Iceland Wisens to Banksters Game with Plan to Remove Power of Commercial Banks to Create Money*

Iceland Wisens to Banksters Game with Plan to Remove Power of Commercial Banks to Create Money*

Who knew that the revolution would start with those radical Icelanders? It does, though. One Frosti Sigurjonsson [seriously, that’s his real name], a lawmaker from the ruling Progress Party, issued a report April 2 that suggests taking the power to create money away from commercial banks, and hand it to the central bank and, ultimately, Parliament.

Can’t see commercial banks in the western world be too happy with this. They must be contemplating wiping the island nation off the map. If accepted in the Icelandic Parliament, the plan would change the game in a very radical way. It would be successful too, because there is no bigger scourge on our economies than commercial banks creating money and then securitizing and selling off the loans they just created the money (credit) with.

Everyone, with the possible exception of Paul Krugman, understands why this is a very sound idea. Agence France Presse reports:

Iceland Looks at Ending Boom And Bust With Radical Money Plan
Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled “A better monetary system for Iceland”.

“The findings will be an important contribution to the upcoming discussion, here and elsewhere, on money creation and monetary policy,” Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said.

The report, commissioned by the premier, is aimed at putting an end to a monetary system in place through a slew of financial crises, including the latest one in 2008.

According to a study by four central bankers, the country has had “over 20 instances of financial crises of different types” since 1875, with “six serious multiple financial crisis episodes occurring every 15 years on average”. Mr Sigurjonsson said the problem each time arose from ballooning credit during a strong economic cycle.

He argued the central bank was unable to contain the credit boom, allowing inflation to rise and sparking exaggerated risk-taking and speculation, the threat of bank collapse and costly state interventions. In Iceland, as in other modern market economies, the central bank controls the creation of banknotes and coins but not the creation of all money, which occurs as soon as a commercial bank offers a line of credit. The central bank can only try to influence the money supply with its monetary policy tools.

Under the so-called Sovereign Money proposal, the country’s central bank would become the only creator of money.

“Crucially, the power to create money is kept separate from the power to decide how that new money is used,” Mr Sigurjonsson wrote in the proposal.

“As with the state budget, the parliament will debate the government’s proposal for allocation of new money,” he wrote.

Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments, and would serve as intermediaries between savers and lenders. Mr Sigurjonsson, a businessman and economist, was one of the masterminds behind Iceland’s household debt relief programme launched in May 2014 and aimed at helping the many Icelanders whose finances were strangled by inflation-indexed mortgages signed before the 2008 financial crisis.
You can find Frosti’s full report here.  in English, prh, ed.

Question:

1. Who owns Iceland’s Central Bank?
2. How comes Iceland is getting away with?

Source*

Related Topics:

‘I’ for Iceland and Now Ireland Collaring the Real Criminals, the Banksters*

Iceland: Wall Street Shocked as Justice Comes to Banksterville*

Lawsuit Forces Canada to Give Up its Privately owned Central Bank*

People Doing Time, Banks Doing Fine*

Spanish Judge Makes Bank President and Former IMF Chief Pay for Financial Crimes*

Rothschild’s Central Banks Losing Control*

Alternative Currencies Building Prosperity from London to Kenya*

More Teens Dying from Prescribed Drugs than Illegal Drugs*

More Teens Dying from Prescribed Drugs than Illegal Drugs*

By Monica Thunder

Combine the number of overdose deaths caused by heroin and cocaine, and you still haven’t matched the number of deaths caused by pharmaceutical prescription medications each year in the United States. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, pharmaceutical abuse was responsible for about 23,000 deaths in 2013  — that’s more than half of the overdose deaths in the U.S. that year.

Prescription drugs have a disproportionately large effect on teenagers. A recent study published in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing sheds light on this issue, which the CDC has labeled an “epidemic.”

Over 1,000 teenagers in 40 different regions around the U.S. participated in an online survey that questioned them about their use of alcohol, tobacco, legal drugs and illegal drugs. Participants were asked if they suffer from anxiety, if they have a desire to be “popular,” how often they participate in exciting activities, and whether they consider using drugs risky.

