Ragusin, Kristen: - Interested in the empowerment and liberation of humanity, Kristen Ragusin has been curious about how we can realize the unique, creative expression of our divinity and contribute to the well-being of society. A perpetual pragmatic-optimist, Kristen believes that life is always working toward our highest good, even in the most difficult and trying times, shaping and evolving us to grow. As a child, she studied the stock market with her father to earn her allowance. She saw the markets as an integral part of realizing the American Dream, as an accessible way to create wealth, support the collective genius and productivity of our society. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degrees, in Political Science and Anthropology, as she studied how societies distribute power and resources.After graduating, Kristen became a professional financial advisor with Merrill Lynch and built her practice helping clients invest for the last thirty years, and recently moved her practice to Raymond James & Associates. She enjoyed the special connection of working with clients and the autonomy of running her practice. For over a decade, she was a member of an elite training faculty teaching thousands of financial advisors at the Merrill Lynch Corporate Campus in Princeton, New Jersey. A professional speaker, she has given hundreds of public seminars on retirement planning and tax management strategies, as well as talks on reforming our money system at the Public Banking Institute, Pace University in New York City, and Peace Conferences in New England. She received her Masters Degree from the renowned Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts.In 2008, as she prepared to leave for Jordan to earn a certificate in conflict resolution from the United Nations Institute, she saw the coming financial crisis. Sensing something was not right with how she understood the markets, she found everything she knew about money was wrong. She uncovered the shocking revelation that today there is no money, that instead there is only debt masquerading as money, and the way our money is designed is the real cause of perpetual scarcity. Knowing that our money caused such havoc in our world, she was compelled to learn how we could create money the right way. It set her on a seven-year journey around the world as she researched and tracked down economists, money reformers, and brilliant new thinkers to solve this mystery. In the end, a solution so simple