The Ignorance Is Worse Than I Thought; The Opportunity Is Better Than I Thought
reminiscences the day after my first public talk on the subject of my newly released novel, The Money Suckers by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Sunday, November 7, 2010
As part of my efforts to publicize the release in paperback of my novel, The Money Suckers, I arranged to speak to a local 912 tea party group in Oakton, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. I attended their meeting yesterday afternoon. After sitting patiently through their planning session about how they were going to carry their message to the politicians and the public, suddenly, it was my turn to speak.
This was my first public talk on the subject of the monetary and banking system since I released my novel. The setting was a room in a local public library. About 20-25 people sat around a meeting area set in a large, conference style layout of tables in a rectangle that filled most of the room. I could tell from the earlier proceedings that there were a lot of energized and determined people in the room, each of whom had their own, pet issues they had pushed. I wasn't sure how they would receive my message. I thought I might be nervous, and I suppose I was a little nervous, but it mostly manifested as energy rather than discomfort or fear. So I started to talk.
I gave a brief overview about my own background and how I became interested in the subject. Then I said, "My mission is to help all Americans understand the basics of the monetary and banking system, so that they'll understand not just what really caused the financial crisis of 2008, but also what can be done about it. I'm probably preaching to the choir, here. You guys probably already know all this stuff. But let's just start with the basics anyway."
"Who," I asked them, "can tell me what 'debt-based money' is?"
Then I waited. My answer was silence. So I tried again. "Come on! Someone here must know. Who can tell me what debt-based money is?"
More silence. This was unnerving. Were these people trying to make me feel like a fool? No. Pretty quickly, it began to dawn on me. They really didn't know! They had never heard the term "debt-based money" before.
So then I said, "Who here has read The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin?"
I got back a whole lot of shaking heads. Finally, their chairman spoke up, saying, "I bought the book, but I haven't read it yet."
"That explains it," I said.
Now, bear in mind, this audience (I found out later) was very well educated and included Ivy League graduates and various experts in their fields. There was a woman who graduated from Vasser, another from Radcliffe. One regaled me about a story of how she'd had to fight her way through an academic adviser at Columbia who was hostile to all her ideas about the NRA. (This is the National Recovery Act of 1933 and the National Recovery Administration it spawned, not the National Rifle Association.) There were former and present public school teachers in the room. There was a geologist who explained that fears of carbon in the atmosphere were unfounded because the atmosphere was merely 0.03% carbon. Yet none of these people, none of them, could tell me what debt-based money is.
Now I understand why the principles of Austrian Economics, the nature of the financial crisis, the evils of the fiat dollar, Audit The Fed, and all the rest had virtually died within the tea parties. Their level of ignorance on the subject astounded me.
Being a bright group, they tried guessing what debt-based money is. Initially, the guesses were pretty far off the mark. But I encouraged them, playing a game of "warm and cold" to help guide them toward the answer. Finally, after much prompting, one gentleman got closer than all the rest as he discussed the process by which banks create money out of thin air. I kept saying "yes" and "very good", trying to urge him on. Unfortunately, he eventually ran out of steam. He never did come up with a cogent definition for me.
So I let them off the hook by saying, "debt-based money is money that is created by issuing a loan of some kind, whether it be a mortgage or a car loan or a business loan or even a government or corporate bond."
The reaction from that point onward was electric. They pummeled me with questions and challenges as they tried to work through the implications of the concept I had just tossed in their laps. I was surprised that none of them seemed to be Friedmanites. I fully expected someone to claim that monetary expansion was necessary to a healthy economy, provided that the expansion exactly follows the growth of the economy, but the argument never came.
I told them about my weekly show on the Progressive Radio Network and how the network's founder had complimented my show (which I do with Nolan Chart columnists Jake Towne and Melinda Pillsbury-Foster) during last Tuesday's election night coverage as being one of the most popular shows on the network. They were fascinated by that fact. One woman begged me to please explain health care to the liberal listeners on that network. I smiled and said, "One issue at a time!" This was a joking reference to my earlier comment to them that, in my view, there is really only one political issue in the world, the monetary and banking system, and the fact that all the rest of the issues are merely sub-issues of this one big issue, and they're all also funded by this one, big issue.
An hour later, the discussion had raged onward, my audience craving as much information as I could give them. Unfortunately, I'd only been allocated a half hour for my talk, and the chairman had to step in and stop the discussion because we were about to be kicked out of the room by the library. I received a warm round of applause, and I ended up selling quite a few books afterward. All of them wanted me to sign them inscribed to someone close to them whom they wanted to read my book.
This first speaking experience taught me a few things. First, it taught me that people liked hearing what I have to say on the subject. Second, it taught me that the tea party movement is largely ignorant of the monetary and banking issue. And third, it taught me people on both sides of the political aisle are hungry to hear the message I have to share with them.
One meeting down, 999,999 to go!
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