The trouble with economists (one of the troubles, anyway) is that most of us don't understand money, interest and debt. Maybe we don't understand money because most of us don't have much of it, or maybe it's the other way around. Or maybe we're afraid to understand, because if we did we'd have to do something about it, and we'd get into trouble with the people who do understand (that is the leading bankers).

The situation in "monetary theory" is about where sex education would be if the "stork theory" of how babies get here were the "official paradigm." Although the facts about money (and baby) creation are well understood, economists prefer fairy tales - like that helicopters drop money on people - to straightforward discussions of the fact that all money today is "rented" from the banks. Nor do economists focus upon the great problems this causes society.

Why is this? Do economists consider money, like sex, a "dirty" subject about which the less accurate information given the young the better?

[The late] John H. Hotson

– from Economic Reform, September 1992

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