Customer Reviews

Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System -- The Sleight of Hand That Has Trapped Us in Debt and How We Can Break Free

5 star:		(160)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This book is just fantastic. It's worth reading for the history of the monetary system alone. No matter what the lone negative reviewer so far (T. Anderson) here may say, any flaws are mere quibbles. I have multiple degrees in the humanities, and have taken courses in economics, and have read all the big guns in the canon (Smith, Riccardo, Malthus, Marx, Marshall, Keynes, Freidman, etc, etc.) but have never read anything quite like this before.

All the great economists are in the end finally propagandists for their particular worldviews. We are rarely reminded that in essential ways their craft is rooted in that dirty realm: metaphysics. The economists would like us all to believe that what they do is science, that it is a solidly rooted empirical craft. But the fact is that some of the most fundamental aspects of the discipline are rooted in that oftentimes most irrational, insubstantial and fleeting of things: human desire.

Money itself is the sublime exemplar of this fact. This odd measure of value. It is so ubiquitous in our culture, so fundamental to how we all live, yet we rarely sit and contemplate what it really "is." Where it comes from, what it does, and who (in the final analysis) really controls it. Most of us spend most of our waking hours chasing it, without really understanding what it really is we are doing.

Ellen Brown has given us all an opportunity to change that. Again, no matter that there are some few factual and perhaps conceptual flaws here. There's still a gluttonous orgy of food for thought in these pages. Starting with a brilliant expose of the origin of the banking system, and it's logic, she flays the monetary system and lays its anatomy out for examination. She gets you to think about what the banks are really doing when they loan.. what exactly is happening when they extend us those oh so seductive lines of revolving credit; what the nature of your mortgage really is.

She leads us from the Renaissance goldmerchants' creation of the nascent capitalist banking system, through the 18th & 19th century struggles over control of the money supply, all the way through to an analysis of the current mortgage crisis. She warns us what may yet be in store for us if and when Freddie Mac finally defaults on its 700 billion in bond obligations.

MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger Report and Economist will never explain any of this to you. I think we all can intuit why that is. You owe yourself this education. This information ought to be part of our daily political discourse, and a part of every high school education. Again, you gotta wonder why it is not.

Final Admonition: Acquire & Read this Book. You will not regret it.

I have been researching this topic myself for four or five years now and am familiar with almost every other book in this genre, and I can unequivocally say that this is now the definitive work on the world's financial and banking system, the history of money and power in Western civilization, and the dire prognosis for our economy and our personal freedoms, in general, as a result. It is vastly superior to "The Creature from Jekyll Island", to compare it to one other fine book on the subject that is now outdated, both in terms of its complete historical coverage, as well as a completely up to date perspective on recent financial history and a deeply insightful analysis of our current debt crisis, why it was let out of control, and who would benefit from its ultimate unwinding. Quite frankly, looking back four to five years from now, this could be the most profound non-fiction work of our times. Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager for the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, when speaking on the same topic as this book, stated, "It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon." I couldn't agree more, and even encourage many unintelligent persons to give it a go. The mechanics of money and finance have a profound affect on every person's life and well being, and is inextricably linked to the fabric of our society and our freedom. Yet it is almost completely ignored and poorly understood by the common man. As Henry Ford said, "It is well that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be revolution before tomorrow morning." It's time we all started to understand what's been going on and how it will affect our immediate future.

Ellen Hodgson Brown does a remarkable job at making this subject both easily understandable and richly entertaining while not pulling any of the sordid details or facts. It's impressive in its clarity, fascinating to read, and educational for anyone who might already think they fully understand the system. Unknown to most, The Wizard of Oz was written as a parable for our monetary system. Ms. Brown takes us down that yellow brick road and shows us that the reason L. Frank Baum's timeless story resonates with us so deeply is that our own world works much the same way as the Land of Oz, with a parallel cast of characters. It lies within our power, and in this book, to find our own ruby/silver slippers, thus avoiding the crisis to find our way back home to the real utopia.

This is simply the most thorough, researched, and up to date book of its kind. I would call it essential to have, as the national and global economic situation is entering right now into the dramatic and tumultuous throes of the end of the 100 year or more Ponzi scheme that IS our national economy. There have been terrific books by Griffin and Mullins and quite a few others describing the origins of the monetary system that has brought us to this point of collapse and ruin; but they are 20 to 30 years old, and do not include and explain the latest machinations of the Debt/Money machine, such as derivitives, hedge funds, naked short selling, plunge protection teams, the petro dollar, the housing bubble and more. And all is explained, despite the book's historical breadth and up to date detail, in a story line narrative fashion that is personable and enjoyable, with a great sense of discovery.
The best part is the optimistic presentation of what a sane and sensible money system might look like, that is free of deception and theft from hidden corporate masters. And the solution is not a simple reversion to a sort of fundamentalist gold approach.... The subject of gold is actually explored in all of its history of past abuse and control by the same sort of masters we now have, as well as the current pitfalls we would face. Solutions are based, however, upon the ideas and practices of some of America's founders, and on workable examples based upon what a community and nation' real wealth consists of.
Can be read as a narrative, or you can jump in on any chapter and clarify a multitude of mysteries about just what levers are being pulled by the guys behind the curtain. I think the author goes in the right direction for a way out, but the book begs for a sequel dealing with the detailed design of such a plan, so it, too, does not become a trap a century later.

