“The real truth of the matter is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D., is author of the recently published Public Banking Solution, but also the incisive and well documented The Web Of Debt – The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And How We Can Break Free. Her latter work is what will be covered lightly here.

For most of the modern world, money has been a staple of everyday life. A great deal of our daily functions revolve around this much used, but poorly understood economic tool.

In recent years, the monetary system has grown to untold levels. With the dollar losing value year after year, student loan debts reaching preposterous levels, and debt itself growing unabated in many different sectors of finance, it’s no wonder that the ‘too-big-too-fail’ economic system has its issues.

This is not to say a collapse is imminent as many alternative media pundits espouse. In fact, am more of the mind that what we are in fact in is what has been called a ‘controlled descent” by former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Catherine Austin Fitts.

Getting back on track, many of the above issues stem from our inherent corrupt monetary system. However, what this book does not cover is how the black-budget has been leeching money from the public sector, and transferring by the trillions [according to Ms. Fitts] to the black sector.

The modern birth of this [public] financial control grid is covered in extensive and mind-blowing detail in Brown’s Web Of Debt book. [Note: For a deeper analysis into the covert side of the off-the-books financial control grid, please take a gander at Joseph P. Farrell’s Covert Wars And Breakaway Civilizations – The Secret Space Program, Celestial Psyops and Hidden Conflicts.]

Pulling no punches, this historic piece has got gall. Not afraid to name names, and branching through centuries of historical data, Brown’s work showcases what the financial, political, and elite minds of these times were pondering.

This particular piece also offers data/ideas on some of the vital issues we face and how we might overcome said issues.

From the inception to the private, and heinous Federal Reserve, up to current times, the reader will get ample evidence of the financial mishaps/crimes that are taking place. This is important, because much of the populace is unaware of these dealings.

If you wish to know the truth about our financial monetary system, the truth about its wide-ranging and sinister history, and ways in which to enrich your knowledge on this esoteric subject, then this book is definitely for you. ( )

Interesting read. ( )

Venturing into this area as an independent researcher shows that Ellen Hodgson Brown is not lacking in courage. Her book is part conspiracy theory—she argues that the present global economic order is a fraud that has for centuries been perpetrated for the benefit of an obscure power elite that controls international finance capital—and part tract aiming to revive the mostly forgotten “Greenbacker” economic ideas of Henry Carey, a 19th-century economist.

Her demystification of how money is created early in the book is informative and her ideas for reform in the final section are intriguing and are worth reading. But her historical narrative line in the intervening chapters is not; it is simplistic and unconvincing and undermines the reader’s confidence in her competence.

For example, in her account of post-WWI financial turmoil, she has nothing to say about intergovernmental World War I debt, which according to economist Michael Hudson has played a key role in the dominance of finance capital. Compared with the work of historian Lawrence Mitchell (The Speculation Economy), her work is tendentious.

Brown’s book is, in fact, in large part a version of a common form of conspiracy theory in which bankers and financiers are the villains, effects imply intentions and obviate the need for proof, and causes for events are asserted, suggested, or hinted at, but are based on little or no evidence. Wars are “provoked” to “set debt traps,” assassinations are frequent, etc.

Brown is, in fact, more polemicist than scholar. She acknowledges no evidentiary or methodological problems, her brief bibliography/recommended reading list inspires little confidence, and her notes are slapdash, often second hand, and sometimes difficult to verify (no page numbers; web sites that no longer exist). She is uncritical with respect to her sources, which are heterogeneous and often of dubious reliability and include Wikipedia, endtimers, Larouche publications, and cranks both on the left and the right. In fact, many of her sources, perhaps most, are polemical writers.

Brown attempts to free her conspiratorial view of history from some of its usual associations. She ignores the Masons, who frequently figure in similar interpretations of history. She avoids association with anti-Semitism and reproves Hitler. But her book’s website features prominently a positive review in an anti-Semitic publication, Nexus Magazine.

This is lightweight history in a paranoid style (though of a relatively mild sort) fueled by populist and nationalist—though not nativist—resentment. ( )

Let me make my position clear. Never schooled in finance myself, I am admittedly not someone whose opinion you want to rely on in this matter. Nonetheless, I am offering it. My key point: Since its 2007 publication, MANY OF THE ALARMING ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS IN THIS BOOK HAVE ALREADY COME TO PASS, EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED.

I do NOT suggest here that Ms. Brown is a prophet -- virtually everything in her book is drawn from other sources (and scrupulously cited) -- but simply that she has got her facts straight. This being the case, her book should be read by anyone who wants a modicum of understanding of our global financial situation. It should also, I think, be required reading for anyone in government.

In reading this book, I was amazed at how coherently the monetary system could be described to a lay person. I'd never have guessed, from all the boring, jargon-filled discourses of our venerable "financial experts," that this was an issue that could be addressed in common sense language. And before anyone thinks I'm just some lay person who is delighted to understand SOMETHING about global finance and hasn't analyzed the data: I have in fact heard and read many arguments against the salient points in this book. I've also posted questions to some of them online -- in particular, about TALLIES and LOCAL CURRENCIES, two alternatives Ms. Brown mentions. I've been fascinated to see that no one so far has even acknowledged my questions, even though both tallies and local currencies have long been used with great success in many places in the world up to the present time. Instead, people more informed than I continue to call for "a return to the Gold Standard," a system guaranteeing scarcity and inflation, as far as I can see. It seems that the human urge to ignore "the Emperor's clothes" continues even into this current historic economic crisis. We humans hate considering a new paradigm. And so we continue along the old routes, keeping the major players in their jobs and the current structures afloat, despite their catastrophic track record and the alarming future staring us in the face.

For any who may still think that I am an uninformed alarmist, I will simply point out that this book is strongly supported by world-renown economist BERNARD LIETAER, among other high-profile financial and economic experts. These are people who know what they're talking about, and they believe Ms. Brown does, too. One may ignore my opinion, but I can't see how theirs can be easily dismissed.

The information in this book needs to be common knowledge to every citizen of every country in the world. If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, so is the price of financial freedom. The economic crisis did NOT start in 2008. Its roots are deep and far-spreading -- it is the logical result of a centuries-long systemic shell game. I believe we could cut the taproot, if we only identified it correctly. Then, with the right steps, we could create a flourishing garden. I hope we will do so. ( )