AMI Conference 2025:
Avarice, Power, and the Future of Money
Welcome to a global gathering of economists, legal scholars, journalists, and activists exploring realistic and bold reforms to reclaim finance for the public good.
Online, Zoom
Why Attend?
In a world of abundance, billions of people are struggling, while enormous wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of a few. Why and how has this happened? What hidden forces fuel inequality, debt, and instability? And what realistic and bold reforms could create an economy that works for everyone?
The 2025 AMI Conference will uncover the answers. Over six days, leading economists, legal experts, journalists, and reformers will reveal how our financial system really works, explain why we need urgent change and discover realistic paths forward to an economy that truly serves the people and the planet.
23 Speakers
20 Sponsors
Whether you are a policy expert, activist, student, or simply a concerned citizen, this is your chance to understand the system, challenge the status quo, and help chart a path toward an economy that truly serves people and planet. We kindly encourage a donation of $35 at the time of registration, which will contribute to supporting the financing of the conference.
Register Now!
Sign up for the conference to watch the videos
* By clicking the button, you agree to AMI emailing you more information about this and future conferences. You can stop receiving our emails whenever you want by clicking unsubscribe.
2,017
registrants
Goal:
3,000
V
Veronica Calienno
registered
1 months ago
A
Adrian
registered
1 months ago
M
Michael Melio
registered
1 months ago
E
Esayas Tesfaye
registered
1 months ago
T
Tazmisha Kopic
registered
1 months ago
About the Conference
We proudly announce the 21st American Monetary Institute (AMI) Monetary Reform Conference, bringing the world’s leading experts on monetary history and theory together with the world’s most serious advocates of achievable monetary reforms.
The theme this year is Avarice, Power, and the Future of Money. The conference will focus on the heart of our society’s problems: an economy driven by avarice, where money is created, controlled, and used as a tool for private gain rather than a tool for the public good.
Over two weekends, the conference will shine a light on:
- The use of capital as power — how corporations and the financial sector shape economies, politics, and even social priorities.
- Private debt-based money creation — why commercial banks create roughly 95% of our money supply through loans, and how this fuels inequality, boom–bust cycles, and environmental harm.
- Social and economic justice — how the monetary system leaves millions unbanked or underbanked, and entrenches debt slavery.
The conference is not just an exposé of problems — it is a forum for practical, inspiring solutions. You’ll hear proposals from leading thinkers and practitioners, including:
- Sovereign money systems that treat money creation as a public utility, returning its benefits to society.
- Debt reform and jubilees to break the cycle of financial enslavement.
Speakers
Meet some of the world’s leading voices on economics, law, politics, and social justice to confront the roots of today’s financial and societal crises.
Schedule
The conference will have its Zoom sessions during two weekends:
- Friday September 19 5:25 pm – 9:30 pm CDT
- Saturday September 20 8:30 am – 2:00 pm CDT
- Sunday September 21 8:30 am – 2:00 pm CDT
- Tuesday September 23 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm CDT
- Friday September 26 5:30 pm – 10:00 pm CDT
- Saturday September 27 8:30 am – 2:00 pm CDT
- Sunday September 28 8:30 am – 2:00 pm CDT
All times Chicago, Central Daylight Time (CDT / UTC -5)
Friday, September 19
5:20 pm
Opening of the Conference
Steven Walsh
Dennis Kucinich
6:00 pm
The Birth of Public Money and Paradigm Shift in Economics as a Science
Kaoru Yamaguchi
8:00 pm
Break
8:05 pm
Why Monetary Reform is Essential to a Viable Human Future
David Korten
8:45 pm
Open Session
9:30 pm
Session Over
Saturday, September 20
8:30 am
Welcome
Steven Walsh
8:55 am
These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America
Gretchen Morgenson
9:55 am
Break
10:00 am
The Socialization of Investment
Robert Hockett
11:30 am
Break
11:35 am
Monetary System Design: Some First Principles
Morgan Ricks
12:50 pm
Who is David Ciepley and Why He Matters
Bruce Woll
1:30 pm
Open Session
2:00 pm
Session Over
Sunday, September 21
8:30 am
Welcome
Steven Walsh
8:55 am
Our Money: Monetary Policy as if Democracy Matters
Leah Downey
9:55 am
Break
10:00 am
Neoliberalism and the Looting of America: How the Financial System increases the Racial Wealth Gap and Deepens Income-Based Class Inequality
Mehrsa Baradaran
11:00 am
Break
11:05 am
Building Multi-Issue Coalitions that Can Win Monetary Reforms
Sam Hummel
12:05 pm
Session Over
12:10 pm
How Wall Street Is Moving to Silicon Valley: How Financial Deregulation Led Wall Street to Monopolize the American Economy
David Dayen
1:30 pm
Open Session
2:00 pm
Session Over
Tuesday, September 23
1:00 pm
Temples of Enterprise: Debt, Finance, and Society from Antiquity to Today
Michael Hudson
2:30 pm
Open Session
3:00 pm
Session Over
Friday, September 26
5:30 pm
Welcome
Steven Walsh
5:55 pm
Monetary Reform for Beginners aboard Spaceship Earth 101
Nick Egnatz
6:55 pm
Break
7:00 pm
A Monetary Theory You Never Heard of: Classical American Populism and Public Banking
Adrian Kuzminski
8:00 pm
Break
8:05 pm
The Dire Perils of Stablecoin
Joseph Arminio
9:05 pm
Break
9:10 pm
Money Issuance: The Primary Tool of the Sovereign
John G Root Jr
10:00 pm
Session Over
Saturday, September 27
8:30 am
Welcome
Steven Walsh
8:55 am
National Money – Shifting the Debate to the Next Level
Gábor Horváth / Gergely Szabo
10:10 am
Break
10:15 am
Mean, Stupid Money: How Finance Used The Monetary System to Destroy the American Dream and How We Can Bring It Back
Richard Robbins
11:45 am
Break
11:50 am
What Can and Should Be Done About Mass Layoffs? And How Do We Understand "Wall Street's War on Workers"
