One of our “Movement” planks is Banking reform, specifically, the creation of a State Bank of Vermont patterned after the very successful State Bank of North Dakota,

(www.banknd.com/).

This wholesale bank would be complimented by retail branches of the Common Good Bank (http://commongoodbank.com/home/), established throughout the state, wherever 50 or more people choose to do so. (Visit the website and watch the 7 minute video).

We liken this to the two wheels of a bicycle, operating in harmony with each other.

Quotations:

"The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. With something so important, a deeper mystery seems only decent."

John Kenneth Galbraith

“There can't be too many people or too little work to be done, only a shortage of money with which to pay for it”

Benjamin Franklin

Questions:

• Is the truth evaded and disguised? Is there a deeper mystery?
• Is the monetary system fundamentally flawed? Is there another way to understand money?
• When we understand money, we will know that we, as a society, or community, can have all the money needed to pay for everything we consider worthwhile.
• When we understand money, we will know that money is an accounting system.
• When we understand money, we will know that it is the goods and services that are valuable and not the money. The money represents the valuable goods and services. Money makes them commensurate so that we can exchange them. Money is the means of exchange.
• When we understand money, we will know that there are only natural limits, such as people with a desire to do something, the capability to do it, and the availability of the natural resources with which to do it.
• When we understand money, we will know that any shortage of money is artificial.