Product Description

EXPLODING THE MYTHS ABOUT MONEY Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been "privatized," or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions -- including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices -- and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16661 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

From the Back Cover
Ellen Brown has applied her training as a litigating attorney, researcher and writer to the monetary field, unearthing facts that even the majority of banking and financial experts ignore: ranging from the privatization of money creation, to the Plunge Protection Team, to the Federal Reserve's "Helicopter Money." Read it; you'll get information you need in order to understand what is going on in our financial markets today.

- Bernard Lietaer, former European central banker,
author of "The Future of Money" and "Of Human Wealth"

Literacy on the topic of money is at an all-time low. This book is tremendously important not only in its presentation, but by drawing attention to an age-old topic that should have a major presence in the public mind.

- Benjamin Gisin, Author of "Farmers and Ranchers Guide to Credit," publisher of "Touch the Soil" magazine, and a senior loan officer for a top 10 bank

About the Author
Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Brown's eleven books include the bestselling Nature's Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies.

Customer Reviews

highly recommended
If you wish to learn more about who really runs this troubled world, then read this book and reflect carefully upon its contents. If you have wondered, as I have, why the whole world - governments, corporations and individuals alike - is increasingly mired in debt, then read this book. If you think naively that banks are basically brokers who mediate between depositors and borrowers, then read this book. It will show you how you are fundamentally mistaken. If you think that you understand what money is and how it comes into being then you are probably wrong again and this book will tell you how and why. Its publication is timely as the debt-ridden world financial system now strains to cope with the US subprime debacle. If you have been lured into borrowing more than you can repay and you are about to lose your house, then read this book to understand more deeply your predicament. If your pension fund or your savings have been disastrously invested in risky and maybe now worthless securitized debt then this book will help you to see where your hard earned money has gone and who has benefited.

Although The Web of Debt is mainly about the US banking system and the US dollar, its message that the money supply is in the hands of a private banking cartel and is not in the hands of elected governments is applicable to many countries. It shows how money is created from nothing and then lent to governments at interest, for no good reason other than the historical usurping of this all important function by powerful and ambitious men for their own private gain. Absurdly, governments must then tax their citizens to pay interest to the private bankers, foregoing the obvious alternative of issuing debt-free money themselves. This fascinating book is highly readable, accessible to the layperson and, as a theme, explains the allegorical meaning of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum (the basis of the film The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland).

During the next very few years it seems likely that we will all be affected severely by the now looming and potentially catastrophic breakdown of our debt-based money system. All is not quite hopeless however, and Ellen Brown shows towards the end of the book how, given the political will, we could change to debt-free money issued and spent into the economy by governments directly for the benefit of their citizens. Of course, the elite few who currently control our global money system are not going to give up their immense power voluntarily or easily. Indeed Ellen Brown indicates that they might well be planning to perpetuate and firmly consolidate that power worldwide in a New World Order.

Considering how deeply entangled we all are by debt-based money, it is both amazing and rather sinister that the subject is never analysed and debated openly in the main stream media. We should ponder and query why this is so. With access to the internet and to books such as The Web of Debt we can however now educate ourselves about the fundamentals of our money system. We need to do so urgently. We need also to educate and lobby our politicians, most of whom seem to be just as uninformed as the rest of us about the workings and consequences of arguably the biggest scam ever perpetrated on humanity. READ THIS BOOK.

banking: a worldwide ponzi-scheme
The truth in brief? Banking is essentially a Ponzi-scheme: banks actually CREATE the money supply as loans, while making it appear to be controlled by governments. For over 400 years, these banksters have used this control to enslave nations and ensure perpetual wars and bondage. Keeping all "profits" (interest), they cause the so-called economic 'boom & bust' cycle, recovering their losses (via pathological gambling) from us via taxes - showered over them whenever THEY might otherwise go bust.

The gist of this is in all David Icke's books, in shorter, summary form, and also in books such as "Creature From Jekyll Island" and "The Money Masters". The chapter "Funny Money" in the "Gods of Eden" by William Bramley (first published over three decades ago) provided an elegantly simple - and chilling - explanation of the origins of the money frauds which are currently causing global economic meltdown. "The Grip of Death", whilst written in an old-fashioned manner, also contains superb points. For those familiar with any of these books, this is a good refresher book and, for those who are new to the truth, it's a great start, providing a brief but horrifying history and a diagnosis of the current failures in our financial institutions.

There are some flaws but these are mere quibbles and, in February 2008, the author wrote (on Amazon.com): "Yes, I caught errors myself, which is why I just spent the last 3 months doing an updated and revised version, available on Amazon now; and am working on another revision with a long postscript, hopefully available in a month. The banking system is collapsing very quickly, warranting frequent updates. Managing 500 pages with footnotes has been very difficult, and it has taken me 6 years already; but I had to go to press just because of the crush of events...Much of my challenge has been to make this subject interesting and accessible to people who normally shy away from reading about economics and finance. If they keep turning the pages, I'm halfway there. Ellen Brown"

Whilst this book concentrates on the US, there is valuable historical information about the UK system and anyway the banksters are perpetrating the same scams over here, and most everywhere. Well researched and thorough, it not only covers the history of the current massive money frauds but ties together various international currency crises with a common thread. The book has an easily readable style and clear explanations of complex processes: for the first time ever, for me at least, derivatives are explained in an understandable manner: basically side bets that something (anything!) will go up or down.

The last 7 chapters show us, in an entertaining manner, that there are ways towards a more prosperous world. Most of the suggestions are political (they have to be voted into use) but a few can be put into place by small groups. The most important one, it seems to me, is not even listed - just don't borrow - ever! (Remember "just say no"?)

A fantastic book on the long-ongoing international financial wickedness; worth reading for the history of the monetary system alone. Ideally, no one should be allowed to graduate from school without reading this, but we live in a far from ideal world.

Plausible predictions, questionable reasoning
Her basic point, that the current economic and financial system is unstable, and headed into an immediate and immense crisis, is very well-founded. Her suggestion that some kind of "Greenback"-style fiat currency would be far preferable also seems very plausible. The book is written in a very accessible positive style, in the same kind of can-do tone of a popular self-help book.

However, Hodgson Brown's grasp of history and economics is a bit shaky. Various minor historical howlers (William and Mary coming to English throne when "Duke of York" dies, etc.) make me a bit leery of accepting statements she makes when she is talking about areas on which I am less knowledgeable. Her understanding of economics is very vague and hazy: at points where I didn't already know what she was trying to explain, such as with the medieval tally system, she was very hard to follow. I suspect that someone with only a little economics background would not gain much real understanding from this. I hate to criticise a 450-page book for excessive brevity, but she does skim over many topics that really need to be handled in a great more depth.

The economic theory she is propounding is similar to that more rigorously put forward by Michael Rowbotham, that fractional reserve banking involves banks creating money out of nothing, and that the money returns to banks as profit. It suffers of course from the same potential defects, for example, that inflation and default could potentially eat away all those profits.

Her book is far stronger when it leaves general theory and history, and gets on to the intricate details of the current crisis. The financial system is currently breaking down, with vast sums of essentially worthless money being pumped into the financial markets to desperately try to keep the major financial institutions afloat. It seems clear that this is a game that can't last much longer. She has plenty of well-informed insights in this area, at least as far as I've been able to check them.

Despite her occasional reliance on characters like LaRouche, she writes very readably with great enthusiasm, and covers a vast amount of ground, and brings up some fascinating topics. By all means read it, because it will give you ideas, and introduce you to new facts and theories, whoever you are. I'd suggest however, checking what she says to ensure you get a more informed view of each particular area she covers.