This is the big one folks.
At least as well as I have been able to determine, the American Monetary Institute‘s annual Monetary Reform Conference is the big event of the year for the American and Canadian (and possibly worldwide) monetary reform movements.
Being a relative newcomer to the issue, I had never attended the conference before, so I wasn’t at all sure what to expect. For some reason, many of the persons and groups who have diagnosed (correctly, to my mind) as the principal cause of our current financial instability the creation of virtually our entire money supply as debt, seem all too often to associate with other ideas that make me uncomfortable, like the Evil Jewish Banker Meme (EJBM), or any of various conspiracy theories (other than my own, of course).
Joe had never been to the AMI conference either. We met Thursday noon at O’Hare and took the 45 minute train ride into center city together, so we had some time to muse about what we were about to experience. He guessed there might be 200 people.
It was smaller than that. 100 tops, I’d say from start to finish. Which is a little disappointing, if that’s as far as the movement has come at this point.
Most of those present pretty much agreed that nothing short of worldwide, immediate adoption of monetary reform along the lines of the American Monetary and Financial Security Act was the only measure powerful enough to reverse the maelstrom of debt that is currently sucking down Iceland and Latvia (as described by conference presenter, Prof. Michael Hudson) as it looks our way.
So while the attendance didn’t bode well for the “movement” or for the actual implementation of the reforms, it meant that I, as a first time attendant (this was the fifth annual AMI conference) had direct access to some of the presenters, and you’ll have the chance to meet some of them in the next several days as I post the video interviews we made.
No tinfoil. No wierd EJBM. Minimal conspiracy theory and none on the program.
There was some anger, though. With reason, I’d say. At monetary policies (or more properly, lack of such) that have resulted in:
a) an economy addicted to exponentially increasing amounts of debt.
b) incentivising some of our best and brightest to create $600 Trillion dollars in “derivatives” that contribute nothing more in the way of true wealth than a casino does… but sure do threaten the real economy.
c) a capitalism with a sense of irony, as it sucks capital out of the world of real, productive infrastructure and converts it into financial ephemera.
Supporting c): John O’Halloran of the American Society of Civil Engineers reported at the conference that overall U.S. infrastructure achieves the following grades:
D
C
D
D-
D+
D
D-
D-
C-
C-
D-
D
C+
D
D-
America’s Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
Kind of pitiful, for the so called richest nation on earth. So, yeah, there was plenty of anger about the persistence of a monetary system that many of these people have known was terminal for thirty years or more.
But anger was not a big part of the feeling of the conference, which felt comfortable, relaxed and friendly. There was plenty of humor, which may have been, in part, due to news delivered by AMI’s Stephen Zarlenga on Friday evening, that Congressman Dennis Kucinich was planning to introduce the American Monetary and Financial Security Act into Congress in “the next several weeks”, so now, for the first time since the 1930′s and the Chicago Plan (as far as I know) monetary reformers will have actual legislation around which to coalesce.
We interviewed several of the presenters and several attendees as well, and will be posting videos over the next week or so as:
Meet Some Monetary Reformers:
Will Abram, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
Terrill Arnold, Plover WI
