1. THE US FEDERAL RESERVE
There was a time when to ask someone for whom he worked was considered somewhat insulting, as it implied he was an incompetent, incapable of gainful self-employment. But now, property ownership (net wealth) is not a general feature of our society, as it largely was until the Great Depression.
Rather, net debt and complete dependence on a precarious wage or salary at the will of others is the general condition. Since the exercise of freedom often includes using material objects such as books, food, clothing, shelter, arms, transport, etc., the choice and possession of which requires some wealth, we are forced to admit that the general condition of Americans is one of increasing dependence and limitations on freedom.
Since the tum of the century, there has occurred throughout the world a major increase in debt and a major decline in (he freedom of individuals and states to conduct their own affairs. To restore a condition of widespread, modest wealth is therefore essential to regaining and preserving our freedom. Why are we over our heads in debt? Why can't the politicians bring debt under control?
Why are so many people (often, both parents) working at low-paying, dead-end jobs and still making do with less? What's the future of the American economy and way of life? Are we headed into an economic crash of unprecedented proportions?
Larry Bates was a bank president for eleven years. As a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, he chaired the Committee on Banking and Commerce. He's also a former professor of economics and the author of the best-selling book, The New Economic Disorder. He has this to say about our future prospects:
“I can tell you right now that there is going to be a crash of unprecedented proportions- a crash like we have never seen before in this country. The greatest shock of this decade is that more people are about to lose more money than at any time before in history, but the second greatest shock will be the incredible amount of money a relatively small group of people will make at the same time. You see, in periods of economic upheaval, in periods of economic crisis, wealth is not destroyed-it is merely transferred.
Former US presidential candidate Charles Collins is a lawyer and a banker who has owned banks and served as a bank director. He believes we'll never get out of debt because the Federal Reserve the Fed') is in control of our money. To quote Collins:
"Right now, it's perpetuated by the Federal Reserve making us borrow the money from them, at interest, to pay the interest that's already accumulated. So, we cannot get out of debt the way we're going now.”
Economist Henry Pasquet is a tenured instructor in economics. He agrees that the end is near for the US economy:
“No, not when you are adding roughly a billion dollars a day. We just can't go on. We had less than one trillion dollars of national debt in 1980; now it's 5 trillion-five times greater in fifteen years. It just doesn't take a genius to realize that this just can't go on forever.”
The problem is that the US has one of the worst monetary systems ever devised: a central bank that operates independently of the government, which, with other private banks, creates all of our money with a parallel amount of interest-hearing debt. That's why we can never get out of debt.
And that's why a deep Depression is a certainty for most US citizens, whether caused suddenly in a severe economic crash or gradually through continued relentless inflation. The Fed is creating it to enrich its private stockholders-just as it deliberately created the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Federal Reserve headquarters is in Washington, DC. It sits on a very impressive address on Constitution Avenue, right across from the Lincoln Memorial. But is it 'Federal'? Is it really part of the United States Government?
Well, what we are about to show you is that there is nothing 'Federal' about the Federal Reserve-and there are no reserves. The name is a deception created before the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 to make Americans think that America's new central bank operates in the public interest. The truth is that the Fed is a private (or, at best, quasi-public) hank owned by private national hanks, which are the stockholders, and run for their private profit.
As economist Henry Pasquet noted:
“That's exactly correct; the Fed is a privately owned, for-profit corporation which has no reserves---at least no reserves to back up the Federal Reserve notes which are our common currency.”
The Federal Reserve Act was railroaded through a carefully prepared Congressional Conference Committee meeting, scheduled during the unlikely hours of 1.30 am to 4.30 am (when most members were sleeping) on Monday 22 December 1913, at which 20 to 40 substantial differences in the House and Senate versions were supposedly described, deliberated upon, debated, reconciled and voted upon in a near-miraculous four-and-a-half to nine minutes per item, at that late hour.
At 4.30 am, a prepared report of this Committee was handed to the printers. Senator Bristow of Kansas, the Republican leader, stated on the Congressional Record that the Conference Committee had met without notifying them, and that Republicans were not present and were given no opportunity either to read or sign the Conference Committee report. The Conference report is normally read on the Senate floor. The Republicans did not even see the report. Some senators stated on the floor of the Senate that they had no knowledge of the contents of the Bill.
At 6.02 PM on 23 December, when many members had already left the Capital for the Christmas holiday, the very same day that the Bill was hurried through the House and Senate, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 into law.
The Act transferred control of the money supply of the United States from Congress to a private banking elite. It is not surprising that a bill granting a few national bankers a private money monopoly was passed in such a corrupted manner.
As author Anthony C. Sutton noted:
"The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply, operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public intent".
If there's any doubt whether the Federal Reserve is a part of the US Government, check your local telephone book. It's not listed in the 'government' blue pages. It is correctly listed in the 'business' white pages, right next to Federal Express, another private company. But more directly, US courts have ruled that the Fed a special form of private corporation.
Let's look at the Fed shareholders. According researcher Eric Samuelson, as of November 1997 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (which completely dominates the other branches through stock ownership, control and influence having the only permanent voting seat on the Federal Market Committee and handling all open market bond transactions), has 19,752,655 shares outstanding and is majority-owned by two banks: Chase Manhattan bank (now merged with Chemical Bank), with 6,389,445 shares or 32.35 per cent; and Citibank, NA, with 4,051,851 shares or 20.51 per cent. Together those two banks own 10,441,295 shares or 52.86 per cent-which is majority control.
While majority ownership conclusively demonstrates effective control, it is not critical to control-which is often exercised large, publicly traded corporations by blocks of as little as 25 %, when the other owners hold small blocks.