Les Leopold
1:30 pm
Open Session
2:00 pm
Session Over
Sunday, September 28
8:30 am
Welcome
Steven Walsh
8:55 am
Rethinking Income and Money:
Incorporating Technology Into Economic Theory
Geoff Crocker
9:55 am
Break
10:00 am
Douglas Social Credit: Restoring Honesty and Functionality to the Financial System
Oliver Heydorn
11:00 am
Combined Q&A Session
Heydorn / Crocker
11:15 am
Break
11:20 am
Can Money Creation Be Much Simpler? Untangling Public And Private Roles - Unleashing Prosperity for All
Mario Martinez
12:20 am
Break
12:25 pm
After Neoliberalism: Toward a Stewardship Economy
David Ciepley
1:30 pm
Open Session
2:00 pm
Session Over
The American Monetary Institute is a U.S.-based research and educational organization dedicated to the study of monetary history, theory, and reform. Founded in 1996, AMI’s mission is to end the private debt-based money systems that commercial banks and financial institutions have created since the start of central banking, and particularly over the last 55 years (Money Market Mutual Funds started in 1970). We need a public sovereign monetary system that serves the public interest rather than private banking interests.
AMI publishes research, organizes conferences, and provides resources on how money is created and managed, highlighting the risks of our present debt-based monetary system. The institute advocates for monetary reform based on the principles outlined in works such as The Lost Science of Money by its founder, Stephen Zarlenga.
Through its annual Monetary Reform Conference and public outreach, AMI brings together economists, academics, policymakers, and activists to discuss practical steps toward establishing a stable, debt-free monetary system that fosters economic justice and sustainability.
Co-sponsors
Bios and Abstracts
Kaoru Yamaguchi
Professor of Economics
6:00 pm Friday, September 19 (CDT / UTC -5)
The Birth of Public Money and Paradigm Shift in Economics as a Science
About the talk: In this presentation, Dr. Kaoru Yamaguchi will demonstrate how his advanced systems modeling shows that public money offers a comprehensive solution to some of the most persistent economic problems of our time. Under the framework of HR 2990, his model projects that public money issuance could pay off the U.S. national debt as it comes due, fund large-scale infrastructure investment, eliminate unemployment, and achieve all of this without triggering inflation. By replacing bank-created money with publicly issued money, his research also addresses systemic banking crises, entrenched inequality, and the looming risks of centralized control through CBDCs. With clarity and rigor, Dr. Yamaguchi will present “the systems solution” to transform the monetary system into one that is stable, democratic, and life-supporting.
Bio: Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi, PhD, is internationally known for his modeling of an alternative monetary order, the so-called Public Money. After his Ph.D. thesis at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) he applied the System Dynamics method (developed by Prof. Jay Forrester) to various macro-economic theories, especially neoclassics and Keynesianism, and studied the dynamic behavior of these theories, especially their stability and vulnerability. Looking for better approaches he found out that Public Money (an approach developed by Prof. Irving Fisher as 100%-money in the 1930’s) is a more robust and sustainable basis for an economy. In addition, he has held leadership roles and received prestigious awards in his field of research.
David Korten
Author and Activist
8:05 pm Friday, September 19 (CDT / UTC -5)
Why Monetary Reform is Essential to a Viable Human Future
About the talk: Our current money system drives ecological destruction, extreme inequality, and political dysfunction by prioritizing financial gain over human and planetary well-being. To secure a viable future, we must rethink money itself—how it is created, who controls it, and to what purpose it is put. In this presentation, David Korten will show why monetary reform is not just a technical adjustment but a moral and civilizational imperative. He will outline how transforming money creation and use can redirect economies toward ecological balance, shared prosperity, and authentic democracy—foundations of a living economy that serves life rather than undermines it.
Bio: David Korten, PhD, is a writer, lecturer, engaged global citizen, and student of psychology and behavioral systems. He is a former Harvard Business School professor, a member of the Club of Rome, a founding member of the Alliance for Ecological Civilization, and founder of the Living Economies Forum. He is best known for his seminal work framing a new economy including the international best-selling books When Corporations Rule the World; The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism; and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community; and the white papers “Ecological Civilization” and “Eco-nomics for an Ecological Civilization.”
Gretchen Morgenson
Senior Financial Reporter, NBC News Investigations
8:55 am Saturday, September 20 (CDT / UTC -5)
These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America
About the talk: Prize–winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson exposes in this talk the hidden machinery of private equity and its sweeping influence on the U.S. economy. Drawing from her bestselling book co-authored with Joshua Rosner, Morgenson reveals how Wall Street banks and shadow banking institutions funnel capital into private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds—reshaping entire industries in the process. She will unpack how these financial players extract enormous profits at the expense of workers, communities, and long-term economic stability, often leaving devastation in their wake. From nursing homes to retail to housing, Morgenson shows how private equity has transformed vital sectors into profit engines with little accountability.
