PMR 01 Forward

In 1939, six of America's leading economists wrote "A Program for Monetary Reform".

Paul H. Douglas (University of Chicago) later served as a U.S. Senator from 1949 to 1967. He was once seriously considered to be a candidate for President. He fought for environmental protection, public housing, and truth in lending laws and authored the Consumer Credit Protection Act.

Earl J. Hamilton (Duke University) wrote papers on the economic history of Spain and was later appointed Distinguished Professor of Economic History (1966 -1969) by the University of New York.

Irving Fisher (Yale University) was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists. Milton Friedman called Fisher "the greatest economist the United States has ever produced." The Fisher equation, the Fisher hypothesis, the international Fisher effect, and the Fisher separation theorem are all concepts that he developed and they can still be found in economics textbooks.

Willford I. King (New York University) was a noted American statistician and economist who went to a one-room rural Nebraska schoolhouse and graduated from the University of Nebraska.

Frank D. Graham and Charles R. Whittlesey (Princeton University) later coauthored The Golden Avalanche, a book about the problem of gold.

An amazing 235 economists from 157 universities and colleges expressed their general approval of the program; 40 more approved of it with reservations; only 43 have expressed disapproval.

The program exposed the problem of the Gold Standard and suggested the standard of stable buying power as a replacement. It proposed the formation of a "monetary authority" to issue money as directed by Congress. The fractional reserve system was to be replaced by a 100% reserve system.

The document might have been lost to history but it was preserved by Joe Bongiovanni and Pete Young of The Kettle Pond Institute, http://www.economicstability.org/history/a-program-for-monetary-reform-the-19.... Also, http://www.youtube.com/user/EconomicStability.

A clean, easy to read version of the program can also be found at, http://home.comcast.net/~zthustra/pdf/a_program_for_monetary_reform.pdf.

This program and others suggested in the wake of the Great Depression provided inspiration for the American Monetary Act http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf) authored by Stephen Zaralenga of the American Monetary Institute (http://www.monetary.org/) and author of The Lost Science of Money. Also, http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanMonetaryInst.

Dennis Kucinich has announced that he will propose legislation called The American Monetary and Financial Security Act in the near future, Part One - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZmDV9Z03N8 and Part Two - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loJAuveiPhQ.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• American
• program
• monetary
• reform
• act
• 100%
• fractional
• reserve
• bank
• system
• money
• gold
• standard
• stable
• buying
• power

[SeruQuik]

Damn it Z, you're sorely tempting me here. I've been considering recording a reading of Smith's "Wealth of Nations" for a bit now in part just for the hell of it. Readings like yours here just make that temptation stronger.

[zthustra]

@SeruQuik

Wealth of Nations sounds pretty ambitious. On Truth and Lies was 8 condensed pages and took 5 videos without commentary. A Program for Monetary Reform is 24 condensed pages and I'm scared to thing how many videos it will take with commentary. Wealth of Nations is something like 625 pages! Good luck!

[AGoodWomanDiji]

Thank you for the info...BTW...You look a little like Robert Deniro, lol...

[gunsandbullhorns]

This is a very important historical document. Great idea!

I hope than anyone interested also does a bit of research, and finds out about all six of these economists — who they were, where their interests were, and what they were saying during the 1920's.

[seamaverick1]

still love your name still love your info thanks