International Monetary Fund

The IMF was conceived in July  1944 at a United Nations conference held at Bretton Woods , new Hampshire , USA, when representatives of 45 governments agreed on a framework for economic cooperation designed to avoid a repetition of a disastrous economic economic policies that held contributed  to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
    As a specialized agency of the United Nations system set up by treaty in 1945 , the IMF is headquartered in Washington DC and is governed now by its almost global membership of 184 countries.
    The IMF is the central institution of the international monetary system-the system of international payments and exchange rates among national currencies that enables business to take place between countries.
    It aims to prevent crisis in the system by encouraging countries to adopt sound economic policies.It is also a fund that can be tapped by members needing temporary financing to address balance of payments problesms.
    The IMF' s statutory purposes include promoting the balanced expansion of world trade, the stability of exchange rates , the avoidance of competitive currency devaluation's and orderly correction of a country's balance of payments temporary problesms.
     In order to serve these purposes , the IMF firstly monitors economic and financial developments and policies , in member countries and at the global level and gives policy advice to its members based on its more than fifty years of experience.
      For example, in its annual review of the Japanese economy for 2000, the IMF Executive Board urged the Japanese government to stimulate growth by keeping interest rate low , encouraging corporate and bank restructuring and promoting deregulation and competition.
 

Currency Appreciation explained...

Currency Appreciation means that the given currency has become more valuable with respect to another currency. For example if the rupee appreciates it means that rupee has become more valuable in relation to dollar. In case of appreciation a "downward" movement takes place. For instance if the rupee moves downwards from 50 per dollar to 40 per dollar then rupee is said to appreciate.

Inflation explained....

Savers need to take the threat of inflation very seriously because it can erode the value of deposits at startling speed. If the value of your savings does not keep pace with rising prices, its buying power will be depleted quickly - and you may not be aware of it until it is too late.

Here we explain why inflation matters and what you can do to combat it.

What is inflation?

Inflation is a general rise in prices across the economy. The inflation rate is a measure of the average change over a period, usually 12 months.

There are two main measures. The consumer prices index (CPI) was adopted as the Government's preferred measure in 2003 and is used by the Bank of England for the purpose of inflation targeting. The target is 2 per cent, which would mean that prices overall are 2 per cent higher than in the same month last year.

The oldest measure of inflation, the retail prices index (RPI), dates back to before the First World War.

What is the difference between RPI and CPI, and which is more useful?

The CPI excludes most housing costs. Rents are included, but house prices, council tax and mortgage payments are not. This usually means that CPI inflation is lower than RPI inflation, although this is not always the case.

Everyone should keep an eye on the CPI for an indication of whether interest rates are likely to rise or fall.

For anyone in receipt of a pension or benefits, though, the RPI is the one to watch because increases remain linked to the RPI rather than the CPI. Inflation-linked products, such as index-linked gilts, are also linked to the RPI.

Remember, though, that both of these official measures are calculated on the basis of an average notional shopping basket, but an individual’s spending patterns can differ dramatically. The Office for National Statistics has an inflation calculator that enables you to enter your personal expenditure patterns to calculate an approximate personal rate of inflation (see websites below).

Why does this matter to my savings?

Savings must grow by at least the rate of inflation to maintain their value. If they rise in nominal terms but fail to beat inflation, their real value will fall in terms of purchasing power.

If the CPI was at 5.2 per cent, higher-rate payers would need to earn at least 8.63 per cent gross interest before they start to make a positive return. Basic-rate taxpayers would require at least 6.5 per cent.

If your savings account does not match or beat this rate you are effectively losing money.

Here is a guide to the interest that basic and higher-rate taxpayers need to earn to match inflation

Inflation rate of 5%

Basic-rate taxpayers need 6.25%

Higher-rate taxpayers need 8.34%

Inflation rate of 4%

Basic-rate taxpayers need 5%

Higher-rate taxpayers need 6.25%

Inflation rate of 3%

Basic-rate taxpayers need 3.75%

Higher-rate taxpayers need 5%

Inflation rate of 2%

Basic-rate taxpayers need 2.5%

Higher-rate taxpayers need 3.34%

Inflation rate of 1%

Basic-rate taxpayers need 1.25%

Higher-rate taxpayers need 1.66%

Do any savings accounts provide protection against inflation?

Index-linked savings certificates from National Savings & Investments (NS&I), which are backed by the Government, are tax-free and guaranteed to keep pace with the RPI for a fixed term.

The return is made up of a set interest rate plus the RPI figure, fixed for three or five years. You can invest up to £15,000 per issue, so you could shelter £30,000 in both the three and five-year plans.