Yes, I caught errors myself, which is why I just spent the last 3 months doing an updated and revised version, available on Amazon now; and am working on another revision with a long postscript, hopefully available in a month. The banking system is collapsing very quickly, warranting frequent updates. Managing 500 pages with footnotes has been very difficult, and it has taken me 6 years already; but I had to go to press just because of the crush of events. I'm tired, but I keep going because it seems to me to be the most important issue confronting us today. If I've stirred the pot and gotten people thinking, it will have been worth the effort. On LaRouche, I'm neither a supporter nor a detractor; I'm just a researcher, reporting what I read that seems interesting and worth repeating, and his researchers have some of the most interesting material available on the subject, as you acknowledge. I'm not only a researcher but a writer, compelled to put things into my best prose. Much of my challenge has been to make this subject interesting and accessible to people who normally shy away from reading about economics and finance. If they keep turning the pages, I'm halfway there. Ellen Brown

To correct all the errors in this book, you'd almost need another book.

People who never deduced fractional reserve lending or the fiat interest paradox are often blown away by learning about this scam, and tend to give anything that reveals it high marks, but other works do this with greater clarity and more thorough scholarship.

It is cool that the Wizard of Oz was a money allegory, but the constant references to Oz grow strained, and consume probably 5 - 10% of the book before all is said and done.

Couple examples of the errors:

There is a difference between a gold exchange standard and a gold standard, but this distinction is not made. The gold exchange standard which Brown repeatedly refers to as a gold standard did not fail because nations "ran out of gold" (as she claims in some form at least a dozen times), it failed because nations comitted fraud by printing more "gold backed" paper notes than they had gold reserves. That doesn't mean the gold standard is perfect or the ultimate solution, but how can one take an author who misses such a basic point seriously?

Brown deplores the fact that a gold standard causes gold to flee a nation that is importing more than it exports. That is what it is supposed to do! In such a system, nations that produce little but consume much go broke, as any individual should and would. The solution is to import less or export more, and correct the imbalance, but this elementary solution is not even mentioned.

The old "there isn't enough gold and silver" myth is repeated. An ounce of gold can be worth a car or can of coke, and society will prosper either way, as long as the free market is allowed to set the price. The problem arises when the monetary unit is rapidly inflated, and this is difficult to do with gold (or any commodity) because it must be dug out of the earth (or produced with real labor). Brown considers this the chief failure of gold, but it is its chief virtue.

When a government raises ALL revenue by printing money, that is not "no taxes," as she states numerous times. It is government funded via the inflation tax. A government with "no" tax revenue either does not exist or is borrowing continually and won't exist long. While some money printing can be absorbed in an economy that isn't redlined, Brown consistently and naively overestimates the capacity of the economy to absorb newly printed money without causing price increases. You fund a government as large as ours almost entirely from creating new money, there will be price increases. It is either extremely stupid or extremely dishonest to pretend otherwise. Yes, Pennsylvania in the 1700s funded government totally from this method, but they didn't have Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, an Empire, etc.

Brown's ultimate solution is gobley-gook socialism. A bungling, corrupt government should be trusted with full money printing powers, allowed to control banking, mortgages, scientific R&D, give universal sustinence wages, etc., and then all will be better and prosperity will of course ensue. This view is pitifully naive. The history of money teaches one bedrock lesson: the power to print it out of thin air will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be abused. The solution is not to take the power from corrupt bankers and give it to equally corrupt politicians who will simply engage in the same abuses, but to abolish the fraud completely by abolishing the power completely. It is mind blowing that Brown identifies the fraud, identifies the corruption in government and banking, charts they way bankers and politicians collude to shaft the people, and then advocates turning the inflation power over to the politicians she just identified as being as corrupt as bankers.

Somewhere in all the OZ metaphors and newspaper clippings she includes, a tenth grade understanding of the origin of money is neglected, or perhaps lost. People accept money in the first place because it has intrinsic value as a commodity, and is a commodity. Real commodities can't be created out of thin air the way paper or "computer" money is. Commodities require real labor to produce. When working stiffs are forced to accept money which can be produced without real work, they get shafted when it is produced and spent by those who do no work and produce no real commodities. Politicians fall in this category, yet Brown suggests giving them a blank check that the money creation power represents.

Brown believes government can be trusted to use this power benevolently, but this belies a fundamental miscalculation about human nature. Leaders with the integrity of Franklin are the exception, not the rule. She believes that eliminating bond printing by the Fed, and allowing government to print money would eliminate a huge wealth transferral to the rich. It couldn't be that corrupt politicians in bed with bankers would just print five times as much money to make up for the lost bonds and interest payments, and then give this money to the elite for endless boondoggles. . .

The same quotes are used repeatedly, and the same points repeated. . .repeatedly. It was tiresome, especially since the errors were so eggregious.

