In 1850, Frederick Bastiat, a French economist authored a book entitled, The Law wherein he warned that governments become dysfunctional when they grant  privilege in return for power : ‘Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another ; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few – whether farmers, manufacturers, shipowners, artists or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.’

When Argentina wanted to borrow money during the last decade its federal government issued a ‘bond’ or ‘IOU’ to the international finance cartel – which includes the (WB) World Bank, the (IMF) International Monetary Fund and the (WTO) World Trade Organization. Each of these organizations is inter-related and is really a stalking horse preparing the New World Order advocates to ride to power with their fully-fledged one world government whereby the micro-chipped population will forever be enslaved to the financial elite.

The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund were created at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944. The role of the World Bank is to make loans to governments for large capital projects, most of which have been planned for Third World countries.

David Icke clearly points out that these loans have been used largely to finance projects in Third World countries and these projects have a hidden agenda to meet the profit motives of the multinationals. Such projects are often irrlevant and disasterous for the local people. David Icke is also suspect of the agenda of the IMF which claims to be there to intervene when Third World countries get into financial trouble – which is usually engineered by the same financial elite. David Icke writes in his book  “And The Truth Shall Set You Free’ -  “The idea is to encourage and bribe politicians in these countries  into relinquishing self-sufficiency in food and into opening up their lands to the multinational food and chocolate giants. … The Elite’s policy was to submerge the poor countries in debt and take them over.”

The WTO (World Trade Organization) which has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland was established on January 1, 1995. Its mandate is to administer WTO agreements, handle disputes and monitor trade policies to ensure that trade flows as smooth as possible. In summary, the WTO is an international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. David Icke’s ongoing research shows that the same names keep appearing as influential people in these overlapping organizations. For example, he points out that James Wolfenson, President of the World Bank is a partner in the Rothschild Banking Empire, a member of the Bilderbergs and coincidentally he has been a prominent force with the World Trade Organization.

 In his book, ‘Stop, Think – Globalization 2000’ Paul Helleyer writes about the World Bank: “The Bank literally changed the face of the Third World with its highways, railways, ports, mines, factories and dams. For this it was greatly admired and became the most respected, as well as the most profitable, of all international agencies. To all intents and purposes it was fulfilling its mission of helping the needy nations to climb the ladder of success and enjoy the benefits of a better life. In retrospect, however, the Bank suffered from a fatal flaw. The decisions were all made by people who had little, if any, knowledge of the history, geography, climate or culture of the areas and people being affected. It was primarily a numbers game, played by bright young economists whose mandate was to lend money for big projects.”

Paul Helleyer neglects to isolate the most fatal flaw of ‘usury’ as the undermining cause of the economic disasters which are caused by the World Bank.

Though the mainstream media would have us believe otherwise, in depth research shows that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are key financial organizations which have been carefully crafted as creatures of the multi-national corporations and and other major players of the global financial elite.

Reasearch also indicates that these financial structures were designed to create the legal framework and regulatory codes that would permit the financial capital of the rich to freely exploit Third World countries such as Argentina. Whenever Argentina issued a billion dollar ‘bond,’ the World Bank created a billion dollars on a computer screen. This accounting detail really costs the WB nothing, but from the moment of money creation the Argentine taxpayer is saddled with ‘usury’ payments to the World Bank on the billion dollars.

To further demonstrate the ridiculousness of ‘usury’ economics consider that the Argentina government’s IOU is now in the ownership of the World Bank, and is therefore deemed to be an asset of the World Bank. As such the World Bank is then permitted to lend to other Third World countries an amount ten times its value (ten billion dollars) and it will legally exact ‘usury’ on any new loans. Such banking practices are commonplace with every country in the world.

It is critical to understand that contrary to the popular opinions espoused by formal educational institutions and the mainstream media various researchers are finding much evidence to demonstrate that the multi-national coprorations and foreign investors selfishly engage the legal power of the WB, the IMF and the WTO to aid and abet their clandestine be-ruled or be-ruined agenda directed at all Third World countries.

 Argentina, the second largest country with 39 million people and a 96% literacy rate is grappling with a usury-created debt load of $152 billion. With an unemployment rate of more than 16.5%, the Argentine citizens are demanding that their federal government stop attempting to bail out the multi-national corporations and/or the foreign investors while ignoring their domestic needs. The common people are defiantly repudiating any plans of the federal government that would force those who are least able to pay the ‘usury’ on the debt.

Instead the common citizens are instructing their federal government to collect the ‘usury’ payments for the WB, the IMF and the WTO from the wealthy class who have accumulated the money in Argentina. With the many seemingly unsolvable problems being created by the WB, the IMF and the WTO the conventional answer postulated by these same people who created the problem is to establish a global government to sort out the mess. David Icke refers to this as ‘problem-reaction-solution.’ The common people are becoming wise to the fact that the people advocating a world government are the same ones who are creating the problems to justify it.

