About this book
Financial struggle has become so commonplace that many consider it normal, inevitable. We see:
accelerating income inequality;
widespread poverty;
a world shouldering a crushing and ever-expanding debt burden;
perpetual price inflation;
debt slavery of so many people, businesses, and almost every government;
people running ever faster yet feeling they don’t have enough time, especially for what is most important to them;
domination by Big: Big banks, Big corporations, Big government agencies, Big political parties;
addiction to financialized economic “growth” no matter what the consequences for people and nature;
perpetual financial crises;
perpetual conflict among people and nations;
and so forth.
Some think that a new government program, a policy tweak, or a better political party can fix these problems, but most of them have been getting worse for decades despite varied efforts to solve them.
What few realize is that the problems above are inevitable consequences of the design of our official global money system. The money system is designed from the ground up to produce these results!
What’s the name that accurately describes our current money system? Some call it a "fiat money system," and while true, it does not capture its essence. There really isn't a name that is widely used. Which is more than odd given that we’ve lived with this system for over fifty years.
So let’s put an end to that: The essence of our global money system is captured by this name: the Debt Standard. Why? Because for something to count as official money in this system, it must be a debt! The central bank of the UK, the Bank of England, put it this way:
“Money in the modern economy is just a special form of IOU.”
An IOU means one party is owed and another party owes. Put plainly, a debt! This is true of our cash, bank account deposits, Treasury Bills, and so forth. Those are assets for one party and liabilities (debts) for another party. They are all promises to pay. (Chapter 7 of The Debt Standard: How our money system plagues our world explains this in detail.)
This book was not written by an economist so it is not filled with jargon and equations. The book explains, in language and images that most people can readily understand, why Debt Standard captures the essence of this system. Once that is understood, the veil is shredded and it becomes obvious that the nature of our money system delivers the inevitable consequences listed above, and much more, mathematically guaranteed.
If you want to know how the Debt Standard guarantees those outcomes, then read the book The Debt Standard: How our money system plagues our world.
The full book is a free PDF
The book is free. It's a gift. There's no catch. We don't track anyone. We don't even require your email address (though you can leave your email on the Contact page if you would like to receive infrequent updates). Read your electronic copy, print a copy for yourself, or print multiple copies to give to others. If you want to print the book to sell it, then you need to contact us as indicated on the Acknowledgements page of the book.
You can view or download the book at the View the Book page, or download it at the Downloads page.
Thank you very much for your attention to this topic.
(Image credit: NASA, X-Ray:NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al; Radio:NRF/SARAO/MeerKA)
