Forum Post: The NEED Act, to Create Millions of Jobs, and Rebuild America, Debt-Free
Posted 11 years ago on Sept. 22, 2012, 9:27 p.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
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Washington, Sep 21 -
International Monetary Experts Meet in Chicago To Discuss Kucinich Legislation, HR 2990, The NEED Act, to Create Millions of Jobs, and Rebuild America, Debt-Free
Today a panel of international monetary policy experts gather in Chicago at an event sponsored by the American Monetary Institute (AMI) to discuss major changes in U.S. monetary policy proposed by United States Congressman Dennis Kucinich. The meeting is occurring on the one year anniversary of the introduction of H.R. 2990, the National Emergency Employment Defense (“N.E.E.D.”) Act, at the University Center at 525 South State Street in downtown Chicago.
Conferees at the AMI conference in Chicago are hearing from monetary theorists, economists, advocates and professors as they discuss the moral approach at the heart of successful monetary reform.
With its introduction one year ago by Congressman Kucinich the NEED Act’s paradigm-shifting legislation has broken new ground, formally advancing a simple but powerful idea: that the creation of wealth should be in the hands of the people, and used not for the benefit of financial speculators.
In the last year, the NEED Act has received endorsements from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (Chicago area Local 126) Executive Board, the Chicago’s Teacher’s Union and the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee.
The bill has been favorably modeled by experts. Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi of Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, conducted an economic analysis of the bill, showing how H.R. 2990 pays off the national debt in full as it comes due, eliminates government borrowing without tax hikes or spending cuts, and can pull the economy out of recession without inflation.
Professor Yamaguchi’s analysis showed that present policies cannot work. Attempts to reduce deficits by either spending cuts or tax hikes plunges the economy into deeper recession, reduces revenues, and ends up increasing deficits. An International Monetary Fund Modeler also studied the NEED Act. He concluded that direct governmental control of the money supply could significantly reduce business cycles, and would eliminate bank runs, lead to large reductions in the levels of both government and private debt, and generate large steady state output gains due to the removal or reduction of interest rate risk spreads, taxes, and bank costs, and zero steady state inflation.
“The NEED Act is so named because America has a jobs emergency and a monetary policy emergency. Congress has not stood up and reasserted its Constitutional control over the monetary system. Instead, our nation’s ability to create money was farmed out to the Federal Reserve in 1913. The ‘Fed’ is an institution which operates with virtually no oversight from Congress. Its primary function has been to assist private financial institutions, many of which are multinational,” said Kucinich.
“The NEED Act places the Federal Reserve under the authority of the Treasury. It creates verifiable transparency in our nation’s monetary policy choices. It will put our nation’s resources to work for the American people. The NEED Act would put 7 million Americans back to work rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure without debt or inflation,” Kucinich concluded.
Learn more about the NEED Act at www.Kucinich.House.gov/TheNEEDAct
Here is a link to the text of the bill: Don't know if it will have a chance though - taking too much power away from those who want to be in control
http://monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HR-2990.pdf
How does this work?
here's a link - http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/need_act_fact_sheet_09232011.pdf
Excellent
Kucinich is a wise man. He's been right for a long time. If democrats would only catch on maybe we could have actually impeached George Bush like Dennis actually tried to do.
Agree.
[Removed]
The REAL Need Act:
Congress passed today the dissolution of the monetary system, saying, "We have pulled this game as far as it can go before it's ruin further destroys society." The vote was unanimous.
Senate pre-approved the bill, with Senator William Nelson of Nevada sponsoring it's passage. Piggy-backing this bill was the federal legislation of marijuana legalization in all 51 states and territories.
The president was engaged in a golf tournament at the time of this historical legislature, and when reached was quoted as saying, "Michelle, now THAT'S some $#%&ing change huh? Pass me a brewski."
AP/ New York City
The American Monetary Institute is where Kucinich met his wife. She used to work there.
I agree that the Fed should be under the control of government and should be able to lend to government interest-free.
The law currently prevents the Fed from loaning to the government. The Fed can only buy treasuries in the secondary market.
But one problem this poses is bloating government. If government gets an unlimited line of credit, it will likely abuse it. There needs to be something in place to prevent that.
What I recommend is that the Fed lend to public companies that produce market goods and services and that are required by law to employ everyone who wants to work at a public company.
This would end underemployment and give everyone a right to a job which is probably a more important right than any other.
You can read how that would work in this post.
Likely? Def. gov. Does not need to control everything.
the government is already abusing an unlimited line of credit. Have you seen the debt?
This saves taxpayers money. It creates jobs. It builds roads. It solves the debt problem. And it takes power away from the banks and gives it to the people.
You said "What I recommend is that the Fed lend to public companies that produce market goods and services and that are required by law to employ everyone who wants to work at a public company." I could support something like that too. I actually think the Fed should be loaning out money at the same interest rates they give banks.
"the government is already abusing an unlimited line of credit. Have you seen the debt?"
But do you think that they will borrow more or less once they no longer have to find a lender and no longer have to pay interest? I think the debt will get worse.