 Fear of the unknown and usury on money are the two most effective weapons used to control human beings. Usury is correctly defined as any fee on money above 0%. During the 19^th and 20^th centuries, people mistakenly believed that ‘interest’ on money was an aceptable function of modern finance. Various monetary engineers of the latter half of the 20^th Century have proven beyond a doubt that this assumption is incorrect. John C. Turmel, the banking systems engineer from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has isolated ‘usury’ as the design flaw in our orthodox money system. He claims that when ‘usury’ finance is completely replaced with ‘usury-free’ finance that everyone on planet earth will experience prosperity and abundance.

 It is worthy to note that though ‘interest’ ought to be correctly called ‘usury,’ the legal limit of  ‘interest’ on any loan in Canada is 60%. Throughout history, these key controllers have used war and conflict and an ingenious economic system which creates money out of thin air and lends it as principal, demanding back not only the principal but also the usury – which was never created. It is critical to understand when an individual, a company or a country negotiates with a bank and agrees on a ‘loan’ they have committed to an impossible contract.

 In each case, the banker types into the respective account the amount of the loan (principal). This creates brand new money and it costs the banker absolutely nothing to this. From the moment, his new money is put into the loan account, ‘usury’ is levied against the account. Usury is being paid to the bankers for money which never has and never will exist. This ficticious money is commonly called ‘credit.’

 David Icke in his book, 'Children Of The Matrix'  claims that a powerful group which he refers to as the ‘Illuminati’ created the ‘usury’ banking system and controls all the banks including the local and national banks as well as the WB and IMF. Further research indicates that this same powerful Illuminati Group created and controls all political systems and the various levels of government. Such imposing control has permitted the various federal governments of the participating countries to pass banking laws that permit banks to legally demand immoral ‘usury’ on loans. Personal debt, national debt and ‘Third World’ debt are all simply figures on a computer screen.

 Imagine how we could create peace, prosperity and abundance for all if individuals and nations were permitted to create ‘usury-free’ money! Are we being lied to by our ill-informed, formal educational institutions which teach that ‘usury-free’ currencies will not work in these modern times? It is interesting to note that two famous U.S. Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy were assassinated shortly after they dared to issue ‘usury-free’ money.

Throughout the 20^th Century, there were various attempts by small communities in Canada and the United States to issue ‘usury-free’ currencies. Even the Social Credit Party of Alberta and the Social Credit Party of Canada made gallant attempts to initiate ‘usury-free’ currencies at the provincial and federal levels of government. All such attempts to establish ‘usury-free’ economics were thwarted by the powerful money men from Bay Street whose polished lies succesfully discredited the concept until the early 1980’s.

 In 1983, in the depths of the 1980’s recession when ‘usury’ rates were as high as 21%,  Michael Linton created the ‘usury-free’ LETS (Local Employment Trading System) software. Michael Linton lived in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Michael Linton observed that many people in the Comox Valley, were unemployed because there was a shortage of federal ‘usury-bearing’ dollars. He also knew that these people still possessed their career skills and/or talents, so he contemplated establishing a database whereby these people could engage in barter. The term ‘barter’ was originally defined as an exchange of products and/or services between two people without any presence of physical paper bills or electronic money. Michael Linton envisioned creating a system which would be better than barter because he was fully aware of the limitations of barter when one trader does not need or want what the other potential trader wants.

After contemplating the optimal solution, he created the ‘usury-free’ LETS software. The LETS software is designed to create a ‘usury-free’ community currency account with a starting balance of zero for each participant. Different communities give different names to their local currency which has traditionally been equivalent in value to the federal currency of the country. Though early in this 21^st Century, given
the ease of modern computer technology, there is  a definite movement towards creating a ‘usury-free’ time currency which can be traded locally and/or globally.

 The person who owns the account is invited to list his/her contact details with any offers and wants.  The database is then shared with all who participate and people initiate trades with each other. Trades can be negotiated for 100% ‘usury-free’ community currency or with a percentage of ‘usury-free’ community currency and the balance in ‘usury-bearing’ federal cash.

 The key point to understand about the ‘usury-free’ LETS software is that new account holders are invited to make a purchase from another participant. Let’s assume that a purchase is made for a service valued at $30. The purchaser’s account would show a negative $30 and the seller’s account would show a positive balance of $30. The purchaser has just created $30 of  ‘usury-free’ currency which s/he backs up with a promise to deliver to anyone on the database another product or service equal in value to the $30 which s/he has just created. This is an empowering concept when LETS’ participants realize that they can create their own personal ‘usury-free’ community currency when traditional theory fails to create mutual abundance for all.

