover the gap in IORB, increasing the federal debt and the interest bill. The Fed printing press is running, but it is running in the wrong direction.
Continue reading →Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: federal debt, federal interest, Federal Reserve, Greenbacks, Inflation, NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK, Public Banking, Treasury-issued currency | Leave a comment »