With her signature clarity and investigative rigor, Morgenson connects the dots between high finance and everyday life, offering both a searing critique of the system and a warning about its future trajectory.
Bio: Gretchen Morgenson is the senior financial reporter in the Investigations unit at NBC News, a position she assumed in Dec. 2019. Her work appears as tv segments on NBC News network, cable and streaming shows and on NBCNews.com. Previously, Ms. Morgenson spent two years as Senior Special Writer in the Investigations unit at The Wall Street Journal, and almost 20 years as assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at The New York Times. She began covering world financial markets for The Times in May 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street in which she revealed deep conflicts of interest among powerful and respected brokerage firm analysts.
A graduate of Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, Ms. Morgenson worked as a stockbroker in New York City in the early 1980s, was a writer at Money Magazine later that decade and an assistant managing editor at Forbes Magazine in the 1990s. She is co-author, with Joshua Rosner, of “Reckless Endangerment,” a 2011 New York Times bestseller about the origins of the mortgage crisis. She is also co-author, with Rosner, of “These are the Plunderers,” a Wall Street Journal bestseller scrutinizing the world of private equity. Here, Gretchen Morgenson presents a deep dive into the way Wall Street Banks and Shadow Banking institutions fund private equity, Venture Capital, and Hedge Funds. In this highly acclaimed book - read by millions - Morgenson shows the dominance of private equity and its transformative effect in every sector of the economy.
Robert Hockett
Professor of Law
10:00 am Saturday, September 20 (CDT / UTC -5)
The Socialization of Investment
About the talk: Professor Robert Hockett will present ideas from his forthcoming book, Making Capital Democratic, which argues that finance must be restructured to serve the many rather than the few. He will explore the legal and institutional foundations of today’s economic system, showing how they channel wealth and decision-making power into increasingly narrow hands. Hockett’s talk will highlight how democratic principles can be embedded in financial and monetary governance, ensuring that capital is directed toward broad-based prosperity, sustainability, and justice. Drawing on his work with policymakers, regulators, and civic movements, he will outline practical reforms to realign banking, investment, and monetary systems with democratic accountability and the common good.
Bio: Cornell law professor who has been a government advisor on financial reform, and has worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the International Monetary Fund. He has consulted or drafted legislation with forward-looking policy solutions for prominent figures such as Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Marco Rubio, as well as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Morgan Ricks
Professor of Management
11:35 am Saturday, September 20 (CDT / UTC -5)
Monetary System Design: Some First Principles
About the talk: In this talk, Professor Morgan Ricks will return to the most basic questions of money and banking: What exactly is money? Who should be allowed to issue it? And how should a modern financial system be structured to best serve the public?
Drawing on his influential book The Money Problem and his policy work at the U.S. Treasury, Ricks will explore why the design of the monetary system is not a technical afterthought but a core issue of democratic governance. He will explain how our current arrangement—dominated by private bank money creation—produces instability and inequity, and why thinking from “first principles” can open the door to better alternatives. Ricks brings a rare blend of theory and practice, combining insights from law, economics, and financial regulation. His talk will challenge common assumptions about money and point toward reforms that could deliver greater stability, resilience, and fairness in the monetary system.
Bio: Morgan Ricks is the Herman O. Loewenstein Chair in Law and Professor of Management, Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University Law School. Morgan Ricks studies financial regulation. He is the author of The Money Problem: Rethinking Financial Regulation (University of Chicago Press, 2016), and a co-author of Networks, Platforms, and Utilities: Law and Policy (2022). Professor Ricks joined the Vanderbilt Law faculty in 2012 and was the 2019-21 Enterprise Scholar. Before he entered the legal academy, he was a senior policy advisor and financial restructuring expert at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2009 to 2010, where he focused primarily on financial stability initiatives and capital markets policy. Before joining the Treasury Department, he was a risk-arbitrage trader at Citadel Investment Group, a Chicago-based hedge fund. He previously served as a vice president in the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch & Co., where he specialized in strategic and capital-raising transactions for financial services companies. He began his career as a mergers and acquisitions attorney at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.
Bruce Woll
Adjunct in History at Temple University, Philadelphia
12:50 pm Saturday, September 20 (CDT / UTC -5)
Who is David Ciepley and Why He Matters
About the talk: Before diving into David Ciepley’s groundbreaking vision of a post-neoliberal economy, Bruce Woll will introduce the man behind the ideas. Drawing on his own lifelong engagement with religion, politics, and economics, Bruce will highlight why Ciepley’s work on corporations, democracy, and the state is so vital for anyone seeking alternatives to our current system. This introduction will set the stage for understanding Ciepley’s challenge to “fundamentalized capitalism” and his call for a more democratic and sustainable economic order.
Bio: Bruce Woll spent 27 years in the exploding computer and information technology industry as a trainer and consultant, from 1984 until his retirement in 2011. During that time he earned a D.Ed. from Northern Illinois University (1997). Bruce has also been a lifelong student of religion, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1978 writing on the origins of Christianity under the historian of religions, Jonathan Z. Smith. Bruce has spent the last decade and a half seeking ways to fight back against what he has come to call fundamentalized capitalism, most recently as a member of the American Monetary Institute, the Alliance for Just Money, and the Public Banking Institute. Publications include his 1978 dissertation on political conflict in first-century Christianity, entitled Johannine Christianity in Conflict: Authority, Rank, and Succession, published in 1981; “Locating the Study of Religion in a Theory of the Academy: The Unexamined Relationship between Jonathon Z. Smith’s Two Careers,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 31 (2019): 309-46, and "The Empty Ideal: A Critique of Continuing Learning in the Professions, by Cyril O. Houle," Adult Education, 34/3, Spring, 1984. His presentation at the 2022 conference was titled "Who we are in a Democratic Society".
