This Financial Mess – Causes and Cures
Abolish the Federal Reserve System,
Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds,
And the National Debt
By Mike Kirchubel
“The greatest of all our burdens is the banking and currency system. The speculation and gambling that is incidental to our banking and currency system is simply appalling, and it is absolutely ridiculous that we should tolerate it, and pay the cost of its continuance.” – Charles A. Lindbergh.
"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled governments in the civilized world - no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by... a vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” - President Woodrow Wilson
"From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the burst of the dotcom bubble in 2001, every economic downturn suffered by the country over the last 80 years can be traced to Federal Reserve policy." - U. S.Rep., Ron Paul
“Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. The Federal Reserve banks are the agents of the foreign central banks. Henry Ford has said, ‘The aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.’ The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the government of the United States...”– Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee.
“The Federal Reserve System is the biggest fraud ever foisted upon the American public. This private enterprise controls our politicians, our major media, sucks hundreds of billions of dollars from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers every year, has caused incalculable suffering, thousands of deaths, and yes Virginia, it is a conspiracy. It was born of conspiracy and continues today in secrecy.” – Mike Kirchubel, blogger.
"One of the things important about history is to remember the true history." -George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2008
This report could easily be several hundred pages long. It covers ground from 1700 to tomorrow. The hardest part of writing it was to distill the vast amount of information available to a size readable at one sitting. If you dare continue, you will learn that, beyond the blatant theft outlined in current headlines, international bankers have conspired to steal our money and property for hundreds of years. Today, without your knowledge, we exist as sharecroppers, toiling in their fields, sending them a significant portion of our income every year. You will soon come to know that, more than Congress or the President, the private corporation known as the Federal Reserve, shrouded in secrecy, controls our daily existence and the destiny of our children.
As money and its pursuit seem to occupy more and more of our lives, we seem to fall further and further behind. Americans work more hours and pay more for healthcare than any other industrialized nation. Yet typically, we Americans are one car wreck, one hospital stay from the total collapse of our financial house of cards. We are now witnessing this car wreck on a national scale. We no longer live in the world of our parents, with leisure time and where only one parent works – unless the other one was just laid off. Occasionally, rarely, one of us escapes our seemingly pre-ordained fate and, just like the variable reinforcement strategies practiced in casinos, inspires the rest to continue plugging along. Stable jobs and stable currency are curiosities found only in history books. Turmoil and inflation are as natural to us as sunrise and sunset. We perceive financial chaos as “normal” and no longer question our government when they say we must pay two trillion dollars to rich bankers, or $10 billion a month for war without end, or that Rumsfeld misplaced $2.3 trillion on the day before 9/11.
“Just let me have my toaster, my TV, and my steel-belted radials and leave me alone,” to quote Howard Beale from, “Network.” Your TV may let your mind slumber, for that is its purpose. But I will not. If you dare proceed, your next few minutes of reading will very likely enrage you because, as Gloria Steinem aptly stated, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
This is not your usual blog. The information presented consists of historical facts, documented by quotations from noted individuals of each era. Consider them eyewitnesses in the conspiracy trial of the Federal Reserve. Weigh the evidence and judge for yourself. I figured you would sooner believe the people who actually participated in the events discussed than the random rants of this writer. These are not the facts we were taught in our public schools, but they are facts, nonetheless. History is written by the winners and as you will soon understand, these winners do NOT want you to know their history. “He, who controls the present, controls the past. He, who controls the past, controls the future.” - George Orwell, 1984. Google everything. The truth is out there.
America’s Hidden History
By expanding the money supply and then contracting it – by inflation and then deflation – by making credit easy and then difficult – by lowering interest rates and then raising them – call it what you will - bankers have squeezed us dry for hundreds of years. Come with me now on a journey you have never gone and I will show you how this evil is done...
How Benjamin Franklin Caused the Revolutionary War
By the mid 1700s, the American Colonies were doing well, there was no income tax, no unemployment, and prices were generally stable. Benjamin Franklin wrote, “There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”
When Franklin went to London in 1763, he saw a completely different situation. “The streets are covered with beggars and tramps,” he wrote. He asked his friends how England, with all its wealth, could have so much poverty among its working classes. They replied that England had too many workers! The well-to-do were already overburdened with taxes, and could not pay more to relieve the poverty of the unemployed workers. Meeting with the British Board of Trade, members asked Franklin how the American Colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor. Franklin replied, “That is simple. In the Colonies, we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."
The Bank of England, realizing Colonial Scrip was cutting into their profits, pressed Parliament for the passage of the Currency Act of 1764. This Act forced the Colonies to use only British money and to pay taxes in only gold or silver. This put the Colonies under the thumb of the British Central Bank. With the loss of Colonial Scrip, an economic depression set in. "The colonies suffered a constant shortage of currency with which to conduct trade. There were no gold or silver mines and currency could only be obtained through trade as regulated by Great Britain." – Benjamin Franklin. When you cut the money supply, recession and depression invariably result. Remember this; you will see it again and again – throughout our history.
Franklin reported that one year after the implementation of the Currency Act; the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed beggars, just like in England. The amount of circulating money had been cut in half. Franklin stated that the Currency Act was the true cause of the American Revolution - and not the tax on tea or the Stamp Act, as we were taught in our history books. In his autobiography, Franklin wrote, “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the Revolutionary War.” And, “The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the Revolution.”
“In 1764 the prohibition against issuing their money was extended to all the colonies. It then became mandatory for all the colonies to borrow their money into circulation at huge interest rates. It is probable that these acts were more responsible for the Revolution than any other factors. Many of our founding fathers were keenly aware of the problem this debt money created and this is one of the principle reasons why our constitution so clearly provided for an honest money system. Article 1, Section 8, Par. 5 of the Constitution provides that ‘only Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.’”– June Grem, The Money Manipulators.
In 1783, the American colonies finally freed themselves from the Crown of England, but the war against the international bankers – a war we would eventually lose - had just begun. After the Revolutionary War, there was a push to establish a central bank in the United States. Alexander Hamilton argued for a central bank along the lines of the Bank of England. Thomas Jefferson argued against the institution of a federal bank, mostly citing constitutional concerns on the limitations of government. "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that: "All powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are preserved to the states or to the people.” "To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson, 1791. Jefferson, is quoting the 10th Amendment, which was ratified later that year. Jefferson, having helped to write the Constitution, was obviously correct in its interpretation. Now, the Supreme Court tries to guess what the framers meant; Jefferson is actually telling us what HE meant: The central bank is unconstitutional. I would take his interpretation of his own work over the opinions of our current crop of Supreme Court Justices any day.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered". -Thomas Jefferson 1802. Remember that line, “first by inflation and then by deflation ... the banks will deprive the people of all property...” As we shall see, Thomas Jefferson was exactly right. The banks use this strategy repeatedly throughout history, each time gaining a bigger and bigger piece of the economic pie. First, they make money plentiful and inexpensive so that people expand their business and buy farms and homes. Then, they raise interest rates and contract the money supply, forcing bankruptcies and foreclosures, obtaining properties at a fraction of their original cost. What do you think is happening right now?
Our nation started its existence in debt from the Revolutionary War. Jefferson argued to eliminate the debt, and Hamilton argued debt was necessary to keep the nation together. The Hamiltonians, the conservatives of their time, won and consequently it has been argued that this basic difference between these two founders was the beginning of the liberal vs. conservative split in our country. It’s interesting to note that the ones who wanted the debt were the “conservatives.” Contrary to popular opinion, (and remember that you read it here first) – even today, those “Borrow and Spend” Republican administrations are responsible for almost ALL of our $11 trillion national debt. Contrast that to the “Tax and Spend” or, should I say, “pay as you go” Democrats! Yes, it’s true. From the founding of our country up through the Carter administration, our U.S. National Debt was about one trillion dollars. That’s right, after two hundred years of history, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, two World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam debacle, our national debt was $1 trillion. Let’s blame Democrat Jimmy Carter for the whole thing, $1 trillion. After 8 years of Republican Reagan, the debt stood at $3 trillion. 4 years of Republican George H.W. Bush got it to $5 trillion. 8 years of Democrat Clinton raised it another $1trillion to $6 trillion. Finally, after 8 years of Republican Bush II, we owe an additional $5 trillion dollars. Right now, we are looking at $11 trillion in debt and we taxpayers are paying about $500 billion in interest every year. That’s $500 billion in taxes wasted every year. $500 billion that will never build a road or school. Every year. You tell me who the “conservative” is. Hey, DON’T believe me. Google it. “No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." - George Washington in a letter to James Madison 1789. Good idea, by George.
After much argument, Congress passed the banking bill proposed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. “Jefferson, who was then Secretary of State, gave a written opinion denying the power of Congress to incorporate a bank of issue, and Madison, who was in Congress, opposed it in a powerful speech, as a violation of the Constitution.” – William Agustus Berkey, The Money Question, 1876. The First Bank of the United States, tenured by a charter of 20 years, was set to expire in 1811. “The American Colonies have won their independence, but it will do them no good because they have adopted a private banking system.” – William Pitt. “On Tuesday, January 14, 1794, the following resolution was introduced in the United States Senate : ‘Nor shall any person holding any office or stock in any institution in the nature of a bank, for issuing or discounting bills or notes payable to bearer or order, under the authority of the United States, be a member of either House whilst he holds such office or stock.’ It passed the Senate two days later, after being fought by the bankers, and amended at their instigation in order that they might be allowed to sit in Congress, but it still remained a protest to bankers controlling legislation in which they were personally interested.” – Representative, Charles Lindbergh.
Despite objections from several of our founding fathers, the "First Bank of the United States" was chartered for $10 million, mainly to “effectively distribute the cost of the revolution proportionately throughout all of the states.” The U .S. government chipped-in $2 million to start up the bank and the charter bankers, who were supposed to put up an additional $8 million, simply used the magic of fractional reserve lending and had their new bank loan themselves their startup money. They actually used none of their own funds and ended up with control of our nation’s finances. Bankers are just so darn clever.
Over the first 5 years, the government borrowed $8.2 million of newly issued money and prices rose by 72%. Jefferson, commenting on this inflation wrote, “I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution – taking from the federal government their power of borrowing.” "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." - James Madison.
In 1811, bill was put forth in Congress to renew the Banks charter. “In 1811 the bank applied to Congress for a renewal of its charter, but it was not granted. (Henry) Clay and other leading statesmen opposed its re-charter on the ground that it was “unconstitutional, anti-American, and strictly a British institution.” – William Agustus Berkey, The Money Question. The Legislators of Pennsylvania and Virginia passed Resolutions asking Congress to veto the bill. Their chief complaint was that 70 percent of the bank's stock was held by foreign (British) interests, which would have sent millions of dollars annually to England had the charter been renewed. English Banker, Nathan Rothschild made the following revealing statement, “Either the application for renewal of the charter is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war.” He is also quoted as telling Parliament, “Teach these impudent Americans a lesson. Bring them back to Colonial status.” The renewal bill passed by a single vote in the House and was deadlocked in the Senate. President James Madison, a staunch opponent of the bank, sent Vice-President, George Clinton (No, not the Funkadelic guy) to break a tie in the Senate and killed the bank. As promised by Nathan Rothschild, thousands died when the British attacked America in the War of 1812. Fortunately, the British were still busy fighting Napoleon and were unable to mount much of an assault. After burning Washington D.C.in 1814, the British went home.
So, who was this Nathan Rothschild that he would have both the temerity to threaten the United States of America and then have the clout to actually carry out that threat? We need to take a short side trip to mid 1700s Frankfurt, Germany. In that city lived a gold merchant named Mayer Amschel Bauer who had a large red shield on the front of his shop. His customers started calling him “Rothschild,” German for “Red Shield,” and the name stuck. In those days, names were not so “fixed” as they are now. People often took the name of their business as a family name; hence, we have a lot of Smiths, Bakers, Clarks, Millers, Coopers, Farmers, Fletchers, Wagners, etc. running around today. So it was with the Rothschilds. Mayer had five sons and he gave them all substantial sums of money with which to start their adult lives. They all entered the banking field and soon ran the central banks in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and England. Nathan bought up controlling interest in the Bank of England at a deep discount in 1815 by convincing other Bank bond holders that England had lost to Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of England, wrote of Nathan Rothschild: “He is the lord and master of the money markets of the world, and of course virtually lord and master of everything else.” and “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” William Gladstone, Prime Minister of England stated in 1852, “From the time I took office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I began to learn that the State held, in the face of the Bank and the City, an essentially false position as to finance. The Government itself was not to be a substantive power, but was to leave the Money Power supreme and unquestioned." Two Prime Ministers acknowledge the Bank of England – Nathan Rothschild – as the supreme power in England. Author Frederic Morton wrote that the Rothschilds had: "conquered the World more thoroughly, more cunningly, and much more lastingly than all the Caesars before..." In 1790, Mayer Amschel Rothschild wrote, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.” Son, Nathan Rothschild wrote: "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply." How sweet. Like father, like son. How could the Bank of England exert so much power over the government of England? By “owning” the debt of the nation and collecting interest on it – just like our Federal Reserve. “By 1698, the British Treasury owed 16 million pounds sterling to the Bank of England. By 1815, principally due to the compounding of interest, the debt had risen to 885 million pounds sterling. Some of this increase was due to the wars which had flourished during that period, including the Napoleonic Wars and the wars which England had fought to retain its American Colony.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
Mayer Bauer (Rothschild) and family shared a house with another banking family in Frankfurt, their close friends, the Schiffs. The Schiffs had three sons and they too all entered the banking field. Two brothers stayed in Germany and one, Jacob Schiff came to the U.S. to seek fame and fortune. A full explanation of the Rothschilds would require another 50 pages and will have to wait for another day. Jacob Schiff will pop up a little later in this story.
“Of all aristocracies, none more completely enslave a people than that of money; and, in the opinion of your committee, no system was ever better devised so perfectly to enslave a community as that of the present mode of conducting banking establishments. Like the siren of the fable, they entice to destroy. They hold the purse-strings of society, and, by monopolizing the whole of the circulating medium of the country, they form a precarious standard, by which all property in the country—homes, lands, debts and credits, personal and real estate of all descriptions—are valued, thus rendering the whole community dependent upon them; proscribing every man who dares to expose their unlawful practices. If he happens to be out of their reach, so as to require no favors from them, his friends are made the victims; so no one dares complain. The committee, on taking a general view of our State, and comparing those parts where banks have been, for some time established with those that have none, are astonished at the alarming disparity. They see, in the one case, the desolation they have made in societies that were before prosperous and happy; the ruin they have brought on an immense number of the more wealthy farmers, and they and their families suddenly hurled from wealth and independence into the abyss of ruin and despair. If the facts stated in the foregoing be true, (and your committee have no doubt they are,) together with others equally reprehensible and to be dreaded, such as that their influence too frequently, nay, often already, begins to assume a species of dictation altogether alarming, and, unless some judicious remedy is provided by legislative wisdom, we shall soon witness attempts to control all selections to offices in our counties, nay, the elections to the very legislature. Senators and members of assembly will be indebted to the banks for their seat in this capitol; and thus the wise end of our civil institutions will be prostrated in the dust of corporations of their own raising.” – New York State Legislative Committee Report, 1818.
