Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free [Paperback]

Ellen Hodgson Brown (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

It's frankly difficult to find a good book that will help a person become literate about our modern money supply. Most that are accurate are hopelessly dense and written for graduate students in economics....Ellen Brown has translated a dense subject into a readable and fascinating story....Web of Debt by Ellen Brown not only demystifies money, but provides some thought-provoking and realistc solutions to our nation's dangerous dependence on a for-profit banking system that is sucking the financial lifeblood out of our nation....Buy it, read it, and get active! --Thom Hartmann's Review of the Month for Buzzflash, April 2009

Most people need backing of some sort to break through and capture a share of the public mind, but Ms. Brown has seemingly accomplished this all by herself, without funding of any kind. It almost defies comprehension. If we wore a thousand hats, they would all be doffed in respect to Ms. Brown's courageous and apparently independent intellectual journey. We are impressed enough with Ms. Brown's approach to award her a title all her own, in fact. There are in our opinion, in modern economic thought, now Keynesians, Austrians and Brownians. --The Daily Bell, October 8, 2009

Ms. Brown has taken two subjects considered boring - history and monetary policy - and turned them into a book as thrilling as any Tom Clancy novel, except that this book is true....If you are looking to have an understanding of the monetary mess we are in, this is an excellent historical overview with some truly elegant and ingenious ideas about correcting the problems we presently face. As you read this book you may find yourself feeling like "Neo" in The Matrix, newly awakened from the slumber of ignorance and deceit. Best of all, she offers viable solutions to the problems that have plagued our planet for millennia. This may well be one of the most important books you will ever read. --American Free Press, April 21, 2008

If there is one book, one newspaper, one blog, one article, that one should read to understand the current economic crisis, to understand the root of the problem, and to understand its solution, it is "The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free".... "Web of Debt" is an extremely enlightening and remarkable book, providing an understanding to our world and the current economic crisis and providing monetary and banking solutions that will take us out of this crisis and benefit the people... The book is an absolute must read and relevant to people of all political stripes. The only idealogy presented is one of fairness, integrity, and common sense. --Online Journal, March 2, 2009

Product Description

EXPLODING THE MYTHS ABOUT MONEY Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been "privatized," or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions -- including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices -- and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Third Millennium Press; 3rd edition (December 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979560829
• ISBN-13: 978-0979560828
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (148 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #32,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #54 in	Books > Nonfiction > Foreign Language Nonfiction > German
  #33 in	Books > Business & Investing > Finance > Banks & Banking
  #16 in	Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Money & Monetary Policy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

189 of 195 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing, Enfuriating, Terrifying., April 22, 2008

By	Charles Curtis (Jackman, Maine) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (Revised and Updated) (Paperback)

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.

186 of 194 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Follow the Yellow Brick Road... to comprehend a financial system on the brink of collapse, September 16, 2007

By	GK (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 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 (Paperback)

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.

86 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Money Trap Fully Explained-With an Exit Stategy, August 15, 2007

By	D. Thorin (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 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 (Paperback)

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.