Leah Downey
Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge
8:55 am Sunday, September 21 (CDT / UTC -5)
Our Money: Monetary Policy as if Democracy Matters
About the talk: In this presentation, Dr. Leah Downey will challenge the conventional wisdom that central banks must remain insulated from political influence. Instead, she argues for restoring democratic accountability over monetary policy—rebalancing power back to the legislature and ensuring that money creation reflects the broader public good. Drawing on deep political theory and institutional analysis, she introduces the concept of iterative monetary policy, a framework in which elected representatives continuously monitor, review, and guide central bank decision-making. By treating the Fed as an agent under democratic oversight rather than a technical black box, Downey shows how financial governance can be both informed by expertise and shaped by the public will—making monetary policy more responsive, transparent, and just.
Bio: Dr. Leah Downey is an emerging scholar in political theory, focusing on how democracy intersects with economic governance, particularly monetary policy. With academic roots spanning the U.S. and U.K., and a growing portfolio of influential publications—including an upcoming book—she is making a significant impact in discussions about democratic accountability in economic institutions.
Mehrsa Baradaran
Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine School of Law
10:00 am Sunday, September 21 (CDT / UTC -5)
Neoliberalism and the Looting of America: How the Financial System increases the Racial Wealth Gap and Deepens Income-Based Class Inequality
About the talk: In her talk, Professor Mehrsa Baradaran will examine how America’s banking and financial structures have systematically reinforced inequality. Drawing on her groundbreaking scholarship, she traces the ways in which policies of exclusion and exploitation have shaped both the racial wealth gap and broader economic disparities.
Baradaran will also spotlight the role of neoliberal reforms in transforming financial institutions into engines of extraction rather than public service. By connecting these policies to lived realities—especially within marginalized communities—she reveals how the promise of opportunity has too often been replaced by cycles of debt, precarity, and dispossession. Yet her analysis is not only diagnostic but constructive: Baradaran will outline concrete policy pathways toward a more equitable financial system, one that democratizes access to credit, banking, and wealth-building tools. Her presentation challenges us to rethink money and banking as public goods essential to a just and sustainable democracy.
Baradaran will also spotlight the role of neoliberal reforms in transforming financial institutions into engines of extraction rather than public service. By connecting these policies to lived realities—especially within marginalized communities—she reveals how the promise of opportunity has too often been replaced by cycles of debt, precarity, and dispossession. Yet her analysis is not only diagnostic but constructive: Baradaran will outline concrete policy pathways toward a more equitable financial system, one that democratizes access to credit, banking, and wealth-building tools. Her presentation challenges us to rethink money and banking as public goods essential to a just and sustainable democracy.
Bio: Mehrsa Baradaran is an accomplished professor of law, author, and scholar known for her work on banking law, financial inclusion, and racial inequality. She is currently a Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and has held visiting professor positions at Harvard and Northwestern Law Schools. Baradaran writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. She has published several influential books, including How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy (2015), The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (2019), which won the Urban Affairs Association's Best Book Award, The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America (2024). Professor Baradaran has served as a policy advisor and testified before Congress on financial matters. She has advised U.S. Senators and Congressmen on policy, testified before the U.S. Congress, and spoken at national and international forums like the U.S. Treasury and the World Bank. Baradaran was selected to serve on two Presidential Transition teams covering the US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and various banking agencies. https://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/baradaran/
Sam Hummel
Research Lead, Money Justice Collaborative
11:05 am Sunday, September 21 (CDT / UTC -5)
Building Multi-Issue Coalitions that Can Win Monetary Reforms
About the talk: How can monetary reform proponents build political power in support of their reform proposals? Can integrating monetary reform into larger movements change the game? This talk will present initial insights from forty interviews conducted with leading monetary reformers, issue activists, and scholars. The interviews, conducted by members of the Money Justice Collaborative, explored opportunities to bridge the gap between monetary reform advocates and activists campaigning around issues such as climate, debt, human rights, and financial reform. The interviews uncovered ample opportunities for coalition-building, as well as key challenges that must be overcome for successful collaboration. A forthcoming report will provide recommendations for activists, academics, and funders. As we develop that report, we welcome reflections from AMI Conference attendees.
Bio: Sam researches monetary system transformations (past, present, and proposed) with a focus on social, ecological, and economic sustainability. Sam brings strategic lessons from past monetary reform victories into the service of progressive monetary reform today. In addition to leading research for the Money Justice Collaborative, Sam is a Master’s student at Duke University where he researches monetary system design. He is an active participant in the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), the Alliance for Just Money, the American Monetary Institute, Rethinking Economics International, and the Just Money Project. Previously, Sam helped build two associations that supported thousands of higher education institutions, governments, and corporations in implementing sustainability programs.
