Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. He discovered the ideas of British engineer C.H. Douglas who explained the chronic gap in developed economies between GDP and national income, which meant that society never had enough money to purchase what their economies were able to produce. The system of Keynesian economics was developed to address the problem through government borrowing. But all this accomplished was to ‘kick the can down the road’ by creating debt that eventually had to be paid off, usually through war or hyperinflation.

While working for the US Treasury Department, Cook was able to carry out an in-depth study of the history of the US monetary system. He learned that the banking system existed to fill the GDP-income gap but that the debt it created in doing so led to massive profits to the banks but ruin for the nation at large. He also learned that the only successful alternative had been the spending of Greenbacks by the government during the Civil War. With Stephen Zarlenga, founder of the American Monetary Institute, Cook wrote the American Monetary Act which became Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s NEED Act introduced in Congress in 2011 but not yet passed. This would create a modern version of Greenback money, with only the government responsible for printing (creating) the currency, and not privately owned banks such as the Federal Reserve. Cook states:

“Our Declaration of Independence states that every person has a right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Of course along with these rights come responsibilities. One is that we act with kindness and compassion in accepting the rights of others. Our predatory financial system does not do this. The system is based on putting people into debt. That’s how money is generated in the economy. But this is wrong. […} all of this (every person’s rights) requires a monetary system that supports individual freedom and initiative. We do not have such a system today. What we have is debt slavery where the 1% make out like bandits and the 99% struggle to survive. Such a system also promotes crime and war, where people and nations feel they must steal from their neighbour in order to get by.”