Ellen Brown: The Fed is aggressively raising interest rates, although inflation is contained, private debt is already at 150% of GDP, and rising variable rates could push borrowers into insolvency. So what is driving the Fed’s push to “tighten”?
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of eleven books, including Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Her websites are WebofDebt.com and PublicBankingInstitute.org.
The Bayer-Monsanto Merger Is Bad News for the Planet
Ellen Brown: Bayer and Monsanto have a long history of collusion to poison the ecosystem for profit. The Trump administration should veto their merger not just to protect competitors but to ensure human and planetary survival.
The War on the Post Office
Ellen Brown: The US Postal Service, under attack from a manufactured crisis designed to force its privatization, needs a new source of funding to survive. Postal banking could fill that need.
Funding Infrastructure: Why China Is Running Circles Around America
Ellen Brown: China calls this government bank financing “lending” rather than “money printing,” but the effect is very similar to what European central bankers are calling “helicopter money” for infrastructure – central bank-generated money that does not need to be repaid.
How Uncle Sam Launders Marijuana Money
Ellen Brown: In a blatant example of “do as I say, not as I do,” the US government is profiting handsomely by accepting marijuana cash in the payment of taxes while imposing huge penalties on banks for accepting it as deposits.
Student Debt Slavery II: Level the Playing Field
Ellen Brown: A number of proposed federal changes will make it harder, not easier, for students to escape their debts, including wiping out some existing income-based repayment plans, harsher terms for graduate student loans, ending a program to cancel the debt of students defrauded by ripoff diploma mills, and strengthening “loan rehabilitation.”
Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young
Ellen Brown: Higher education has been financialized, transformed from a public service into a lucrative cash cow for private investors.
The Public Bank Option: Safer, Local and Half the Cost
Ellen Brown: Phil Murphy, a former banker with a double-digit lead in New Jersey’s race for governor, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his platform. If he wins on November 7, the nation’s second state-owned bank in a century could follow.
Regulation Is Killing Community Banks: Public Banks Can Revive Them
Ellen Brown: Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly-owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies.
Wiping Out Puerto Rico’s Debt Without Hurting Bondholders
Ellen Brown: Puerto Rico is bankrupt, its economy destroyed. In fact it is currently in bankruptcy proceedings with its creditors. Which suggests its time for some more out-of-the-box thinking.
How to Fund a Universal Basic Income Without Increasing Taxes or Inflation
Ellen Brown: Studies have also shown that it would actually be cheaper to distribute funds to the entire population than to run the welfare services governments engage in now.
Getting More Bang for the State’s Bucks
We need to start thinking outside the box, a Wall Street-imposed box that has trapped us in austerity and economic servitude for over a century.
Higher Interest Rates Will Kill the Recovery
Ellen Brown: Higher interest rates will triple the interest on the federal debt to $830 billion annually by 2026, will hurt workers and young voters, and could bankrupt over 20% of US corporations, according to the IMF. The move is not necessary to counteract inflation and shows that the Fed is operating from the wrong model.