David Dayen
Journalist and Author
12:10 pm Sunday, September 21 (CDT / UTC -5)
How Wall Street Is Moving to Silicon Valley: How Financial Deregulation Led Wall Street to Monopolize the American Economy
About the talk: How should we think about the current state of U.S. finance, with its consolidation of basic banking, the rollback of regulatory enforcement and dominance of private lending and alternative investors and the rise of private equity and shadow banking and its impact monopolizing of the economy. We can focus on the challenge of the tech industry, which clearly wants to take over the banking and payment networks.
Bio: David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect, a magazine about ideas, politics, and power. He is the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud (2016), winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize, and Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power (2020). He writes extensively about economics and politics at the Prospect, and was the winner of the 2021 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. He has been a guest on MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, NPR, and Pacifica Radio. He lives in Los Angeles.
Michael Hudson
Professor of Economics and Author
2:00 pm Tuesday, September 23 (CDT / UTC -5)
Temples of Enterprise: Debt, Finance, and Society from Antiquity to Today
About the talk: In this wide-ranging historical exploration, Professor Michael Hudson will examine the origins of finance and debt in the ancient world, focusing on Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece. Drawing on his groundbreaking research into early economies, Hudson will show how temple and palace institutions structured credit, land tenure, and redistribution—and how periodic debt cancellations were essential to restoring social balance. He will contrast these ancient practices of economic renewal with the Western tradition that emerged in classical Greece and Rome, where creditor interests increasingly dominated, leading to cycles of dispossession that still echo today. By tracing these deep historical patterns, Hudson reveals how the struggle over debt has always been a struggle over democracy and economic justice, offering lessons for contemporary debates on finance and monetary reform.
Bio: Michael Hudson is one of the world’s leading financial analysts and is a critic of capitalism, especially in its present form of rampant greed economics. One of Hudson’s specialties is to analyze and explain how the world is dominated by the FIRE sector - Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. Besides being a present-day scholar, Professor Hudson is a leading authority on ancient economics of the Middle East, ancient Greece, and Rome. He has thoroughly documented the rise of private property, contract law, rentier class, and debt. In our fourth interview on ancient economics, we will cover the slow but steady downfall of debt forgiveness and jubilees starting in the Middle Bronze Age and work our way to more recent history while making connections to the present and other historical periods. Come for this fascinating discussion, and take a chance to ask your questions.
Nick Egnatz
Author, Trustee for the American Monetary Institute
5:55 pm Friday, September 26 (CDT / UTC -5)
Monetary Reform for Beginners aboard Spaceship Earth 101
About the talk: If you’re new to monetary reform, this session is for you. Nick Egnatz will guide us through the basics of how money is really created, why our current debt-based system threatens both justice and sustainability, and how reclaiming the power of money creation for the public could help secure a livable future on “Spaceship Earth.” Drawing from his new book Spaceship Earth 101, Nick explains in clear, down-to-earth terms how money—often thought of as a dry or technical subject—lies at the heart of our struggles for peace, equality, and environmental survival. With passion and clarity, he will show why monetary reform is not just an economic issue, but the foundation of building a just and sustainable world.
Bio: Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam veteran turned peace, social justice, and environmental activist who has dedicated the last two decades to exposing the truth about money and its role in shaping society. His journey began with the shocking realization that banks create money out of thin air when issuing loans—a discovery that sparked a lifelong search for answers. That search led him to the American Monetary Institute, where he now serves as a Trustee. Over the past three years, he has distilled his insights into three introductory books on money creation, monetary
history, and the urgent need for publicly issued money to save both people and planet. His latest work, Spaceship Earth 101, invites readers and audiences alike to rethink money as a tool for justice, democracy, and survival.
history, and the urgent need for publicly issued money to save both people and planet. His latest work, Spaceship Earth 101, invites readers and audiences alike to rethink money as a tool for justice, democracy, and survival.
Adrian Kuzminski
Independent Scholar and Author
7:00 pm Friday, September 26 (CDT / UTC -5)
A Monetary Theory You Never Heard of: Classical American Populism and Public Banking
About the talk: 19th century American populists sought to replace for-profit private bank lending with non-profit public bank lending. Their major monetary theorist--Edward Kellogg--envisioned a decentralized but nationally coordinated system of public banking in which money is created by issuing collateral backed loans, just as private banks do, but on a non-profit (non-usurious) basis. Kellogg's system will be explored and evaluated.
Bio: Adrian Kuzminski, formerly a professor of intellectual history at the University of Hawaii, is the author of a series of books on populism, including original work on populist monetary theory: The People’s Money: The Case for Public Banking in the United States (Lexington, 2024); The Ecology of Money: Debt, Growth, and Sustainability (Lexington, 2013); and Fixing the System: A History of Populism, Ancient & Modern (Continuum, 2008). He has also written a series of books on ancient scepticism, including Ancient Evenings: Nine Pyrrhonian Dialogues (Imprint Academic, 2024); Pyrrhonian Scepticism (Routledge, 2021); and Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Lexington, 2008). A longtime political activist, he lives in rural upstate New York.
Joseph Arminio
Doctor of Philosophy
8:05 pm Friday, September 26 (CDT / UTC -5)
The Dire Perils of Stablecoin
About the talk: My forthcoming talk at the 2025 AMI Conference is, in effect, a very disturbing report from the front line of freedom. I have joined the fight, such as it is, against the roll out of a central bank digital currency or CBDC and especially against the back door to a CBDC, that is, against the version of stablecoin which the approved, utterly misnamed Genius Act now allows to be issued. I bring to this fight my latest, major work, The Fed’s Endgame: Handing America Over To The Globalists And How To Stop It, which appeared in the spring. Moreover, I have made several trips to Capitol Hill opposing the Genius Act, and have surveyed media coverage, organizations’ involvements and the general public’s awareness pertaining to the Act.