You have to tie up your money for the fixed term to receive the advertised rate.

Look out for inflation-beating savings accounts and Isas from banks and building societies, too.

A brief history of banking

In the old days there was no paper money. The accepted token of exchange was precious metal minted into coins by the Church and the Crown. Because there was only a limited amount of gold and silver available, the economic life of the nation had a certain regularity.

An even greater restriction existed throughout Christendom. This was a prohibition against usury, or charging interest. The Church held it to be a grave sin and the code was upheld by the civil powers. There were harsh penalties for those who broke the law.

The regulation of usury was to prevent the separation of money from reality. Money is not a good, it is a measure. It is fraud to pretend otherwise, and constitutes theft. Usury is making money from lending money; it is making money from nothing. This is exactly what is happening today on a colossal scale.

Several important things arose from the prohibition of usury in medieval Christendom. Firstly Jews, who had taken to wandering around Europe in the Middle Ages, began to specialize in money-lending and other practices which were forbidden to Christians. Exploited Christians, both peasants and aristocracy, found themselves being bled dry by usurers, which is why there were sporadic uprisings, imprisonments and expulsions of Jews throughout Europe. It is one reason why King Edward I expelled these perfidious people from England in 1290. Oliver Cromwell allowed them back when the moral authority of the Church was undermined and the King was beheaded in 1649.

Secondly, gold coins, jewels and other valuables were deposited with people who held strongboxes. This was usually with goldsmiths and money-lenders who, more often than not, were one and the same. These loan-sharks and scriveners realized that, without much chance of being found out, they could charge people for looking after their deposits and then use those deposits – which did not belong to them – to make loans to other people at interest. They soon became rich and powerful.

Gold coins are heavy and awkward to carry around so the custom arose whereby the money-lenders would issue credit notes to depositors who began to trade these notes between themselves in commercial transactions. Paper money had come into existence.

A new form of usury developed as the swindling money-lenders realized the immoral benefits that could be obtained from such a situation. It became apparent to these thieves that they could go one step further than dishonestly using other people’s money for financial advantage at no cost to themselves. They could invent money from absolutely nothing. They could issue credit notes with nothing to back them up and put them into circulation as interest-bearing debts. No-one would be any the wiser. They calculated that they could safely issue notes for up to ten times more than the gold deposits they held, because the depositors would never ask for their deposits back all at the same time.

The principle of modern banking was thus established: invent money from nothing, put it into circulation as "running cash notes" that have to be paid back with real wealth that is produced from our labour, sit back and become unbelievably wealthy and powerful men: hidden rulers of nations.

In England this deceitful system was officially sanctioned in 1694. The usurper of the throne, William of Orange, had overthrown the legitimate King James II with the financial backing and plotting of powerful Jewish financiers in Amsterdam. In return he gave the sovereignty of England to a group of financiers by means of a Charter allowing them to call themselves the Bank of England. The Charter made no mention of issuing the nation’s money, but within minutes of signing the new Bank officials were discussing the form of their "running cash notes." The same system was adopted in every country by a process of Masonic revolution and manipulation.
FREEMASONRY AND COMMUNISM

Socialist theorists and ideologues have never attacked the essential mechanism of capitalism. Although the injustices of the capitalist system have been attacked in volume after volume, and rightly so, they have never even hinted at the usury upon which the whole system is built and from which all the other injustices stem.

Perhaps this is because so many Communist leaders are Jewish. Most of the ‘Russian Revolutionists’ of 1917 were actually Jews from the lower east side of New York City. Two hundred and seventy-five of them were conveyed to Russia aboard the S.S. Christiana, led by Trotsky and financed by Kuhns, Loebs, Schiffs and Warburgs. This cosy circle of Jews and Freemasons financed both sides of the Great War.

Marx and Engels, two more Jews, wrote the Communist Manifesto on behalf of a secret society calling themselves ‘The League of Just Men.’ This secret society was an arm of the Illuminati, whose power and influence was the catalyst of the French Revolution. One of the founding members of the Illuminati was the House of Rothschild, the Jewish banking house which practically invented supra-nationalism for personal profit.
THE SITUATION TODAY

Nowadays banking has become extremely sophisticated but the hidden and usurious mechanism behind it remains the same. After a big enquiry, hushed up as much as possible, the Bank of England was nationalised in 1946. In theory control of the Bank of England should then have passed from a group of private individuals to the British Government, but this is still not the case. Nationalisation only added a thin veneer of respectability.

