BankNotes

2021 March BankNotes

President Biden claimed during his Super Bowl interview that “all the economics show” that if the government imposes a $15 minimum wage then “the whole economy rises. For his part, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has claimed for years that “[t]here’s just no evidence that raising the minimum wage costs jobs, at least when the starting point is as low as it is in modern America.”
Is this really possible?

2021 February BankNotes

Why Nelson Labeled This “The Infinite Banking Concept” By David Stearns

2021 January BankNotes

Get-out-of-debt guru Dave Ramsey recently released on YouTube an excerpt
of his show where he called IBC a “scam.” Specifically, someone called in
to tell Dave that his financial advisor had touted the benefits of a Whole Life
policy with a mutual company, including the dividends. Ramsey was aghast,
and explained that since the owners of a mutual company are the customers,
any “dividend” they send to you is necessarily coming out of your own pocket.
In fact, Dave explained, the IRS itself acknowledges this, by calling such a dividend a “return of a deliberate overcharge of premium”; this is why the IRS doesn’t tax it as income. Dave ended the call by telling his listener that he needed to get a real financial advisor, not someone trying to sell overpriced Whole Life insurance.

2020 December BankNotes

A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.” 1
The Rockefeller Foundation on the future SCENARIOS: May 2010

2020 November BankNotes

Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today? The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”

2020 October BankNotes

As I explained last month in the first installment of this series, I am showing the reader that the various attacks on our liberties are part of a coordinated strategy that was conceived decades ago by avowed socialists. I realize that is a provocative claim, but it is easily demonstrated, as I show in this series.

2020 September BankNotes

The Global “Lock Step Scenario.” The Kennedys – Part One: By L. Carlos Lara
It was after reading the works of Augustine of Hippo that I was able to more accurately comprehend the depravity of man and how far his violence can actually extend. Prior to this I was always asking, what many of us lately are asking, “what’s wrong with people these days?”

2020 August BankNotes

IBC and Whole Life: Process versus Platform: By Robert P. Murphy

At this year’s Think Tank, I noticed that the various speakers seemed to fall
into two camps. In the first camp, the practitioners stressed their understanding
of the “banking” aspect of Nelson’s ideas. People in this camp explained how
they helped their clients redirect cash flows to allow their clients to “become
their own bankers.” Not surprisingly, people in this camp relied very heavily
on Nelson’s best-selling book, Becoming Your Own Banker, since their
approach with clients followed very closely the approach Nelson uses in his
book to address the reader. Typically the people in this camp would reject
the conventional framework and terminology of the professional financial
industry, saying that only by changing one’s mindset and thought process
could one escape from the bondage of the bankers.
On the other hand, there was a different camp of speakers at the Think Tank. In
their presentations, they explained how they showed their clients that dividendpaying
Whole Life insurance was a perfectly respectable asset class, which
had its own pros and cons. They then explained quite convincingly that in our
current economic and political environment, it made a lot of sense for many
clients to shift their portfolio more heavily in favor of this conservative asset,
because it was superior to the more popular selections (stocks, bonds, real
estate, etc.) on many dimensions. The practitioners in this camp did not shy
from taking on the Dave Ramseys and Suze Ormans of the world on their own
terms. You want to talk about rates of return? Sure thing, let’s just make sure
we’re analyzing the assets correctly, including tax considerations and liquidity.
The more we study it with an open mind, the more amazing it is that somehow
Whole Life insurance has gotten a reputation as an awful financialproduct.

2020 July BankNotes

This Lara-Murphy Report (LMR) article was reprinted with permission. This and many more articles related to IBC and Austrian Economics are published monthly in the LMR. Subscriptions are available at www.usatrustonline.com

2020 June BankNotes

Humanity has been asking what is happiness and how to achieve it since the dawn of time, but still without a definitive resolution. The divergence of views on this subject is enormous, although it may be a good thing, because each individual can pursue happiness in their own way, which—according to the Declaration of Independence—is an inalienable right.

2020 May BankNotes

The latest report on new unemployment claims was abysmal, coming in at 4.4
million last week, some 100,000 more than surveyed economists had expected.
The continuous claims came in at just under 16 million, an all-time record.
Mainstream labor economists estimate that, all things considered, the actual
unemployment rate now (which is only officially reported with a lag) is above
20 percent—a rate not seen since the darkest days of the Great Depression.
Indeed, all of the job gains since the Great Recession have been wiped out in
just a matter of weeks.

2020 April BankNotes

“This is R. Nelson Nash” in His Own Words
The following was put together in January 2018 by R. Nelson Nash for the
2018 IBC Think Tank Conference. I thought it appropriate to share on the
anniversary of Nelson’s passing (27 March, 2019). — David Stearns
A person’s thoughts over a period of time ultimately results in a set of core
beliefs—a mindset—some call it a worldview—that controls human action
and gives life meaning and purpose.

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