In my talk, I will explain why 2025 could be 1913 all over again – only worse! 1913 marked the emergence of the odious Federal Reserve System, of course. The Federal Reserve might collapse of its own weight very soon. However, the private owners of the Fed can now use cryptocurrency, including stablecoin, not only to give the Fed new life but also to bring about the end of ours. Thanks to the forthcoming digitized symbol of the dollar, the powers that be may soon be able to determine what we can buy and sell, with even worse to follow. The hour may be late, the severest of storm clouds may be gathering, but all is not lost. At the end of my remarks, I will share what I think could spare us harm, even transform our situation. An era of unprecedented, pervasive prosperity and far greater liberty could yet be ours!
Bio: Dr. Arminio has taught at American University and Lincoln University, and founded Statesman Debate Institute (SDI), which provides classically-based speech and debate coaching for secondary-school and college students. (Strictly educational and refraining from advocacy, SDI does wonders for keeping an open mind!). Not only a commentator on the economy and statecraft, Dr. Arminio has served as a consultant to members of Congress and to the Defense Department, and ran for the US House in Maryland. He chaired The National Coalition for Defense (NCFD), whose board numbered nearly fifty major personages, including sitting members of Congress and retired flag officers.
MIT awarded Arminio the Doctorate in Political Science. On the strength of his latest book, Dr. Arminio sounds the alarm regarding digital currency and stablecoin through his project Turning Point 2025, found at TURNINGPOINT25.org. Arminio’s author page is cfar21.org/sanmodpublishers. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware.
MIT awarded Arminio the Doctorate in Political Science. On the strength of his latest book, Dr. Arminio sounds the alarm regarding digital currency and stablecoin through his project Turning Point 2025, found at TURNINGPOINT25.org. Arminio’s author page is cfar21.org/sanmodpublishers. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware.
John G Root Jr
Author and Community Organizer
9:10 pm Friday, September 26 (CDT / UTC -5)
Money Issuance: The Primary Tool of the Sovereign
About the talk: “End the Fed” has become a popular slogan, but what does it really mean to reclaim the sovereign power of money creation? Root argues that only by restoring the authority to issue money to Congress can we revive the democratic republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers. In this talk, he will explore the paradox that “it is not about the money, and it is all about the money.” Drawing on the insights of Stephen Zarlenga and other monetary historians, Root will reveal how interest-bearing debt drives our current dystopia, and why equity-based community credit offers a path to a just and sustainable abundance. He will also share practical ways we can practice sovereignty through voluntary collaboration, consent-based governance, and community-created money—demonstrating that monetary reform is not abstract theory, but the foundation of the society our hearts truly desire.
Bio: John G. Root Jr. is an author, organizer, and lifelong advocate of community-based living and economic justice. Educated at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, he was deeply influenced by Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope and Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Order. He studied Anthroposophical social therapy in Germany before founding the Talander Medical Service in England. Returning to the U.S., he co-founded the Cadmus Lifesharing Association, Cascades Recycling, and helped establish the nation’s first Community Supported Agriculture project at Indian Line Farm in 1984. Root later founded Credit to the People and led the “Just Abundance” seminar on community-created credit. His recent book, Freedom, Justice, Community, presents a vision of voluntary, self-governing communities financed through community-issued equity.
Gergely Szabo
Economist and Fund Manager
8:55 am Saturday, September 27 (CDT / UTC -5)
National Money – Shifting the Debate to the Next Level
About the talk: The case for sovereign money reform is clear: it delivers annual benefits of 4–6% of GDP and a more stable financial system. The key challenge is overcoming vested interests. The first line of defense for the status quo is a belief system. Our book National Money, already available in Hungarian and forthcoming in English, dismantles the mainstream narrative through objective analysis, structure, and clarity. It examines balance sheets and maps the axioms and laws that shift money creation into private hands. It specifies the design of the new system and quantifies the benefits of reform. Finally, it exposes the rhetorical tricks that surround the debate.
Bio: Gergely Szabo graduated from Corvinus University of Budapest as an economist in 2005. He is currently a fund manager. He worked for a Swiss hedge fund and for large domestic energy companies, where he managed futures and options books worth billions of dollars a year. As a former central bank researcher, he was one of the first to write and lecture on the topic of digital central bank money in Hungarian. He is the founder of the alternative finance blog Penzriport. He is the author of the study The Origin of Hungarian Public Debt (1945-). He correctly predicted the former persistently low international interest rate environment and the appreciation of asset prices due to QEs.
Gábor Horváth
Senior Economic Expert at the Central Bank of Hungary
8:55 am Saturday, September 27 (CDT / UTC -5)
National Money – Shifting the Debate to the Next Level
About the talk: The case for sovereign money reform is clear: it delivers annual benefits of 4–6% of GDP and a more stable financial system. The key challenge is overcoming vested interests. The first line of defense for the status quo is a belief system. Our book National Money, already available in Hungarian and forthcoming in English, dismantles the mainstream narrative through objective analysis, structure, and clarity. It examines balance sheets and maps the axioms and laws that shift money creation into private hands. It specifies the design of the new system and quantifies the benefits of reform. Finally, it exposes the rhetorical tricks that surround the debate.