The authors of the study — Richard Netemeyer of University of Virginia, Scot Burton of University of Arkansas, Barbara Delaney of the Partnership for Drug Free Kids, and Gina Hijjawi of American Institutes for Research — published several conclusions.

First, their results showed use of pharmaceuticals has a linear correlation with the amount of anxiety and other psychological stress a teenager experiences each day. Pharmaceutical use also increases with the amount of alcohol a teenager consumes.

Second, their results show prescription drug use increases exponentially in circumstances where a teenager is experiencing more severe anxiety, a heightened desire to be popular, a need to be a “good teen,” or is using other restricted substances.

“Teens need help before they reach these tipping points for prescription drug abuse,” write the authors.

“Adults spotting teens with very high levels of anxiety and at least moderate use of other restricted substances should realize that these are students with a high likelihood of prescription abuse.

“Male teens with a high need to be popular and teens in general appear to be at exceptional risk,” write the authors.

“Campaigns must target parents as well, since they clearly underestimate both the physical risks of prescription drugs and the likelihood that their children will abuse these drugs.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), about 20 percent of teenagers reported that they had tried prescription drugs in 2014. Drugs in this category include OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, Valium, Adderall, and Ritalin, among others. Teenagers commonly acquire these drugs from friends or relatives who have prescriptions for them. Often, the friend or relative is unaware the teen is taking the drugs.

The study points to the ways in which approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows pharmaceuticals to escape the stigmas attached to illegal substances.

“Prescription drugs are seen as blessed by a trusted institution, the FDA, while increasingly aggressive advertising by drug companies simultaneously floods parents and children with messages that these substances are safe, popular, and beneficial,” write the authors.

In 1997, the FDA changed the rules on pharmaceutical advertising. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s website, drug companies are now only required to mention the most potent side effects of a drug rather than the entire list of side effects. Moreover, companies are allowed to list side effects while showing serene frames of a revitalized grandmother kayaking with her grandchildren across the screen.

In effect, less emphasis is placed on the dangers of prescription drug use and more is placed on its benefits. While the dangers of illegal substances are widely known, information on the dangers of prescription drugs are often confined to a three-second-long screen of fine print that pops up at the end of a thirty-second commercial.

According to an editorial published by the New York Times in 2013, pharmaceutical advertisements have helped cultivate a “pill for every ill” approach to health care in the United States. U.S. physicians, for example, prescribe drugs as treatment for ADHD 25 times more often than European physicians. It follows that U.S. teenagers have 25 times more access to ADHD medication like Ritalin and Adderall than European teenagers.

Several organizations work to educate the public on the risks of prescription drug abuse. The National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse, for example, organizes school related activities aimed at educating students about the risks of pharmaceuticals, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy is trying to implement a four-part plan to educate teenagers and monitor their use of pharmaceuticals.

Evidence from the study suggests these organizations have a long way to go.

Source*

Comment: And they have no intention of making that distance if TPP comes into full force which will protect them from any legal obligations, and their profits from getting a hard knock.

 

Related Topics:

Death By Prescribed Drugs*

Jobseekers are being coerced into experimental drug trials dressed up as “job opportunities”

PSYCHIATRISTS DRUGGING CHILDREN FOR “SOCIAL JUSTICE”

Psychiatric Drugs Involved in Nearly All Recent Mass-Shootings‏

Drug Free Psychiatry and Beyond Globalized Eugenics

Portugal: Addiction Rates Cut in Half by Linking Addicts with Communities Instead of Jailing Them*

ADHD and the Not So Smart Drug!

Increased Reaction to Drugs Caused By Vaccines

Ask Senator McConnell Why the War-on-Drugs was never a ‘War’*

Of Course U.S. Government Controls the Drug Trade!*

Drugs that Damage your DNA: When Dementia isn’t Alzheimer*

Corporation vs. State: Sweeping TPP Powers Strip Sovereignty*