 Since 1983, the ‘usury-free’ LETS software has become well known all over the world and related concepts are being adapted to suit local and/or national markets. While Ithaca, New York, USA has created the optimal model of a successful ‘usury-free’ time currency called ‘Ithaca Hours,’ Argentina proudly boasts about the largest ‘usury-free’ barter network in the world with more than 500,000 participants living in the various provinces of Argentina. This is happening on Argentina’s domestic front while the international media remains critical of Argentina’s precarious and agonizing economic decline in the eyes of the WB, the IMF and the WTO. In Section 3, on page 8 of The New York Times, Sunday, November 25, 2001, Jonathan Fuerbringer authored an article entitled: ‘A Country On The Brink Of Default? It May Not Hurt Much’ wherein he wrote: “Argentina is on the verge of default, but investors don’t seem to care.” This is a curious statement considering that most economic analysts are predicting that with Argentina’s bonds returning a dismal minus 52%, a default is inevitable. Could it be that the
international financial elite are aware that they have been exposed and it's time for them to surrender to the ‘usury-free’ model as created by the Argentines?

Argentina’s popular barter network is called the RGT (Red Global de Trueque). It is a multireciprocal exchange which was born in April, 1995 at Bernal, City Quilmes, Provincia de Buenos Aires. The participants of the RGT are known as ‘prosumers’ – a term coined by the futurologist, Alvin Toffler who authored the book, The Third Wave in 1979. A ‘prosumer’ is one who is both a ‘producer’ and a ‘consumer’  of goods and/or services at the same time. Common sense dictates that it is essential for any participant in any successful barter system to be a ‘prosumer’

 Since that time it continues to grow so that there are now participating members not only in Argentina but also in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Spain. Its rapid growth enabled it to become a popular national project and all indicators point to explosive growth in the coming years. Furthermore, other Third World countries are expected to beat a path to Argentina’s door asking: “What are you doing to create abundance and how are you doing it?”

As we progress towards the end of 2001, Argentina is proudly boasting of its common citizens who are members of the RGT having created and spent into circulation in excess of 5 million ‘usury-free’ credits. This means that the people of Argentina are not paying any ‘usury’ to bankers on these 5 million credits. The Argentines are to be lauded for daring to lead the way out of the trap of ‘usury.’

The RGT was started as a garage flea market hosted by Horacio Covas, Ruben Ravera and Carlos DeSanzo and it continues to expand rapidly due to the economic hardhsips that Argentina has been suffering – all because of the devastating effects of ‘usury’ as imposed by the WB, the IMF and the WTO. The exciting detail about the adaptability of RGT’s is that many people are choosing to live outside the conventional ‘usury-bearing’ economic system by buying and selling all of their goods and/or services on the RGT.

The RGT is formed with hundreds of ‘nodos’ being set up within a given area. Each ‘nodo’ sponsors weekly flea markets whereby people are invited to attend and exchange their goods and/or services. On any given day there will be trades of food, clothing, cosmetics, stationery.  Since the RGT is defined to include a network of nodos, the members of ‘nodo’ A will be invited to attend and trade at a nodo hosted by B, C or otherwise. The exchanges are negotiated with vouchers commonly called ‘creditos or credits’. One credito is deemed to be equivalent to one Argentine peso which is about equal to one US  dollar. As a bonus, every new member who decides to particapte with a ‘nodo’ is gifted 50 creditos on joining the RGT.

The RGT’s Declaration of Principles are worthy of note:

“Our fulfillment as human beings need NOT be conditioned by money. We aim not to promote products or services, but our mutual help in accomplishing a betterway of life, through work, solidarity and fair trade. We believe in the possibility of replacing competition, profit and speculation by reciprocity  among people.

We assume that our actions, products and services may respond to ethical and ecological standards more than to the will of the market, the consumerism and short

term profit. The only conditions to be a member of the RGT are: assisting to weekly group meetings for trade, being trained permanently and being  ‘prosumers’ (both producer and consumer) of  goods, services, and knowledge, as recommended by Quality and Selfhelp Groups.

We assume that every member is the only person responsible for his/her actions, goods or services bartered in the Network. We believe that belonging to a group means no relationship of dependence, since individual participation is free and common to every member of the Network.

We claim that groups are not necessarily due to be formally organized, in a permanent way, since the network model implies permanent change of roles and functions.

We believe it is possible to combine the autonomy of groups (Clubs or Nodes), in the management of internal affairs with all the principles of the Network.

We recommend not to support, as members of the Network, moral or materially, any activity that might keep us apart from the main goals of our Network. We believe our best example is our behaviour in and out of the Network.

We keep confidentiality about our private lives and prudence in the public treatment of those matters that might alter the growth of the Network. We deeply believe in an idea of progress as a consequence of a sustainable welfare of the great majority of people of all societies.”

There are many exciting events happening with Argentina's RGT on a daily basis. I will keep on researching and networking the information with the hope that fellow-Canadians will likewise recognize the power and potential of advancing the 'usury-free' resolution.