Bio: Gabor Horvath graduated as an economist from Corvinus University of Budapest and Mathias Corvinus Collegium in 2008. He is currently in a strategic position as a senior economic expert at the Central Bank of Hungary. He has been editor of financial stability reports, worked with the macroprudential toolbox regulating the entire banking system, and developed a banking competitiveness index; he has been involved in the development of the central bank's domestic currency, foreign exchange, and interest rate transactions, as well as forecasting the level of domestic foreign exchange reserves; thus, he has a unique insight into both banking and central bank balance sheets.
Richard Robbins
Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at SUNY Plattsburgh
10:15 am Saturday, September 27 (CDT / UTC -5)
Mean, Stupid Money: How Finance Used The Monetary System to Destroy the American Dream and How We Can Bring It Back
About the talk: Over the past four decades investment finance continually captured a great share of the national wealth until the top 1% holds more than 30% of it and the top 0.1% holds half of that. Meanwhile the wealth share of wage earners has declined as has the share that goes to support our civic life—schools, libraries, parks, roads, and our environment.
While we sometimes hear complaints about the salaries and bonuses captured by Wall Street executives and corporate CEOs, investment finance—the process of making money with money—receives a relatively free ride from those trying to explain the explosion of economic inequality in the U.S., the political polarization destroying civic life, and the phenomenon of a six-times bankrupt billionaire real estate investor upending the rule of law. This paper will outline how the increasing share of wealth captured by investors over the past four decades impoverished millions while, at the same time, creating a class of billionaires with the financial and political power to reshape our society in their image. It will also offer a political strategy to bring finance and money back to the constructive role that it once played in the realization of the American dream.
While we sometimes hear complaints about the salaries and bonuses captured by Wall Street executives and corporate CEOs, investment finance—the process of making money with money—receives a relatively free ride from those trying to explain the explosion of economic inequality in the U.S., the political polarization destroying civic life, and the phenomenon of a six-times bankrupt billionaire real estate investor upending the rule of law. This paper will outline how the increasing share of wealth captured by investors over the past four decades impoverished millions while, at the same time, creating a class of billionaires with the financial and political power to reshape our society in their image. It will also offer a political strategy to bring finance and money back to the constructive role that it once played in the realization of the American dream.
Bio: Richard Robbins is Distinguished Teaching Professor at the Department of Anthropology at SUNY, Plattsburgh. His books include Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (7th edition) with Rachel Dowty, (selected by Choice: Journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries as An Outstanding Academic Title of the Year), Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach (8th edition) co-authored with Rachel Dowty Beech, (which received the Text and Academic Authors Association textbook of the year award for the social sciences), Debt as Power, (runner-up for 2017 Sussex International Theory Prize) and An Anthropology of Money, both co-authored with Tim Di Muzio. He received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the American Anthropological Association/McGraw-Hill Teacher of the Year Award. Dr. Robbins joined the recently founded Advisory Board of the Alliance For Just Money.
Les Leopold
Author and Labor Advocate
11:50 am Saturday, September 27 (CDT / UTC -5)
What Can and Should Be Done About Mass Layoffs? And How Do We Understand 'Wall Street’s War on Workers'
About the talk: Les Leopold will confront one of the most urgent crises in today’s economy: the growing insecurity of work. Drawing from his latest book Wall Street’s War on Workers, Leopold will explain how financial elites have reshaped corporate behavior to prioritize shareholder profits and executive pay over stable employment, decent wages, and community well-being. Leopold will examine the mechanics of mass layoffs—not as unfortunate accidents of the business cycle, but as deliberate strategies fueled by Wall Street’s relentless demands. He will connect these dynamics to runaway inequality, precarious work, and the erosion of labor rights, while also spotlighting the human toll on workers and families.
But Leopold does not stop at critique. He will outline bold policy solutions and grassroots strategies to curb Wall Street’s influence, strengthen labor protections, and rebuild an economy where workers come first. With his decades of experience at the Labor Institute and deep ties to the labor movement, Leopold’s talk promises to be both sobering and galvanizing—a call to action for all who seek to end the war on workers.
Bio: After graduating from Oberlin College and Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs (MPA 1975), Les Leopold co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute (1975), a non-profit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment and economics for unions, workers centers and community organizations. In addition to "Wall Street's War on Workers," (Chelsea Green, 2024), he is the author of "Defiant German, Defiant Jew," (Amsterdam Publishers, 2020), "Runaway Inequality," (Labor Institute Press 2015, 2017, 2018), "How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Financial Elites get away with siphoning off America's Wealth" (John Wiley and Sons, 2013), "The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It," (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009), and "The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi," (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006.)
Geoff Crocker
Economist, Author, and Policy advocate
8:55 am Sunday, September 28 (CDT / UTC -5)
Rethinking Income and Money: Incorporating Technology Into Economic Theory
About the talk: We all know that all our economies are riddled with inequality and debt. Many households have very low incomes and suffer poverty. Government debt is huge and ever increasing. It all gets worse when the government then wants to reduce welfare spending to cut its debt. How do we get out of this vicious spiral? Geoff Crocker, who’s worked in industrial economics for many years, shows how this has come about and how it can be corrected. Automation has sucked labour income out of the economy, and AI is going to make this worse. We need to accept more, not less, welfare income. Conditionality of welfare benefits needs to be reduced in a shift towards universality.
