Overview of the Book

“Grip of Death”
If you ever wondered where money comes from, how it's created, and why it's created in the way it is, then The Grip of Death is for you.
This book explains how the banking system is actually a form of institutionalised fraud, based on the original activities of goldsmiths who would lend more "money" than they actually had on deposit. The only reason we accept the system without a second thought seems to be that it has the weight of tradition behind it. But the weight of tradition is not enough to justify its validity, as the author shows. The basic thesis of the book goes like this. Money, in the sense of credit, is not and has not for a long time been created by the governments of the world. Instead, it is created by the banks every time someone borrows from them, and along with it is created an equal amount of debt. This is how it works. You borrow a sum of money from the bank. They don't take it out of their assets--they can't; their assets belong to other people. Instead, they magic into existence a credit balance in your account. You spend the money, which goes round and comes back into the banking system: at the same time you are working to get money to pay off the debt you owe. The money the bank created, and the money you have made by working, come back to the bank, get added to the bank's assets, and get used as the basis for more and larger borrowing. Right now there is more money around than there has ever been--but it's almost all debt-based.
The government closes hospitals and schools down because of lack of money. Does that mean there are suddenly not sufficient people with sufficient ability and sufficient willingness to keep these hospitals and schools running? Of course not! All it means is that the government mistakenly believes that "lack of money" equals "we can't do it". We have become slaves to the