Today most Americans have accepted the devaluation of the U.S. dollar as commonplace. They believe it is just a consequence of having paper currency. However, this is far from the case. Devaluation only occurs when fiat currency, money which is only backed by a government, is used. The first national currency was created in 1861 under the Lincoln administration. While this was the first step towards the out of control fiat currency we have today the 1861 currency was still backed by a gold standard. It wasn’t until 1971, 110 years later, that our currency became in essence worthless.
Just to give a few examples of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar:
$23.61 (in 2006 dollars) is equal to $1.00 (in 1861 dollars)
$4.55 (in 1970 dollars) is equal to $1.00 (in 1861 dollars)
$5.19 (in 2006 dollars) is equal to $1.00 (in 1970 dollars)
These statistics are quite upsetting. Considering for the 110 years that U.S. currency was backed by the gold standard the purchasing power of the dollar changed by $4.55 – or a decrease of $.045 per year. However, from 1970 (the last full year the U.S. had the gold standard) to 2006 the purchasing power of the dollar changed by $5.19 – or a decrease of $0.144 per year.
Basically we have increased the devaluation of U.S. currency by 3 fold. In the 1st 110 years of our national currency our purchasing power decreased at roughly the same rate it did in the last 30 years. The worst part of this is that the decrease in U.S. currency is being controlled by a private bank, the Federal Reserve. They have a de facto power to destroy U.S. currency if they so wished.
To conclude here are some quotes from our Founding Fathers on national banks:
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson
“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 the money and its issuance.” – James Madison
“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. 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 (Rep. AR)
Okay, so the last one wasn’t from a Founding Father, but it is enlightening nonetheless.
Filed under: Constitution, Economics, Fiat Currency, Gold Standard, Politics
Few realize, especially our political leaders, that our Fiat Monetary System is a finite system with a definite life-span. The system will implode from the weight and pressure of the debt that creates the system. As the debt, which is not only irreversible, but also multiplies exponentially, begins to demand far more service than the economy is able to produce and remain viable.
We are seeing signs that this point is being reached rapidly.
Each and every Federal Reserve Note is a legal notification of a debt obligation that equals the circulation of the currency with an additional interest obligation that only multiplies the debt exponentially, thus becoming irreversible. The problem is that this massive irreversible debt that combines the obligated cost of both the principle and interest reaches a point that the economy, which is built upon this dubious foundation, simply cannot continue to service the debt foundation, and terminates in a massive rapid collapse.
There are, of course, several signs that the Fiat Monetary System is reaching its practical possible lifespan, many that go unnoticed because no one seems to be aware that the system does indeed have a finite lifespan. In recent years, we have seen a shift from a principle based economy to an interest-only based economy, where consumers and companies are basically leasing property within various terms of interest-only payments instead of building equity in a property. These “exotic” instruments, along with other types of novel mortgage options indicate a definitive shift in the underlying stability of the system from a semi-stable to a rapidly degenerative state. The entire system is now over-marginalized to the point that the capacity of commerce to service the foundational obligations upon which it is built is unsustainable and cannot meet all the obligatory cost demands.
The Federal Reserve can no longer achieve stability within the system with the usual patches and band-aids of interest rate manipulation or the expansion of the money supply. The latest drop in interest rates by the FED and the proposed “stimulus package” by the government will prove to be ineffective against the fundamental problems facing the economy and that problem is the fact that the monetary system is fundamentally flawed.
The problem we are facing, of course, is the costs associated with servicing the massive debt that exponentially multiplies; this sum of debt has begun to impose more and more pressure on economic commerce and functional government. The costs of this massive debt obligation will escalate its demand and will continue to marginalize more sectors of the economy to the point that they simply cannot remain viable; the same will be true for state and local governments, indeed even the federal government will eventually succumb to the pressure of the cost of the debt obligations created by the Fiat Monetary System and corollary instruments used to maintain all commerce.
The manifestation of the accumulative mass of public debt will ultimately have a huge negative effect on the private sectors as the government will see no choice but to drastically increase taxation to maintain its “necessary” services and the empire this Fiat Monetary System as allowed. The entire welfare/warfare state will rapidly be crushed under the massive weight of debt upon which it is created. The majority of politicians, and even economists, appear to have placed their complete confidence and total faith in a monetary system that is inherently unstable and terminally flawed. If we look at the underlying process of this system, it should be relatively easy to see that it is based upon the mathematically impossibility that perpetual economic growth can be sustained through the an unlimited creation of debt. Massive debt and unfunded debt obligations will demand more servicing than the economy can provide and remain functionally practical, yet it is this very debt that forms the entire system upon which everything we know and depend on is built.
Under the current Fiat Monetary System, there is absolutely nothing the Federal Reserve or the government can do to avert this pending chaotic collapse of the monetary system. Currently, we are witnessing the process of this collapse as the insoluble debt builds momentum to the point that the entire monetary system terminates. The dominos are falling and the inner-connectiveness of the global economy will suffer a chain-reaction ending in absolute and incomprehensible chaos that will rival the most destructive periods of civilization past.
This will not be a repeat of the Great Depression, but an event totally foreign to both our understanding and imagination. We simply have no real reference point to compare this pending chaos in our minds, but if we can imagine a period when all commerce and government services halt abruptly, all employment ceases without a glimmer of hope for the future, then that would be close to what happens when the entire monetary system that our society is built upon terminates. There will, of course, be a growing decline in the economy, which we are now witnessing, reaching the point where the monetary system itself terminates.