One of the most outspoken critics of the Fed in Congress w Louis T. Mcfadden (R-PA), the Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee during the Great Depression years. In 1932 he said:
"We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board... This evil institution has impoverished...the people of the United States...and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through...the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."
Senator Barry Goldwater was a frequent critic of the Fed:
"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."
What one has to understand is that from the day the Constitution was adopted, right up to today, the folks who profit from privately owned central hanks like the Fed, or, as President Madison called them, 'the Money Changers', have fought a running battle for control over who gets to issue America's money.
Why is who issues the money so important? Think of money just another commodity. If you have a monopoly on a commodity that everyone needs, everyone wants and nobody has enough, there are lots of ways to make a profit and exert tremendously political influence. That's what this battle is all about.
Throughout the history of the United States, the money power has gone back and forth between Congress and some sort of privately owned central hank.
First of all, they had seen how the privately owned British central bank, the Bank of England, had run up the British national debt to such an extent that Parliament had been forced to place unfair taxes on the American colonies. In fact, Benjamin Franklin claimed that this was the real cause of the American
Revolution.
Most of the founding fathers realised the potential dangers of banking and feared bankers' accumulation of wealth and power.
Thomas Jefferson put it this way:
"I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs".
Jefferson’s statement is in fact the solution to most of our economic problems today.
James Madison, the main author of the Constitution, agreed. It is interesting that he called those behind the central bank scheme 'the Money Changers'. Madison strongly criticised their actions:
“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.”
The battle over who gets to issue our money has been the pivotal issue through the history of the United States. Wars have been fought over it. Depressions have been caused to acquire it. And yet after World War I this battle was rarely mentioned in newspapers or history books.
Media Complicity
By World War I, the Money Changers with their dominant wealth had seized control of most of the US press. In a 1912 Senate Privileges and Elections Committee hearing, a letter was introduced to the Committee, written by Representative Joseph Sibley (PA), a Rockefeller agent in Congress, to John D.
Archbold, a Standard Oil employee of Rockcfeller.
It read in part:
"An efficient literary bureau is needed, not for a day or a crisis but a permanent healthy control of the Associated Press and kindred avenues. It will cost money but will be cheapest in the end"
John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, called by his peers "the Dean of his profession", was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club. He responded with the following statement:
"There is no such thing as an independent press in America, except that of little country towns. You know this and I know it. Not a man among you dares to utter his honest opinion. Were you to utter it, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
I am paid one hundred and fitly dollars a week so that I may keep my honest opinion out of the newspaper for which I write.
You, too, are paid similar salaries for similar services. Were I to permit that a single edition of my newspaper contained an honest opinion, my occupation-like Othello's-would be gone in less than twenty-four hours. The man who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinion would soon be on the streets in search of another job.
It is the duty of a New York joumalist to lie, to distort, to revile, to toady at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread-or, what amounts to the same thing, his salary.
We are the tools and the vassals of the rich behind the scenes. We are marionettes. These men pull the strings and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our capacities are all the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes. (Quoted by T. St John Gaffney in Breaking The Silence, p. 4.)"***
That was the US press in 1953. It is the mass media of America today. Press control and, later, electronic media (radio and TV) control were seized in carefully planned steps, yielding the present situation in which all major mass media and the critically important major reporting services, which are the source of most news stories, are controlled by the Money Changers.
Representative Callaway discussed some of this press control in the Congressional Record (vol. 54, 9 February 1917, p. 2947):
“In March I9I5, the J. P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States, and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press....”
They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers... An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was employed for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.
A few years ago, three-quarters of the majority stockholders of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN were banks-such as Chase Manhattan Corp., Citibank, Morgan Guaranty Trust and Bank of America. Ten such corporations controlled 59 magazines (including Time and Newsweek), 58 newspapers (including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and various motion-picture companies, giving the major Wall Street banks virtually total ownership of the mass media with few exceptions (such as Disney's purchase of ABC).
Only 50 cities in America now have more than one daily paper, and the same group often owns them. Only about 25 percent of the nation's 1,500 daily papers are independently owned. This concentration has been rapidly accelerating in recent years and ownership is nearly monolithic now, reflecting the identical control described above. Of course, much care is taken to fool the public with the appearance of competition by maintaining different corporate logos, anchor persons and other trivia, projecting a sense of objectivity that belies the uniform underlying bank ownership and editorial control. . This accounts for the total blackout on news coverage and investigative reporting on banker control of the country. '
Nevertheless, throughout US history, the battle over who gets the power to issue our money has raged. In fact, it has changed hands back and forth eight times since 1694, in five transition periods which may aptly be described as 'Bank Wars' (or, more precisely, 'Private Central Bank vs American People Wars'), yet this fact has virtually vanished from public view for over three generations behind a smoke screen emitted by Fed cheerleaders in the media.
Until we stop talking about 'deficits' and government spending, and start talking about whom creates and controls how much money we have, it's just a shell game, a complete and utter deception. It won't matter if we pass an ironclad amendment to the Constitution mandating a balanced budget. Our situation is only going to get worse until we root out the cause at its source.
Our leaders and politicians, those few who are not part of the problem, need to understand what is happening and how, as well as what solutions exist. The government must take back the power to issue our money without debt.
Issuing our own debt-free money is not a radical solution. Its the same solution proposed at different points in US history by men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson,
Martin van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and numerous congressmen and economists.
Though the Federal Reserve is now one of the two most powerful central banks in the world, it was not the first. So, where did this idea come from? To really understand the magnitude of the problem, we have to travel across the Atlantics.