Our Current System 5.51 The golden goose: government

The gift that keeps on giving

Under our current system, Government is the golden goose for private banks and the financial sector.

Wall Street makes money when the Fed system creates new money for government to spend. They earn interest on this debt.

The Fed banks make money when they trade government securities.

Government debt anchors the banking and financial sector’s money-making enterprises to some semblance of prudence, allowing them to take higher and more profitable risks.

US Government debt is a gift that keeps on giving to the wealthy owners of banks.

And, the burden on everyone else…

But government debt is a heavy burden on taxpayers and on the nation. In 2017, the US Government collected $2,100 billion for its Operating Fund. Out of that it paid $372.6 billion for interest on Operating Fund debt.55 For every dollar you paid in income taxes, 18 cents went to pay interest on debt (13 cents to Wall Street, and 5 cents to government trust funds). When roughly one in six tax dollars are going to interest, we have to either cut services or increase taxes. No wonder it seems that government can’t provide adequate service for our money!

While even middle class people hold some Government bonds, the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans own 77 percent of all our wealth.56 Odds are you are not in the top 10 percent, and more likely suffer rather than benefit from the US Government’s need to go into debt and pay interest. And, all of us suffer when we haven’t got enough in the Federal kitty to cover our basic infrastructure needs. A deteriorating nation is a burden on every business and individual.

We have a choice: our current money system makes our government the Golden Goose that lays golden eggs for Wall Street. We can take back our Golden Goose money system and use the golden eggs it lays to better our nation for everyone.