There are few solutions that will work within the current system since it depends totally upon the expansion of debt for its existence. There are only a few options that will be left to this and other countries, but time is essentially not on the side of governments making such drastic monetary changes prior to the monetary system reaching it’s terminal point. If we began today with a competing monetary system to the fiat system that would blunt the disaster to a degree, but even with a competing currency the outlook is relatively dismal for the majority of what we now consider our society.
Abolish the Federal Reserve Now – Sign & Promote the Petition
Many investors and concerned citizens around the world are showing their outrage at what the Federal Reserve has done to the American economy with their easy money policies which caused the credit & real estate bubble and subsequent global financial meltdown.
Join the thousands who are signing & commenting on the Abolish the Federal Reserve Petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
Abolish the Federal Reserve System,
Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds,
And the National Debt
By Mike Kirchubel
“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
“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, 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 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. Members of the British Board of Trade asked Franklin how the American Colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor and 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 the 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 control 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.” When the money supply is cut, recession and depression result. Remember this; you will see it again and again.
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. 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.”
After the Revolutionary War, there was a push to establish a central bank in the United States. Thomas Jefferson argued against the institution of the 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, having helped to write the Constitution, was obviously correct in its interpretation. Now, the Supreme Court tries to guess what the writers meant; Jefferson is actually telling us what HE meant: The central bank is unconstitutional.
“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. 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 to James Madison 1789. Good idea, by George.
After much argument, Congress passed a bill proposed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. This bill established the First Bank of the United States, tenured by a charter of 20 years, and set to expire in 1811.
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. 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.” 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 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 eventually gained controlling interest in the Bank of England. 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.” 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. 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. 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.
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.
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 1832, Andrew Jackson, running for a second term, took his campaign on the road talking directly to the American people about the central bank scam. “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. The foreign banker controlling the Second Bank of the United States was Baron James de Rothschild of Paris.
Old Hickory’s campaign slogan was short and to the point: “JACKSON and NO BANK!” In 1832, Jackson ordered the withdrawal of government deposits from the Second Bank and vetoed its early re-chartering. 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!” Does this remind you of our current financial situation – except, of course, for the words and deeds of our president?
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. Of course, Biddle blamed everything on Jackson. Congress, in what was called the “Panic” session, officially “censured” 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 ceased to function.
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, 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)
The Civil War
According to one conspiracy theorist, “The division of the United States into 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 the war, 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.
This would have been great for everyone except the international bankers. They wasted no time in expressing their view in the London Times. “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.” – Hazard Circular – London Times 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?
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. Bankers would buy U.S. government bonds with money they created by issuing 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 money. These bonds, notes, and bills are now national debt and the taxpayers (you and I) get to pay the bankers unending interest on it. Remember that this debt was created by the bankers simply cranking the handle on their printing press, but the interest we pay them every year in taxes comes from our own hard work. “I have never yet had anyone who could, through logic and reason, justify the federal government borrowing the use of its own money.” – Wright Patman, Chair, House Committee on Banking and Currency.
“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. “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, on April 14th, 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. 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.
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, effectively stopping the minting of silver that year and, again contracting the money supply. As Ernest Seyd said, “I went to America in 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.” 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.”
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.
United States Silver Commission was aware of the problems being caused by the constrictive money supply, but Congress took no action. 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.
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 of the flock is the term 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 fleecing – 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. The letter speaks for itself, but take a moment to reread and reflect upon it. Think about all the families affected by such as dastardly plan. 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.” 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 Trap is Set.
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.
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.
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 Exchange 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. 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 United 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, who in 1909 controlled German General Electric, “Fifty men have run America and 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. Just how powerful are these Rothschilds? It has been estimated that, by the start of the 20th century, 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 to Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and his brothers.) 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 a small delegation 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, “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.” 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. The “Aldrich bill” was reworked by Paul Warburg and presented again in Congress as the “Glass-Owen bill.” It was, 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.
“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. Rep. Charles Lindbergh (R – MN), commenting on the Federal Reserve Act: “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 worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill.”
“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 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. “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, which was also ratified in 1913. 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. Was it just 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 and again, it would take many additional pages to explain them here. Let me summarize them for you: “Don’t argue, just pay your taxes. They have guns and can mess you up.”
So, did the Federal Reserve Act do what it was supposed to do? Did it reign in the “Money Trust” and 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. “I never thought the Federal Reserve System would prove such a failure.” – Senator Carter Glass (co-sponsor of the bill.)
So, how does the Federal Reserve actually create money? When Congress needs money and does not want to raise taxes, it goes to the Federal Reserve and asks for the money – Let’s say $100 billion. The U.S. Treasury prints $100 billion of new Treasury bonds and puts them up for sale. Usually about half of them are sold to the Chinese, Saudis, banks, and little old ladies. The rest are bought by the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Bank 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.
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 (Google: “Tim Ossman”), we would recognize them immediately as acts of war. 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?
Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee called the Federal Reserve Banks, “A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.” Another chairman of the House Banking Committee in the 1960s, 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.”
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.”
“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 almost a hundred years earlier.)
WORLD WAR I
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 an