Many Americans attend their schools and are taught at a young age to pledge allegiance to the flag of their united nation and depending on where they were raised, they are taught that the possibilities are endless. They are shown via the media that they can become rich and famous, own many houses and make millions. This in fact is the American dream that working hard and pulling yourself up by your boot straps will guarantee rewards. Some children become obsessed with money and begin seeing currency as freedom. The fact is the American dream was tarnished with racism, sexism, elitism, and classism. To the layman this is a pessimistic way to view it but the truth hurts. No one wants to tell these kids that there are greedy white men sitting on Wall Street waiting to take them for everything they have regardless of their ethnicity, and the point is not to kill or be killed but to understand and not perpetuate the cycle. No one wants to tell them that every dollar they have in their hands has debt attached to it. The wealthy do not care about dollars.
The Federal Reserve Bank is an institution that thrives on the citizen’s ignorance of it and the creation of debt. In this article we will look at how and why the some of the forefathers, though many corrupt themselves, wanted to be free of this age old practice of usury. We will also see power corrupts absolutely and how we, our children and our children’s children will be forever chained by these old families until we do something about it. The Federal Reserve is detrimental to any real freedom in this country. It allows the citizens to stay subservient, greedy, and irresponsible.
Since the early days of bartering and trading and mercantilism we as a species have needed a way to exchange goods and services to survive. People would use products and goods to trade for other products goods and services. If there was no services or goods to trade people could fall back on gold and other precious stones and metals to serve as currency. This currency had value of its own judged specifically on its scarcity and weight. Carrying around gold to trade was a tedious task and eventually this form of currency became impractical. The first “bankers” were just people who held a place for other people to store their gold. A person would keep their gold in this storage facility and in return they would get a voucher or a paper to “offset” debt. This paper or note represented portions of how much gold someone had. Bankers realized this could become a lucrative business. Not only could people store their money there in the bankers vault at a price, the bankers could let people borrow money that was just sitting around and charge them “interest”. Interest is a percentage of money based on the amount borrowed that would also be added to the total amount of the loan so that the bankers could make a cut. In some religions and also an established law for a time, this was thought of as a sin because it was seen as “usury”. Here is where we start our decline into the shady, cannibalistic practices of central banking[1].
A central banks job is to issue currency and control the economy through interest rates. It sounds simple enough and also innocent enough however the issue of this currency does not come for free. The currency created has an interest rate attached to it. Now, if a central bank is the only source of currency and has a complete monopoly on the creation of it, the money needed to pay the interest rate does not exist! This creates this never ending game of “musical chairs” where someone, or a lot of someone’s, will always end up with the short end of the stick simply because there is not enough money in circulation and there was never meant to be. If we go back to the old days of the first banking institutions we see another problem. These bankers realized they could not only loan out notes that represented the gold in their vaults, but they could loan out notes that represented gold that didn’t exist. This could greatly increase their revenues because they didn’t even have to have the actual amount of gold in their reserves but they could still make the percentage on it. The ratio of the notes issued to what was actually available in reserves is called a fractional reserve policy which is what we still use in the US today.
In 18th century Europe, central banks were the in full effect, and the American colonists were striving to gain their independence. The new Americans were establishing themselves and were developing their own means of currency. Their currency was interest free and was a slap in the face to the central banks in England because the new Americans couldn’t be exploited. King George III outlawed this currency which would force the colonists to borrow money from the bank of England, doing what central banks were created for. Benjamin Franklin wrote “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 money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” This is what the fore fathers were so adamant about leaving in Europe and this is what made men like Andrew Jackson get “I Beat the Bank” written on his tombstone.
Some of the US’ forefathers saw this problem and fought against it. Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of a central bank and he lobbied for it in 1789. Congress chartered the 1st central bank of the US in 1791 against Thomas Jefferson’s warnings “I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.” In 1811 James Madison and the vice president George Clinton broke the tie vote in Congress and did not renew the charter for the central bank. After the war of 1812 Madison flipped and supported a privately owned central bank which resurfaced in 1816. In 1836 President Andrew Jackson closed it. Both the 1st and 2nd central banks of the US were chartered for 20 years. Jackson saw the banker’s cohorts who had worked their way into high government positions and began casting them out. He ended up firing 700 federal employees saying to the bankers “You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal god I will rout you out.” We enjoyed a central bank free nation for decades from 1837 to 1862 but the economy was still unstable as it continued to go in and out of recessions (as it had with or without central banks since the countries inception.) The US would have a total of 29 recessions, depressions and “panics” up to 1913.[2]
“Panics” were a term used to explain a “run on the bank” where people would fear the safety of their money and would withdraw their funds. Why would people do this? These panics were initiated by many things but one of the large factors happened to be false information leaked by powerful bankers to frighten the American public. At this time in history and still today there are a few families who virtually run everything bank related. The predominant families include the Morgans, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and the Warburgs. Using their powerful influence they could steer public opinion by publishing articles speaking of smaller banks as “insolvent” or bankrupt[3]. This would create these panics and runs where people would rush to withdraw all their money at once, which in turn would cause the banks to call in their loans, forcing people to default, file bankruptcy, sell their assets, and get everything they owned repossessed.
