Death Dollars vs Life Credits
A story about how conventional money systems are killing us—and a way out.
 
The core premise of commercial money—and the systems supporting it (central banks, commercial banks, legal frameworks, tax codes, and stock markets)—is that they enable wealth concentration through leverage. The more you have, the more institutions and people are willing to advance you credit. This is the Matthew Principle in action: "To those who have, more will be given."
 
This agglomeration of reinforcing loops creates a force similar to gravity. As wealth concentrates around a single node—whether human or corporate—more monetizable assets are drawn into that entity's orbit. We can call this phenomenon a “financial black hole.”
 
If we extend the metaphor, it becomes our Death Star. Black holes, after all, are the remains of collapsed stars. And the analogy holds: a black hole is essentially a super-concentrated mass, not unlike the super-rich who attract ever more money because of their outsized gravitational force in this financialized universe.
 
These black holes—our Death Stars—dominate the space they inhabit, consuming the planets and stars around them. Eventually, everything becomes so concentrated that nothing can escape their influence. Their growing gravitational pull makes them impossible to resist.
 
Astute readers may have noticed that this invisible "financial gravity" only affects monetizable assets —finance-speak for anything that can be owned and from which rent or profit can be extracted.
 
None of this Death Dollar system could exist if it had to pay for the Life Systems it consumes. But of course, it doesn't. This is the real tragedy of capitalism: a system built for unlimited accumulation that never pays for the damage it inflicts on the underlying systems of Life. Instead, it ignores these "externalities" —dodging the support payments that would cut into profits and leaving the rest of us to suffer the consequences.
 
The players in this Death Star tragedy have excellent PR people, of course. They promote the convenient narrative that money-making is essential to humanity's existence—and that without it, no one would be motivated to do anything at all.
 
Now let's welcome reality into the conversation.
 
In the real, non-financialized world, everything we attribute to life derives from multiple, interdependent systems that evolved over billions of years. These systems deliver the conditions necessary for life. And the Death Star version of money? It isn't compatible with reality.
 
I hear you asking: Is reality really real? Are Death Dollars really killing us?
 
Yes. Reality is real. And Death Star dollars are killing life.
 
So how does this Life Credit system work, and why is it better than your favourite Death Dollars?
 
Money is fundamentally a social construct—it isn't a universal element on the periodic table. Its origin story begins as a medium of exchange between unknown and untrusted parties in long-distance trade. Since then, it has morphed into an unholy trinity: a unit of measure, a means of exchange, and a store of value.
 
These finance-focused fictions have monopolized our understanding of value—how we measure it, exchange it, and store it. Money has become central to "life," something we need to survive. Yet tragically, it contradicts life by separating us from reality in ways we can no longer afford—as humanity and as living beings.
 
This makes the current money system the primary conflict at the core of our continued existence.
 
“Death Star money is dead. Long live Life Credits.”
 
As many of you may have intuited, Death Star money really is the root of all evil—or more specifically, the “concentration” of money and its universal use as a unit of exchange, store of value, and measure of worth.
 
The primacy of money is a core reason so many systems are failing. With 8 billion people on the planet, humanity is now large enough—and ravenous enough in its pursuit of unaccountable money—to inflict real damage on real life systems.
 
This is “Why” we need a parallel system: a migration away from the Death Dollar toward a Life Crediting System.
 
Let me show you how you fit in—and how we will “All” be wealthier, healthier, and perhaps able to leave our grandchildren a world where they can survive and to enjoy life.
 
Collectively, we need to migrate our accounting and money systems. Think of it as an "anti-gravity" button that resets how we understand value.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this "new" system resembles the old systems—the cooperation and collaboration with natural life systems that our ancestors lived by. They had no choice; they couldn't leverage claims on monetizable assets or extract massive energy from fossil fuels and machinery at planetary scale.
 
Revisiting the "Economy" as an “Economy of Life”—rather than a purely financialized economy—this frees us from the Death Star's influence. It redirects us in a life-friendly system.
 
