Skip to main content

Proposal for India and the USA

Proposal for India and the USA


Commercial banks should not be allowed to create money.

by Anandi Sharan


Thursday, 07 April 2011 at 12:28


Proposal for India

Three point programme: a) a bill to prohibit the creation of money by commercial banks; b) A bill to pass the land (that is right to land) to Gram Saba and town committees,  subject to a constitutional amendment bill; c|) a budget 2012-2013 that includes an ecological tax reform bill.

Brief elaboration

The constitution is basically sound. distortions from the industrial mindset have been adopted from  the colonial mindset. However, respectability of the law, and hence desire for respect for the law - because it makes us feel reassured - can be restored through creating a small shift in perspective on the three  burning issues confronting the country. Measures we should take include:

a) Prohibition of  money creation by commercial banks and instead reintegrate RBI into Fin Min and give money to centre and states to spend into circulation, using taxation to control inflation - thus need to abolish Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act and pass prohibition of creation of money (commercial banks) act;

b) Passing of  Jan Lok Pal act

c) Moving land from state subject to Gram Sabha and town committee subject through constitutional amendment

d) Implementing import controls and most goods including petroleum - thus need to write 2012 budget act that will apply spending for agriculture, forestry and renewable energy - control of fossil fuels and coal and mining will happen automatically.

We can then get rid of all the subsidies and sectoral non-policies and acts and liberate the people from the shackles of scheme hell. Forest Rights Act and Forest Act 1827 can also be abolished and land distributed to Gram Sabha's if a) to d). Good LUCK to us all!

Proposal for the USA


Three point programme for the USA perfectly possible along very similar lines to what we are proposing in India: a)  prohibition of creation of money by the commercial banks through a bill; b) A bill to prohibit the corporate ownership of land and to strengthen community enterprises through a bill; c) to introduce an ecological tax reform bill in the 2012 budget.

Brief elaboration

The US constitution is basically sound. distortions of the industrial mindset and colonial mindset have to be rectified. Respectability of the law, and hence desire for respect for the law because it makes people feel reassured, can be restored through small shift in perspective on the three burning issues confronting the USA
a) Prohibit money creation by commercial banks and instead reintegrate Federal Reserve into Department of the Treasury and give money to the Federal government and the states to spend into circulation, using taxation to control inflation - thus President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Budget is a direction to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for total cancellation of debt (with some provision for repayment of loans to China) which shall follow after passing a prohibition of creation of money (commercial banks) bill;

b) Prohibit of exports and foreign investment bill (this necessary so that new money does not flee the country)

c) Put import controls on most goods including petroleum d) rewrite 2012 Budget to apply spending for agriculture, forestry and renewable energy - control of fossil fuels and coal and mining will happen automatically thanks to b) and c). If we want we can strengthen thrust of budget 2012 (ecological tax reform) bill by getting rid of all the subsidies and sectoral non-policies and acts supporting fossil fuel and nuclear and military adventurism and liberating the people from the shackles of regulation hell.


9th April

Yesterday I had resolved to fast today.

Then yesterday the country took one step in the right direction, and I must decide what in that case my low calorie diet is about today. It reminds me of a scene some time ago. I was sitting in a small house right on the edge of the North Sea in Hartlepool. The sea was grey, the sky was grey, and it was cold. I bought a couple of speakers and for a week I watched and listened to the unfolding disaster at Copenhagen.

The rules of the game that had been painstakingly built up over 20 years of international negotiations, though laborious, had made it possible in a nascent way to legitimately finance rural development by avoiding the emission of greenhouse gases. Now the rules were being dismantled before my eyes by those who prefer to play by rules that privilege only them.

In the couple of years between the Conference of the Parties at Copenhagen and now, many of us have reworked our expectations. The slogans, dare we say the doctrines, of equity and survival, cap and share, are the same. But it is simply no use working at the international level now, on issues that are fundamentally about the most basic of all resource uses,the national resource of labour, and land.

Friends in Ireland are working within the constraints of their system. We Indians too are working on our national vision. We have a chance to shift our perspective ever so slightly to reveal a focus not on what others can do for us but on what we can do for ourselves. By dismantling three sets of wrong rules and practices in land, banking, and foreign trade, we can undo those things that are preventing the country from protecting and defending equitable privileges and rights in limited common atmospheric space and land for all.

It is for this reason that I am now researching the details of what will add up to the new the rules that will govern these areas of urgent national concern. I sent the vision document outlining the three point programme yesterday. I have faith that the common vision and the technical solutions will emerge naturally, as if they had always been there. We will then be able to speak about a new doctrine.

I live with the knowledge that within each one of us we are already living by its rules. Hence the ease we find of sharing our concerns and translating them into three acts: first the prohibition of creation of money (commercial banks) act; second the land (right to land) subject shift from state to gram sabha and ward committee (constitutional amendment) act; and third the 2012-2013 finance (ecological tax reform) act. The drafting is proceeding slowly but i am not unduly perturbed as i am confident the issues have been clarified sufficently over the past years for me to bring out the salient points.

Comments

Philip Hall said…
This comment has been removed by the author.

Popular posts from this blog

A warm welcome

. Why blog on ARS NOTORIA? I have set up this website,  ARS NOTORIA ,  (the notable art) as an opportunity for like-minded people like you to jot down your thoughts and share them with us on what I hope will be a high profile blog. . ARS NOTORIA is conceived as an outlet: a way for you to get things off your chest, shake those bees out of your bonnet and scratch that itch. The idea is that you do so in a companionable blogging environment, one that that is less structured - freer. Every article you care to write or photograph or picture you care to post will appear on its own page and you are pretty much guaranteed that people will read with interest what you produce and take time to look at what you post. Personal blogs are OK, but what we long for, if we can admit it, are easy-going, loose knit communities: blogging hubs where we can share ideas and pop in and out as frequently, or as seldom, as we like. You will be able to moderate and delete any of the comments made on 

Phil Hall: The Taleban are a drug cartel disguised as an Islamist movement

Truly the Taleban could have arranged as many bombings and terrorists acts as they liked in the UK. There are many Pashtun young men and women in cities in the UK who still have large extended families back in Afghanistan and who could be forced into doing something they should not. But guess what. So far there have been no attacks by Afghans on British soil. Why? It is a mystery. News comes from Afghanistan and the recent UN report that the Taleban and the drug trade are intertwined and that now the Taleban, who are mainly Pashtun, are officially in command of an international drug cartel.  News comes from Afghanistan that Taleban drug lords go to Dubai to live high on the hog and gamble and sleep with women and luxuriate in all the that the freedom to consume has to offer, while their footsoldiers, peasant fighters, are deluded and told that they are fighting a patriotic religious war.  And though they are told they are fighting a religious war what really matters to them in tr

Our Collective Caliban

At the risk of seeming digitally provincial, I’m going to illustrate my point with an example from a recent Guardian blog. Michel Ruse, who is apparently a philosopher, suggested that, whilst disagreeing with creationists on all points, and agreeing with Dawkins et al on both their science and philosophy, it might be wiser and more humane (humanist, even) not to vilify the religious as cretinous and incapable of reason. Which seems reasonable, to me. According to many below-the-line responses he is a ‘half-baked’ atheist, ‘one of the more strident and shrill New Apologists’ and, apparently, “needs to get a pair’. And that’s just from the first twenty comments. A recent article by a screenwriter at a US site was titled ‘Why I Won’t Read Your Fucking Screenplay.’ Tough guy. I wonder how his Christmas cards read. I’m going to sound like a maiden aunt dismayed by an unsporting bridge play and can perhaps be accused of needing to ‘get a pair’ myself (although, before you