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Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age Paperback – June 1, 2019
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Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.
Ellen Brown is the founder and chairman of the Public Banking Institute and a Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative.
- Print length426 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDemocracy Collaborative
- Publication dateJune 1, 2019
- Dimensions5.51 x 0.87 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100998471917
- ISBN-13978-0998471914
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"In Banking on the People, attorney Ellen Brown provides a much-needed roadmap for reforming monetary and credit systems and the central banks now strangling our common human future. More lucidly that any other expert I know, she shows how we can break the grip of predatory financialization now extracting value from real peoples' productive activities all over the world. Her in-depth research and systemic overview of the global and local politics of money-creation and credit allocation include all the viable proposals of global experts and reformers. She reviews many of these reforms: from financial transaction taxes, to a universal basic income to provide purchasing power for the cornucopia of goods and services now produced, to expanding the public banks she so ably promotes via the Public Banking Institute, to returning the Fed and all banks to serving the public utility functions that economies require. This book is a must read for citizens in all societies who see the promising future as we seek to widen democracies and transform to a cleaner, greener, shared prosperity, based on the renewable abundance of free daily energy from our sun."
--Hazel Henderson, CEO of Ethical Markets Media and author of Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age and other books
"Banking on the People is a compelling and fast-moving primer on the new monetary revolution by the godmother of the public banking movement now emerging throughout the country. Brown shows how our new understanding of money and its creation, long concealed by bankers and others capturing the benefits for their own purposes, can be turned to support the public in powerful new ways."
--Gar Alperovitz, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Co-Founder of The Democracy Collaborative and author of America Beyond Capitalism and other books
"Ellen Brown shows that there is a much better alternative to Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Public banks can safeguard public funds while avoiding the payday loans, redlining, predatory junk-mortgage loans and add-on small-print extras for which the large commercial banks are becoming notorious."
--Michael Hudson, Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of Killing the Host and other books
"As we pay the consequences of the global financial crisis and face a new global crisis of climate finance, Ellen Brown's message has never been more urgent: we must have public banks working in the public interest. Away with the hyper-exploitative and unaccountable monopoly of private banks! Banking on the People offers a tour de force for those activists, NGOs, and academics wanting to understand the forces at play when we talk about the democratization of finance. A must read!"
--Thomas Marois, Senior Lecturer, SOAS University of London, author of States, Banks and Crisis and other publications
Product details
- Publisher : Democracy Collaborative (June 1, 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 426 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0998471917
- ISBN-13 : 978-0998471914
- Item Weight : 1.08 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.51 x 0.87 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,546,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,006 in Money & Monetary Policy (Books)
- #1,120 in Banks & Banking (Books)
- #1,567 in Economic Policy & Development (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Ellen Brown is an attorney, co-founder and chair of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of thirteen books and hundreds of articles (all on her blog at http://EllenBrown.com). Her books include the bestselling "Web of Debt" and "Nature's Pharmacy," co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, along with "The Public Bank Solution" and her latest book "Banking on the People." She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1967 and from UCLA Law School in 1977; practiced law for ten years in Los Angeles; then spent 11 years abroad, in Kenya, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, with her husband and two children. Her websites are http://EllenBrown.com, http://webofdebt.com, and http://publicbankinginstitute.org.
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By Federalizing the Central Bank and giving the Treasury the power to issue the currency, the Debt Money systems comes to an end! No longer will the Treasury have to issue interest paying Bonds to raise money to operate the Government.
The Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 says the Congress shall have the Power to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.
To coin is used as a verb. At the time the Constitution was written, to coin money meant to create or to make money. Today’s Dictionary defines to coin as a verb meaning to make or to invent.
In 1871 (Knox vs. Lee) the Supreme Court ruled that the Government has the legal right to issue money (Greenbacks) debt free. This was challenged in 1872 (Parker vs. Davis) and in 1884 (Julliard vs. Greenman), and the Supreme Court again ruled that the Government has the legal right to issue the currency. The legal right of the Government to issue the currency has been considered “settled law” since 1871.
The Treasury can then pay off the $23 Trillion National Debt with US Treasury dollars in electronic form as all the bonds come due. All interest would be paid in US Treasury dollars, debt free. Over the next 30 years the entire National Debt will be paid off, freeing the next generation of a National Debt.
I highly recommend you read this book to learn how the Money and Banking system can be reformed to operate in the 21st Century!
Jeff M.
This is a great read that presents fundamental ideas of the economy and finance in an understandable manner, that are essential for every American (and people around the world, too) to know - and for which to advocate. Ms. Brown leads all chapters with relevant quotations from historical figures, and among the best are from Keynes: "The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones", and from R. Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
There are summaries at the end of every chapter and a banking history at the end of the book which I found very useful.







