Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. 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).
But Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, puts a more positive spin on it. He says Central Bank Digital Currencies could supplant the money now created by private banks through “fractional reserve” lending – and that means 97% of the circulating money supply. Rather than outlawing bank-created money, as money reformers have long urged, fractional reserve banking could be made obsolete simply by attrition, preempted by a better mousetrap. The need for negative interest rates could also be eliminated, by giving the central bank more direct tools for stimulating the economy. Continue reading
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: blockchain, central bank digital currencies, fractional reserve lending, public banking | 51 Comments »
WEB OF DEBT BLOG 
Achieving Self-Funding Local Sovereignty as Global Food Systems Collapse
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. Reducing dependence on the global supply chain and the U.S. dollar are trends that are happening not just internationally but locally. In the United States, we have seen movements both for local food independence and to divest from Wall Street banks. The burgeoning cryptocurrency movement is another push to “dedollarize” and escape the international bankers’ control grid.
This article is a sequel to one discussing home gardens and community food co-ops as local counter-measures to an impending food crisis. The question to be addressed here is how to fund them. What sort of local currency could fund food co-ops independently of the credit dollars we get from banks?
But first, some framing of the problem. It’s not just about temporary food shortages. It’s about sovereignty from the sort of global control foreshadowed in Henry Kissinger’s notorious statement, “Control food and you control the people.”
Continue reading →Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: blockchain, COMMUNITY CURRENCIES, cryptocurrency, ECONOMIC CRISIS, Ellen Brown, FOOD CO-OPS, FOOD PASSPORTS, FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, FOOD SYSTEMS, Great Reset, HOLOCHAIN, Inflation, KISSINGER, SUPPLY CHAIN CRISIS | 16 Comments »