In 1907 there was a huge panic which lasted over a year. Frederik Allen, an editor and historian for LIFE magazine which was founded in 1883 wrote “The Morgan interest took advantage of the panic of 1907 guiding it shrewdly as it progressed.” These scares eventually would lead up to heavy investigations into what needed to be done. Of course by this time bankers had already infiltrated congress and their minions were like storm troopers in Star Wars. A man named Nelson Aldrich, whose only daughter had married one of John D. Rockefellers sons, was the head of this investigation in what needed to be done. Of course his interest lied with the banking cartel family. Aldrich was at the forefront of the bill that would become the Federal Reserve Act.
Like any other needy president, Woodrow Wilson was in need of campaign money and what better place to get the money than from these filthy rich bankers but as some religions believe you can sell your soul to the devil, a president must basically so the same thing. He agreed to sign into law the Federal Reserve Act with the financial support of powerful bankers. This bill was meticulously constructed by Wall Street in secret on an island named Jeckyll Island. The writing of this bill was so secret that the draftsmen didn’t use their real names while traveling and were forbidden to say each other’s last names while in attendance of the drafting. Secrecy was essential for this project because if any of congress knew that Wall Street had a hand in the drafting of the bill it would never pass and Aldrich’s plan would be foiled. Essentially the bill was written by Paul Warburg, one of the most powerful bankers of the time. They came up with this new central bank and called it the Federal Reserve Bank. They used that name because any “central bank” title would quickly be opposed. (Funny thing is most Americans do not realize how fraudulent this title actually is. The Federal Reserve Bank is no more Federal than FedEx. It is not a government entity, it is a privately owned as business. There are no “reserves” in the Federal Reserve and it is not a bank either.)
Once completed the bill was submitted in December when most of congress was home for Christmas. The bill slipped through the senate which had adjourned sine die (without setting a further day for meeting). It made it to President Woodrow Wilson to sign which he reluctantly did and as he realized how he had prostituted his entire country out to bankers he reflected, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
The pitch to sell this idea of a private entity (business) having monopoly over the money supply and economy of an industrious nation was that the country needed “elasticity” to its money. The years of recessions, depressions and panics were used to justify this need. With this entity being apart from the government it would be free from the checks and balances of the 3 branches of government. This was sold as a benefit to the “purity” of the institution but in all reality it allows the Federal Reserve to do whatever it wants, have loyalty to no one, and be free of any government intervention. The former Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan explains “The Federal Reserve is an independent agency and that means basically that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take.” Though this is the reality it is portrayed as “independent within the government” in books and on websites.
There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks throughout the US, these include the cities: Boston - Massachusetts, Buffalo - New York, Richmond – Virginia, Atlanta – Georgia, Chicago – Illinois, St Louis – Missouri, Minneapolis – Minnesota, Kansas City – Kansas, Dallas – Texas, San Francisco – California. The only relation to the government the Federal Reserve has is through the Board of Governors. The board is made up of seven members and is appointed by the president. Each member serves 14 years and the appointments are staggered so that one term expires on January 31st of each even-number ending year.
