Events

Regenerative Currencies and Positive Change: Exploring How Changing Our Currencies Can Change Our Economies

Join us for an interactive presentation and open discussion exploring how we can leverage alternative currencies as tools for the common good. This presentation explores the possibility of changing some fundamental properties of our currencies as a way to halt inflation, to fund the complete and equitable elimination of poverty, and to prioritize the well-being of our planet.

This presentation will introduce "Regenerative Currency Systems", an open-source, free, and modifiable framework for using electronic currencies as community-governed tools for funding the protection of people and the planet, discussing this approach as it relates with existing monetary reform work. These scalable systemic platforms are intended to facilitate universal basic access to all components of basic well-being without cost, without inflation, and without requiring any participation from non-interested groups.

Alex has prepared this packet for interested readers who would like to explore these ideas before and after the presentation.

The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

The Color of Money examines why black banking could not overcome discrimination and segregation but bled black capital into white banks via loans and deposits. Mehrsa Baradaran challenges the myth that black communities could ever accumulate wealth in a segregated economy.

Join AFJM's Next Generation (formerly known as Youth Caucus) in reading and discussing The Color of Money! Please come prepared to discuss the book as a whole. To access the book you can check your local library, order it online, listen to the audiobook, or purchase it at a local bookstore.

Money as a “Common” for the People

In most, if not all, countries, the creation of money and credit is controlled by the Law, as determined "by the people, for the people." Sovereign money is unique because its exchange value is guaranteed by the Government. Thus the Government should recover the value for the use of money, and for its provision as a common of the people. All of the systems in any society depend on the money system. As the most crucial common of the people, it should assure that all money is created equally for all citizens. Money can be used for the benefit of both the individual and the society.

Review Edward's work, Money as a Common.
Youtube Recording

An Open Mic on Election Reflections

How do you feel post-election? AFJM hosted an Open Mic for folks to share their thoughts! We wanted to hear from monetary reformers new and old on their Election Reflections. This open forum is meant for us to decompress and digest the results. At AFJM's September Coffeehouse, Educating Legislators, Candidates, and Voters on Monetary Reform, we introduced the American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA). At this Open Mic, we hoped to assess our legislators and discuss who would be good candidates to introduce AMRA too.

YouTube Recording

Educating Legislators, Candidates, and Voters on Monetary Reform

The American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA) is an updated version of the National Emergency Employment Defense Act (NEED Act), previously introduced in Congress by former Representative Dennis Kucinich. With monetary reform urgently needed to address many of our current economic, political, and ecological problems, it's time for us to strategize and develop the knowledge and skills required to introduce AMRA in Congress and move it forward. Attend this special Coffeehouse to:
• Learn what's in AMRA (Please review beforehand our 23-minute overview of AMRA. If possible, read AMRA itself at the link above. If not, read the fact sheet on it.)
• Hear and discuss the steps and stages of educating and lobbying your Congressperson
• Hear personal experiences from those who've contacted political candidates and legislators on monetary reform
• Engage in Q&A on the above contents
• Walk away with some resources for and clarity on what we can do individually and collectively to advance Just Money reform legislation this election season and in the new Congress

YouTube Recording

Design Sprint Reflections

In May, the Youth Caucus experimented with using a "design sprint" process to quickly develop ideas for bridging the climate and monetary reform movements. During six co-working meetings in May, Youth Caucus members and new recruits worked together to research what the climate movement was saying about banking. We prepared talking points and resources for engaging climate activists around monetary system reform and have begun reaching out to climate campaigners for conversations. In this Coffeehouse, the Youth Caucus will share their experience using the design sprint process and the many valuable things they created during the project.

YouTube Recording

Swiss Vollgeld’s Media and Public Relations Strategy in 2018 People’s Referendum

On June 10, 2018, Switzerland had a national people's referendum on adopting a Sovereign Money system. The Swiss monetary reform group, MoMo (short for monetary modernization), set out a nation-wide initiative, the Vollgeld-Initiative (Vollgeld is the German word for Sovereign Money), to raise people's awareness of private money creation and the need for Sovereign Money. Although the resolution did not pass, they did manage to garner national and International media attention. For this Coffeehouse on August 6th, Maurizio Degiacomi will focus specifically on the Vollgeld's media and public relations strategy. What worked? What didn't work? How did this small group manage to get the world's attention on the monetary issue? How can other monetary groups learn from Vollgeld's direct campaigning experience?

YouTube Recording
Study Stack

How to Relate Monetary Reform to CBDC?