The charter for a new central bank, The Second Bank of the United States, was passed in 1816, five years after the first bank expired. Although an avowed enemy of central banking, President Madison needed a way to stabilize the currency. Unfortunately, some very bad bankers looted the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank. The branch went into receivership and the whole central banking system was close to bankruptcy. The Second Bank was forced to reduce the number of notes and loans issued to save it from collapse. The monetary contraction was referred to as “The Panic of 1819” and the resultant depression lasted five years. “In April, 1818, less than fifteen months after the Bank of the United States started, it was believed to be insolvent. A committee, appointed by Congress to investigate its affairs, reported a resolution requiring the bank to show cause why its charter should not be forfeited, but the resolution was lost, forty members of Congress being stockholders in the bank. The bank now resorted to vigorous measures to save itself from bankruptcy, and in a little over two months was once more solvent. It had, however, ruined the country. The amount of bank note circulation in 1813-14 was about $45,000,000 ; in 1817-18, $100,000,000 ; and in 1819 about $45,000,000. Contraction had done its work, and the ruin which it had accomplished was deep.” – William Agustus Berkey, The Money Question.
Andrew Jackson’s Epic Battle Against Evil
The fight between President Jackson and the United States Bank, which occupied the attention of the people for years, now began. The specie basis system had been in operation for over a quarter of a century, and during the whole time the country had never once enjoyed the advantages of a sound currency. Pecuniary distress, periodical returns of expansion and contraction, deranged currency, ruined exchanges, and panics and convulsions had characterized the entire period. The banks, although based on “hard money,” and professing to pay coin, were in a state of chronic suspension. The press of the country was completely subsidized ; Congress, as well as State legislatures, bowed in abject submission to the mandates of the money power ; and even the Supreme Court of the United States did not escape its contaminating influence. The people were perfectly helpless, and the outlook of American freedom and independence was dark indeed. It is worthy of mention that Pitt, in 1791, when Hamilton brought forward his funding and banking scheme, said : ‘Let the Americans adopt their funding system and go into their banking institutions, and their boasted independence will be a mere phantom.’” – William Agustus Berkey, The Money Question, 1876.
Although the Second Bank of the United States’ charter was not due to expire until 1836, its president, Nicholas Biddle, pushed for renewal in 1832, thinking that Andrew Jackson, running for re-election, would not dare stand in the way. After passage by Congress, Jackson vetoed the bill, echoing Jefferson, stating that the bank was, “Unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of the states, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.” "If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." “The bold efforts the present bank has made to control the government, the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” Andrew Jackson, running for a second term, took his campaign on the road talking directly to the American people about the central bank scam. Old Hickory’s campaign slogan was short and to the point: "JACKSON and NO BANK!" "It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our government. More than 8 Million (shares of) the stock of this bank are held by foreigners... Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bond it to our country? Controlling our currencies, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence ... would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy. If government would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does it's rains, shower it's favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles." – President Andrew Jackson. By the way, the foreign banker he mentioned as controlling the Second Bank of the United States was Baron James de Rothschild of Paris, one of Nathan’s brothers.
On October 1st, 1833, Jackson ordered the withdrawal of government deposits from the Second Bank. Congress, fearing widespread bankruptcies convened a special session that came to be known as the “Panic Session.” Banker Henry Clews, in his book, Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street (1888) wrote that, “Not only did President Jackson withdraw government funds from the Second Bank of the United States, but he deposited these funds, about $10 million, into state banks. The result was that the country began to enjoy great prosperity. This sudden flow of cash caused an immediate expansion of the national economy, and the government paid off the entire national debt.
Jackson told the central bankers: ‘Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out!’” Here, Jackson paraphrases Jesus with the moneychangers. Does this remind you of our current financial situation – except, of course, for the words and deeds of President Bush?
The president of the Second Bank, Nicholas Biddle, was quite candid about the power and intention of the bank when he openly threatened to cause a depression if the bank was not re-chartered. "This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned judges, he is to have his way with the bank. He is mistaken." - "Nothing but widespread suffering will produce any effect on Congress... Our only safety is in pursuing a steady course of firm restriction - and I have no doubt that such a course will ultimately lead to restoration of the currency and the re-charter of the bank." - Nicholas Biddle 1836. That’s right. By calling in existing loans and refusing to issue new loans a monetary collapse ensued and then a massive depression with bankruptcies, foreclosures, and rampant unemployment in 1837. Widespread human suffering, it seems, was a small price to pay for Biddle’s profits. Of course, Biddle blamed everything on Jackson.
However, Biddle, boasting in public about creating the depression, had been overheard by reporters. Soon the tide of public opinion turned. Jackson was reelected and, in 1836 when its charter ran out, the Second Bank was given two years to wind up its business and it actually limped along until October 9, 1839. “A report of its affairs was made by a committee of stockholders, and disclosed, to quote again from Benton, ‘such an exhibition of waste and destruction, and of downright plundering, and criminal misconduct, as was never seen before in the annals of banking.’” “...near thirty millions of loans, were virtually made by Mr. Biddle himself; and in violation of the charter, the by-laws and the principles of banking. To whom were they made? To members of Congress, to editors of newspapers, to brawling politicians, to brokers and jobbers, to favorites and connections: and all with a view to purchase a re-charter, or to enrich connections, and exalt himself (Nicholas Biddle, President of the Bank.) The importance of the destruction of the United States Bank cannot be overestimated. In no other way could the government have been rescued from the domination of the money power, which was sparing no pains to subvert the liberties of the people. ” – William Agustus Berkey, The Money Question.
“The Panic of 1837 was the first severe panic to hit the United States. It was caused entirely by the bankers and occurred at a time when the Federal government was solvent and expansion in the economy was occurring at all levels. Canals were being built, westward expansion increased each year and new enterprises were developing new opportunities in many fields. But the banking pool decided to punish the nation for its defeat and they did so by withdrawing money from circulation. This was accomplished simply by calling in loans from banks which in turn led to a further calling in of business and commercial loans. As a result, people were again left without enough currency to carry on their normal business. This same tactic had been used on the Colonies prior to the Revolution. As a result of the contraction of money, a slowdown in economic activity began and its effects were felt by the nation for several years.” – June Grem, The Money Manipulators.
Henry Clews wrote in Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street, "The Panic of 1837 was aggravated by the Bank of England when it in one day threw out all the paper connected with the United States.” The Bank of England is of course, Nathan Mayer Rothschild. Why did he "throw out" all paper connected with the United States, that is, refuse to accept any securities, bonds or other financial paper based in the United States? Acting in concert with his American agent, Nicholas Biddle, he wanted to create a contraction of credit to depress the U.S. economy and force the continuation of “his family’s” Second Bank of the United States. The House of Representatives tried to investigate the cause of the depression and subpoenaed Nicholas Biddle. Biddle stonewalled them, denied them information concerning bribe money given to congressmen prior to the re-charter vote, and refused to testify before the committee. Biddle died shortly thereafter, taking his secrets to the grave.
On January 8, 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only president to do so. "If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system - there would be a revolution before morning..." Andrew Jackson. When asked what he felt was the greatest achievement of his career Jackson replied, "I killed the bank!" If Jackson were alive today and knew his face was prominently displayed on our current central bank’s $20 Federal Reserve Note, he would no doubt say, “Hey, I’m alive! Let me out of this box!” (Sorry)
Let’s leave Andrew Jackson with his own words from his farewell speech as he departed office on March 3, 1837: "But when the charter for the bank of the United States was obtained from Congress, it perfected the paper system, and gave to its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain from the commencement of the Federal Government down to the present hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them that would incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce, at its pleasure, at any time, and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks, and in permitting an expansion, or compelling a general contraction of the circulating medium according to its own will.
The other banking institutions were sensible of its strength, and they soon became generally its obedient instruments, ready at all times to execute its mandates; and with the other banks necessarily went also that numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether on bank credits for their solvency and means of business, and who are therefore obliged, for their safety, to propitiate the favor of the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service. The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly, was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption, and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head; thus organizing this particular interest as one body, and securing to it unity of action throughout the United States, and enabling it to bring forward, upon any occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount of circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value of property, and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the Union; and to bestow prosperity, or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport with its own interests or policy.
We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organized, and with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to use it. The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country, when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people in order to compel them to submit to their demands, cannot yet be forgotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency, ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United States. If such were its power in a time of peace, what would it not have been in a season of war, with an enemy at your doors? No nation but the freeman of the United States could have come out victorious from such contest; yet, if you had not conquered, the Government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands of the few; and this organized money power, from its secret conclave, would have dictated the choice of your highest officers, and compelled you to make peace or war, as best suited their own wishes. The form of your Government might for a time have remained, but its living spirit would have departed from it."
Andrew Jackson has told us, in plain, clear words, what the inevitable outcome will be if we Americans ever were stupid enough to return control of our nation’s money to a private central bank. Let me repeat one sentence - “The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency, ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United States.” This sounds a lot like today, doesn't it?
Lincoln’s Two Wars
“Economic development continued and thousands of European immigrants poured into this country, settling for the most part in industrialized New England or New York. During this great influx of European immigrants, slavery was becoming economically burdensome and would probably have been impossible to maintain indefinitely. Irish labor was available in the 1850s for $1.00 per day, and these men assumed the burdens of supporting their families. According to Kenneth M. Stampp in his book on slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, entitled The Peculiar Institution, ‘Slavery had nearly ceased to be profitable in the antebellum period—that some masters made money in spite of slavery rather than because of it.’ Slavery was not the real issue behind the Civil War. It was used as an emotional trigger point to stir up the unsuspecting citizens to rally around the flag and fight another war for the bankers. Powerful interests felt that it would be desirable for the United States to be divided, lest it become too much of a rival for the European nations. Additionally, there was always money to be made on a war. Since trained propagandists could fan sentiment, it was an easy matter to mobilize sectionalist fervor over issues.” – June Grem, The Money Manipulators. "The division of the United Statesinto federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world." - Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, 1876.
“Propaganda pushed the issue of slavery to the fore but the actual purpose behind the war...was to drive both sides to accept the same money system Rothschild had fastened on England and the Continent...to bleed the vast productivity of the whole American People.” - William G. Simpson, “Which Way Western Man.”
At the onset of the Civil War, Lincoln, realizing he needed money to finance his armies, went with his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, to New York City. There, the patriotic bankers offered loans at 24% to 36% interest per year. Lincoln politely declined their generous offer and decided instead to have the treasury create its own money (as authorized by the Constitution.) The U.S. Treasury printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back (hence, “greenbacks.”) "The government should create issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power." - Abraham Lincoln. This solution worked so well Lincoln was seriously considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy. Today, money has again risen to be the master of man while Lincoln’s solution lies patiently in wait.
Debt-free money would have been a blessing for every American, but not the international bankers. They wasted no time in expressing their view: "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." - LondonTimes 1865. Hey, that doesn’t sound too bad to me. Could it be that these international bankers have a slightly different agenda than you and me? Our own American bankers had another ploy: On Feb. 25, 1862, bending to pressure from the big banks, Congress passed the "Exception Clause" Act. Greenbacks would be "good for all debts both public and private" except for duty on imports and interest on government debts. Therefore, if you paid a banker a greenback dollar, he only allowed it to count for 70 cents.
By1863 Lincoln needed more money to win the war. Seeing to it that the president could not get the congressional authority to issue more greenbacks, the bankers proposed the National Bank Act. The Act passed and from this point on the entire US money supply would be created out of debt. The U.S.government would issue bonds and the bankers would purchase them with money they created by printing bank notes.
This is essentially the same system we have today with the Federal Reserve. The U.S. Treasury issues Bonds, Notes, and Bills and the “Fed” buys them by simply printing those ubiquitous Federal Reserve Notes. The Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills become our national debt and taxpayers (you and I) get to pay the bankers unending interest on it. Since every dollar in circulation represents a dollar of debt with attached interest, there can never be enough dollars to get out of debt. Let me repeat, under this system, it is impossible for America to ever get out of debt. If every American returned every dollar ever made to the Federal Reserve, we would still owe them whatever interest had accumulated over the years. This debt was created by the bankers simply cranking the handle on their printing press, but the interest we pay them every year – which accounts for most of our personal income taxes - comes from our own hard work.
"It is part of the scheme of those practicing frauds, that the laws be made so complicated that none but a trained villain can understand them." – Dorman B. Eaton. By the time you finish this article, you too can be a “trained villain!” "The few who can understand the system will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." - John Sherman, from a letter sent in 1863 to New York Bankers, Morton, and Gould, in support of the then proposed National Banking Act. John Sherman was right. For the last one hundred and forty-five years, we’ve been so stupid that we couldn’t figure out that this system was set up against us to benefit a few wealthy bankers. He’s literally laughing at us from the grave. If I were this guy, I’d have that line on my tombstone so that everyone walking by would know I was smarter than them. Remember, the monetary system he was writing about in 1863 is almost exactly the same as what we have right now. Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, later regretted his involvement in the National Banking Act: “My agency in promoting the passage of the National Banking Act was the greatest financial mistake in my life. It has built up a monopoly which affects every interest in the country.” It still does to this day. "The Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." -Abraham Lincoln, - In a letter written to William Elkin just after the passage of the National Banking Act of 1863.
Shortly before he was assassinated, Lincoln made the following statement: "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarch, more insolent than autocracy and more selfish than a bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at the rear is my greatest foe." – Abraham Lincoln. “It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.” As it did in the 1860’s, so it does today.
Lincoln had plans to reverse the National Bank Act after the election. Unfortunately, for all of us, on April 14, 1865, 41 days after his reelection and five days after Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s theater. Many people believe that John Wilkes Booth was an agent of Nathan Rothschild, who did not want the U.S. Treasury to print its own money. Allegations that international bankers were responsible for President Lincoln's assassination have been rampant since that day. In 1934, in the Canadian House of Commons, Member of Parliament, Gerald G. McGeer, stated he had obtained evidence deleted from the public record that showed John Wilkes Booth was a mercenary working for the international bankers. From his speech as reported in the Vancouver Sun, May 2, 1934: "Abraham Lincoln, the murdered emancipator of the slaves, was assassinated through the machinations of a group representative of the International Bankers, who feared the United States President's National Credit ambitions. There was only one group in the world at that time who had any reason to desire the death of Lincoln. They were the men opposed to his national currency program and who had fought him throughout the whole Civil War on his policy of Greenback currency." Gerald G. McGeer also stated that Lincoln's assassination was not solely because the International Bankers wanted to re-establish a central bank in America, but also because they wanted to base America's currency on gold, which they controlled. They wanted to put America’s currency on a Gold Standard and this was in direct opposition to President Lincoln's policy of issuing Greenbacks, based solely on the good faith and credit of the United States. As we shall see, it was Rothschild who pushed for establishing a gold standard here in America- Much to our national distress. Gerald G. McGeer states, "They were the men interested in the establishment of the Gold Standard and the right of the bankers to manage the currency and credit of every nation in the world. With Lincoln out of the way, they were able to proceed with that plan and did proceed with it in the United States. Within 8 years after Lincoln's assassination, silver was demonetized and the Gold Standard system set up in the United States." "Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution."- W. Cleon Skousen
On April 12, 1866, Congress passed the Contraction Act, making the treasury retire most of Lincoln's greenbacks. Using the Contraction Act to lower the amount of money in circulation, it went from $1.8 billion in circulation in 1866, to $1.3 billion in 1867, to $0.6 billion in 1876, to $0.4 billion only ten years later. Most people believe the economists when they tell us that recessions and depressions are part of the natural business cycle, but in truth, the money supply is controlled as it always has been, by a small group of anonymous bankers for their own benefit. “I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money, and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression.” – Milton Friedman, economist. You know, like today.