Reread the original post
Maybe you could just copy and paste the relevant part?
Okay. Copy and paste below in regards to your comment suggesting "the debt will get worse"
H.R. 2990 pays off the national debt in full as it comes due, eliminates government borrowing without tax hikes or spending cuts, and can pull the economy out of recession without inflation.
significantly reduce business cycles, and would eliminate bank runs, lead to large reductions in the levels of both government and private debt, and generate large steady state output gains due to the removal or reduction of interest rate risk spreads, taxes, and bank costs, and zero steady state inflation.
I don't understand. Are you saying this would print $12 trillion in new money (or whatever the debt is) and use that to pay off its debt?
What does it mean to pay off the debt in full as it comes due?
http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/need_act_fact_sheet_09232011.pdf
the full bill here - http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr2990/text
Have you read the bill? It completely changes our monetary system.
He replaces our actual dollar bills which are currently called Federal Reserve Notes with new dollar bills called US Money. This seems purely cosmetic.
Banks would no longer be able to lend out their deposits. If a bank wants to lend out any of the money people have on deposit, they would have to borrow it from the Fed at interest.
This prevents banks from profiting off of the creation of free money through fractional reserve. I'm not sure what beneficial effect this will have except to have direct control over the size of a portion of the money supply.
Not only can the state and federal govts borrow from the fed interest free but it can also print new money and grant it to them. The Fed would determine how much money supply was needed and I guess this would limit the government's ability to just print itself whatever money it wants.
He also caps interest rates at 8%. And you cannot pay in interest payments, fees and penalties an amount greater than the principal you borrowed on any loan except mortgages.
They should make mortgages interest free for a family's primary residence. The fed should just hire appraisers that appraise the house of each loan and charge this appraisal cost to the borrower instead of interest.
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It would retire our debt which is a good thing. This would save roughly $350 billion in interest payments each year. We could use that money to now employ 7 million people each year at $50k instead. But do we want 7 million more government workers? I don't know if we do.
Its goal is full employment, but I don't see how that is possible. The govt can access this money for public investment. But that will just grow government and require us to raise taxes to pay for all these newly hired government workers. That is not a good thing.
26 million are underemployed. Employing them all at $50k per year would cost $1 trillion more in taxes each year in addition to the $350 billion we are getting from eliminating interest payments. You can't print $1 trillion in new money each year. And I don't think we want 26 million more government workers. We will start to turn into Greece where everyone works for the government doing jobs nobody wants to pay for.
If the economy grows at 2% per year and money velocity is 2, you can only print $150 billion in new money each year.
Completely changing monetary policy is the goal.
Taking power away from the banks and giving it back to the people is part of the goal. No longer can these private banks have so much control over our economic destiny.
Also there are a couple areas you have misinterpreted this bill. For one example where you said the creation of jobs is not a good thing. Are more teachers and garbage men and park's employee's a bad thing? Are building roads and bridges a bad thing? You guys always try to make government jobs sound so evil.
And your suggestion is what? Everyone just see if they can work 20 hours a week? Mandate businesses pay people 115,000 dollars a year and the government decides which jobs are harder and get paid up to 400,000 a year?
Which is more plausible?
"Are more teachers and garbage men and park's employee's a bad thing? Are building roads and bridges a bad thing?"
Yes they are bad if we already have enough garbage men, teachers, park employees, roads and bridges.
I am worse off if I now have to pay for 2 guys to take out my garbage when I used to only have to pay for 1. How do I benefit from making my garbage collection bill more expensive?
I obviously don't benefit from that. I would rather spend that money on something else like a vacation or put it towards my car payments.
I'd rather spend my own money instead of having government spend my money for me and blowing it on pointless garbage collection.
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"Which is more plausible?"
It is not a matter of what is more plausible. It is a matter of what is more beneficial. I would benefit far more from an economy that pays me at least $115k for working 20 hours per week than an economy where I get paid $40k for working 40 hours per week and my garbage collection is now twice as expensive.
Kucinich's plan to replace our entire monetary system, banning the lending of deposits and issuing new money is as radical as what I propose.
What I suggest as an interim idea is to just have the Fed invest the QE money in forming public companies that sell market goods and services and directly employ the underemployed instead of giving that QE money to bail out private investors and banks.
I wrote about that in this post. That is very plausible. The public would rather see public money go to give people jobs than to bail out investors. And that will end underemployment and provide people with a living wage.
Plus it is spending it on a market company. So it will be paid for voluntarily by customers who want to buy their goods and services. It won't be paid for through taxes.
We have over a trillion dollars in infrastructure needs actually.
Your taxes won't go up because of this bill. According to Dennis and other researchers chances are taxes would go down.
Also I agree with you that forcing businesses to pay 115,000 dollars is obviously more beneficial to you. It won't happen. I'd support a guy who ran on that... but I'd also support a guy who ran on HR 2990
If I didn't understand anything about economics, this would sound AWESOME!
Let me know when the current system starts working for the 99%
I suppose you would want a surgeon to know what is wrong with you before he starts cutting, right? Is Occupy any different?