Dutch monetary reformer, Edgar Wortmann, got his kick-start at American Monetary Institute's Chicago 2013 conference. Steven Zarlenga, Michael Kumhof and Steve Keen provided him with essential information to co-create the monetary reform movement in The Netherlands. This movement, Ons Geld (Our Money), was inspired by digitization of money. It considers digitization essential to providing sound money, outside the credit system. But digital money, such as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or a digital euro, can do harm too. In 2017 Ons Geld raised the issue of a digital euro in a letter to the European Commission. In this letter Ons Geld exposed the relationship between the bank's balance sheets and the nation's currency and how it makes our money prone to runs and risks. Ons Geld suggested that digital technology can help to address this and stated, "The key is adoption of a virtual euro that does not represent a claim on the issuing entity." The European Commission replied and showed it understood Ons Geld's proposal; however, it was concluded that it was not considering the creation of a digital euro as a measure to enhance the stability of the financial and monetary system. Some years later the European Central B ank (ECB) entered the discussion, and claimed it already provides safe money. The ECB made clear the risky nature of the bank money system is not on the table, as the main purpose for 'CBDC'. Moreover, the ECB has one design requirement which positions it directly against Ons Geld: the digital euro is a central bank liability.

YouTube Recording

AFJM and AMI’s Public Comments to the Fed on CBDC

On January 20, 2022, the Federal Reserve issued and invited public comments on their white paper, Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation, which discussed potential benefits and risks of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The purpose of our May 23rd Coffeehouse was threefold: first, to share the public comments that AFJM and AMI each submitted with those interested in Just Money reform; second, to celebrate all among us who submitted comments as individuals; and finally, to discuss the threats and potential opportunities that adoption of CBDC poses for achieving Just Money reform. Whether we like it or not, CBDC is on the horizon in the larger worlds of money and banking, cryptocurrencies, and so-called "fintech" and "stablecoins." This was not AFJM's first and surely will not be our last Coffeehouse on CBDCs. Monetary reformers in the US and globally (through IMMR) need to discuss CBDC openly and critically to have a unified voice. Monetary reformers need to seize this moment in history to make Just Money the law of our lands. We need Just Money now before it's too late. Our children and theirs demand nothing less of us.

YouTube Recording

CBDC: Why Not?

Virtuality in Money and Banking – Public innovation or an ultimate con? Joe Bongiovanni will relate his father’s teachings on the frailties and failures of debt-based money by private issue, and opine on how that failure provides the financial-monetary 'necessity’ for new central banking foci today. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) cannot proceed under the existing legal framework of our national money statutes. Our money system MUST be changed, but in the direction of more clarity and stability through lawful authority for government issuance of our money without debt. CBDC is untimely. Today we are experiencing increased instability in the world of global finance with lasting COVID Pandemic-induced economic dislocations, and growing debt-saturation that is rampant in our communities. There’s no money available for paying those debts, the hallmark of today’s finance-capitalism. What we need is less of what CBDC claims to offer, and a more focused public policy strategy that preserves and enhances the monetary reform movement. Needed now more than ever.

YouTube Recording

The LWVAC Question: What Features of a Monetary System Would Support Our Values

This Coffeehouse (CH) is a continuation from January's CH in which John Howell and members of the Monetary Committee of the Athens County League of Women Voters (LWV) presented the monetary proposal, which they are advocating for the national LWV to take on. Their proposal can be found on LWVAC website. The CH focused on fundamental values that bring us to monetary reform. The project with the League started with stated League values and how those values, and the political positions arising from them, are either served by or thwarted by the present monetary system. In this CH we asked participants in breakout sessions to articulate the values they hold which are affected by the monetary system. We also asked participants to think critically about the desired features of a monetary system listed in our proposal.

YouTube Recording
Study Stack

Monetary Reform Efforts with the League of Women Voters (LWV) with John Howell

In this Coffeehouse, John Howell, along with two or three other members of the LWVAC Committee, will describe the educational efforts toward monetary reform made over the past year in Athens, OH. These efforts have resulted in a proposal now endorsed by the Athens County Chapter of the LWV. The Proposal is for the National LWV to consider the fundamentals of our present monetary system as well as alternatives and develop a position statement that can be used for advocacy purposes. The Committee’s proposal includes a list of features a monetary system needs in order to be supportive of the League’s values and the positions it takes on other issues. It also contains a study guide to help other League chapters address the need for monetary reform. The Proposal can be found here.

YouTube Recording
Study Stack

What Henry George’s analysis of political economy offers to proponents of Just Money Reform with Ed Dodson

The 19th-century political economist Henry George tackled what many of his predecessors and contemporaries argued was the great inequity of all time: the private appropriation of rent (i.e., that portion of wealth we produce that comes from the fact that not all of nature has the same potential to yield wealth with the same input of labor and capital goods). At the same time, George provided a similar analysis of the roles of money, banking and credit played in fostering or thwarting a just distribution of wealth in any society. While his solution to "the land question" came to be called "the Single Tax," his contributions to monetary theory recognized the strong relation between the land and money questions.

YouTube Recording
Study Stack

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