By 1872 with the American public feeling the money squeeze, the Bank of England (Rothschild), sent Ernest Seyd to America with about $500,000 to bribe congressmen into demonetizing silver. Ernest drafted the legislation himself, which came into law with the passing of the Coinage Act of 1873, effectively stopping the minting of silver that year and, again contracting the money supply. “In 1872 silver being demonetized in Germany, England, and Holland, a capital of 100,000 pounds ($500,000.00) was raised, Ernest Seyd was sent to this country with this fund as agent for foreign bond holders to effect the same object (demonetizations of silver.)" — Senator Daniel of Virginia. As Ernest Seyd said, “I went to Americain the winter of 1872-73, authorized to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetizing silver. It was in the interest of those I represented - the governors of the Bank of England- to have it done. By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money.” “The passage of this Act deprived Americans of about one third of their circulating medium and caused a great deal of economic dislocation. The Coinage Act was later referred to by its critics as the Crime of 1873 and was blamed for the panic that ensued as the result of its passage. Many people of that time recognized that foreign interests had masterminded the act and that the payment of bonds in gold had the net effect of increasing the national debt." – June Grem, The Money Manipulators. In 1875 Lord Acton, Lord Chief Justice of England stated: “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the People vs. the Banks.”
“When Congress convened in December, 1873, there was a strong public sentiment in favor of increasing the amount of legal tender paper money. The people as a body have never failed, when an opportunity offered, to signify their preference for legal tender Treasury notes... In obedience to this sentiment Congress passed a bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to reissue $44,000,000 of legal tender Treasury notes which had been retired under the policy of contraction. This step would undoubtedly have afforded great relief to the oppressed industries of the country... The money power, however, was unwilling to have its plans interfered with to even this extent; a howl was at once set up by their organs against inflation, and a large delegation of bankers, requiring a special train of cars, at once proceeded to Washington to induce the President to interpose his veto. They succeeded as usual, and on the 22d of April, 1874, the bill was returned to Congress with the President’s veto. Five months prior to this President Grant, in his annual message, argued that the panic was due to the great contraction of the currency that had taken place, and referred to the greenback in the following eulogistic terms: “ The experience of the present panic has proved that the currency of the country, based as it is upon the credit of the country, is the best that has ever been devised.” – William Augustus Berkey, The Money Question, 1876.
Within three years of the passage of the Coinage Act, 30% of the work force was unemployed and American people longed for the days of silver backed money and greenbacks. This period was known as the “Money Famine.” Congress set up the Silver Commission to study the problem and, in their report, outlined this history: "The disaster of the Dark Ages was caused by decreasing money and falling prices... Without money, civilization could not have had a beginning, and with a diminishing supply, it must languish and unless relieved, finally perish. At the Christian era, the metallic money of the Roman Empire amounted to $1,800 million. By the end of the fifteenth century, it had shrunk to less than $200 million. History records no other such disastrous transition as that from the Roman Empire to the Dark Ages..." I have no idea where they got their figures, but it’s an interesting story, nonetheless.
The United States Silver Commission was aware of the problems caused by the constrictive money supply, but Congress took no action. In 1875, the Resumption Act was passed by Congress at the behest of the bankers which provided for the resumption of gold payments for government bonds. Interest-free greenback money was retired, further contracting the amount of money in circulation. The result, of course, was another round of business failures, foreclosures, and depression. “...people were frequently driven, in times of great stringency, to use the notes of individuals, firms and corporations, which circulated under the name of shinplasters, and cities, towns and boroughs were obliged to issue promises to pay, which were commonly known as scrip. To prevent the people, in the approaching stringency, from availing themselves of even this method of relief and to give the National Banks absolute control over the circulating medium of the country, an act, approved February 8, 1875, was passed by Congress, which imposes a penalty of ten per cent on any individual, firm, association, city, town or municipal corporation, except National Banks, that shall issue or use such notes.” – William Agustus Berkey.
In 1877, riots broke out all over the country. The bank's response was to campaign against the idea that greenbacks should be reissued. The American Bankers Association wrote: "It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, especially the Agricultural and Religious Press, as will oppose the greenback issue of paper money and that you will also withhold patronage from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the government issue of money. To repeal the Act creating bank notes, or to restore to circulation the government issue of money will be to provide the people with money and will therefore seriously affect our individual profits as bankers and lenders. See your congressman at once and engage him to support our interest that we may control legislation." James Buel, Secretary, American Bankers Association. Once again, we find that bankers are more than willing to see our nation and its people suffer to make a profit. With bankers, 'less is more' and every need is an opportunity to exploit. With money tight, bankers could charge more interest and make more money.
While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to control the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system, we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery." Horace Greely, American journalist.
James Garfield became President in 1881 with a firm grasp of where the problem lay. "Whoever controls the money of a nation, controls that nation." and "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." James Garfield 1881. Within weeks of his statement, President Garfield was assassinated (some say, by his doctors.)
“Fleecing the flock” or “shearing the sheep” are terms bankers use for the process of booms and depressions which make it possible for them to repossess property at a fraction of its worth. By providing money at low interest rates, people naturally take advantage by buying homes, farms, and businesses. Then by contracting the money supply, the bankers are able to foreclose on these properties when the owners are suddenly unable to make their payments. Recall Thomas Jefferson’s warning about inflation and deflation. In 1891 the American Bankers Association was planning a major depression – three years in the future! "On Sept 1st, 1894, we will not renew our loans under any consideration. On Sept 1st, we will demand our money. We will foreclose and become mortgagees in possession. We can take two-thirds of the farms west of the Mississippi and thousands of them east of the Mississippi as well, at our own price... Then the farmers will become tenants as in England..." 1891 Letter from the American Bankers Association read into the Congressional Record of April 29, 1913. Another letter from the same organization to their member bankers as D(Depression)-day drew near goes like this: “Dear Sir: The interests of the National Banks require immediate financial legislation by Congress. Silver certificates, and Treasury notes, must be retired, and national bank notes, upon a gold basis, made the only money. This will require the authorization of new bonds in the amount of $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 as the basis of circulation. You will at once retire one-third of your circulation and will call one-half of your loans. Be careful to create a money stringency among your patrons, especially among influential business men. The life of the National Banks, as fixed and safe investments, depends upon immediate action as there is an increasing sentiment in favour of government legal tender and silver coinage.” The letters speak for themselves, but take a moment to reread and reflect upon them. Think about all the families affected by such dastardly plans. It’s obvious to me that the moral makeup of these people is substantially different from us normals. If you don’t think so, you may want to consider a career in banking.
Since gold was scarce and silver and greenbacks were out of the equation, the bankers, acting in unison, effectively squeezed the nation’s money supply. In 1896, Democrat William Jennings Bryan ran for president with a “Free Silver” platform. In his acceptance speech, Bryan said, “We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” And, prophetically, "When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other reform will be possible, but until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished." The bankers and industrialists supported the gold standard and the Republican nominee, William McKinley. Many manufacturers told their employees that if Bryan were elected, all factories would close and there would be no work for anyone. This was a very serious threat to the workers in depressed times. McKinley won.
The Panic of 1907 – The Beginning of our Undoing
Early in 1907, banker Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. warned in a speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce, "Unless we have a central bank with adequate control of credit resources, this country is going to undergo the most severe and far reaching money panic in its history." Then, as if by magic, the Panic of 1907!
The Panic of 1907, also known as the “Bankers' Panic,” caused stocks to fall 50% from the previous year. The panic eventually spread throughout the nation and many banks and businesses fell into bankruptcy. Primary causes include a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks (surprise!) and a loss of confidence among depositors. Runs on banks occur when people feel they won’t be able to retrieve their funds when they want and in 1907, there was no F.D.I.C. to insure deposits or central bank to inject liquidity into the system. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis attributed the Panic of 1907 to financial manipulation from the banking establishment. "If Knickerbocker Trust would falter, then Congress and the public would lose faith in all trust companies and banks would stand to gain, the bankers reasoned." Major banks, including J.P. Morgan (Rothschild) and Chase (Rockefeller), launched an all-out attack on the Knickerbocker Trust. They sold off assets in their competitor and planted stories about bad loans in their newspapers. The run on Knickerbocker Trust turned into a panic and, just like today, the Federal Government came to the rescue of the privately owned "National Banks."
During the depositors 'run' on the Knickerbocker Trust, J.P. Morgan and James Stillman of First National City Bank acted as a "central bank," providing liquidity to stop the bank run. President Theodore Roosevelt provided Morgan with $25 million in government funds to control the panic. Morgan, acting as a one-man central bank, decided which firms failed and which firms survived." His, of course, survived. Frank Allen, writing for Life Magazine years later wrote, “The Morgan interests took advantage ...to precipitate the panic and guiding it shrewdly as it progressed.”
Although Morgan was briefly seen as a hero, widespread fears of his enormous wealth and influence soon eroded this view. The trust companies that were growing rivals to traditional banks (such as Morgan’s) were badly damaged. Some analysts believed that the panic was engineered to damage confidence in trust companies so that banks would benefit. In 1911 the following appeared in McClure’s Magazine: “Seven men in Wall Street now control a great share of the fundamental industry and resources of the United States. Three of the seven men, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, and George F. Baker, head of the First National Bank of New York belong to the so-called Morgan group; four of them, John D. and William Rockefeller, James Stillman, head of the National City Bank, and Jacob H. Schiff of the private banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb Company, to the so-called Standard Oil City Bank group... the central machine of capital extends its control over the United States... The process is not only economically logical; it is now practically automatic.” This quote from McClure’s is odd, since the magazine is most famous for Ida Tarbell’s scathing write-ups on Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, nine years earlier.
The chair of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, Arsène Pujo, convened a special committee to investigate what had come to be called, the "Money Trust," the virtual monopoly of Morgan and New York's other powerful bankers. The committee issued a scathing report on the banking trade, and found that the officers of J P. Morgan & Co. also sat on the boards of directors of 112 corporations with a market capitalization of $22.5 billion (the total capitalization of the New York Stock Exchan was then estimated at $26.5 billion.) The final report of the committee stated: “Your committee is satisfied from the proofs submitted, even in the absence of data from the banks, that there is an established and well defined identity and community of interest between a few leaders of finance...which has resulted in great and rapidly growing concentration of the control of money and credit in the hands of these few men... ...and that a small group of men and their partners and associates have now further strengthened their hold upon the resources of these institutions by acquiring large stock holdings therein, by representation on their boards and through valuable patronage, we begin to realize something of the extent to which this practical and effective domination and control over our greatest financial, railroad and industrial corporations has developed, largely within the past five years, and that it is fraught with peril to the welfare of the country.” The Pujo Committee acknowledged that America, contrary to the tenets of her Free Enterprise Credo, had come under the control of a few powerful – interconnected – bankers and industrialists. This is the essence of the “Money Trust.” President Teddy Roosevelt added the newspapers to this list when he said, “These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.”
“The warning of Theodore Roosevelt has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over City, State, and nation... It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection... To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interest and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the Uited States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make cats paws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business... These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and magazines in this country." - John Hylan, Mayor of New York, March 27, 1927.
"Three hundred men, all of whom know one another, direct the economic destiny of Europe and choose their successors from among themselves." Walter Rathenau, 1909. “Ever since the Civil War Congress has allowed the bankers to control financial legislation. The membership of the Finance Committee in the Senate (now the Banking and Currency Committee) and the Committee on Banking and Currency in the House have been made up chiefly of bankers, their agents, and their attorneys. These committees have controlled the nature of bills to be reported, the extent of them, and the debates that were to be held on them when they were being considered in the Senate and the House. No one not on the committee is recognized under the practice of the House as long as a member on the committee wishes recognition, and one of them is sure to hold the floor unless some one favorable to the committee has been arranged for. In this way the committees have been able to control legislation in the interests of the few.” – Charles A. Lindburgh, Representative. “Fifty men have run Americaand that's a high figure." Joseph Kennedy, July 26, 1936 - New York Times.
It’s interesting to note that,”...J.P. Morgan, had only $19 million in securities in his estate when he died in 1913, and securities handled by Morgan were actually owned by his employer, Rothschild." New York Times, April 1, 1915. Morgan, it seems, far from being the dominant force in American industry, was acting merely as an “employee” of the Rothschilds. William Guy Carr, from his book, Pawns In The Game, “In 1899, J.P. Morgan and Drexel went to England to attend the International Bankers Convention. When they returned, J.P. Morgan had been appointed head representative of the Rothschild interests in the United States.” Just how powerful are these Rothschilds? It has been estimated that, by the start of the 1900's, they controlled about half of the world’s wealth. Of course, nobody will ever really know.
President Theodore Roosevelt had signed into law a bill creating the National Monetary Commission in 1908, after the Panic of 1907 had resulted in a public outcry that the nation’s monetary system be stabilized. One purpose of The National Monetary Commission was to propose legislation to break the grip of the “Money Trust” and Senator Nelson Aldrich was chosen as chairman of that committee. Curiously, Nelson Aldrich was a very close associate of J. P. Morgan, the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., (and grandfather of former Vice President, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller.) Aldrich led the members of the Commission on a two-year tour of the central banks of Europe, spending some three hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money.
On the night of November 22, 1910, Senator Aldrich and six other men representing some of the nation’s leading financiers slipped anonymously, one by one into Aldrich’s private rail car at the Hoboken, New Jersey station and headed south to the privately owned, Jekyll Island, Georgia. It is estimated that the seven men who boarded Aldrich’s private rail car represented 1/4 of the wealth of the entire world. Nelson Aldrich was the Republican "whip" in the Senate, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, and business associate of J.P. Morgan; Abraham Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury; Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, the most powerful of the banks at that time, representing William Rockefeller and the investment banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P Morgan Company; Charles D. Norton, president of J.P. Morgan's First National Bank of New York; Benjamin Strong, head of J.P. Morgan's Bankers Trust Company (and, later, first head of the Federal Reserve Bank); and Paul M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company, a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France, and brother to Max Warburg who was head of the Warburg banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands. (By the way, Paul Warburg was the role model for “Daddy Warbucks” of “Little Orphan Annie” fame and J.P. Morgan was the model for the chubby little mustachioed banker in the Monopoly game.)
The purpose of the Jekyll Island meeting was to formulate an agreement on the structure and operation of a banking cartel. The goal of this cartel, as is true with all cartels, was to maximize profits by minimizing competition between members, to make it difficult for new competitors to enter the field, and to utilize the police power of government to enforce the cartel agreement. These banking competitors sat around a table of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse and devised the Federal Reserve System to best suit their needs.
Security was tight and the first information regarding this meeting found its way into print in 1916. It appeared in Leslie's Weekly, written by the financial reporter, B.C. Forbes, who later founded Forbes Magazine. While interviewing Paul Warburg, Warburg told him this story: “Picture a party of the nation's greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily heading hundreds of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking on to an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing. I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written.”
In 1930, Paul Warburg wrote in his massive, 1750 page book, "The Federal Reserve System, Its Origin and Growth:" "The results of the conference were entirely confidential. Even the fact there had been a meeting was not permitted to become public." "Though eighteen years have since gone by, I do not feel free to give a description of this most interesting conference concerning which Senator Aldrich pledged all participants to secrecy."
Another participant, Frank Vanderlip, wrote in an article that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on February 9, 1935: “I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System. We were told to leave our last names behind us. We were told further that we should avoid dining together on the night of our departure. We were instructed to come one at a time and as unobtrusively as possible to the railroad terminal on the New Jersey littoral of the Hudson where Senator Aldrich’s private car would be in readiness attached to the rear-end of a train to the south. Once aboard the private car we began to observe the taboo that had been fixed on last names. We addressed one another as Ben, Paul, Nelson and Abe. Davison and I adopted even deeper disguises abandoning our first names. On the theory that we were always right, he became Wilbur and I became Orville after those two aviation pioneers the Wright brothers. The servants and train crew may have known the identities of one or two of us, but they did not know all and it was the names of all printed together that would’ve made our mysterious journey significant in Washington, in Wall Street, even in London. Discovery we knew simply must not happen.”