Some sections are well written, useful, and balanced, but the most fundamental conclusions were erroneous, and fanciful. Just abolish the income tax. Love to, but ask anyone who's spent five minutes in DC how politically difficult that would be. Brown naively endorses a socialist government that provides housing, sets wages, targets full employment, gives food--all funded by endless money creation that will produce no inflation. Puh-lease.

Government is the problem, not the solution. The answer is not more government. What about those who actually want to take responsibility for their own lives? What about a limited government that just gets out of people's way and let's them be free, merely preventing crime and enforcing contracts? Maybe a tax levied in ways besides money printing is better, so I always know how much is taken, rather than wondering how many trillions of dollars the government printed out of thin air this year? The inflation tax is the most insidious form of taxation there is, and it should be abolished completely. Brown's solution is no solution at all because it misses this glaring point.

Of the thousands and thousands of books I have read in my lifetime, this is the single most important book I've ever read.

I don't care if you are liberal, conservative, Libertarian, agnostic, Christian, Muslim, black, white, red, old, young, rich, poor, unemployed, tycoon or whatever... If you love your family and your country and you want a future you can believe in, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK.

Your mind will be shocked by the truth of how our money/banking/lending system works. Your conscience will be repelled by the evil actions taking place right under your nose; actions taken by people that you think are "respectable" and "educated" and "trustworthy."

Thankfully, by the time you reach the end of this well-researched, well-documented, well-written book, you will know exactly what we can do to fix the situation and make the world a much better place for virtually everyone - a world that is more prosperous and more secure, where opportunity abounds and we are not burdened by an ever-expanding debt monster that threatens everything we hold dear.

very pointed and clearly written. an "illuminating" discourse on financial wickedness. a must read!

one caution though when reading this book. there is so much reality in it that you may at first want to deny that it's non-fiction. i think it was the prophet Jeremiah who spoke about how desperately wicked the human heart can be. here you can find out for yourself.

Could be the most important book you will ever read. At least this is the one that could save our nation from financial and economic ruin. I'd say that makes it important.

I've been studying this subject for years, and have been planning to write a book or two on the subject myself. Only every time I've gotten deeply into the research, I've found that someone has already written an excellent book covering the same material. This happened with Rothbard's "A Case Against the Fed", Griffin's "The Creature from Jekyll Island", Korten's "When Corporations Rule the World", Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope", Sutton, Engdahl, Skousen, and many others. I had thought the best book on the subject had been written by Stephen Zarlenga with "The Lost Science of Money" and have attended his American Monetary Institute conferences. But Ellen Brown's book tops them all!

I can't count the times I had to lay the book down and wonder how someone so recently introduced to the subject could become so astute in so many areas so quickly. She must have a brilliant mind, because I was dazzled by her comprehension and ability to put complex ideas into simple terms. What an amazing accomplishment!

The one star reviews here are seriously flawed, if not deliberately disingenuous. The book is not about the "polemics" of the "LaRouche" or any other "camp". It does not advocate Keynesian or "socialist" solutions. It advocates common sense and practical solutions. Such labeling is spurious and violates rules for civilized debate and discussion. It is also curious that one could so thoroughly pick out all of the two or three trivial errors in the entire book while missing or misrepresenting the important points and large ideas and issues. The claim that the author calls "for bigger government with fewer controls" is patently false. The call is for better government that is more responsible to "we the people" and for a reduction in the onerous taxpayer burdens that come with usurious "debt-based money" created by private banks at exponentially compounding rates of interest.

T. Anderson adds, "How we can trust politicians with our money system any more than we can the bankers is not clear to me;...". But if he read the book, it SHOULD be clear. Government is at least theoretically responsible to the electorate, while "de-regulated" private bankers are responsible to no one, and have spent centuries proving it to us. However, they ARE responsible for our current terrible financial predicament.

The "banking syndicate" has wrested control of our government from us, (the people) thoroughly corrupted it, and then points the finger of blame at it for being corrupt and irresponsible. It's true, as Ms. Brown's excellent book points out. No one could make this up! While T. Anderson claims that conclusions in the book are "based on half-truths and shallow analysis", it is his arguments that are so based, and not the author's. While it is clear that wider education and discussion of these massive problems is needed, a prerequisite is clear thinking and terminology, cutting through the double-talk. "Web of Debt" does that masterfully.

Just buy it! Or buy several and give them to those you love. This book has the power to change the world for the better.

The lyrics from the Tina Turner song 'The Best' come to mind. The author is an attorney. If she pled her plaintiff's case in court for an alternate money system as presented in this book, and you were on the jury, decide which way you would vote. Her client is the debt oppressed people of society, and also most governments around the world. The defendant is the privately owned central banks of the world. Read it, and cast your vote.

For the serious student of economic history and theory, "Web of Debt" explains that a better system is available, has worked here, is working elsewhere now and could be working again to our universal betterment.

For the layperson who ordinarily disdains other than personal economics, "Web of Debt" is an entertaining, interesting and informative read with surprising facts and history leading the reader to ways we might all be better off than under the prevailing situation. Beautifully researched, explained and credited.

Don Bruce, Professor Emeritus