The British Treasury, in conjunction with the Bank of England’s advisers to the Government, determine how much paper money and coin will be issued each year. This has to accord with the wealth of the nation for that year. But because banknotes and coins only account for a tiny percentage of financial transactions, it makes no difference to the bankers at all. Most financial transactions are carried out with abstract figures on a computer screen that have no relationship to real wealth. Everything has to be paid for at interest though – even when it doesn’t exist!

The Government still has to pay interest on old and new loans from the Bank. Only a few years ago it was announced that the interest debt on a loan taken during the Napoleonic War had just been paid off! This is where much of our tax money goes.
THE NEXT STAGE

The next stage of development for international finance is to get rid of cash altogether. Then the token accountability of the bankers will disappear along with the cash. Their intention is that everyone will have to use credit/debit cards for every type of commercial transaction.

Electronic technology, when used this way, and when it is not merely widespread but compulsory, will give them complete control of every man, woman and child in the world. If you cannot buy or sell – food, petrol, clothes – without a card you are completely at their mercy. If you lose the card or it doesn’t work for some reason you will suffer until issued with a replacement. If you make a protest against some particular injustice they could invalidate your card. The next time you go to the supermarket your card may not work. You won’t officially exist!

Who benefits from such a scheme? The politicians or the bankers? To ask the question is to answer it. The Bank of England is the real, but hidden, government of the country. The Government and the politicians are merely puppets controlled by the Bank – or, more accurately, the international banking families. None of our cowardly politicians dare stand up to these hidden and unelected rulers of the world, so powerful have they become. Two American presidents, possibly three, were assassinated for attempting to do so. It is far easier for them to submit to the system and enjoy a rich life than expose the real tyrants: tyrants who cause high taxes, unemployment, war, famine and misery for the rest of us. But these despots of the New World Order forget that Truth is more powerful than they could ever become. And Truth brings Justice!

A short history of money and bartering.....

What is money? Money is what we use to pay for things.We use money to buy products such as food , clothes and toys.We use money to pay for services such as a train drive or a visit to the doctor.We also use money to pay debts.
Coins and bills are forms of money.Governments make coins and bills from small amounts of paper , plastic or metal.These materials are not worth much on their own so a government gives each coin and bills a value.That way everyone knows what their coins and bills are worth , and can use them to make and accept payments.Coins and bills are also called cash.
Coins and bills are not the only form of money.Sometimes people make payments with checks , credit cards or money they have in the bank.
Long ago , money as we know it today did not exist.Early humans moved from place to place following the animals they hunted.There were no shops or banks.Instead , people would exchange products and services.This is known as bartering.
Imagine that a hunter had some animal skins but wanted some fish.The hunter had to find a person who had fish and who wanted animal skins.They would then barter some skins for some fish.No money was involved.Instead the people worked out what they thought was a fair exchange of their products.
Later humans began growing their own food and raising farm animals.Groups of people built homes near each other , and villages began.Farmers were able to grow enough food to feed the villagers People who did not have to grow their own food had time to develop their own different skills , such as weaving and pottery.They bartered their products and services with each other and with people from other villages.
There were problems with bartering .Imagine that a farmer had two chickens and wanted to buy a large rug , but the weaver wanted three chickens for the rug.If the traders could not agree on the value of their goods , no exchange could take place.
Perhaps the weaver wanted a basket of fruit instead of chickens.The farmer would first have to find a fruit grower to barter the chickens for fruit for the rug.Finding a person who had what you wanted , and wanted what you had , was sometimes difficult and time consuming.
Over time people began to prefer certain products for bartering .Products that became popular included farm animals , grain , rice, salt, cloth , simple tools , and shells.People agreed on the value of these products and these products became the first types of money.
Some products were popular as money because they were useful.Farm animals gave people meat , milk , eggs , skins , wool and feathers.They could also be used to do labour and to breed more animals.Grain , rice and other foods could be eaten.Cloth could be made clothes and soft furmishings.Tools made many job easier.
Some products were popular partly because they looked good .Small colorful shells , called cowrie shells , were pretty and could be made into ornaments.
As people travelled further to barter their products and services , they had problems with using products as money.Imagine that a farmer with a horse to barter wanted products from several traders.How could the farmer divide the horse between the traders ?Or imagine that a trader came from a country where cowrie shells were common and not highly valued , and would not accept the shells in exchange for products.
Many products used as money had some disadvantages:
* They were hard to transport
* They were hard to count
* They were difficult to divide
* They were spoiled or damaged easily
* They needed to be cared for
* They were not accepted everywhere
People needed a form of money that would be easy to use , and transport.The new money also had to be accepted by everyone.