So, why all the secrecy? Vanderlip further wrote, “If it were to be exposed publicly that our particular group had gotten together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.” Why would Vanderlip state this? Because the expressed purpose of the bill was to break the grip of the “Money Trust” and it was written for and by the “Money Trust.” Competing bankers got together in secret to form a cartel insuring they would always have the money they needed to run their businesses, stifle competition, and bail themselves out whenever they made a mistake. Had the public known that fact, there would have never been a Federal Reserve System. The fact that the Federal Reserve System was formulated, not in the halls of Congress with open debate and public news coverage, but on a small, private island, by a few of the world’s wealthiest bankers, in complete secrecy, and designed to perpetuate their wealth at the expense of the taxpayers, to me at least, makes this a conspiracy... Not a conspiracy theory, a conspiracy fact.
“The participants in the Jekyll Island conference returned to New York to direct a nationwide propaganda campaign in favor of the "Aldrich Plan". Three of the leading universities, Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Chicago, were used as the rallying points for this propaganda, and national banks had to contribute to a fund of five million dollars to persuade the American public that this central bank plan should be enacted into law by Congress. Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey and former president of Princeton University, was enlisted as a spokesman for the Aldrich Plan. During the Panic of 1907, Wilson had declared, "All this trouble could be averted if we appointed a committee of six or seven public-spirited men like J.P. Morgan to handle the affairs of our country." - Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson won the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, and in his populist-friendly acceptance speech, he warned against the "money trusts," and advised "a concentration of the control of credit...may at any time become infinitely dangerous to free enterprise” But, these were just words politicians use to get elected. Wilson was already under the thumb of the bankers. By enticing Teddy Roosevelt to un-retire just long enough to split the Republican vote, the bankers got their man into the White House.
The first bill presented to Congress from the secret Jekyll Island meeting was known as the “Aldrich Bill,” and was soon identified as supporting big banking interests. It never passed. Representative Charles Lindbergh said, “This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts will soon realize that they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress. . . If we had a people's Congress, there would be stability. The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government.” “The Aldrich Plan is the Wall Street Plan. It is a broad challenge to the government by the champion of the Money Trust. It means another panic, if necessary, to intimidate the people. Aldrich, paid by the government to represent the people, proposes a plan for the Trusts instead.” “The Aldrich Plan is a scheme plainly in the interests of the Trust?” The “Aldrich bill” was reworked by Paul Warburg and presented again in Congress as the “Glass-Owen Bill” – and later known as the Federal Reserve Bill. Both bills were, in fact, virtually the same in every important detail. Both Vanderlip and Aldrich then publicly criticized the Owens-Glass bill in an attempt to steer Congress and the public away from the truth.
In 1911, the Aldrich Plan became part of the official platform of the Republican Party, but... “The Aldrich bill was condemned in the (Democratic) platform... When Woodrow Wilson was nominated ... The men who ruled the Democratic Party promised the people that if they were returned to power there would be no central bank established here while they held the reins of government. Thirteen months later, that promise was broken, and the Wilson administration, under the tutelage of those sinister Wall Street figures who stood behind Colonel House, established here in our free country the worm-eaten monarchical institution of the “king’s bank” to control us from the top downward, and to shackle us from the cradle to the grave.” – House Banking Chairman, Rep. Louis McFadden. What is missing from that quote is the fact that the Republicans championed the Aldrich Plan, the Democrats were behind the Federal Reserve Plan and the Money Trust was supporting all three candidates for president. That’s what I call, covering all the bases. “Later Congressional testimony showed that in the firm of Kuhn Loeb Company, Felix Warburg was supporting Taft, Paul Warburg and Jacob Schiff were supporting Wilson, and Otto Kahn was supporting Roosevelt. The result was that a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President was elected in 1912 to get the central bank legislation passed. It seems probable that the identification of the Aldrich Plan as a Wall Street operation predicted that it would have a difficult passage through Congress, as the Democrats would solidly oppose it, whereas a successful Democratic candidate, supported by a Democratic Congress, would be able to pass the central bank plan. Taft was thrown overboard because the bankers doubted he could deliver on the Aldrich Plan, and Roosevelt was the instrument of his demise.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
“Jekyll Island planners Vanderlip and Aldrich spoke out venomously against Glass's bill, even though entire sections were identical to the Aldrich Plan. It was clearly an effort to garner public support for the Glass bill by the appearance of banker opposition … The appearance of opposition by Wall Street was necessary. William McAdoo, Wilson's son-in-law who was appointed secretary of the Treasury, later revealed, ‘Bankers fought the . . . Federal Reserve Act with the tireless energy of men fighting a forest fire. They said it was populistic, socialistic, half-baked, destructive, infantile, badly conceived and unworkable.’ However, McAdoo said in interviews with these bankers, ‘I perceived gradually, through all the haze and smoke of controversy, that the banking world was not really as much opposed to the bill as it pretended to be...’”- Jim Marrs, “Rule by Secrecy”
Warburg, the father of both bills, reassuring his paid friends in Congress said, “Brushing aside the external differences affecting the “shells,” we find the “kernels” of the two systems very closely resembling and related to each other.” “Although the Aldrich Federal Reserve Plan was defeated when it bore the name Aldrich, nevertheless its essential points were all contained in the plan that finally was adopted.” – Frank Vanderlip. Alfred Crozier, an attorney from Ohio testified before Congress just before passage of the Glass-Owen bill, “The bill grants just what Wall Street and the big banks for 25 years have been striving for – private instead of public control of currency. It does this as completely as the Aldrich bill. Both measures rob the government and the people of all effective control over the public’s money, and vest in the banks exclusively the dangerous power to make money among the people scarce or plenty.”
"So the American people, who had suffered through the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the battles between Andrew Jackson and the Second Bank of the United States, the Civil War, the previous panics of 1873 and 1893, and now the Panic of 1907, were finally conditioned to the point of accepting the solution offered by those who had caused all of these events: the international bankers. That solution was a central bank." - Ralph Epperson. “W. Randolph Burgess, of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stated before the Academy of Political Science in 1930 that: ‘In its major principles of operation the Federal Reserve System is no different from other banks of issue, such as the Bank of England, the Bank of France, or the Reichsbank.’” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve. "When a government is dependent for money upon bankers, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes....Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain." – Napoleon.
“The bill as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency. I had hoped to support this bill, but I cannot vote for it because it seems to me to contain features and to rest upon principles in the highest degree menacing to our prosperity, to stability in business, and to the general welfare of the people of the United States.” - Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, December 17, 1913.
The Abortion is Born
The Federal Reserve Act (Owen-Glass Act) had been shepherded through a Congressional Conference Committee meeting scheduled for between 1:30 - 4:30 AM (when most members of Congress were asleep) on December 22, 1913. The Act was then voted on the next day and passed although many members of the body had left for the Christmas holidays, reassured by Senate leadership that nothing would be done until after the New Year. Most of the others who stayed behind hadn't had time to read the bill or understand its contents. President Wilson, under pressure from Bernard Baruch, signed the bill into law at 6:30 P.M. that very same day. At the end of his term, Wilson would write, “Our great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men... who necessarily, by reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.” It sounds like Wilson finally saw the light, a little too late. "I unwittingly ruined my country." – Woodrow Wilson.
By the way, we can all thank Senator Nelson Aldrich for co-authoring the bill that established the Federal Income Tax, also ratified in 1913. As presented in the original bill, Federal Income Tax would only be one percent of income under $20,000, with the assurance that it would never increase – a maximum tax of $200. And how’s that working for you? I should also let you know that almost all of your personal income tax goes to pay the Federal Reserve interest on the money they create out of thin air. "100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt ... all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government." - Grace Commission report submitted to President Ronald Reagan - January 15, 1984. And isn’t that nice to know. It appears that the only reason the Federal Income Tax was created was so that we working stiffs can pay international bankers hundreds of billions of dollars each year for interest on nothing. Think about that when you pay your taxes each year. Later, we’ll see how we can get rid of the National Debt and along with that, most of our Federal Income Tax. Stay tuned.
Was it just a coincidence that the Federal Reserve System and the Income Tax were created in the same year? Was 1913 just a particularly bad year for Americans? The U.S. survived for 125 years without imposing an income tax on her citizens. Why did it need one now? There are many conspiracy theories surrounding the legitimacy of the Federal Income Tax – Is it a private company? Was the law ever properly ratified? Is it Unconstitutional? Is there even a law that forces us to pay income taxes? Can trading our hours and work for a paycheck be considered a taxable profit, or an even trade? Again, it would take many pages to explain them. Let me summarize them for you: “Don’t argue, just pay your taxes. They have guns and can mess you up.” – M. Kirchubel, Taxpayer.
So, did the Federal Reserve Act do what it was supposed to do? Did it reign in the “Money Trust” and cut the interlocking directorates? Not by a long shot. If anything, the Federal Reserve granted new powers to the National Banks by permitting overseas operations and new types of banking services. The greatest gift to the bankers was a virtually unlimited supply of government loans when they experience liquidity problems - but these loans would only go to selected institutions. Just like today, some banks are allowed to fail and some banks - the ones with “Fed” connections – are saved. Realize that the “Fed” Governing Boards are made up of private bankers, so the banks are judged, not by an impartial jury, but by their cronies and competitors. “I never thought the Federal Reserve System would prove such a failure.” - Senator Carter Glass (co-sponsor of the bill.)
How does the Federal Reserve actually create money? When Congress needs money and does not want to raise taxes (every day), it goes to the Federal Reserve and asks for the dough – Let’s say $100 billion. The U.S. Treasury prints $100 billion of new Treasury bonds and puts them up for sale. Less than half of them are sold to the Chinese, Saudis, banks, investment companies, and little old ladies. The bulk of the bonds are bought by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve simply prints the money or sends electronic digits from one computer to another to buy the bonds. "When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover that check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." -Boston Federal Reserve Bank in a publication titled "Putting It Simply." "We make money the old fashioned way. We print it." – Art Rolnick, former Chief Economist, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. Wright Patman, Chair, House Committee on Banking and Currency gives us this insight: “The dollar represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks create money out of thin air to buy Government bonds from the United States Treasury, lending money into circulation at interest, by bookkeeping entries of checkbook credit to the United States Treasury. The Treasury writes up an interest bearing bond for one billion dollars. The Federal Reserve gives the Treasury a one billion dollar credit for the bond, and has created out of nothing a one billion dollar debt which the American people are obligated to pay with interest.” “This is the most incredible part of the Federal Reserve operation and one which is difficult for anyone to understand. How can any American citizen grasp the concept that there are people in this country who have the power to make an entry in a ledger that the government of the United States now owes them one billion dollars, and to collect the principal and interest on this ‘loan’?” “Where does the Federal Reserve System get the money with which to create bank reserves? Answer: It doesn’t get the money, it creates it. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.” Chairman Patman further adds: “I have never yet had anyone who could, through logic and reason, justify the federal government borrowing the use of its own money.” Me either, Wright. Me either.
“Most Americans comment that they cannot understand how the Federal Reserve System operates. It remains beyond understanding, not because it is complex, but because it is so simple. If a confidence man comes up to you and offers to demonstrate his marvelous machine, you watch while he puts in a blank piece of paper and cranks out a $100 bill. That is the Federal Reserve System.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
Consider this most revealing statement: “The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not reveal it.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, economist. And I wonder why that is. Are they trying to hide something? I have tried to explain this system as simply as possible. The U.S. Treasury does not have to create bonds and sell them to the “Fed” to get “money.” The Treasury can just print the money – period. How simple is that? They don’t need the “Fed.” All the functions of the “Fed” can be handled by the U.S. Treasury Department. The “Fed” is not only unnecessary, it causes a lot of problems and expense. Think of the “Fed” as a huge cancerous growth sucking the life out of all of us. Just get rid of it. We don’t need it.
The new money is spent by the government, enters the economy, and everyone is happy. The taxpayers don’t have any new taxes, but the value of everyone’s money is slightly diluted and thus devalued. Again and again and again and again and again. This process causes what we refer to as “inflation,” noting the obvious, that the price of everything seems to go up. What is really happening is that as more and more dollars enter the economy and chase the same amount of goods and services, their value declines. Inflation is a form of regressive tax, affecting the poor and those on fixed incomes more than the rich. In 1919, John Maynard Keynes, wrote in his book, The Economic Consequences of Peace, "Lenin is to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency... By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens." And, later: "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes, economist.
In 1942, the Germans initiated Operation Bernhardt, a scheme that counterfeited 132 million British Pounds. These notes were meant to destroy the British economy by flooding it with counterfeit money. It’s easy to recognize that this "economic warfare" operation was obviously an act of war. However, today, the Federal Reserve is engaged in the same scheme, creating trillions of dollars and flooding the U.S. money supply. This time, the target is the United States of America. If we discovered that the actions of the Federal Reserve were being controlled by Osama bin Laden, we would recognize them immediately as acts of war. (Google: “Tim Ossman” – The CIA’s name for their agent, O.b.L.) Inflation robs America’s businesses, savings accounts, retirement funds, jobs, and pensions - making it senseless to try to save money. How can any of that be good for our country?
“Few Americans give much thought to the Federal Reserve System or monetary policy in general. But even as they strive to earn a living, and hopefully save or invest for the future, Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank are working insidiously against them. Day by day, every dollar you have is being devalued. The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch-- Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference -- that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars. The Fed’s inflationary policies hurt older people the most. Older people generally rely on fixed incomes from pensions and Social Security, along with their savings. Inflation destroys the buying power of their fixed incomes, while low interest rates reduce any income from savings. So while Fed policies encourage younger people to over-borrow because interest rates are so low, they also punish thrifty older people who saved for retirement.” – U.S. Representative, Ron Paul (R – Texas.)
“I wrote into the bill which was introduced by me into the Senate on June 26, 1913, a provision that the powers of the System should be employed to promote a stable price level, which meant a dollar of stable purchasing, debt-paying power. It was stricken out. The powerful money interests got control of the Federal Reserve Board through Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Albert Strauss, and Mr. Adolph C. Miller and they were able to have that secret meeting of May 18, 1920, and bring about a contraction of credit so violent it threw five million people out of employment. In 1920 that Reserve Board deliberately caused the Panic of 1921. The same people, unrestrained in the stock market, expanding credit to a great excess between 1926 and 1929, raised the price of stocks to a fantastic point where they could not possibly earn dividends, and when the people realized this, they tried to get out, resulting in the Crash of October 24, 1929.” – Senator Robert Owen, co-sponsor of the Glass-Owen Bill which created the Federal Reserve System, testifying before the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1938. “The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System opposes any bill which proposes a stable price level.” – Board of Governors, March 13, 1939. From the House Stabilization Hearings of 1928: “Mr. Ebersole of the Treasury Department concluded his remarks at the dinner we attended last night by saying that the Federal Reserve System did not want stabilization and the American businessman did not want it. They want these fluctuations in prices, not only in securities but in commodities, in trade generally, because those who are now in control are making their profits out of that very instability.” Right. Those in control are making profits as prices go up and down because, by controlling interest rates and money supply, they control the rising and falling of prices. While the little investor has to guess what is going to happen, those “in control” make it happen exactly the way they want, when they want. You didn’t really think these people made their millions by working harder than the rest of us, did you? With this system, they really don't have to work at all.
Representative Charles A Lindbergh (1914): “The Federal Reserve System can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by a greater rate variation, and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down. This is the strongest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money. They know in advance, when to create panics to their advantage. They also know when to stop panic. Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control finance."
Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee commenting on the Federal Reserve Banks, “A world banking system was being set up here... A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed has usurped the government.” By the way, Louis McFadden, quoted here often, was murdered. After being shot at twice and poisoned, he was finally brought down by a second poisoning. You have to wonder, who would want him dead? Another chairman of the House Banking Committee, Wright Patman (D –TX), said, “In the United States today we have in effect two governments... We have the duly constituted Government ... Then we have the independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution.”
"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford (Echoing Andrew Jackson’s statement of a century earlier.) At the end of his term in the White House, Woodrow Wilson said, in regret: "We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled governments in the civilized world - no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by... a vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” “Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." - Woodrow Wilson
Now, We Can Have a Really Great War
Many books and articles written about the history of the Federal Reserve marvel at the fact that World War I started very soon after the Federal Reserve System was set up. “Fortunately, the Federal Reserve System had been set up just in time to finance the Great War” is the typical line. It never occurs to most authors that the War was actually started by the international bankers for profit. Could it be that everybody was just standing around waiting for us to get our central bank together so they could start the war? If you wanted to milk the world for war profits, wouldn’t you wait for the biggest cow in the herd to show up?
The Germans borrowed money from the German Rothschild’s Bank, the British from the British Rothschild’s Bank, and the French from the French Rothschild’s Bank. The American Rothschild agent, J.P. Morgan was a sales agent for war materials and six months into the war, he was spending $10 million a day. The Rockefeller's and the head of President Wilson's War Industries Board, Bernard Baruch each made some 200 million dollars while American families contributed both the money and blood of their sons. “All wars are economic in their origin.” – Bernard Baruch. “The World War was a matter of economic rivalry.” – Woodrow Wilson.
During World War I, Woodrow Wilson turned the vast powers of the United States over to three of his campaign backers: Federal Reserve author, Paul Warburg, Bernard Baruch and Eugene Meyer. Baruch was appointed head of the War Industries Board, with power over every factory in the United States; Eugene Meyer was appointed head of the War Finance Corporation, in charge of the loan program that financed the war; and Paul Warburg ran the nation’s banking system. Funnily enough, Warburg’s brother, Max was head of the German Imperial Intelligence. In June 1918, Paul Warburg wrote Woodrow Wilson, "I have two brothers in Germany who are bankers. They naturally now serve their country to their utmost ability, as I serve mine." This was over a year after the U.S.declared war on Germany.
War uses up more materials faster than anything else. In war expensive equipment doesn't wear out, it gets blown up. This creates profits faster than any other activity on earth. Baruch spent the American taxpayer’s money at the rate of ten billion dollars a year, and was the dominant member of the Munitions Price-Fixing Committee, setting the prices at which the Government bought war materials. Purchase orders often went to corporations in which he and his associates had an interest. Some members of Congress were curious about Baruch’s qualifications to exercise life and death powers over American industry in time of war. Everyone knew he had no manufacturing experience and when he was called before a Congressional Committee, Bernard Baruch stated that his profession was a Wall Street "Speculator.”
Congressional investigations of Eugene Meyer’s leadership of the War Finance Corporation revealed that each night, the books were being altered before being brought in for the next day’s investigation. Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, figured in two investigations of Meyer, in 1925, and again in 1930, when Meyer was confirmed as a Governor of the Federal Reserve.
Representative McFadden: “Mr. Meyer is a brother-in-law of George Blumenthal, a member of the firm of J.P. Morgan Company, which represents the Rothschild interests. He also is a liaison officer between the French Government and J.P. Morgan. Edmund Platt, who had eight years to go on a term of ten years as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, resigned to make room for Mr. Meyer. Platt was given a Vice-Presidency of Marine Midland Corporation by Meyer's brother-in-law Alfred A. Cook. Eugene Meyer, Jr. as head of the War Finance Corporation, engaged in the placing of two billion dollars in Government securities, placed many of those orders first with the banking house now located at 14 Wall Street in the name of Eugene Meyer, Jr. Mr. Meyer is now a large stockholder in the Allied Chemical Corporation. I call your attention to House Report No. 1635, 68th Congress, 2nd Session, which reveals that at least twenty-four million dollars in bonds were duplicated. Ten billion dollars worth of bonds surreptitiously destroyed. Our committee on Banking and Currency found the records of the War Finance Corporation under Eugene Meyer, Jr. extremely faulty. While the books were being brought before our committee by the people who were custodians of them and taken back to the Treasury at night, the committee discovered that alterations were being made in the permanent records." That’s right; he made copies of bonds and coupons and cashed them in. It’s hard to figure out just how that could have been done in “error.” This record of “public service” did not prevent Eugene Meyer from continuing to serve the American people on the Federal Reserve Board, as Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and later, as head of the World Bank. These investigations may explain why, at the end of World War One, Eugene Meyer was able to buy control of Allied Chemical and The Washington Post (Katherine Graham was his daughter.)
Perhaps Wilson’s most unusual appointment was that of Republican, Herbert Hoover as “Food Administrator” in April, 1917. Hoover, who had been raking in millions while supplying Germany with food with his “Relief for Belgium” scam, was now given $150 million a year budget and absolute control of America’s 45,000,000 food producers. “Not one member the Senate or House knew his record. And, as Mr. McElmore of Texas said in the House: ‘This man, a mining engineer, who has not been a citizen of the United States for all of twenty years and whose home and interests are all in a foreign land, who knows absolutely nothing of farming and cattle raising, yet has been brought over here to assume a dictatorship over our producers and invested with such autocratic powers that to disobey his mandates may mean prison walls for all who may dare offend.... Not only do we propose to make this ‘food dictator’ by far the most powerful autocrat this country has ever seen, but the bill also carries with it an appropriation of $150,000,000 of the people’s money, which will be placed at his disposal to do with as he pleases.’” - The Strange career of Mr. Hoover, by John Hamill, 1931.
On February 12, 1917, The New York Times reported, "The five members of the Federal Reserve Board were impeached on the floor of the House by Rep. Charles A. Lindbergh, Republican member of the House Banking and Currency Committee. According to Mr. Lindbergh, ‘the conspiracy began in’ 1906 when the late J.P. Morgan, Paul M. Warburg, a present member of the Federal Reserve Board, the National City Bank and other banking firms ‘conspired’ to obtain currency legislation in the interest of big business and the appointment of a special board to administer such a law, in order to create industrial slaves of the masses, the aforesaid conspirators did conspire and are now conspiring to have the Federal Reserve Board administered so as to enable the conspirators to coordinate all kinds of big business and to keep themselves in control of big business in order to amalgamate all the trusts into one great trust in restraint and control of trade and commerce." The House did not act his impeachment resolution.
The Banker’s Revolution – Capitalism Funds Communism
Jacob Schiff, partner in Kuhn, Loeb, and Co., helped plan and finance the Russian Revolution. Leon Trotsky (whose actual name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein) left New York on March 27, 1917 aboard the S. S. Kristianiafjord, which had been chartered by Jacob Schiff along with his brother-in-law, Paul Warburg. On April 3, 1917, Trotsky was arrested by Canadian authorities in Halifax, Nova Scotia as a “German prisoner of war.” Both the British and American governments urged them to let him go. Wilson said that if they didn't comply, the U.S.would not enter the War. Trotsky was released, given an American passport, a British transport visa, and a Russian entry permit. It is obvious that Wilson knew what was going on, because accompanying Trotsky was Charles Crane of the Westinghouse Company, who was also the Chairman of the Democratic Finance Committee. The U.S.entered World War I three days later. Jennings C. Wise, in Woodrow Wilson: Disciple of Revolution, states, "Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport." The resultant Revolution took Russia out of the War and allowed Germanyto concentrate more manpower on the western front, against British and American forces.
Russian General Arsène DeGoulevitch wrote in Czarism and the Revolution that, “The main purveyors of funds for the revolution, however, were neither crackpot Russian millionaires nor armed bandits of Lenin. The 'real' money primarily came from certain British and American circles which for a long time past had lent their support to the Russian revolutionary cause...” and that the revolution was "...engineered by the English, more precisely by Sir George Buchanan and Lord (Alfred) Milner (of the Round Table) ... In private conversations I have been told that over 21 million rubles were spent by Lord Milner in financing the Russian Revolution." (There will be much more on Milner and the “Round Table” in later blogs.) Actually, Jacob Schiff contributed $20 million to the revolution, the Rockefellers gave $1 million, Federal Reserve Bank Director, William Boyce Thompson gave a million, and so did the President of Rockefeller’s Chase National Bank, Albert H. Wiggin. “According to Colonel Ely Garrison, in his autobiography, and according to the United States Naval Secret Service Report on Paul Warburg, the Russian Revolution had been financed by the Rothschilds and Warburgs, with a member of the Warburg family carrying the actual funds used by Lenin and Trotsky in Stockholm in 1918.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
"The course of Russian history has, indeed, been greatly affected by the operations of international bankers... The Soviet Government has been given United States Treasury funds by the Federal Reserve Board... acting through the Chase Bank. ... England has drawn money from us through the Federal Reserve Banks and has re-lent it at high rates of interest to the Soviet Government... The Dnieperstory Dam was built with funds unlawfully taken from the United States Treasury by the corrupt and dishonest Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks." Rep. Louis T. McFadden (R-PA) Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee.
In 1944 Mr. Henry Morgenthau Jr., Mr. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, and his Assistant Secretary, Mr. Harry Dexter White (a Soviet agent) ordered the shipment to the Soviet Government of United States Treasury plates, special ink, and currency paper (also supplies of uranium and heavy water – and this was before we told anybody we had the Bomb.) By the end of 1946, the United States Military Government in Germany found it had redeemed about $250,000,000 in counterfeit notes (One estimate was $380 million.) “Spasiba” (That’s "thank you" in Russian), American taxpayers. “We build rockets, now.”
Why would rich capitalists fund a communist revolution? Well, for one thing, Czarist Russia had no central bank for the international bankers to plunder. In addition, Czar Alexander had intervened in America’s Civil War, sending fleets to both New York and San Francisco, keeping the French and British (literally) at bay and spoiling the Rothschild plan to split our country in two. And, according to Gary Allen: "If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite."
Even when Communism collapsed in the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin revealed that most of the foreign aid was ending up: "straight back into the coffers of western banks in debt service." The international bankers, it seems, have always owned everybody.
"People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt… nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the people were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the national wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan." " - Thomas A. Edison, the New York Times, December 6, 1921. Of course, this is true and we all know it. If you buy a house for $250,000 with a 30-year loan at 7.5%, you will end up paying over one and a half times as much in interest as you paid for the actual building and land. The loan was created out of nothing, with the stroke of a pen using fractional reserve banking, but the interest paid was created from 30 years of blood, sweat, and tears of the homeowner.
Manufacturing an Agricultural Depression
From 1914 to 1919, the fed lowered interest rates from 6% to 3%. This easy money made financing the War easier. The Fed doubled the nation’s money supply and banks offered low-interest loans for businesses, farms, and homes. Because of the War, farmers were paid high prices for their commodities. “Much of the money was deposited in small country banks in the Middle West and West which had refused to have any part of the Federal Reserve System, the farmers and ranchers of these regions seeing no good reason why they should give a group of international financiers control of their money. The main job of the Federal Reserve System was to break these small country banks and get back the money which had been paid out to the farmers during the War, in effect, ruin them, and this it proceeded to do. First of all, a Federal Farm Loan Board was set up which encouraged farmers to invest their accrued money in land and long term loans, which the farmers were eager to do. Then inflation was allowed to take its course in this country and in Europe in 1919 and 1920. The purpose of the inflation in Europe was to cancel out a large portion of the war debts owed by the Allies to the American people, and its purpose in this country was to draw in the excess moneys which had been distributed to the working people in the form of higher wages and bonuses for production. As prices went higher and higher, the money which the workers had accumulated became worth less and less, inflicting upon them an unfair drain, while the propertied classes were enriched by the inflation because of the enormous increase in the value of land and manufactured goods. Senator Robert L. Owen, Chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, testified at the Senate Silver Hearings in 1939 that: ‘In the early part of 1920, the farmers were exceedingly prosperous. They were paying off the mortgages and buying a lot of new land, at the instance of the Government--had borrowed money to do it--and then they were bankrupted by a sudden contraction of credit and currency which took place in 1920. What took place in 1920 was just the reverse of what should have been taking place. Instead of liquidating the excess of credits created by the war through a period of years, the Federal Reserve Board met in a meeting which was not disclosed to the public. They met on the 18th of May, 1920, and it was a secret meeting. They spent all day conferring; the minutes made sixty printed pages, and they appear in Senate Document 310 of February 19, 1923. The Class A Directors, the Federal Reserve Advisory Council, were present, but the Class B Directors, who represented business, commerce, and agriculture, were not present. The Class C Directors, representing the people of the United States, were not present and were not invited to be present. Only the big bankers were there, and their work of that day resulted in a contraction of credit which had the effect the next year of reducing the national income fifteen billion dollars, throwing millions of people out of employment, and reducing the value of lands and ranches by twenty billion dollars.’" – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
In 1920, Benjamin Strong, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Sir Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England conspired to raise interest rates to 7% and caused another round of panics, bank runs, and foreclosures. While the farmers’ and ranchers’ rural banks experienced a contraction in credit, manufacturers and merchants were given ample access by the Fed. With the Panic of 1920, over 5,400 banks outside of the Federal Reserve System collapsed, further consolidating America’s baking industry into fewer and fewer hands. From the private correspondence between Strong and Norman dated December, 1920, we learn that, “The policy of making money dearer has been successful.” “The Federal Reserve Bank that should have been the farmer’s greatest protection has become his greatest foe. The deflation of the farmer was a crime deliberately committed.” – William Jennings Bryan, November, 1923.
From the early 1920s to 1929, interest rates again declined, the monetary supply expanded, and the nation experienced strong economic growth. Curiously, however, the number of banks started to decline. Toward the end of the period, speculation and loose money had propelled asset and equity prices. The stock market crashed, and as the banks struggled with liquidity problems, the Federal Reserve actually cut the money supply. Without a doubt, this is the greatest financial panic and economic collapse in American history (so far) - and it never could have happened on this scale without the Federal Reserve Bank’s intervention. Banks collapsed and a few of the old Money Trust banks managed to swoop in and grab up competitors for pennies on the dollar. (Remember Jefferson’s warning, “First by inflation, then by deflation...the banks will deprive the people of all property”)
"Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montague Norman of the Bank of England.” - Bernard Baruch. Why is the Bank of England (Rothschild) telling the Federal Reserve Bank what to do? Paul Einzig, Editor of the London Economist, wrote, “Almost immediately after world War I a close cooperation was established between the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve... On several occasions the discount rate policy of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was guided by a desire to help the Bank of England.” It was later revealed that the true purpose of the low interest rates was not to fuel the stock market, but rather to aid in the massive outflow of American gold reserves to England and France to help them re-establish their gold standards. “The secret meeting between the governors of the Federal Reserve Board and the heads of the European central banks was not called to stabilize anything. It was held to discuss the best way of getting the gold held in the United States by the System back to Europe to force the nations of that continent back on the gold standard. ... Europe had to have our gold and the Federal Reserve System gave it to them, five hundred million dollars worth. The movement of gold out of the United States caused the deflation of the stock boom, the end of the business prosperity of the 1920s, and the Great Depression of 1929-31, the worst calamity which has ever befallen this nation... The bankers knew what would happen when that five hundred million dollars worth of gold was sent to Europe. They wanted the Depression because it put the business and finance of the United States in their hands.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve. It is important to distinguish the very small group of bankers that controlled the Federal Reserve and had access to unlimited funding from the multitude who failed during the Depression. For the big bankers, the Great Depression had the welcome effect of concentrating our nation’s banking industry into their hands. And if you think this is all ancient history, let me quote two lines from the House Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing August, 1976 publication entitled: “Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence,” “This Committee has observed for many years the influence of private interests over the essentially public responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.” ... “In summary, the Federal Reserve directors are apparently representatives of a small elite group which dominates much of the economic life of this nation.” Sounds like the same story over and over again. Decade after decade. When do we say, "Enough is enough."