Meanwhile, government can fund some of its expenditure directly, rather than as debt. Money is not debt at the point of its creation. Central bank purchase of its own government’s debt made it equal to zero net debt and so equivalent to direct money financing of government expenditure. Radical redefinitions are urgently needed. Geoff is presenting these proposals at our AMI conference from his new book ‘Rethinking Income and Money’.
Bio: Geoff Crocker is a British economist and advocate known for his work on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and sovereign money. With a background in economics and over 25 years in technology strategy consulting, he is a Fellow at Radix UK and the author of Basic Income and Sovereign Money. Crocker promotes UBI funded by debt-free sovereign money as a solution to economic crises and austerity policies.
Oliver Heydorn
Director of the Clifford Hugh Douglas Institute for the Study and Promotion of Social Credit, Canada
10:00 am Sunday, September 28 (CDT / UTC -5)
Douglas Social Credit: Restoring Honesty and Functionality to the Financial System
About the talk: In this presentation, M. Oliver Heydorn introduces the Douglas Social Credit (DSC) model for monetary reform, emphasizing its diagnosis of the current financial system's structural dishonesty as the primary cause of economic dysfunction. Unlike the Chinese-style surveillance system, DSC, developed by British engineer Major C.H. Douglas, seeks to empower citizens by ensuring the financial system accurately reflects the real economy’s productive capacity and consumer needs. Heydorn outlines the DSC diagnosis, which identifies the economy’s failure to deliver goods and services efficiently due to an artificial scarcity of producer and consumer credit, resulting in poverty, debt, and inefficiency. The prognosis highlights the financial system’s misrepresentation of economic reality, driven by a policy serving oligarchic interests rather than the common good. DSC proposes solutions including a National Credit Office to regulate private banks, a National Dividend to provide debt-free income to citizens, and a National Discount to adjust prices, aligning financial representation with physical reality. These reforms aim to restore honesty to finance, fostering a sustainable, equitable economy that prioritizes human flourishing over profit or control. The presentation concludes by comparing DSC with the American Monetary Institute’s proposals, advocating for a financial system that serves as truthful infrastructure for a satisfactory economic order.
Bio: M. Oliver Heydorn B.Sc. (biology), M.A. (philosophy), graduated summa cum laude with a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the International Academy of Philosophy at the Catholic Pontifical University of Santiago, Chile. His dissertation, undertaken under the directorship of Dr. Josef Seifert, was entitled: Insight and Existence: The Role of A Priori Knowledge in the Cogito according to Dietrich von Hildebrand. After having taught as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at three different universities in three different countries, he became the founder and director of the Clifford Hugh Douglas Institute for the Study and Promotion of Social Credit (www.socred.org). He is the author of four books on Douglas Social Credit theory: Social Credit Economics, The Economics of Social Credit and Catholic Social Teaching, Social Credit Philosophy, and Lives of our Own: Social Credit, Catholicism, and a Distributist Social Order and is the main architect behind the Douglas Social Credit animated series which is viewable on youtube.com (Douglas Social Credit)
Mario Martinez
Economist, Activist, and President of Dinero Positivo
11:20 am Sunday, September 28 (CDT / UTC -5)
Can Money Creation Be Much Simpler? Untangling Public And Private Roles - Unleashing Prosperity For All
About the talk: Join economist and activist Mario Martinez, president of Dinero Positivo and core member of the International Movement for Monetary Reform, for a powerful talk on the future of money. Mario will unpack how banks create risk at the heart of our payment system—and why public digital money alongside cash could be the key to a simpler, safer, and more democratic economy. With his trademark clarity and passion, Mario will turn a complex issue into an eye-opening, engaging experience. Don’t miss this chance to discover how a radical yet simple reform could
change everything about how money works.
change everything about how money works.
Bio: Mario Martínez is a heterodox economist who has been a devoted activist for monetary reform for ten years. He is currently president of Dinero Positivo and part of the Core Group of the International Movement for Monetary Reform (IMMR). He has promoted the creation of a community currency in Galiza and is a passionate communicator on issues regarding bank regulation, CBDCs and alternative economics through his blog and YouTube channel.
David Ciepley
Associate Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia
12:25 pm Sunday, September 28 (CDT / UTC -5)
After Neoliberalism: Toward a Stewardship Economy
About the talk: Neoliberalism has left us with rising inequality, weakened democracies, and economies geared toward corporate self-interest. David Ciepley argues that it is time to move beyond this paradigm to a stewardship economy—an economic order where corporations and states serve the common good rather than private gain. By tracing the deep historical ties between corporations and constitutional states, Ciepley offers a powerful new framework for understanding how both can be reoriented toward genuine democratic accountability and ecological sustainability.
Bio: David Ciepley is a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, where he is the Principal Investigator for “After Neoliberalism: Toward a Stewardship Economy.” His work focuses on the history and theory of corporations and constitutional states—two related governmental forms that have co-developed over time. He previously taught political theory as tenured professor at the University of Denver and has held residential fellowships at Institutes for Advanced Study in Princeton, Stanford, Uppsala, Budapest, Aarhus and Bologna. He is the author of “Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism” (Harvard University Press, 2001), “Beyond Public and Private: Toward a Political Theory of the Corporation” (American Political Science Review, 2013), and “Democracy and the Corporation—The Long View” (Annual Review of Political Science, 2023).
Over time, whoever controls the money system, controls the nation.
Stephen Zarlenga
(1941 – 2017)