It's your lucky day to have stumbled upon this article.
 
This is the first step toward gaining independence, reclaiming stolen wealth, and finding a pathway to a liveable future for you and humanity—on the only planet where life in the universe exists.
 
This is a big win.
 
Stay tuned as we release more about Life Credits and The Account of Life.
 
Register on our waitlist or DM me to be selected as an early beta tester for tools and programs you can start in your neighbourhood, with your neighbours.
 
Yes, it's going to be that simple.
 
Cheers,
Ward

This is one of the best statements ever on the ease and legitimacy of the government creating its own money.
“If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good… If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency… instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people’s credit in interest-bearing bonds?” 

THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION

“The money problem can be summarized thusly: the way in which money is created by the banking system today causes a debt imperative which drives a growth imperative -- this forces destructive competition for the available supply of money, which is never sufficient to enable all debtors to pay what they owe….

“The evils that have been spawned by the collusion between political power and financial power are far worse even than those that arose from the collusion between political power and religious power…

“When the realization of the inherent money power in all of us comes to man he will…push down the walls of his prison. Finance which is the creature of the unholy wedlock between banker and state cannot be solved by either power dominating the other. The only solution lies in the people denying the power of both over industry and their assertion of their own money power…

THOMAS GRECO,
MONETARY REFORMER

​https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Thomas_H._Greco_Jr.

Works Progress Administration workers build a new farm-to-market road along Knob Creek in Tennessee, March 9, 1936. (AP Photo)

A Post by Jeff Piestrak Public Services at Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

Like Nick Hanauer, proclaiming ‘Homo Economicus’ Must Die:
"The last 40 years of research across multiple scientific disciplines has proven, with certainty, that homo economicus does not exist. Outside of economic models, this is simply not how real humans behave....
​
Being rapacious doesn’t make you a capitalist. It makes you an asshole and a sociopath. In an economy dependent on complex trust networks to facilitate the cooperative tasks from which prosperity emerges, and when prosperity itself is understood—not as money but as solutions to human problems—true capitalists understand that every economic act is an explicitly moral choice—and they act accordingly."

Christian Felber of the Common Good Economy speaks with Renegade Inc on the disconnect between our values enshrined in constitutions around the world and the antithetical set of values propagated by mainstream economists are falsely represented as immutable natural systems - not simply the propaganda of special interest groups that benefit from maintaining the current operating system - despite these jarring contradictions. 

A short introduction to "our" money system, why our money system choice matters, and why changing to a Just Money system can make it possible to pay for a better world.

Talk about Positive Money
Ben is the founder of Positive Money, a campaign for a banking system that works for society and not against it. At Meaning 2014 he got into the nitty gritty of how the current process for money creation is causing a rise in poverty, instability and inequality. And challenged the audience to imagine what a modern and sustainable system could look like. The Meaning conference is an annual gathering for people who believe business can and must be better in the 21st century.

Professor Werner talks about the empirical study he made about nominal interest rates and economic growth. The facts suggest clearly that interest rates do not drive the economy and they are not negatively correlated. This would mean that monetary policy, as used by central banks, would, at best, be very ineffective. Professor Richard A. Werner holds a First Class Honours B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and a doctorate in Economics from the University of Oxford. He has also studied at the University of Tokyo. Richard is a Member of Linacre College, Oxford, and is a university professor in banking and finance. He is also a founding chair of Local First, a community interest company establishing not-for-profit community banks in the UK (including the Hampshire Community Bank). Until February 2019, Richard was for many years a member of the ECB Shadow Council. His work experience includes: chief economist at Jardine Fleming Securities (Asia) Ltd., a stint as Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns Asset Management Ltd., many years managing global macro funds, several years as senior consultant to the Asian Development Bank and periods as visiting scholar and visiting researcher at the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan, respectively. His book ‘Princes of the Yen’ was a No. 1 bestseller in Japan, beating Harry Potter for six weeks.