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of the Coolidge administration, condemned the Fed policies, "In November, 1925, it was confirmed to me by Adolph Miller, a member of the Reserve Board, that Strong and his European allies proposed still more 'easy money policies,' which included continued manipulation of the discount rates and open market operations - more inflation." Does the “Fed” have European allies? “Lord Montagu Norman was Governor of the Bank of England from 1916 to 1944. During this period, he participated in the central bank conferences which set up the Crash of 1929 and a worldwide depression. In The Politics of Money by Brian Johnson, he writes, “Strong and Norman, intimate friends, spent their holidays together at Bar Harbor and in the South of France.” Johnson says, “Norman therefore became Strong’s alter ego... Strong’s easy money policies on the New York money market from 1925-28 were the fulfillment of his agreement with Norman to keep New York interest rates below those of London. For the sake of international cooperation, Strong withheld the steadying hand of high interest rates from New York until it was too late.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
1929 – Bad News for the Little Guy
In April 1929, Paul Warburg sent out a secret warning to his friends that a collapse and nationwide depression had been planned for later that year. He warned that interest rates must rise to stem the, “colossal volume of loans and the orgy of unrestrained speculation.” If left unchecked, the stock market would crash causing, “a general depression involving the entire country.” Actually, the Bank of England began raising its interest rates first and the Fed (as per the agreement between Strong and Norman) dutifully followed. As all the big bankers and their friends already knew, on August 8, 1929, the Federal Reserve began to tighten the money supply. Then on October 24, 1929, the New York bankers called in their broker call loans. This meant that anyone who bought stock on margin and couldn’t come up with the rest of the money they owed had to dump their stocks to cover their loans. Because of this, the stock market crashed on a day that would go down in history as, "Black Thursday." Winston Churchill, after arriving from Chicago in Bernard Baruch's private train, was on the visitor’s gallery of the New York Stock Exchange just as the crash happened. The story goes, “When Churchill was ruined, Baruch called him to his office, and gave all his money back, but not without an understanding. At Churchill’s family home in Chartwell, he has two pictures, one above the other. The top picture was of Bernard Baruch, the picture below was of a black and white bulldog -- the bulldog, the symbol of Sir Winston himself in the world media. The message, with Churchillian wit, is clear -- "dog and master."
"It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all!" - Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee.
William Bryon, author of The United States' Unsolved Monetary and Political Problems, had this to say regarding the Panic of 1929, “When everything was ready, the New York financiers started calling 24 hour broker call loans. This meant that the stockbrokers and the customers had to dump their stock on the market in order to pay the loans. This naturally collapsed the stock market, and brought a banking collapse all over the country, because the banks not owned by the oligarchy were heavily involved in broker call claims at this time. Bank runs soon exhausted their coin and currency, and they had to close. The Federal Reserve refused to come to their aid, even though they were instructed under the law to maintain an elastic currency."
"Under the Federal Reserve, panics are scientifically created. The present panic is the first scientifically created one, worked out as we might figure a mathematical problem." - - Congressman Charles Lindbergh. “The market crash of October 1929 showed if anyone doubted it, that a concerted effort by the Fed can bring down stock prices. But the cost of this "victory" was very high.” - Remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, March 2, 2004. “Overnight, the Federal Reserve System had raised the call rate to twenty percent.” “The New York Federal Reserve Bank rate, which dictated the national interest rate, went to 6 percent on November 1, 1929. After the investors had been bankrupted, it dropped to one and one-half percent on May 8, 1931, causing 11,630 banks of the total of 26,401 in the United States to go bankrupt and close their doors.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
Curtis Dall, FDR's son-in-law, a manager for Lehman Brothers was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange the day of the Crash. He said, "Actually, it was a calculated 'shearing' of the public by the world money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York money market." "The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933." - Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist.
Joseph P. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's father, was worth 4 million dollars in 1929. By 1935 that had increased to over 100 million dollars. What money was left, ended up consolidated in fewer and fewer hands, as planned. When people write about the crash of 1929, they invariably tell the story about how all the really big investors of the day got out of the market just in time, while all the schmucks lost their money. When you stop and think that the run on Wall Street came about because of the big New York banks raised interest rates and that the very same individuals who were “smart” enough to get out of the market early owned these banks, it doesn’t seem as much “smart” as it does “planned.” Knowing the facts, would you call the crash of ’29 a conspiracy?
In June of 1930, Herbert Hoover received a delegation of public-spirited men who urged an expansion of public works projects to help ease unemployment. “Gentlemen,' the President said, 'you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.” A 1930 version of: “Mission Accomplished.” Oh, just a quick word on Hoover’s “Trickle Down” theory: It doesn’t work. Republican President Hoover tried the “trickle down” theory ( Hoover’s term) to solve economic problems during the last few years of his term. The “Great Depression” is often referred to as the “Republican Depression” because it was Hoover’s financial philosophy that contributed to the collapse of the economy. Hoover’s tax cuts for the rich did not trickle anywhere and things got worse – for the lower and middle classes. When President Roosevelt got into office, he raised taxes on the rich, created jobs for the poor, and things got a little better (Trickle up?) President Ronald Reagan employed Hoover’s failed trickle down theory again in the ‘80s and, just like the first time it was tried, the rich got richer, but the poor got poorer and the economy declined. Today, we see the same problem repeat itself encouraged by Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the financial industry. The rich get richer while the poor bail them out. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that "trickle-down economics" had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s but it was called the "Horse and Sparrow Theory”: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows." To me, this is a more accurate description of the entire process. From now on, whenever you hear “trickle down” picture “Horse and Sparrow.” You’re welcome. “Any party which accepts credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.” - Dwight Morrow referring to President Hoover.
“During the 1930s, thousands of U.S. banks experienced runs by depositors and subsequently failed... “Long-established central banking practice required that the Fed respond both to the speculative attack on the dollar and to the domestic banking panics. However, the Fed decided to ignore the plight of the banking system ... once again the Fed had chosen to tighten monetary policy despite the fact that macroeconomic conditions--including an accelerating decline in output, prices, and the money supply--seemed to demand policy ease”... “The Federal Reserve had the power at least to ameliorate the problems of the banks. For example, the Fed could have been more aggressive in lending cash to banks (taking their loans and other investments as collateral), or it could have simply put more cash in circulation. Either action would have made it easier for banks to obtain the cash necessary to pay off depositors, which might have stopped bank runs before they resulted in bank closings and failures. Indeed, a central element of the Federal Reserve's original mission had been to provide just this type of assistance to the banking system. The Fed's failure to fulfill its mission was, again, largely the result of the economic theories held by the Federal Reserve leadership.” – Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.” “From the Atlantic to the Pacific our country has been ravaged and laid waste by the evil practices of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks and the interests which control them ... This is an era of economic misery, and for the conditions that caused that misery, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are fully liable.” - Louis Mc Fadden, Republican, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Congressional Record - June 10, 1932.
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate real estate… values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wreck from less-competent people." – Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury. “Many Fed officials appeared to subscribe to the infamous "liquidationist" thesis of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who argued that weeding out "weak" banks was a harsh but necessary prerequisite to the recovery of the banking system. Moreover, most of the failing banks were relatively small and not members of the Federal Reserve System, making their fate of less interest to the policymakers. In the end, Fed officials decided not to intervene in the banking crisis, contributing once again to the precipitous fall in the money supply.” – Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve System Chairman.
Between 1929 and 1933, the “Fed” reduced the money supply by an additional 33%. In only a few weeks from the day of the crash, 3 billion dollars of wealth vanished. Within a year, 40 billion dollars of wealth vanished. "The stock of money, prices & output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the 2 wars...This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during & just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System...& that the severity of each of the major contractions--1920-21, 1929-33 & 1937-38-- is directly attributable to acts of commission & omission by the Reserve authorities." - Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman.
“Extinguishing reserves means wiping out a basis for money and credit issue, or, tightening up on money and credit, a condition which is usually even more favorable to bankers than the creation of money. Calling in or destroying money gives the banker immediate and unlimited control of the financial situation, since he is the only one with money and the only one with the power to issue money in a time of money shortage. The money panics of 1873, 1893, 1920-21, and 1929-31, were characterized by a drawing in of the circulating medium. In economical terms, this does not sound like such a terrible thing, but when you realize that people do not have money to pay their rent or buy food, and when it means that an employer has to lay off three-fourths of his help because he cannot borrow the money to pay them, the enormous guilt of the banks and the long record of suffering and misery for which they are responsible would suggest that no punishment might be too severe for their crimes against their fellowmen.” – Eustace Mullins, Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
The Great Gold Grab
About one month after he took office, President Roosevelt, by Executive Order, confiscated all the gold in the hands of Americans. The official price paid was $20.65 per ounce, a bonus of $0.65 per ounce. Eight months later, the official price paid for gold was raised to $35.00 per ounce. For the suckers, the American public, their meager supply of dollars was instantly devalued by about 40%. For those who were in the know, the rich who had bank accounts in other lands, it turned a quick, risk-free profit, nearly doubling their money. President Roosevelt later disowned himself from the bill claiming to have not read it and his Secretary of the Treasury claimed this was, "what the experts wanted."
Roosevelt signed many Executive Orders during his first term – presumably carefully written by “experts” who, unlike FDR, knew exactly what they were doing. "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S." - President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933. Yikes! Think about that.
An interesting side note is that the legal basis for Roosevelt’s Executive Order was the "War Powers Act" of October 6, 1917. This war had been over for 14 years! The 1917 law was officially titled the "National Emergency in Banking Relief and Trading with the Enemy Act." The 1917 War Powers Act contained explicit language that excluded American citizens from the legislation so FDR convened a Special Session of Congress in 1933 specifically to remove that clause. Consequently every law abiding US citizen was considered an "enemy” and subject to its decree. This permitted the President to declare a "national emergency" for just about any reason. In fact, the U. S. has been in a constant state of “emergency” since 1933 and there are now in effect at least four different president-proclaimed states of national emergency – from 1933, 1950, 1970, and 1971. They just do not go away.
"At noon on the 4th of March, 1933, FDR with his hand on the Bible, took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S. At midnight on the 5th of March 1933, he confiscated the property of American citizens. He took the currency of the United States standard of value. He repudiated the internal debt of the Government to its own citizens. He destroyed the value of the American dollar. He released, or endeavored to release, the Fed from their contractual liability to redeem Fed currency in gold or lawful money on a parity with gold. He depreciated the value of the national currency.” "Has Roosevelt relieved any other class of debtors in this country from the necessity of paying their debts? Has he made a proclamation telling the farmers that they need not pay their mortgages? Has he made a proclamation to the effect that mothers of starving children need not pay their milk bills? Has he made a proclamation relieving householders from the necessity of paying rent? Not he! He has issued one kind of proclamation only, and that is a proclamation to relieve international bankers and the foreign debtors of the United States Government. ” Remarks by Louis McFadden R-PA
Bought at bargain basement price with money produced from nothing by the Federal Reserve, the gold was melted down and stacked in the newly built bullion depository, Fort Knox. Once collected in 1935 the price of gold was raised from $20.65 up to $35 per ounce, but only people with foreign bank accounts could buy this gold. But that's not all folks. It has estimated that by the end of World War II Fort Knox held about 70% of the world's gold, but over the years, it was sold off to the European bankers while a public audit of Fort Knox reserves was repeatedly denied. While Americans could not own gold, other than as rare coins, individuals acting through foreign banks could purchase all the U.S. gold they wanted at $35 dollars per ounce. "Allegations of missing gold from our Fort Knox vaults are being widely discussed in European circles. But what is puzzling is that the Administration is not hastening to demonstrate conclusively that there is no cause for concern over our gold treasure - if indeed it is in a position to do so." Edith Roosevelt. In 1953, President Eisenhower ordered an audit and Fort Knox was found to contain over 700 million ounces of gold. Although Federal Law requires an annual physical audit of Fort Knox's gold, it is under Eisenhower's presidency that it was last audited - for reasons that will soon become clear.
In 1971, when Nixon reopened the gold window to Americans, the price soared. By 1979, it had peaked at about $850 per ounce. In 1974, a New York periodical published an article claiming that the Rockefeller family was manipulating the Federal Reserve to sell Fort Knox gold at $42.22 per ounce - when the market was at $160 to $170 an ounce. Three days after the publication of this story, its anonymous source, long time personal secretary to Nelson Rockefeller, Louise Auchincloss Boyer, fell to her death from the window of her tenth story apartment in New York. Labeled an, “apparent suicide” by police, she was not depressed according to her friends and left no suicide note.
Finally, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan, considering going back to a gold standard, decided to examine the books of Fort Knox. He appointed a group called The Gold Commission who reported that the US Treasury owned no gold at all. All the gold remaining in Fort Knox is now owned by that private corporation, the Federal Reserve Bank, held as collateral against the “national debt.” By printing dollars made from nothing, the Fed had robbed America's gold, the largest treasure of gold on earth.
“After the United States went off the gold standard, the gold backing was entirely removed and gold certificates were quietly withdrawn from circulation. This move permitted the money pool to issue their Federal Reserve Notes with 100 per cent backing in the form of government bonds. It increased their profits and put the American taxpayer in increasing financial jeopardy to them. Gradually the banking cartel was able to control the selection of the Open Market Committee so that the Reserve Gold Certificates could be used to control the gold in Ft. Knox. Through manipulation of bookkeeping entries, they obtained control of this gold. Another effect of this act was to release the Federal Reserve Bank from its obligation to redeem their notes in gold for American citizens. The gold which Americans believed was owned by the government was in reality turned over to the Federal Reserve Bank after passage of the act, and our government acted merely as its custodian.” – June Grem, The Money Manipulators.
A key piece of legislation in this story is the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which Congress passed on March 9 without having read it and after “only the most trivial debate.” House Minority Leader Bertrand H. Snell (R-NY) conceded that it was "entirely out of the ordinary" to pass legislation that "is not even in print at the time it is offered." He urged his colleagues to pass it all the same. “The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.” — Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952.
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
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In April, 1936, the House Committee on Banking and Currency put forward a bill to return the creation of currency to Congress, where the Constitution stated it belonged. From their report: "The committee had under consideration the bill (HR 92163 to restore to Congress its constitutional power to issue money and regulate the value thereof; to provide monetary income to the people of the United States at a fixed and equitable purchasing power of the dollar, ample at all times to enable the people to buy wanted goods and services at full capacity of the industries and commercial facilities of the United States; to abolish the practice of creating bank deposits by private groups upon fractional reserves, and for other purposes." The Congress declared, "Whereas the permanent welfare of the people and the protection of the economic life of the Nation are dependent on the establishment of a monetary system wholly subject to the control of Congress that will promote the interests of agriculture and labor, of industry, trade, commerce, and finance for the economic well being of all citizens by the maintenance of an adequate supply of money with a unit of fixed average purchasing power, which will avoid excessive expansion or disastrous contraction." "By this bill, Congress resumes its constitutional duty of issuing money and regulating its value, a duty and a right which it has long been abdicated to the private banking system," Gosh, what a great idea. The U.S. Government could issue its own money instead of borrowing it at interest from a private corporation. The bankers would have none of that – The bill never passed.
In its 20th June, 1934 issue, New Britain magazine of London published a statement made by former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that, "Britain is the slave of an international financial bloc." Also in the article, “Democracy has no more persistent and insidious foe than money power ...questions regarding Bank of England, its conduct and its objects, are not allowed by the Speaker (of the House of Commons)."
“The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again... Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit." - Sir Josiah Stamp, director of the Bank of England during the years 1928-1941
The Hitler Project
“After World War I, Germany fell into the hands of the German International Bankers. Those bankers bought her lock, stock, and barrel. They have purchased her industries, they have mortgages on her soil, they control her production, they control all her public utilities. Through the Federal Reserve Board... over $30 billions of American money... has been pumped into Germany. You have all heard of the spending that has taken place in Germany... modernistic dwellings, her great planetariums, her gymnasiums, her swimming pools, her fine public highways, her perfect factories. All this was done on our money. All this was given to Germany through the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board has pumped so many billions of dollars into Germany that they dare not name the total.” Rep. Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee. “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” – Adolph Hitler
U.S. Corporations funding Hitler included Standard Oil, General Electric, I.T.T., American I.G. Farben, Ethyl Corporation, General Motors, and Ford. The largest contributor to the fund was I.G. Farben. The board of American I.G. Farben at this time contained some of the most prestigious names among American industrialists: Edsel B. Ford of the Ford Motor Company, C.E. Mitchell of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Walter Teagle, director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. Paul M. Warburg, first director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and chairman of the Bank of Manhattan, was a Farben director and in Germany, his brother Max Warburg was also a director of I.G, Farben.
Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, authors of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography wrote: “On Oct. 20, 1942, (Almost a year after entering the WW II) the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City, which were being conducted by Prescott Bush. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland “Bunny”' Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.” "On October 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation." ..."Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father in law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942..." The seizures of Bush businesses were reported in a number of American papers including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Prescott Bush, of course, was the father of President George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of President George Walker Bush. George Herbert Walker was Prescott’s father-in-law. "That's where the Bush family fortune came from: It came from the Third Reich."- John Loftus US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes investigator. "Let’s forgive the Nazi war criminals." - President George Bush, New York Times – April 14, 1990. This has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve Bank, it’s just a fun fact you can use at parties.
A Central Bank for the Central Banks
Towards the end of World War II, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, international bankers got together and created the framework for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The principal architects of the IMF were Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes. Interestingly, Harry Dexter White, liaison between the U.S. Treasury and State Department during WW II and later director of the I.M.F., was positively identified as a Soviet spy (code name, "Jurist") by the FBI. The I.M.F. and World Bank copied on a world scale what the Federal Reserve Act had established in the United States and can now actually print their own money. They created a banking cartel of the world's privately owned central banks, which then assumed the power to dictate policies to the banks of all nations. Simply put, member nations make donations and the I.M.F. loans out money and collects the interest. If there is any problem, the member nations are there to act as enforcers and to supply more money. The international bankers have an ideal business.
As struggling nations borrow from the IMF, they loose control when they can’t pay the interest, and have to borrow more and more. The IMF will then decide which nations can borrow more and which will starve. They can also use this as leverage to take state owned assets like utilities as payment against the debt until IMF eventually “owns” the country. Take Ecuador as an example. In order for Ecuador's government to be allowed a loan of 1.5 billion dollars from the IMF, they were forced to take over the unpaid private debts that Ecuador's elite owed to private banks and the IMF dictated price hikes in electricity and other utilities. When that didn't give the IMF enough interest, they ordered Ecuador to raise the price of cooking gas by 80%; transfer the ownership of its biggest water system to foreign operators; grant British Petroleum the rights to build and own an oil pipeline over the Andes; eliminate the jobs of 120,000 government workers and reduce the wages of those remaining by 50%. In fact, the IMF and World Bank have made the sale of electricity, water, telephone and gas systems a condition of loans to every developing nation. The IMF owns 4 trillion dollars of third world “public” assets. There are many losers in this world banking system and few winners, the bankers. In 1987, Edmond de Rothschild created the World Conservation Bank, which cleverly trades debts from third world countries for vast tracts of their land. This design ensures the Rothschilds will gain control over huge portions of the earth.
The debt of third world countries is constantly being increased to provide temporary relief from the poverty being caused by previous borrowing. Attempts to repay loans have caused increased infant mortality and unemployment, deteriorating schools, and general health and welfare problems. Typically, these loans do not alleviate poverty or further any development; they simply create a steady flow of wealth from borrowing nations to the international bankers who control the IMF and the World Bank. As one prominent Brazilian politician, Luis Ignacio Silva, put it: "The Third World War has already started - a silent war, not for that reason any the less sinister. This war is tearing down Brazil, Latin America and practically all the Third World. Instead of soldiers dying there are children, instead of millions of wounded there are millions of unemployed; instead of destruction of bridges there is the tearing down of factories, schools, hospitals, and entire economies . . . It is a war by the United States against the Latin American continent and the Third World. It is a war over the foreign debt, one which has as its main weapon interest, a weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than a laser beam.
Eventually these people will come to realize that their chains were forged with money created out of nothing. We can expect individual complaints at first, swelling to waves of outrage as whole populations awaken from centuries of intellectual slumber to find their futures foreclosed and bleak. If this “ Third World” scenario frightens you, consider the fact that this very same scam of creating money from debt is being used against you and we call it the Federal Reserve System. Americans are now working longer hours than in any other industrialized country and most of us just spinning our financial wheels while slowly sliding down a slippery slope. There is a reason.
The Bankers’ Final Solution
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." - Carroll Quigley, Professor, Georgetown University, “Tragedy and Hope”
"We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent." - Paul Warburg, Council on Foreign Relations and Architect of the Federal Reserve System: Feb 17, 1950 in an address to the U.S. Senate. "Who controls money controls the world.” – Henry Kissinger.
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National auto-determination practiced in past centuries" - David Rockefeller, in an address to a Trilateral Commission meeting in June of 1991.
In 1953, in a toast before the New York Press Club, John Swinton, former Chief of Staff of the New York Times and the "Dean of his Profession" stated, "There is no such thing, at this date of world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you, who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know, beforehand, that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion, out of the paper, I am connected with. Others, of you, are paid weekly, similar salaries for similar things, and any of you, who would be so foolish, as to write honest opinions, would be out on the streets, looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions, to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell this country and his race for his daily bread. You know it, and I know it, and what folly is this, toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men, behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” “They (the Rockefellers) control most of the important newspapers, magazines, and book publishing houses in the country, including the Curtis Publications, the Hearst Publications, Time, the New York Times, the Associated Press and many others.” — The Elements of Economics, by J.L. Carmichael.
"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure -- one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." - David Rockefeller, from his Memoirs in 2002.
“The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress have become increasingly irrelevant... In case you hadn’t noticed, America’s domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Board. Congress is out of the loop... America’s foreign policy, mean while, is now being run by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with some coaching from the Treasury Department... Here, too, Congress has become irrelevant. Some senators and House members fussed a bit when the administration asked for tens of billions of additional dollars for the IMF. But in the end, the elected representatives came through... And when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress. He just calls up a few generals, phones Tony Blair in Britain and sends in the bombers. Have you seen a single congressional hearing or congressional debate on the U.S.-Iraqi war?” - Robert B. Reich, Former Secretary of the Treasury.
"Today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their World Government."– Henry Kissinger Bilderberg Conference May 21, 1992. "This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long. We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." - David Rockefeller Sept. 23, 1994. “Out of these troubled times, our objective, a new world order, can emerge.” George H.W. Bush, September 11th, 1990. It seems as though what is needed is some sort of terrorist attack and/or financial meltdown and we will have our One World Government.
A Few Curiosities
Federal Reserve Notes never claimed to be “dollars” nor did they even claim to be “money.” The definition of a dollar is specified in the Coinage Act of 1792. Law defines a dollar as, “371.25 grains of fine silver." Gold coinage is a ratio (15:1 or 16:1) to the silver dollar and is not referred to officially as a “dollar,” but as being “of the value of a dollar.” I’m sure most everyone has seen a real silver dollar. Other than that, you probably never have seen a real dollar. The 1929 series of Federal Reserve notes said: “Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.” The 1934 series of notes said: "The United States of Americawill pay to the bearer on demand (for example) five dollars." Why would you take this note and change it for five dollars, unless it was not five dollars. It also said, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank." So the notes were not “lawful money?” In 1963, the “Fed” began to issue its first series of notes without the promise, while taking notes with the promise out of circulation. How can paper become what it promises by removing the promise? It now reads, simply, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private" meaning just that - it is what it is, or – “I yam what I yam.” – Popeye, 1936. If you want to know what real money feels like, in one hand, hold a silver dollar or, better yet, a double eagle, a twenty-dollar gold piece. Now, in your other hand, hold the equivalent Federal Reserve Note. Originally, these items were freely interchangeable. Our dollars used to say that they were redeemable in gold or silver – and they were. The one-ounce gold piece that was originally worth $20 in 1933, is now worth 50 times that much. That makes it sound like the price of gold has inflated, but what is really happening is that the value of the dollar has dropped to 2 cents. Merchants used to have paper money along with gold and silver coins in their registers. Many of us are old enough to remember our change was always paid in silver and copper (not copper-coated zinc) coins. Gold coins stopped in 1933, silver coins in 1963, and copper in 1982. Oh, and do you know why they are called, dollar “bills?” Because they are just like any other “bill” or I.O.U. that you owe. We Americans, through our government, “borrowed” that money from the “Fed,” it is part of our national debt and we owe them that dollar back plus interest. We can barely pay the interest on this debt, which is currently (pre-bailout) about $500 billion a year.
Unbelievably, the “Fed” only makes about 10% of the “money” in our economy. Banks and other lending institutions account for the other 90%. “This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the Commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.” Robert Hemphill, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Georgia. As we see in our current economic situation, if banks don’t lend, the U.S. economy spirals down the toilet.
In 1963, President Kennedy issued paper money from the U.S. Treasury carrying a red seal, called United States Notes. These are NOT Federal Reserve Notes; they are in fact, issued by our U.S. Treasury. (You can buy them on Ebay.) Some conspiracy theorists believe he was killed, like President Lincoln, for having the gall to print money outside of the Federal Reserve System and denying the bankers of their interest on our currency. June 4, 1963, 5 months before he was killed by a person or persons unknown, President Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110, which authorized the U.S. Treasury to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion in the Treasury. I find it unlikely that the Federal Reserve was involved in his murder. Honestly, there are so many theories about why and who killed Kennedy that he would have had to be shot about a hundred and fifty times that day for every alleged conspirator to be guilty. Who killed Kennedy? Simple answer, the C.I.A. But that’s a blog for another day.
Other Federal Reserve-related deaths include: In the 70’s and 80’s, Congressman Larry P. McDonald spearheaded efforts to expose the hidden holdings and intentions of the international bankers. His efforts ended on August 31, 1983, when he was killed when Korean Airlines 007 was “accidentally” shot down in Soviet airspace. Senator John Heinz and Senator John Tower had served on powerful Senate banking and finance committees and were outspoken critics of the Federal Reserve. On April 4, 1991, Senator John Heinz was killed near Philadelphia when a helicopter crashed into his plane. The next day, April 5, 1991, Senator John Tower was also killed in a plane crash. Did the bankers kill Heinz and Tower? I’m guessing, no. It’s much more likely they were killed because they both had knowledge about George H.W. Bush’s intimate involvement in the Iran– Contra – Cocaine triangle. But, again, that’s a blog for another day.
"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders. The bankers want it that way. We recognize in a hazy sort of way that the Rothschilds and the Warburgs of Europe and the houses of J. P. Morgan, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, Schiff, Lehman and Rockefeller possess and control vast wealth. How they acquire this vast financial power and employ it is a mystery to most of us. International bankers make money by extending credit to governments. The greater the debt of the political state, the larger the interest returned to the lenders. The national banks of Europe are actually owned and controlled by private interests... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States." - Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ.)
Conspiracy theorists, like Barry Goldwater, argue that the “Fed” has never been audited. That is sort of a fact. Although the private accounting company, Price Waterhouse, goes over the “Feds” books every year and shows us how much money is spent on wages, benefits, equipment, and clearing our checks, they are not allowed to look at little things like how much money the “Fed” transfers into and out of our country. Federal law actually excludes several areas from inspections, including (31 USCA §714): “(1) transactions for or with a foreign central bank, government of a foreign country, or non-private international financing organization...” The “Fed” can send money overseas without approval, oversight, or audit by anyone. I figure if the “Fed” wanted to send vast sums of money to its international banker owners; it would do it by wiring it to a foreign bank account, not by cutting a paycheck. So, the “conspiracy” theory that the Federal Reserve is sending billions or even tens of billions of our U.S. tax dollars every year to “international Bankers.” Well, that theory may or may not be true. By law, we literally cannot know. Why do you think would there be a law like that?
Here’s something else to consider, according to Federal law, “No Senator or Representative in Congress shall be a member of the Federal Reserve Board or an officer or a director of a Federal reserve bank.” No member of Congress, no representative of the American people, is to have access to the inner sanctum. What do they fear? U.S. Senators and Representatives form Intelligence Committees charged with overseeing our country’s deepest, darkest secrets and covert missions, but they are forbidden, by law, to know what the “Fed” is doing.
Also, according to12 USC 3019, Federal Reserve banks, including the capital stock and surplus therein, and the Income derived there from shall be exempt from Federal, State, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate. Why are they not exempt from real estate taxes? Because they are not part of the federal government. The Federal Reserve is the only private corporation that is exempt from federal and state taxes. This independent “Fed” can refuse the president of the United States if it wants. Professor Seymour E. Harris, Harvard economist, wrote in the Washington Post, “We cannot afford, in these days of crisis, the luxury of the Executive going one way and the Fed another. Under President Kennedy, there were threats of restrictive monetary policy; e.g., at one point Mr. Martin would VETO the tax cut by not financing the deficit out of additional money. The Board itself gives too much attention to the wishes of the financial interests. The banks even more so."
“One of the lesser known means by which the New York Federal Reserve Bank exploits Americans is to carry on a yearly multi-billion dollar foreign trade program with its favored customers. It works like this : The New York bank may extend credit to a foreign company. When the favored foreign customer applies to the bank for credit, the Fed, through its Open Market Committee in New York receives the bill of the promoter itemizing the products they intend to sell. The delivery date will be made for a later date, e.g. thirty, sixty or ninety days. These bills are then stamped for future delivery. This acceptance is then deposited with the Federal Reserve Bank as collateral for new currency. This money may then be sent to the foreign customer to use in producing the item—or the money may even be sent in the form of gold. This enables the Insiders to manufacture the item without putting up any money. Foreign importers ship goods to the United States produced with cheap labor and financed by the credit of the United States.” – June Grem, The Money Manipulators. The quote forgot to mention that U.S. workers’ taxes supply the money that supports their jobs being outsourced. I wonder if the “Fed” would like to give me some money in return for a promise to sell this article at a future date.
In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration as unconstitutional. According to the Supreme Court, “The Constitution established a national government with powers deemed to be adequate, as they have proved to be both in war and peace, but these powers of the national government are limited by the constitutional grants. Those who act under these grants are not at liberty to transcend the imposed limits because they believe that more or different power is necessary. Such assertions of extra-constitutional authority were anticipated and precluded by the explicit terms of the Tenth-Amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (You may recall that this was exactly Thomas Jefferson’s argument against establishing America’s first central bank.) The National Recovery Administration attempted to put into place the exact same type of self-serving industrial cartel as was created by the Federal Reserve Act. The U. S. Constitution is very clear and it does not empower the federal government to issue un-backed, fiat currency. Somehow, through the “Federal Reserve Act,” Congress has delegated to private bankers a power that the Congress itself does not have. Unfortunately, the question of the legality of the “Fed” has never been brought before the Supreme Court and all these public officials – from the President on down - who have sworn to “defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic” continue to look the other way.
HR 2755, currently in the House of Representatives, calls for the abolition of the Federal Reserve System. Over 1,500 U. S. cities and organizations have called for the dissolution of the Federal Reserve. Wright Patman, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency for 40 years, introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act twenty times. Patman, commenting on the Fed’s control of the media: “Our exposés of the Federal Reserve Board are shocking and scandalous, but they are only printed in the Daily Congressional Record, which is read by very few people.” Congressman Henry Gonzales, when he was Chairman of the banking committee, also introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act nearly every year. It's always defeated. I have provided you with many quotes from Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee and Charles Lindbergh (Republican Senator from Minnesota.) - Both actually attempted to impeach members of the “Fed!” Do these people, people who have intimate knowledge of the machinations of the Federal Reserve System, know something you and I don’t? I’m sure they do. It’s no wonder we are in the dark, the same bankers who own the “Fed” control the media and give huge political contributions to sympathetic members of Congress.
You know, given the conspiratorial beginnings of the Federal Reserve, its cartel oligopoly of the U.S. banking industry designed to benefit a few New York Banks, and the appalling statutory and media secrecy it’s no wonder that otherwise normal people are convinced that shenanigans are afoot. Go ahead; call it a conspiracy. It is.
A Note about the Bailout
First, let me just quote part of Section 8 of the actual Bailout Bill that passed Congress: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Interesting. (It’s not called “Section 8” for nothing.) I have to wonder if the Constitution allows the Legislative Branch to concoct a law that says it cannot be questioned by Judicial Branch. Why would that wording be put into this bill? Well, in article published in the October 24, 2008 New York Times, the newspaper's economic columnist, Joe Nocera, reveals what he calls "the dirty little secret of the banking industry,” that many banks have no intention of using the government bailout money to make new loans. As Nocera explains, the plan to hand over $250 billion in taxpayer money to the biggest banks was never intended to get them to resume lending to businesses and consumers. Its real aim was to bankroll a rapid consolidation of the American banking system by subsidizing a wave of takeovers of smaller financial firms by the most powerful banks. Nocera cites an employee-only conference call held October 17 by a top executive of J P Morgan Chase, a beneficiary of $25 billion in public funds. Nocera explains that he was able to listen to a recording of the proceedings. Asked by one of the participants whether the federal funding will "change our strategic lending policy," the executive replies, "What we do think, it will help us to be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling." "And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way, and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop." “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.” Nocera notes: “It is starting to appear as if one of Treasury’s key rationales for the recapitalization program — namely, that it will cause banks to start lending again — is a fig leaf, Treasury’s version of the weapons of mass destruction.”
Bankers have been told that bailout money has been given to banks whether they need it or not so that the public won’t know which banks are in financial need and pull their money out of those institutions. Sure. Like publicly traded banks don’t all issue quarterly financial statements. The weak banks use bailout money to help shore-up their balance sheets and then, when they are fattened-up, the strong banks use their money to gobble them up.
With the new Bailout Bill, the Federal Reserve Banks are now authorized to pay banks interest on reserves under Section 201 of the Act. Picture it this way, if banks were hardware stores, the store owners would be paid interest by taxpayers to stock their shelves with merchandise. Pretty sweet deal.
Section 202 permits the Federal Reserve Banks to change the fractional reserve ratio for banks to ZERO! This means that a bank need not maintain a penny in reserves while loaning out an unlimited amount. Guess how stable our financial markets will be in the future. If you guessed infinitely more unstable than our current chaotic condition, you are correct.
But wait, there’s more. Section 132 allows for the suspension of “mark to market” accounting for banks. Now, when a bank holds a $1 million mortgage in foreclosure on a piece of property currently worth $500 thousand, it will still show up on their books as worth a million. With hundreds of these mortgages on their books, just how does an investor determine which bank shares are worth buying? How does anyone know which banks are failing and which are doing well? Maybe that’s the point.
So, the Bush administration, using the same flourish and sense of immediacy that accompanied their “War on Terror,” and the Afgan and Iraq wars, once again sends trillions of taxpayer dollars from working class Americans to the richest of the world’s rich. There he goes again, spreading the wealth. You don’t have to be steeped in conspiracy theories to see the pattern here.
Here’s a question for you: Who owns the “Fed?” The last time the shares were audited (That I can find) was as of 11:05 A.M. on July 26, 1983. As of that date and time, 53% of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – which controls the “Fed” and represents about one half of the total assets of the entire system – was owned by 5 banks: Chase, Chemical, Citibank, Manufacturers Hanover, and Morgan. Since that day, Chemical Bank bought Manufacturers Hanover in 1991; Chemical merged with Chase in 1996; and Chase merged with Morgan in 2000. If the shares remained with the holders of record in 1983, your Federal Reserve System is now controlled (as it has been since the beginning) by J.P. Morgan Chase (Rothschild and Rockefeller) and Citibank. Citibank is in a very weak condition, even after having received two bailout packages totaling $45 billion. It still has a good chance of being taken over by JP Morgan Chase – Using our taxpayer money to limit competition and monopolize the banking industry.
Speaking of taxpayer money, round two of the current Bailout raises the total expenditures to about $2 trillion. If we just make it $3 trillion, we could give every man, woman, and child in the U.S. $10,000 cash to go out and spend our way out of this looming depression. You know a “spread the wealth” kind of thing. Sure this sounds crazy, but think about it... Who else would know how to spend the bailout money quickly and in exactly the right manner to help the most people? Who else deserves this break but the very people we are counting on to pay the bills? Think of it as a loan to the taxpayers, to be paid back by the taxpayers. This money would go to pay mortgages, buy cars, buy food, and yes, buy liquor and drugs. The point is that the money would be put into circulation very rapidly and ALL the wheels of our economy would be greased simultaneously. Do you actually think that giving all that money to just a few of the largest banks makes more sense?
During the presidential campaign, there was a lot of disparaging talk about Obama’s “spread the wealth” statement. McCain “spinsters” seized upon this “Socialist” talk and milked it for all it was worth. (Apparently, not much.) Even now, after Obama has been elected and before he takes office, the Republicans and right-wing “think” tank talking heads are coming out against his proposals to create jobs for the out-of-workers of America. “It’ll cost too much,” is the common thread. Where were these guys when Bush II was tossing trillion dollar bones to his corporate dogs? They were cheering him on. Bushes bosses are their bosses too.
The fact of the matter is that we are constantly redistributing the wealth of this country. Unfortunately, the money goes the wrong way, from the working taxpayers to the rich. Consider the billions of dollars given to corporations in “no-bid” or sweetheart contracts, “pork barrel” additions to Congressional bills, and corporate tax “loopholes,” subsidies, inflated contracts, access to government research, access to public minerals and water, externalities, and bailouts... all for the benefit of the rich and paid for by the working class. How do the beneficiaries of all this “Corporate Socialism” repay us struggling taxpayers? By sending our jobs to foreign lands, hiring illegal aliens, plundering pension funds, laying-off workers just before they reach retirement age, by merging and eliminating competition, by price-fixing and collusion, by cutting health benefits, by instituting usurious fees and penalties on all of our accounts, by externalizing the costs of pollution and product health risks, and by passing on to consumers everything from the legal costs of avoiding regulations to buying politicians.
Corporate Socialism privatizes profits but socializes risk. Corporate funding of our elected “representatives” ensures that these policies will continue unabated, no matter what the public outcry. What we need is a separation of corporation and state just like church and state. President Eisenhower’s farewell speech warning Americans about undue influence of the military-industrial complex was actually shortened from his original, hand-written notes: “military-industrial-congressional complex.” When I was much younger, I figured that by the time my generation got into power, there would be no more wars like Vietnam I was wrong. The corporate influences in Congress are more powerful than ever and we are now looking at an Orwellian, “War without end.” The first logical step in the separation of state and corporation is “Clean Money” elections where those running for office can use public money for their campaigns or private funds. We citizens would then have the clear choice of voting for those beholding to corporate interests or those beholding to public interests. (Google: “clean money elections.”) "...by joining with the (banking) interests to exploit the people, their reelection is more certain than if they serve people who elect them. By joining the exploiters their campaign expenses are paid, the support of the 'machines' and the capital press is assured, and if by chance they should lose they are appointed to the same office that should suit them equally or better." – Charles A. Lindbergh.
The Cure
So, given our present national fiscal predicament, what can be done? The cure is relatively cheap and painless. The U.S. Government should buy back the Federal Reserve System for $450 million (As is specified in its 1913 “Enabling Act”), keep everybody employed doing the same job as they do now in the same buildings, using the same equipment, and at the same pay. The only difference would be that they would be working for the U.S. Treasury Department and not a private corporation. Any income generated from the interest on the U.S. Bills, Notes, and Bonds would be recycled back into the treasury – just as the current “Fed” is supposed to do. The difference would be that there would be no secret overseas money or gold transfers, no secret meetings, no insiders with foreknowledge of market swings, no “fleecing the flock,” no wild money supply or interest rate swings, no cronies or competitors overseeing the banking industry, and no whatever else we don’t even know about. Everything would be open and above board - Let the sun shine in. Oh, if $450 million seems like a lot of money to you, it’s about 8 hours of interest we taxpayers pay on the Treasury instruments. And that interest clock runs 24 hours a day... Every day... Year after year. All it takes is 8 hours of interest payments and we can stop that damned debt clock forever. How?...
By eliminating the whole circular process of making Treasury instruments, selling them, paying interest on them, and then buying them back. If the U.S. Government has the ability to print its own money – and it does – what is the purpose of the Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds? Nothing. The Federal Reserve Banks demand them in exchange for printing money. But our Government can print its own dang money without any help from the “Fed.” We don’t need the Federal Reserve or the Treasury instruments. In fact, the Treasury Instruments do nothing constructive, they simply tie-up money that could be used elsewhere. Most government projects funded by the $11 trillion in national debt have long ago come and gone but we taxpayers continue to pay interest to the Federal Reserve Banks on the “debt.” If these “dead,” life-sucking instruments were eliminated, there would be trillions of dollars unencumbered and available for investment in “living” businesses, real estate, and state and local government bonds. What happens to our national debt if we retire the Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds? It disappears. When we retire the Treasury instruments, we stop paying interest and we won’t owe anybody anything. The Treasury simply prints money when needed by Congress, just like the Federal Reserve currently does, and everything stays the same. Inflation wouldn’t go away, of course, but it wouldn’t be any worse either. With the “National Debt” gone, we Americans just might get our Ft. Knox gold back that the “Fed” took as collateral. By eliminating Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills, taxpayers can save about $500 billion every year on interest payments. Alternatively, we can pay the same in taxes and use that money for better medical care, education, roads, hospitals, etc. Alternatively, if you are of the “Neo-Con” persuasion, we could heed God’s call and use all that money to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea etc.
The U.S. economy cannot absorb the return of $11 Trillion without serious disruption and dilution of the dollar (inflation.) The best way to absorb the return of these wayward funds while controlling inflation is to increase the reserve requirements for loans at lending institutions. Currently, banks have a 10% reserve requirement on checking deposits and, essentially, a 0% reserve requirement for savings accounts and CDs. A 10% reserve requirement means that if your bank takes in $100 in a checking account, it can loan out $1,000 to somebody else. Your bank simply “creates” another $900 of “money.” If that sounds bizarre to you, take a minute and think about what a 0% reserve requirement means. Now, how do you feel knowing that there are so few dollars behind your bank loan? Behind our entire economy? Currently, banks create about ten times as much “money” as the Federal Reserve System. Do you think that our economy might be on a little firmer footing if the reserve requirements were slightly higher – a little more meaningful? We can control inflation by balancing this infusion of money into our economy while increasing the reserve requirements of lending institutions. This will not only stimulate our economy at a time when it is sorely needed, but also fortify our banking system (at a time when it is sorely needed.) Balance is the key. If we raise the reserve requirements too little, we risk more inflation... too much, and we will have a deflationary spiral and depression.
Who is currently in charge of monitoring the banks’ reserve requirements? The Federal Reserve. Picture it this way: If the banks were hens, the “Fed” would be the fox. By absorbing the Federal Reserve System functions into the Treasury Department, where they rightfully belong, our banks would be monitored, not by their cronies and competitors, but by slightly more impartial government officials. Strict, independent monitoring of banking reserve requirements and interest rates would act as a steady hand on the tiller of our economy.
How do you control interest rates? In classic free market dynamics, the market sets the rate. Without “Fed” interference, wouldn’t the market normally take care of the rates automatically? When there is more money chasing fewer loans, interest rates fall, stimulating the economy. When more people want to borrow, interest rates go up, slowing the economy. If the government only pumped in more money to keep up with increases in production, there would be enough money for the economic system, but not so much to cause inflation. Extra money could be pumped into the market if the Treasury felt the need for stimulation outweighed the need for stability – Like now.
To take the place of the Treasury instruments in our money markets, the Treasury can insure high-grade corporate paper and back the principal and interest with the “full faith and credit of the United States.” Of course, the interest rate that the issuing corporation pays investors on these insured notes and bonds would be less than what is paid on their uninsured debt and this difference would be sent to the Treasury by the corporation as payment for the insurance. Of course, the debt instruments of more financially sound companies would have a narrower spread than the lower grade paper. This spread would no doubt fluctuate over time as the corporation became more or less solvent, automatically adjusting the price paid for the insurance to the risk involved. The U.S. government would gain a significant new source of income and U.S. corporations would have access to virtually unlimited, inexpensive funding – bypassing the banking system.
What? The Government can’t insure private paper? We are doing it right now. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures your savings account (‘till the end of 2009) up to $250,000. They have $52 Billion insuring $4.3 Trillion in savings. If that is ever used up, the U.S. Government (taxpayers) will step in and cover the rest for the bankers. Indy Mac alone cost $9 billion. And what about the current two trillion dollar banker bailout? Again, that’s the U.S. Government (taxpayers) stepping-in and covering private paper. As long as we taxpayers are insuring private investments, we may as well be paid for it by the people who are profiting from our guarantees – expressed or otherwise.
Whether or not you believe that the “Fed” is set up for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many... Even if I have not convinced you of anything so far... “The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.” – Milton Friedman, Economist.
There’s one more point you should consider: It’s you. It’s you and me and everybody else. We humans create these institutions, corporations, and governments for our benefit. In this interconnected, aware world, it is incomprehensible that man’s tool should rise to become his master. “The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Well, yes we can control it. We, the people of the United States of America, have all the power. If the Federal Reserve System does not function to our liking, we have the absolute power to change or abolish it. We are not on this planet, in this country, at this time, to be anybody’s slave. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it," - Abraham Lincoln. Something is terribly wrong with a banking system that allows one-half of one percent of the world’s population to own 95% of the world’s wealth. Unless you annually attend the Bilderberger’s meetings, believe me when I tell you that you are not in that group.
I figure we have one last chance to take control of our destiny. With all eyes focused on our economic plight, if there is ever to be a chance for true reform, that time is now. If our current situation is “fixed” by the massive infusion of devalued dollars, America’s attention will quickly return to sports, movie stars, and local crime. If it remains broken, we will face an economic depression. “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.” - Harry S. Truman. And, as J.P. Morgan said, “People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.” “For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.” George Orwell, 1984.
These villains have always relied upon our ignorance and secrecy to advance their plans. Right now, you have two choices... awareness or oblivion: Thomas Jefferson, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be,” or Doris Day, “Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.” Choose.
Mike Kirchubel - December 2008
