VIDEO: Enslaved by our banks: 12-year-old Canuck explains

Canada’s banks have been called the safest in the world. Better than American banks, and certainly better than the banks of Europe. But safe for whom? For shareholders and bank executives, that's who!

A Canadian student, 12-year-old Victoria Grant of Cambridge ON, has gained incredible fame (or, in banking circles, notoriety) for stating the obvious, i.e. that the banks -- Canadian, American, and European -- are the fattest of all capitalist cats, amassing riches of which Croesus could only dream on the banks of us "ordinary people".

There are probably no more than eight people on the planet who haven't seen Victoria's rant on the Internet, but in case you're one of them, here's a video of her address to the Public Banking in America Conference in Philadelphia at the end of April.



Victoria talks about money -- wealth -- being created by a few keyboard strokes on the central bankers' computers. Sounds as if she's been thinking about the concept Ron McPherson calls Facilitism, mentioned here before.

We continue to be frightened this week by "news" that Europe is still teetering on the brink of a financial crisis. We common folk -- not just Greeks but all of us -- will have to tighten our belts still further because if we don't, Greece and other fiscally imprudent countries may not be able to pay the debt they owe to... errr... the banks. What will be the result? Our taxes will go up, our standard of living (especially health care) will go down... and the banks will be paid.

In Freedom's Dawning, Ron McPherson claims Facilitism can eliminate taxes, eeradicate poverty, produce jobs for all, and give us free education and health care. Maybe it's time to read it, and give some more thought to the whole concept of banking and artificially created debt.

Bible Bill's brillliant idea to get the economy moving

Ed., who monitors WWW's stats, tells me there's been some interest in my review of James H. Gray's book, The Winter Years. And so there should be, as it appears we are headed for another depression. Perhaps it won't be of the same depth or duration as the Great Depression of the 30s, but even now people are crying, shouting [demonstrating, too. Ed.] for solutions. It's time to revisit some of the ideas that were tried 80 years ago.

In the penultimate [would that be the second-last? Ed.] chapter of The Winter Years, Gray tells the story of "Bible Bill" Aberhart, a hellfire-and-damnation prairie preacher who got politicized by the poverty and despair he saw around him, and ultimately became premier of the province of Alberta.

Mr. Aberhart was an early convert to the economic theories of Major C.H. Douglas, the British engineer who founded the Social Credit economic reform movement. The Social Credit solution to the depression was, at its simplest, to print more money. Putting more money in circulation, Aberhart said, would stimulate the economy and all would be well again.

Does any of this sound familiar? Check out Gray's summary of one of Aberhart's stump speeches:

Aberhart was at his best in resorting to allegory, and he heavily favoured such parables as the one about the counterfeit dollar bill.... It concerned a man who found a dollar bill on the street, and promptly spent it for groceries. The grocer bought some eggs from a farmer with it. The farmer paid the blacksmith, who spent it for a shirt.

Mr. Aberhart chased the dollar all over town, out into the country and back, over the next town, up to the city. Wherever it went, it got business going again to everybody's profit. Only when the banker discovered it was counterfeit was it retired from circulation.

If a single counterfeit dollar could accomplish so much, why would social Credit not be able to do infinitely more?

Now does it sound familiar? Compare Bible Bill's story with "How a government stimulus package works", contributed by Agent 6 on November 4th.

When Aberhart's Social Credit party swept the Alberta elections in 1935, he set about keeping his campaign promise to give every man, woman and child in Alberta $25 per month. (Obviously not your typical politician.) He had "prosperity certificates" in that amount printed, only to be told by the federal government that he couldn't do that, the creation of money being within their sole jurisdiction. And so the Bill's economic stimulus plan came to naught.

Imagine Bible Bill's surprise when, a mere seven years later, the Liberal federal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King (who loved his mother like anything) introduced what came to be known as "the baby bonus", a payment to Canadian mothers of a paltry $6 per month per child. If anyone can tell me the difference between Aberhart's "prosperity certificates" and the baby bonus -- other than $19 per head, I mean -- I'd like to hear their explanation.

So would Ron McPherson. He's the author of Freedom's Dawning, which propounds the theory he calls "Facilitism". In a very small nutshell, Mr. McPherson says that credit and debt are merely bookkeeping entries. (Hardly surprising, given that he's an accountant by profession.) Thus wealth can be created by the stroke of a pen. Joe Average only has $10 in the bank? Let the government add three zeros and he's got $10,000, which should take care of the mortgage for this year.

Of course I'm oversimplifying [hardly surprising. Ed.] and there would be enormous "collateral damage" (forgive the pun) were this idea to be implemented. But who would bear the brunt? The banks and mortgage companies -- the same friendly folks who opposed Social Credit and took Joe Average's farm or home when he couldn't pay interest.

Those would be the same banks and financial houses which make obscene profits of billions of dollars a year, pay millions in salaries and bonuses to their fat cat directors, and give us a mere 1/2 of 1% on our savings, yet charge us almost 20% on our credit cards.

If I owe the bank money, the manager enquires about my health every time I come in the door. "By the way, Mr. Whiteman, do you have insurance?" Otherwise, he couldn't care less about me. Why should I care about him? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.

Is nothing sacred to the gay lobby?

A reader has taken issue with Walt's use of the term "gay lobby". Do I really believe, (s)he asks, that there's a homosexual conspiracy to infiltrate positions of power and influence? Well, just as there are some who believe that Jews control banking and finance, so there are some who believe that homosexuals run the worlds of fashion and entertainment.

Have a look at Fashion TV and tell me that those clothes aren't designed by people who hate women. Or want women to look like 13-year-old boys!

As for entertainment, one has only to note the number of openly gay characters who appear in American TV sitcoms and soap operas. Four characters in the Simpsons appear to be, or have declared themselves, part of "the LGBT community". So what? It's all part of an orchestrated campaign (if not a conspiracy) to make being queer seem "normal". That's what!

And of course there was Brokeback Mountain. Hey, there's two nice guys who just happen to love each other and like to spend time doing things together...manly things like riding and camping...so there's nothing wrong with them, right? They don't have those little toothbrush mustaches and do disgusting things in bath-houses, do they?

(Mrs. Walt, having led a sheltered life, asked me what they do do. If she'd gone to school in a place where they have modern sex education she wouldn't have had to ask!)

And then there's comic books. Are you ready for this? Remember Archie? Well, in No. 202 of Archie Comics, coming to your newsstand in September, a new character moves to Riverdale. His name is Kevin Keller and he's a hunk! And guess what, girls? He's gay!

Says Jon Goldwater, CEO of Archie Comics Publications, "We want to make Archie Comics move forward and make it fun and inclusive." Ah yes, good normal fun. "He’ll definitely be part of the gang," he said. And at some point, he added, Kevin will "probably" have a "romance". Progressive parents will doubtless want to snap up that issue so they can show it to their kids!

“We pride ourselves on being a mirror to society, especially youth," Goldwater continued. "The kids in our book are in high school and we want to reflect everything that’s going on in their world from social interaction, to fashion, to friends." Fashion...social interaction...homosexuality... if you're not into all that, hey, you're just not cool...like Archie and his friends.

Footnote: If you can't remember which Simpsons character came out of the closet, e-mail walt.whiteman@yahoo.com and I'll tell you.