Title: Web of Debt - REVIVE LINCOLN�S MONETARY POLICY: AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Headings: REVIVE LINCOLN�S MONETARY POLICY:
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

REVIVE LINCOLN�S MONETARY POLICY:
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Lincoln�s Monetary Breakthrough
Building on a Successful Tradition
The Perennial Inflation Question
A Wake-up Call

Content: �
The Greenbacks actually were just as good as the bankers� banknotes. Both were created on a printing press, but the banknotes had the veneer of legitimacy because they were �backed� by gold. The catch was that this backing was based on �fractional reserves,� meaning the bankers held only a small fraction of the gold necessary to support all the loans represented by their banknotes. The �fractional reserve� ruse is still used today to create the impression that bankers are lending something other than mere debt created with accounting entries on their books. 1
Lincoln took Col. Taylor�s advice and funded the war by printing paper notes backed by the credit of the government. These legal-tender U.S. Notes or �Greenbacks� represented receipts for labor and goods delivered to the United States. They were paid to soldiers and suppliers and were tradeable for goods and services of a value equivalent to their service to the community. The Greenbacks aided the Union not only in winning the war but in funding a period of unprecedented economic expansion. Lincoln�s government created the greatest industrial giant the world had yet seen.