Author Bill James, 101, Instructs How to Become a Great Nation Again

If wisdom comes with age, then America should listen to 101 year-old William H. James, Ph.D.

In his new book, The Monetarists and the Evolving Crisis (subtitled Wake Up, Americans; We Are Losing Our Great Nation), the Northford centenarian describes why America's descending along a weakening path-and what can be done to fix it.

As Bill writes, "The United States is weak and becoming weaker. People are unnecessarily losing their homes and security. Businesses are collapsing. Among many problems, the nation has a debt-based, systemically flawed, exploitive, and nation-weakening monetary and banking system, which should be modified."

Bill calls that nation-weakening system "monetarism" and its controllers "monetarists."

A student of history, politics, and the economy, Bill's publications often spot trends and share predictions. In 1936, he wrote of America joining World War II within five years. A November 1941 article by Bill states Japan would soon create a crisis for America.

Bill holds degrees from Brown (bachelor's) and Yale (master's and doctoral) and served as a World War II combat intelligence officer serving in the U.S. Army Air Force in India and China. A shoreline educator of more than 40 years, he was Branford's superintendent of schools from 1958 to 1966.

Retired in 1977, Bill became an adjunct college instructor of macroeconomics, management, labor-management relations, and other classes through 1994. He lives in Northford with his wife Virginia.

As for writing The Monetarists, Bill says, "I never got indoctrinated in standard macroeconomic monetary policy. Consequently, I was able to do some free thinking about it."

Bill wrote his first manuscript of The Monetarists in 1974. He updated it in the 1990s, and recently did so again to produce the current edition (self-published, May 2011). Bill says America's decline started after World War II ended, beginning with the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"We can't win militarily unless we first win economically and politically. We've been in the IMF since 1946 and we haven't won a single war since that time, in over 60 years. People will say, 'Look at the money that came out of [the IMF].' But there's no power in money-the nation needs an economy with jobs and industries. We may be able to get all the money we want, but you can't eat money."

Bill says export-oriented trade policies and the "monetary trap" created by interest paid on debts are major nation-weakening issues.

As long as the current monetary, banking, and financial system prevails, "it can be expected that there will be money shortages and nation-weakening problems," Bill says, regardless of efforts to fix budgets, taxes, Social Security, health services, entitlements in general, or other fiscal affairs.

"The money for interest payments comes out of the money circulating in this country. Every debt written reduces the money in circulation [and creates] recessions, poverty, foreclosures. At this point in the nation, there are 50 million people considered impoverished and 24 million unemployed or underemployed. That's unfortunate-but it's also weakening our nation. We really need to have these people working, in order to build our nation."

In his book, Bill outlines nation-strengthening strategies, including creating a National Economic Development Facility; a non-private sector monetary and banking unit outside of the Federal Reserve system and "current pro-monetarist, nation-weakening, and globally inclined U.S. Treasury Department," as Bill describes it.

Functioning within the federal government, the facility would be overseen by the president and by Congress, which has the constitutional authority to coin money. It would use Congress-issued money to underwrite many initial public infrastructure projects, from highways to solar power installations.

"It would put money into circulation and makes it possible for you to earn money," Bill explains, adding it would build the nation and improve lives, without increasing national and public debts.