Generally the Federal Reserve’s duties include:Controlling the economy of the US by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates.Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers. Maintaining the financial system and containing systemic risks that may arise in financial markets.Providing financial services to depository institutions, the US government, and financial institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nations payments systemsThese duties also include the creation of our money, dollars, or Federal Reserve Notes which used to read “Redeemable in gold” but were soon taken off when the fractional reserve banking got out of control and when the debt was too great to have it supported. In short the United States government asks the Federal Reserve for money. The Federal Reserve prints out this money and the United States government prints out what are called “Treasury Bonds” in return. The treasury bonds are nothing more than pieces of paper with fancy official words printed on them as well as the determined value the government is asking from the Federal Reserve. Once traded, the government deposits the newly printed Federal Reserve Notes of whatever value asked for, into the economy thus adding more money. This is all done electronically. (3% of the United States’ money supply is in physical currency.) These treasury bonds are a promise of payback or an I.O.U. to the Federal Reserve from the borrower, (the United States Government). As stated in the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ publication “Modern Money Mechanics”, the money deposited in the smaller bank is considered the bank’s reserve. Under the fractional reserve policy, the bank is only legally required to keep reserves equal to a required percentage of its total deposits. The reserve requirements against most transactions is 10% meaning the bank only has to have 10% of what it claims to have. The other 90% is considered excessive reserve and can be turned into more loans with the same stipulations. The problem is, this money for the loan does not come from the original amount, it is made up. This means that for every amount of money that is physically there or on a computer, nine times that amount can be created out of thin air. As this process continues we see more and more money loaned out with very little of the actual amount, 10% to be exact in actual existence.[4] Of course this money is loaned with interest, so now the question comes, “Where does the money come from to pay the interest on the non-existent money loaned out?” The Federal Reserve of course, loaned out at more interest. We see how this cycle creates perpetual debt that will never and can never be paid off, ever. It is similar to throwing water out of a sinking boat with holes, using a bucket with holes, it is completely useless.
As for the duties that the Federal Reserve was put in place to perform which would keep the economy from collapsing, all we have to do is look at the history of recessions since the creation of the Federal Reserve. We are in a recession even as I write this and we’ve had 16 other recessions and not to mention the Great Depression of the early 1930’s. The creation of the Federal Reserve has served to weaken the US dollar and placed the majority of the United States citizens in some form of debt. You cannot own anything physical of great value without going through a bank. Some people are capable of paying for their houses in cash but not many. There is an extensive lineage of owners of central banks and their families placing the serfs and peasants in debt to control the population. We are witnessing the collapse of our economy now as the government continues to allow Wall Street to literally gamble with the public’s money then get bailed out. If this were truly a free market system these businesses would have failed like other businesses that fail. The Federal Reserve’s job was supposed to protect the economy but as we see they are above the law when they fail, like a sadistic doctor who keeps murdering his patients but has enough money to manipulate media and stay out of a prison which is meant solely to house the poor, the Federal Reserve shifts the blame and lurks in the shadows. We have to keep in mind, the Federal Reserve is a business and it is privately owned. A tiny group of people own the “greatest nation” on earth’s economy. We need to put an end to this debt propagation and learn to take responsibility rather than borrow invented money from jackals.
There are no races, no Africans, no Mexicans, no Chinese, there’s just the haves and the have not’s, so when you tell your child that they can be whatever they want, tell them the truth, the way most people get rich in the United States is by inheriting their wealth and until we all help each other to stop these entitled tyrants, we’ll be where we’ve always been with no one to blame but ourselves. We point the fingers and call it socialism when people making over 250,000 dollars a year are taxed more while literally tons of food a day is thrown out of Las Vegas buffets and one in every 3 homeless people is a United States war veteran. While 25 hedge fund managers are “worth” as much as a 680,000 teachers who teach 13 million children[5], we see we are only going to hit the bottom harder if we do not drastically alter the way we see things in our consumerist economy.
[1] Paul Grignon, Money as Debt, Oct 28 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8
[2] John Pounders, Jeckyll Island and the Federal Reserve, (Paradigm Publishing 1995)
[3] Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist, June 2005, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ
[4] Public Information Center Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Modern Money Mechanics, (Oct. 2008)
[5] Les Leopold, The Preposterous Reality: 25 Hedge Fund Managers are Worth 680,000, April 2010, http://www.alternet.org/story/146402/the_preposterous_reality%3A_25_hedge_fund_managers_are_worth_680,000_teachers_(who_teach_13_million_students)/
Paul, Ron. “End The Fed.” Grand Central Publishing September 2009
Lynn S. Fox, Scott G. Alvarez, Sandra Braunstein, Marianne M. Emerson, Jennifer J. Johnson, Karen H. Johnson, Stephen R. Malphrus, Vincent R. Reinhart, Louise L. Roseman, Richard Spillenkothen, and David J. Stockton. “The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions.” Publications Committee Ninth Edition June 2005
“History of the Fed.” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Nov 21st 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment