Behind The Fed

2011-09-12T12:27:00.002-04:00

War, Money and Bankers
This is from a comment on a post over on Rickackerman.com. Thought it was worth passing on.

Re the Civil War, although it is not a popular politically correct opinion taught in public schools, trade with Britain and recovery of French & Indian War, Revolutionary War and War of 1812 debts was a factor:

Following their conquest of Europe early in the 1800s, the Bankers cast their covetous eyes on the most precious gem of them all — the United States.

America was unique in modern history. It was only the second nation in history that had ever been formed with the Bible as its law book. Its uniquely magnificent Constitution was specifically designed to limit the power of government and to keep its citizens free and prosperous. Its citizens were basically industrious immigrants who ‘yearned to breath free’ and who asked nothing more than to be given the opportunity to live and work in such a wonderfully stimulating environment.

The results — the ‘fruit’ — of such a unique experiment were so indescribably brilliant that America became a legend around the globe. Many millions across the far flung continents of the world viewed America the Beautiful as the promised land.

The Big Bankers in Europe — the Rothschilds and their cohorts — viewed the wonderful results borne by this unique experiment from an entirely different perspective; they looked upon it as a major threat to their future plans.

The establishment Times of London stated: “If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic [i.e. honest Constitutionally authorized no debt money] should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without a debt [to the international bankers]. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”

The Bankers and their friends sent in their financial termites to destroy America because it was becoming “prosperous beyond precedent.”

The first documentable evidence of Rothschild involvement in the financial affairs of the United States came in the late 1820s and early 1830s when the family, through their agent Nicholas Biddle, fought to defeat Andrew Jackson’s move to curtail the international bankers.

The Rothschilds lost the first round when in 1832, President Jackson vetoed the move to renew the charter of the ‘Bank of the United States’ (a central bank controlled by the international bankers). In 1836 the bank went out of business.

In the years following Independence, a close business relationship had developed between the cotton growing aristocracy in the South and the cotton manufacturers in England. The European bankers decided that this business connection was America’s Achilles Heel, the door through which the young American Republic could be successfully attacked and overcome.

The Illustrated University History, 1878, p. 504, tells us that the southern states swarmed with British agents. These conspired with local politicians to work against the best interests of the United States. Their carefully sown and nurtured propaganda developed into open rebellion and resulted in the secession of South Carolina on December 29, 1860. Within weeks another six states joined the conspiracy against the Union, and broke away to form the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as President.

The plotters raided armies, seized forts, arsenals, mints and other Union property. Even members of President Buchanan’s Cabinet conspired to destroy the Union by damaging the public credit and working to bankrupt the nation. Buchanan claimed to deplore secession but took no steps to check it, even when a U.S. ship was fired upon by South Carolina shore batteries.

Shortly thereafter Abraham Lincoln became President, being inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Lincoln immediately ordered a blockade on Southern ports, to cut off supplies that were pouring in from Europe. The ‘official’ date for the start of the Civil War is given as April 12, 1861, when Fort Sumter in South Carolina was bombarded by the Confederates, but it obviously began at a much earlier date.

In December, 1861, large numbers of European Troops (British, French and Spanish) poured into Mexico in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine. This, together with widespread European aid to the Confederacy strongly indicated that the Crown was preparing to enter the war. The outlook for the North, and the future of the Union, was bleak indeed.

In this hour of extreme crisis, Lincoln appealed to the Crown’s perennial enemy, Russia, for assistance. When the envelope containing Lincoln’s urgent appeal was given to Czar Alexander II, he weighed it unopened in his hand and stated: “Before we open this paper or know its contents, we grant any request it may contain.”

Unannounced, a Russian fleet under Admiral Liviski, steamed into New York harbor on September 24, 1863, and anchored there, The Russian Pacific fleet, under Admiral Popov, arrived in San Francisco on October 12. Of this Russian act, Gideon Wells said: “They arrived at the high tide of the Confederacy and the low tide of the North, causing England and France to hesitate long enough to turn the tide for the North” (Empire of “The City,” p. 90).

History reveals that the Rothschilds were heavily involved in financing both sides in the Civil War. Lincoln put a damper on their activities when, in 1862 and 1863, he refused to pay the exorbitant rates of interest demanded by the Rothschilds and issued constitutionally-authorized, interest free United States notes. For this and other acts of patriotism Lincoln was shot down in cold-blood by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, just five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Booth’s grand-daughter, Izola Forrester, states in This One Mad Act that Lincoln’s assassin had been in close contact with mysterious Europeans prior to the slaying, and had made at least one trip to Europe. Following the killing, Booth was whisked away to safety by members of the Knights of the Golden Circle. According to the author, Booth lived for many years following his disappearance…

The Fed Is Above The Law

2010-02-22T20:31:00.002-05:00

This is an excerpt from a recent article entitled Central Banks Are On the Defensive, and it can be found here.

Nobody at the FED will say what is really at stake: an independent audit of the government's gold holdings, which are officially held for the government by the FED for safekeeping. If the gold is gone, or if there are legal claims against it by foreign central banks as a result of FED swaps, this would constitute fraud on a massive scale.

The real power in the FED has always been the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In all textbook accounts of the years leading up to the Great Depression, the focus is on Benjamin Strong, the President of the New York FED. He set policy, not the Board of Governors.

The bulk of the world's gold holdings are stored in the vault of the New York FED. This includes most of the deliverable gold (99.9% fine) owned by the FED as trustee of the U.S. government's gold. The gold at Ft. Knox (probably coin melt, 90% fine) constitutes a second holding area, said to be 20% of the nation's gold. No one knows. It has not been audited since the early 1950's, not even by the private accounting firms that audit the FED on an annual rotation basis.

The FED demands secrecy. It proclaims that it pursues transparency, but it does not on any issue of substance.

Bloomberg News in November 2008 sued the Board of Governors under the Freedom of Information Act to find out which institutions received how much money in the October 2008 bailouts. The Board of Governors refused to comply on this legal basis: this would expose trade secrets of the recipient banks.

Even though a district Federal judge in August 2009 ruled that the New York FED must turn over these records, the FED refused to comply. She gave the FED five days to comply. It did nothing for six months.

Anyone who thinks that the Federal courts have operational authority over the Federal Reserve System is ignorant of the last century of American history.

The Board of Governors appealed the ruling on January 11, 2010. A ruling will not come down for months. A recent summary of this bizarre story appeared in the New York Times. In a rare form of candor, the writer added this observation, deep down in the bowels of his article:

'The Federal Reserve has wrapped itself in secrecy since the turn of the 20th century, when a select group of financiers met at the private Jekyll Island Club off the eastern coast of Georgia and, forgoing last names to preserve their anonymity among the staff, drafted legislation to create a central bank. Its secrecy, of course, persists today, with Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, refusing to tell even Congress which banks received government money under the bailout.'

2010-01-27T13:42:00.001-05:00

The Banksters Pull Off 911 Fraud

Bill Moyers' PBS Interview On The Banksters

2010-01-14T11:06:00.001-05:00

2009-12-21T12:10:00.001-05:00

Congressman Ron Paul discussed the Fed and other freedom related issues. Link here.

Fed Chairman Bernanke Gets Ripped

2009-12-06T23:22:00.001-05:00

Watch Sen. Bunning rip Fed Chairman Bernanke a new one! It's a thing of beauty!

2009-12-02T09:25:00.000-05:00

When the Dollar Becomes Worthless

2008-08-08T14:03:00.003-04:00

You may have heard of the SPX, XAU, EFTs and a bunch of other derivative/paper types of investments that seems very confusing. Would like to know more about it?

Well.....you've come to the wrong place. (Again, they actually PAY me to do this!)

I don't know much about that kind of stuff, as it is mostly used by traders and speculators to make a quick buck. Since I'm not that smart, I stay away from anything with initials. (Especially the IRS.)

But, I am about to tell you all that you need to know about these things.

Investor A thinks the price of gold is going down. He writes a contract and offers to sell gold to Investor B at $900/ounce. Investor B thinks the price of gold is going up to $1000/ounce, so he buys the contract.

Now A doesn't actually have the gold he is selling, and B doesn't really want to buy the gold. They just each want to make the difference on the price movement.

This is known as a "naked" contract. (no clothes) You are selling something you don't have.(no gold)

So even though A doesn't have any gold, the contract is still enforceable by B to demand delivery of the gold. But this never happens as no one wants the hassle of exchanging physical gold.

Back to our story.

Now if gold goes up from $900 to $1000, Investor B gains $100. Why? Because he theoretically buys the gold from A at $900 and sells it at the current market price of $1000.

Investor A obviously loses $100. He now has to "theoretically" buy gold at $1000 and sell it to B at $900.

It is a paper transaction only. That is the key thing to remember, and billions of dollars of these contracs are outstanding.

So Why Do I Care?

Regarding gold, there are thousands upons thousands more of these little paper "claims" to gold out there in cyberspace than there is "physical" gold. And that is no big deal as long as no one wants to enforce their contract and take delivery of the "physical" gold.

But, what if our "paper" economic system were disrupted? What if foreigners all decided that they no longer wanted to be paid in dollars, but in gold? (This is already happening with our Asian and Arab trading partners and they have hinted that it will escalate.)

Let's face it, everyone in the world knows that the Fed is pumping dollars out as fast as they can print them, so it is only a matter of time before the music stops, everyone else takes a seat, and we are the ones who get kicked out of the game.

Overnight, the dollar could become worthless, or at least deeply devalued. Gold would skyrocket in price. And everyone who has one of these legal contracts that says they can buy gold at $900/ounce will demand their gold.

Problem is....there's not enough of it to go around........at any price, which fuels the cycle and forces gold prices higher and higher.

And if you think that can't happen here, don't forget, that is exactly what happened in pre-WWII Germany.

Europe quit taking Germany's "inflated" paper money and demanded gold in exchange for goods and services. (Germany had their own version of The Fed.) This sparked a massive decline in the value of their currency, and in the end, it took a whole wheel-barrel load of Deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread.

Germany needed gold and/or other tangible assets, and Hitler rode in on the white horse and saved the day by stealing it from....guess who?.....the Jews.

"And now," as Paul Harvey used to say, "you know the rest of the story."

Conclusion

If you don't own physical gold, you are at risk. At HUGE risk.

I have been in the financial business since 1983 and I can tell you with certainty that this house of cards will fall sooner or later. Hopefully it will be later, but it could be tomorrow.

And when it does, your investments in tangible assets will save you.

So stay away from anything with initials, and people named Adolph.

The Flight from Paper to Gold Continues

2008-06-16T19:07:00.003-04:00

reported by Haaretz.com

Last update - 21:13 16/06/2008

Iran, fearing sanctions, said to have pulled $75b from EU banks
By Reuters
Tags: Ahmadinejad, EU, Iran

Iran, acting on orders from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment on the report in Shahrvand-e Emrouz, a moderate weekly, which did not specify the time period for the withdrawals which it said were ordered by Ahmadinejad.

"About $75 billion of Iran's foreign assets which were under threat of being blocked were wired back to Iran based on Ahmadinejad's order," the weekly said.

Iran's Etemad-e Melli newspaper, also quoting Talai, last week also reported that the world's fourth-largest oil exporter was withdrawing assets from European banks but did not give any figures.

Who's To Blame For the Higher Gas Prices?

2008-06-13T09:51:00.004-04:00

Paul Van Eeden Commentaries

Paul Van Eeden lays out a very convincing arguement that the majority of the blame for the current high gasoline prices lies with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy.

Here's the link: Sue Opec

If this link is disabled, click here to see my reprint of the article.

A Conversation With the Fed

2008-06-11T19:03:00.007-04:00

This article is reproduced here from the 7th Fire website. Click here for the original posting.

The following is a conversation with Mr. Ron Supinski of the Public Information Department of the San Francisco, Federal Reserve Bank. This is an account of that conversation reconstructed to the best of my ability from notes taken during the conversation on October 8, 1992.

CALLER - Mr. Supinski, does my country own the Federal Reserve System?
MR. SUPINSKI - We are an agency of the government.
CALLER - That's not my question. Is it owned by my country?
MR. SUPINSKI - It is an agency of the government created by congress.
CALLER - Is the Federal Reserve a Corporation?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes CALLER - Does my government own any of the stock in the Federal Reserve?
MR. SUPINSKI - No, it is owned by the member banks.
CALLER - Are the member banks private corporations?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes CALLER - Are Federal Reserve Notes backed by anything?
MR. SUPINSKI -Yes, by the assets of the Federal Reserve but, primarily by the power of congress to lay tax on the people.
CALLER - Did you say, by the power to collect taxes is what backs Federal Reserve Notes?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes CALLER - What are the total assets of the Federal Reserve?
MR. SUPINSKI - The San Francisco Bank has $36 Billion in assets.
CALLER - What are these assets comprised of?
MR. SUPINSKI - Gold, the Federal Reserve Bank itself and government securities.
CALLER - What value does the Federal Reserve Bank carry gold per oz. on their books?
MR. SUPINSKI - I don't have that information but the San Francisco Bank has $1.6 billion in gold.
CALLER - Are you saying the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has $1.6 billion in gold, the bank itself and the balance of the assets is government securities?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes.
CALLER - Where does the Federal Reserve get Federal Reserve Notes from?
MR. SUPINSKI - They are authorized by the Treasury.
CALLER - How much does the Federal Reserve pay for a $10 Federal Reserve Note?
MR. SUPINSKI - Fifty to seventy cents.
CALLER - How much do they pay for a $100.00 Federal Reserve Note?
MR. SUPINSKI - The same fifty to seventy cents.
CALLER - To pay only fifty cents for a $100.00 is a tremendous gain, isn't it?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes
CALLER - According to the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve pays $20.60 per 1,000 denomination or a little over two cents for a $100.00 bill, is that correct?
MR. SUPINSKI - That is probably close.
CALLER - Doesn't the Federal Reserve use the Federal Reserve Notes that cost about two cents each to purchase U.S. Bonds from the government?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes, but there is more to it than that.
CALLER - Basically, that is what happens?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes, basically you are correct.
CALLER - How many Federal Reserve Notes are in circulation?
MR. SUPINSKI - $263 billion and we can only account for a small percentage.
CALLER - Where did they go?
MR. SUPINSKI - Peoples mattress, buried in their back yards and illegal drug money.
CALLER - Since the debt is payable in Federal Reserve Notes, how can the $4 trillion national debt be paid-off with the total Federal Reserve Notes in circulation?
MR. SUPINSKI - I don't know.
CALLER - If the Federal Government would collect every Federal Reserve Note in circulation would it be mathematically possible to pay the $4 trillion national debt?
MR. SUPINSKI - No CALLER - Am I correct when I say, $1 deposited in a member bank $8 can be lent out through Fractional Reserve Policy?
MR. SUPINSKI - About $7.
CALLER - Correct me if I am wrong but, $7 of additional Federal Reserve Notes were never put in circulation. But, for lack of better words were "created out of thin air " in the form of credits and the two cents per denomination were not paid either. In other words, the Federal Reserve Notes were not physically printed but, in reality were created by a journal entry and lent at interest. Is that correct?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes CALLER - Is that the reason there are only $263 billion Federal Reserve Notes in circulation?
MR. SUPINSKI - That is part of the reason.
CALLER - Am I mistaking that when the Federal Reserve Act was passed (on Christmas Eve) in 1913, it transferred the power to coin and issue our nations money and to regulate the value thereof from Congress to a Private corporation. And my country now borrows what should be our own money from the Federal Reserve (a private corporation) plus interest. Is that correct and the debt can never be paid off under the current money system of country?
MR. SUPINSKI - Basically, yes.
CALLER - I smell a rat, do you?
MR. SUPINSKI - I am sorry, I can't answer that, I work here.
CALLER - Has the Federal Reserve ever been independently audited?
MR. SUPINSKI - We are audited.
CALLER - Why is there a current House Resolution 1486 calling for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve by the G.A.O. and why is the Federal Reserve resisting?
MR. SUPINSKI - I don't know.
CALLER - Does the Federal Reserve regulate the value of Federal Reserve Notes and interest rates?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes
CALLER - Explain how the Federal Reserve System can be Constitutional if, only the Congress of the U.S., which comprises of the Senate and the House of Representatives has the power to coin and issue our money supply and regulate the value thereof? [Article 1 Section 1 and Section 8] Nowhere, in the Constitution does it give Congress the power or authority to transfer any powers granted under the Constitution to a private corporation or, does it?
MR. SUPINSKI - I am not an expert on constitutional law. I can refer you to our legal department.
CALLER - I can tell you I have read the Constitution. It does NOT provide that any power granted can be transferred to a private corporation. Doesn't it specifically state, all other powers not granted are reserved to the States and to the citizens? Does that mean to a private corporation?
MR. SUPINSKI - I don't think so, but we were created by Congress.
CALLER - Would you agree it is our country and it should be our money as provided by our Constitution?
MR. SUPINSKI - I understand what you are saying.
CALLER - Why should we borrow our own money from a private consortium of bankers? Isn't this why we had a revolution, created a separate sovereign nation and a Bill of Rights?
MR. SUPINSKI - (Declined to answer).
CALLER - Has the Federal Reserve ever been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court?
MR. SUPINSKI - I believe there has been court cases on the matter.
CALLER - Have they been Supreme Court Cases?
MR. SUPINSKI - I think so, but I am not sure.
CALLER - Didn't the Supreme Court declare unanimously in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. vs. U.S. and Carter vs. Carter Coal Co. the corporative-state arrangement an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power? ["The power conferred is the power to regulate. This is legislative delegation in its most obnoxious form; for it is not even delegation to an official or an official body, presumptively disinterested, but to private persons."
Carter vs. Carter Coal Co.]
MR. SUPINSKI - I don't know, I can refer you to our legal department.
CALLER - Isn't the current money system a house of cards that must fall because, the debt can mathematically never be paid-off?
MR. SUPINSKI - It appears that way. I can tell you have been looking into this matter and are very knowledgeable. However, we do have a solution.
CALLER - What is the solution?
MR. SUPINSKI - The Debit Card.
CALLER - Do you mean under the E.F.T. Act (Electronic Funds Transfer)? Isn't that very frightening, when one considers the capabilities of computers? It would provide the government and all it's agencies, including the Federal Reserve such information as: You went to the gas station @ 2:30 and bought $10.00 of unleaded gas @ $1.41 per gallon and then you went to the grocery store @ 2:58 and bought bread, lunch meat and milk for $12.32 and then went to the drug store @ 3:30 and bought cold medicine for $5.62. In other words, they would know where we go, when we went, how much we paid, how much the merchant paid and how much profit he made. Under the E.F.T. they will literally know everything about us. Isn't that kind of scary?
MR. SUPINSKI - Yes, it makes you wonder.
CALLER - I smell a GIANT RAT that has overthrown my constitution. Aren't we paying tribute in the form of income taxes to a consortium of private bankers?
MR. SUPINSKI - I can't call it tribute, it is interest.
CALLER - Haven't all elected officials taken an oath of office to preserve and defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic? Isn't the Federal Reserve a domestic enemy?
MR. SUPINSKI - I can't say that.
CALLER - Our elected officials and members of the Federal Reserve are guilty of aiding and abetting the overthrowing of my Constitution and that is treason. Isn't the punishment of treason death?
MR. SUPINSKI - I believe so.
CALLER - Thank you for your time and information and if I may say so, I think you should take the necessary steps to protect you and your family and withdraw your money from the banks before the collapse, I am.
MR. SUPINSKI - It doesn't look good.
CALLER - May God have mercy on the souls who are behind this unconstitutional and criminal act called the Federal Reserve. When the ALMIGHTY MASS awakens to this giant hoax, they will not take it with a grain of salt. It has been a pleasure talking to you and I thank you for your time. I hope you will take my advice before it does collapse.
MR. SUPINSKI - Unfortunately, it does not look good.
CALLER - Have a good day and thanks for your time.
MR. SUPINSKI - Thanks for calling.

Notes from the article's author:
If the reader has any doubts to the validity of this conversation, call your nearest Federal Reserve Bank, YOU KNOW THE QUESTIONS TO ASK! You won't find them listed under the Federal Government. They are in the white pages, along with Federal Express, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), and any other business. Find out for yourself if all this is true. And then, go to your local law library and look up the case of Lewis vs. U.S., case #80-5905, 9th Circuit, June 24, 1982. It reads in part: "Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the federal reserve are NOT federal instrumentalities . . . but are independent and privately owned and controlled corporations . . . federal reserve banks are listed neither as `wholly owned' government corporations [under 31 U.S.C. Section 846] nor as 'mixed ownership' corporations [under 31 U.S.C. Section 856] . . .

28 U.S.C. Sections 1346(b), 2671. `Federal agency' is defined as: the executive departments, the military departments, independent establishments of the United States, and corporations acting primarily as instrumentalities of the United States, but does not include any contractors with the United States . . .

There are no sharp criteria for determining whether an entity is a federal agency within the meaning of the Act, but the critical factor is the existence of the federal government control over the `detailed physical performance' and `day to day operations' of that entity. Other factors courts have considered include whether the entity is an independent corporation . . . whether the government is involved in the entity's finances, . . . and whether the mission of the entity furthers the policy of the United States . . . Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities . . .

It is evident from the legislative history of the Federal Reserve Act that Congress did not intend to give the federal government direction over the daily operation of the Reserve Banks . . .

The fact that the Federal Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks does not make them federal agencies under the Act . . . Unlike typical federal agencies, each bank is empowered to hire and fire employees at will. Bank employees do not participate in the Civil Service Retirement System. They are covered by worker's compensation insurance, purchased by the Bank, rather than the Federal Employees Compensation Act. Employees traveling on Bank business are not subject to federal travel regulations and do not receive government employee discounts on lodging and services . . .

Finally, the Banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own name. 12 U.S.C. Section 341. They carry their own liability insurance and typically process and handle their own claims . . ."

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, "When the Federal Reserve was created, its stock was sold to the member banks." ("The Hats The Federal Reserve Wears", published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)

The original Stock-holders of the Federal Reserve Banks in 1913 were the Rockefeller's, J.P. Morgan, Rothschild's, Lazard Freres, Schoellkopf, Kuhn-Loeb, Warburgs, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs.

The MONEY-CHANGERS wanted to be insured they had a monopoly over our money supply, so Congress passed into law Title 12, Section 284 of the United States Code. Section 284 specifically states, "NO STOCK ALLOWED TO THE U.S."

* Monopoly - "A privilege or peculiar advantage vested in one or more persons or companies, consisting in the exclusive right (or power) to carry on a particular business or trade, manufacture a particular article, or control the sale of the whole supply of a particular commodity, A form of market structure in which only a few firms dominate the total sales of a product or service.

`Monopoly', as prohibited by Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, has two elements: possession of a monopoly power in relevant market and willful acquisition or maintenance of that power, as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior power, business acumen, or historical product. A monopoly condemned by the Sherman Act is the power to fix prices, or exclude competition, coupled with policies designed to use and preserve that power." (Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition)

The Federal Reserve Act goes one step farther, "No Senator or Representative in Congress shall be a member of the Federal Reserve Board or an officer or director of a Federal Reserve Bank." They didn't want We The People to have any say in the operation of their monopoly through our elected officials.

What can you do about it? Contact your congressman and senators to protest and demand hearings to investigate the unconstitutionality of the Federal Reserve Act. You can find their name, address, email address, phone number or fax number at http://thomas.loc.gov/ . But most of all, remove your support for the Federal Reserve System by using the statutes to remove your collateral from the system. Remove your assets from their control, remove your Strawman Corporation from their control.

________________________________

Monopoly Money and the Federal Reserve

2008-06-11T18:50:00.005-04:00

reprinted from http://www.edgefielddaily.com/
published August 16, 2005

“In God We Trust, Federal Reserve Note, The United States of America, This Note is Legal Tender for all debts, public and private”. These are the phrases imprinted upon our money. What is inauspiciously missing since 1964 is the all important phrases that gave our “money” its value, “The United States of America will pay to the bearer on demand (the value on the Note 1, 2, 5, 10, ect.) Dollars” and “is redeemable in lawful money”.

Wonder why?

The Federal Reserve acts as a Central Bank for the government. The Treasury stores the real money (gold, silver, ect.) held by our government and issues receipts to the people for commerce and trade. That is what a “Federal Reserve Note” is, a receipt issued by the government backing our paper dollars with the gold, silver, and other precious metals held in its vaults and their global worth comparatively.

What happened?

As a Central Bank, the Federal Reserve has to remain solvent in order to stay in business, thus also the government. When a bank takes deposits, gold and silver (real money) and prints paper receipts (dollars) to its owners (the people) and it is redeemable upon demand, there are no problems. However, banks and government as a rule are greedy.

These institutions want more and decide to loan deposited money in the form of Loans out as well in hopes all those who have made deposits will not want their real money all at once. This is what is known as a “run on the bank” in the banking industry.

When unscrupulous banks loan more money than they actually have in reserves (also falsely increasing the amount of money in the economy resulting in inflation) and the people demand payments for their receipts, it cannot pay and it summarily is forced to close.

The bankers keep the profits they made personally by conducting bad business practices, the creation of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) passes the loss to the taxpayer, and the people lose in the end in the form of increased taxes rather than default of the bankers or investors losing their money gained from risky schemes to pay off the debt. We pay for their mistakes.

This is what happened to the Federal Reserve, or the governments “Central Bank”. It had loaned the Peoples “real money” (gold and silver), to the government and through bad decisions, corruption, and wasteful spending, there wasn’t enough to cover “redeemable in lawful money” anymore and it had to borrow more “money” from the Federal Reserve to pay its “debt” through bonds.

Rather than restore itself, the government simply removed this guarantee and rather than tighten its fiscal belt, it simply printed more “money” and has continued to do so ever since. If the government needs more money, it simply prints it and infuses it into the economy and its value drops respectively. This is known as inflation and you now see why it is such a hot topic to the government.

Inflation is the hidden tax the government collects by increasing the amount of “money” in the economy and therefore reduces the value of those dollars which you have in possession. You need more money to buy the same goods or services due to the influx of this new money. The thrifty, which saved their money, see this decrease in value and therefore need to save more new money to equal what they previously held, thus paying this hidden tax. In addition, they also pay income tax on their labors trying to equal their previous holdings, which was devalued by government tinkering with the money supply in the first place.

Think of it this way. Suppose we are playing a game of Monopoly. The amount of land available to be owned (just as in our nation) is fixed. There is a fixed amount of “money”. Each player has some of that money and not long after play begins, each feels the pressure of gaining property, debts, and income. Skillful bargaining and getting the most for your dollar is the rule, all things are equal. Those who spend foolishly or take dangerous risks are not in the game long. This is a free enterprise system at its best.

Now, imagine taking the money from a separate unused game and inserting it into our current game’s economy. What happens is a natural law of balance. Everyone (the bank included) has more “money” (double in fact) and therefore bidding for properties also doubles as everyone enjoys the new found wealth. No property has gained value; the money has simply diminished in value. Not long after, all will agree to double rents as well to keep the bank from having the money sitting idle and confiscating the funds from the game since the purpose of the game is accumulate wealth not have it confiscated by the “Central Bank” in mortgage and interest.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you are all right back where you started before adding wealth to the game. You have twice as much money, it is worth half as much, and you have to work twice as hard to get it.

You lose, not the bank. Since the money is less valuable you need to borrow more. More money loaned collects more interest and that is good for “the bank”. The fact that the money is created from debt not real money is a transaction, not a concern. This also creates inflation.

What this spells for a government is disaster. We see this now in the form of government deficit spending and not enough backing for our dollars. It is time to restore the guarantee behind our dollars and stop this game the Federal Reserve and our Government is playing with our real money. In the end, we will all lose and those who directed this ultimate failure will be laughing all the way to the bank. But what form of “money” will they use?

One must know there can only be four forms of “money”, Commodity, Receipt, Fractional, and Fiat.

Commodity “money” is generally gold, silver, platinum, and titanium. (Our first form of “money”) However, during times of conflict in a nation or globally, tobacco, sugar, and the like have also been used and still are to extent. It is one in which a stable basis of value is derived by all accepting its true value. This reaches a balance too as each decides one commodity’s value based on another. It is the only “real money”.

Receipt “money” is one that is guaranteed by storing the Commodity “money” (gold, silver, ect.) and issuing a piece of paper (a receipt or “Note”) to its owner and will redeem the “note” for the “real money” whenever the holder demands it. Governments have done this since banking began. This is a good system as long as the real money is there and the people can trust those who oversee its safekeeping. This was our old form of money prior to 1964.

Fractional “money” (our form of money until the boom of the 1980’s) is money that is backed in part by real money held in storage and the rest by the government’s ability to tax the remainder from its citizens (in 1964 it was approximately 54% real assets, 46% due through taxation). Yet, there is more paper money in circulation than there is commodity money to redeem upon demand. As more money is printed, the fraction of its value in real money is diminished through inflation.

This process, every single time used in past governments, resulted in total failure of the economy it was started to preserve. The fraction of value in real money eventually went to zero due to inflation and distrust of the government issuing it caused political and civil unrest. Economic collapse was absolutely inevitable and that gave way for the creation to the next step to prevent unrest, Fiat “money”.

Fiat “money” is fake “money”, just like that in our game of Monopoly. It has no backing other than the insistence of the Government that its value is to be accepted by all at face value without ever being exchanged for “real money” held by the government issuing it.

These governments then decree that, under penalty of imprisonment, one must accept it as legal tender. It has no value and it is the last step in the collapse and overtaking of a society throughout history. Time after time this happens and without fail the society collapses into submission. This is our present money.

Only by the reinstitution of a “gold standard” were past governments restored to a stable economy and prospering government. Even in Colonial America before the forming of the United States was instituted did we see this nearly unfold. That is why our money was coined in silver and gold prior to 1964. This is clearly outlined in the Constitution and is our only “real money”.

However, governments of the world are also in the same shape. Thus the creation of the “World Bank”, or the IMF (International Monetary Fund), was needed and it began rushing to the rescue loaning its own Fractional “money” (based upon the governments backing it with promises of raising the funds by taxation in the event of a “run on the bank”) to those countries who have reached the final stage of this process and can’t pay it’s debts due to the lowered value of its “money”. The IMF too is well on its way to being “Fiat money”. In reality, it already is, for the IMF has no “reserves” only “promises to pay”.

We must regain our own control over our National Reserves. We must not allow the creation of money from nothing more than a printing press and a decree by government and return to our place as the median for exchange in the World. The redistribution of our money to the rest of the world in the form of loans never repaid will create a global collapse economically.

As one must question the soundness of these statements, they are factual and are well known within the government. As Alan Greenspan testified in 1967:

“In absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.” He continues, “There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there will be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.”

He closes with the most frightening statement yet, “This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.”

He was promptly appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve in following years and has never commented on this fact again.

Our country has seen this process unfold and yet has not noticed nor understands where it is taking us for lack of history. We see the confiscation of property rights, freedoms, and liberties while growing a welfare state. Such a government is what America has fought against throughout her history. Collapse will be our destiny under these actions and it is not by accident. It is the plan of corrupt governments throughout history and as such, will repeat itself if we do not learn from history. Those who hold the gold will be those in control. I want to redeem my “money”.

Why Do You Care if OPEC Abandons the Dollar?

2008-02-12T17:21:00.000-05:00

by David Tanner
February 12, 2008

Today's Wall Street Journal Marketbeat carried an article entitled OPEC Rattles the Dollar. In it OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri was quoted in the Middle East Economic Digest, saying “maybe we can price the oil in the euro.”

Why would they want to do that?

Because the lowering of interest rates by the Fed has the effect of flooding the economy with money/dollars (Which is exactly why the Fed lowers the rates....so the extra money boosts the economy). But, the extra money created out of thin air devalues all existing dollars. This is known as inflation.

This devaluation of all existing dollars occurs because the new dollars are backed by nothing.

To understand this, a little history lesson might help.

In 1933, FDR signed Executive Order #6102 which outlawed private gold ownership. Americans were instructed to turn in their gold, and dollars would no longer be redeemable in gold. This did not apply to foreign governments who wished to redeem their dollars in gold, so the dollar remained the standard currency for international settlements.

However, when Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, governments nor individuals could any longer redeem their dollars for gold. The dollar became a peice of paper backed by the credit of the US Government.

This is the problem OPEC and the world are trying to avoid... holding more dollars
.
The US already has more debt than it can ever repay. Because of this, foreigners are hesitant to loan us any more money (Which is in essence what happens when they hold our dollars).

Would you loan money to a friend who already owed you $100,000, earned an annual salary of $20,000, and paid half of that in interest? No, that wouldn't be too smart.

Well, OPEC doesn't want to loan more to the US either, but for fear of military reprisal, they are only very very slowly moving in this direction.

Today's statement was nothing more than a testing of the waters for an American response, so that OPEC will know if it is safe to proceed.

With Americans already weary of an unwinnable war, and an election year where no candidate wants to escalate our military involvements, now would be a logical time for OPEC to move in this direction, as reprisals would seem unlikely, at least until after November.

The bottom line is this: OPEC does not want to be paid in dollars, because dollars are a depreciating asset.

AND WHY DO YOU CARE?

As dollars depreciate, more and more investors will turn to gold to preserve their purchasing power. Whether you are buying physical gold, or a gold fund, such as the Franklin Gold & Precious Metals Fund, the long term prospects for above average performance appear to remain intact.

For bond investors, European bonds denominated by the Euro look to continue to be a good hedge against the falling dollar. Not only does the investor earn interest from the fund, but as the dollar declines, the underlying value of the fund increases as well.

My favorite for several years has been the Templeton Global Bond Fund.

A Short Primer On How Increased Money Supply Causes Inflation

2008-01-14T13:15:00.000-05:00

WEALTH BUILDING REPORT
Issue 25
January 8th, 2008

By: Roland Manarin
investor@manarin.com

I recently received an email from a reader who asks:

“I often hear you speak on the radio about the money supply being the life blood of the economy and as the money supply expands, so does economic factors. What sounds a bit contradictory is on one hand the life blood of economic growth is the money supply, yet is also the main cause of inflation . . . so how does the balancing act work between these two factors?”

What a great question. Here’s my answer.

The infusion of what is called “loose money” is always a stimulating consequence for the economy in the short term. The analogy I often use is pumping oxygenated blood into your body.

The downside is the Fed’s ability to create money without limit does cause misallocation and malinvestment of capital, as we’ve recently witnessed with the housing fallout that Alan Greenspan created.

But the growth of the money supply we’ve seen is a positive over the next couple of years and we will eventually see the results in the economy (and profits in our portfolios.)

Long term, the creation of money out of nothing always causes inflation, which is a problem, especially for those investors whose portfolios are filled with dollar-based investments.

The reason we haven’t seen major waves of inflation despite mass creation of money is because the U.S. economy does not have a shortage of goods. This is acting like a sponge soaking up the new money.

Remember the real definition of inflation: It’s the increase in the supply of dollars which causes prices to rise when not enough goods and services are available to absorb the new money.

The difference between now and the Jimmy Carter days was that back then there was a major structural problem with the economy. Simply put, there weren’t enough factories to produce enough stuff to soak up the money being created.

If you double the money supply without doubling goods and services, the price eventually doubles.

In our current go-round, the Fed has doubled the money supply but the supply of goods and services has also doubled so it’s almost a wash.

I say “almost” because in reality, there is actually a lot more inflation than what the government-published statistics indicate, as evident just by living.

In the short term, I’m bullish on the stock market. In the long term, inflation is like the tide coming in pushing up all assets up thus driving up stock prices as well.

So how do interest rates fit into all this?

An interest rate is the cost of renting money and the bond market is telling me the Fed is not expecting a lot of long term inflation based on current yields.

There is no other way to explain this other than the current supply of goods and services.

Investors who are concerned about the money supply growth creating inflation are certainly thinking correctly but they also have to take in to account what is happening with that money. Once that is figured out, it’s easy to plan accordingly.

I have a few more thoughts and observations about what is going on in the economy. If you want them, go to www.manarin.com, click on the LATEST NEWS tab, and read the article I recently wrote for InvestorsAlley.com.

Roland Manarin is president of Omaha-based Manarin Investment Counsel, Ltd. and portfolio manager of the Lifetime Achievement Fund. He teaches seminars, hosts a weekly radio show, and for the last 30 years he has counseled investors on building and maintaining wealth. He can be reached at 800-397-1167.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“. . .Global warming is cyclical, has occurred many times before in Earth’s history, is caused by cycles in solar activity, is NOT caused by industrial activity, is NOT dangerous (in fact is beneficial), and is being used as a scare tactic to frighten people into accepting greater government control over our activities and our lives.”

-- G. Edward Griffin

The Effects of an Inflated Money Supply

2007-12-11T14:08:00.000-05:00

WEALTH BUILDING REPORT
Issue 21
December 11th, 2007
By: Roland Manarin

I was recently asked by an editor of a publication written for baby boomers to contribute a guest article. As I began typing away, I got to thinking about people’s perceptions of money and how older generations hold attitudes that are based on what took place leading up to and during the Great Depression. Maybe they didn’t live through it themselves but their parents did and these experiences were the foundation of how these people invest their money.

Unfortunately, what most boomers think they know about the causes of the Depression is flawed. Since the boomers were among the first generation to be raised under the government-run socialist model of education, they never heard the anti-statist, free market side of this history lesson.

Today, these boomers hold high ranking positions in banking, economics, politics, and academia so the conventional message they were taught continues to be spread. Any messages not in agreement with the popular thinking are considered absurd and delusional.

There are some boomers who’ve acquired the knowledge to understand the truth and have used that wisdom to improve their standard of living, but not enough so here’s a simplified version that isn’t likely to appear in school textbooks:

In any type of political system, the power seekers (politicians) want to maintain their position of authority and will do whatever it takes to prevent being run out of office.

Modern politicians know that if voters are taxed too much, they will not be reelected. So instead of raising taxes, the politicians have another way to get more money, which is, to create it out of thin air. In other words, they inflate the money supply.

Today, our federal government is assisted in this process by the banking system and the Federal Reserve.

Common sense (and history) tells you that governments possessing the ability to print money out of nothing usually never stop.

Would you?

It’s no different than a drug addict who gets hooked on the first high. The only way to break the habit it so stop but this process can be quite painful. When governments attempt to “kick the habit” of artificially inflating the money supply, the economy experiences a hangover. In economic terms this would be a recession; and if the hangover is bad enough, a depression.

To get an idea of how money works when governments manipulate it, pretend that you live in an imaginary kingdom called Acirema (try spelling it backwards) where you happen to own a thriving business.The kingdom’s monetary system is based on a paper currency which can be printed without limit. When the King needs money to pay the expenses of the kingdom, or fight a war against his enemies, he just prints more.

If he prints enough and spends it building castles or equipping armies, it starts to spread around to others and they in turn spend it. Soon your business begins to grow.

To take advantage of this economic boom, you hire more workers and build more factories. In no time at all, businesses throughout the kingdom are booming and life is wonderful except that when demand gets out of hand, prices go up, for everyone.

Everything you need to run your business is costing more and even though your business is growing, your profits are declining.

You decide that the answer is to grow bigger, build more factories, hire more people, and distribute your products to an eager market. But unlike the King, you don’t have a printing press to create more money so you are forced to borrow from the bank, which is in turn borrowing the money to lend you from the King, whose printing press is now running nonstop.

This continues to devalue current money that is already in circulation thus driving up prices. Finally, the value of the money becomes so bad and people are complaining so loudly that the King sees that he will be overthrown if he doesn’t do something.

So he shuts down the printing press. No new money goes into the economy which the King thinks will solve the inflation problem. But the kingdom is hooked on the growing money supply and the ability to borrow easily.

Soon the economy begins to stagnate along with your business forcing you to lay off workers and sell some of your business assets to keep up with the loans you took out. Other businesses are experiencing this as well and soon the economy has a serious hangover.

But what is the source of the chaos?

It starts at the top with the power seekers and their manipulation of the money supply.

My key point is this oversimplified scenario outlines what happened in the U.S. from 1915 to 1929 which led to and caused the Great Depression of the 1930s, and in Ronald Reagan’s words . . . government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.

Rare is the boomer today who doesn’t make financial planning decisions based on their assumptions of what occurred during this time in history.

Since boomers control a huge chunk of assets in the market today, I see a whole lot of unsound investment decisions being made out there. And it’s not just Joe Sixpack, it’s leading financial experts as well. The ease by which the crowd accepts the conventional model of financial safety proves to me the lamentable state of knowledge surrounding monetary history, economics, and their affect on investments is not improving.

Regardless of your age, the fact that you are taking the time to read this tells me that you are among the few who ignores the compulsion I witness so many of your peers being swayed by.

Economist John Maynard Keynes said, “There is no subtler, or surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debase the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which only one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

Rest assured, I will continue helping as many as I can while spreading the message far and wide in order to increase the odds that more than one in a million understands the rest of the story about their money.

It is my hope that you will do the same.

Roland Manarin is president of Omaha-based Manarin Investment Counsel, Ltd. and portfolio manager of the Lifetime Achievement Fund. He teaches seminars, hosts a weekly radio show, and for the last 30 years he has counseled investors on building and maintaining wealth. He can be reached at 402-330-1166 or 800-397-1167 or email to investor@manarin.com.

MANARIN ON THE RADIO
Listen to our weekly radio show at: www.manarin.com/radio_show/

Think It Can't Happen Here?

2007-11-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

It is hard for us to fathom that our trusted and beloved government might not have our best interests at heart.....That they might be intentionally selling us down the globalist river.

The mountain of evidence that the Federal Reserve is not a pro-American institution leaves one to conclude that the powers-that-be are either incredibly ignorant of this fact, or...... are willing participants.

And for what purpose? I submit the following hypothesis:

To cripple our nation economically.

Americans will never willingly submit their sovereignty to a world government organization. However, let them get hungry enough, and they just might. Let terrorists scare them enough, and they just might.

Again, before you conclude that our leadership has not sold us out, consider:

1. Could we not have prevented the 911 attacks? Sure we could. All we had to do is simply enforce our existing laws. Terrorists are nothing new. We haven't had a problem keeping them out up till now.

Do you really think these camel jockey who go from one cave to the other in hiding, can come over here and pull off an attack of this magnitude right under our noses?

We have satellites that that can count the number of hairs on your head.

Remember the fighter jet night vision cockpit videos from Iraq. Incredible technology!

And what was the result of the attack? New laws (Homeland Security) that further erode the freedoms that you and I enjoy.

Let's look at this thing another way. If you wanted to erode the freedoms of Americans, what would you do? I submit it would be easier to scare them into giving up their freedoms, than outright taking them.

2. What has been the effect of illegals in our nation? I submit this has not been an economic positive. Could we not easily prevent this problem (as we have done for over a hundred years) by simply enforcing our existing laws? I say yes.

Every time you hear yourself say "those stupid politicians," ask yourself "what will be the end result of this 'stupid' thing that they have done?" In time you will begin to see a pattern to your answers.

Do you really think Washington was stupid enought to buy $600 toilet seats? And where did that money go. Where did it come from? Did it strengthen or weaken America?

Nafta, War in Iraq, exporting of US jobs, etc. etc. etc. All have weakened our nation economically. Women in combat have weakened our military. The news media and Hollywood have weakened our morals. Sold out spiritual leaders, who are more interested in mega-ministries than the gospel our nation was founded on, have contributed to the weakening of our faith.

Yes, I believe there is a larger plan at work here.

I leave you with the following quotes:

1933
"All safety deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed......and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the IRS." President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933

Click here to see a copy of the Executive Order signed by President Roosevelt ordering the surrender of private citizen's gold. This is an Executive Order that has no Constitutional basis, yet found no real resistence from Congress.

Today
Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.:

There is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon.

Paul Harvey, well-known and respected news commentator, reported:

What's new? The Liberty Dollar! Fed Ex competes with the Post Office. So now there's the Liberty Dollar competing with the greenbacks printed by your government. The Liberty Dollar is backed by gold and silver. Yes, there's a competitive currency right here in the United States. In five years it has become the second most popular currency in America.

Click here to watch local news coverage of the Liberty Dollar.

Guess what happened when this town tried to do an end run around the Fed and issue a perfectly legal currency?

Watch CNBC news coverage here.

Think we cannot become a totalitarian state? Think it can't happen here? Wake up! Read history! It already has, and is happening again.

A Money Game You Can Win!

2007-11-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

by Justice Litle, Editor
Outstanding Investments Newsletter

"You could almost call it a benign conspiracy." -- Chet Currier, Bloomberg columnist

(Regarding the Federal Reserve manipulation of the economy)

.....How long can this go on? No one really knows. It's sort of like a game of musical chairs. As long as a veneer of psychological stability is maintained - i.e., as long as cash doesn't become trash too quickly - we could continue to see an upward trend in nominal values, even as real values stall out, or even decline. Sooner or later, gold is going to break its 1980 highs in nominal terms.(This could easily happen in 2007.) After that, it will break its 1980 highs in inflation-adjusted terms -- which will prove a much more note worthy feat.

It's always been sort of assumed that the conditions in which gold does this would be very ugly. Equity markets will have crashed, all Hades willhave broken loose, and so on. That could certainly still be the case. But it could also be that the Dow marches steadily higher along with gold, calm as a flat and glassy sea; if the fiction of prosperity is maintained, investors might be content to keep riding the merry-go-round, smiling like mildly sedated children.

In this scenario, everyone stays happy except the poor man in the street, who doesn't have enough paper asset holdings to cancel out the steady rise in day-to-day living expenses. A slow debasement of the currency, to the benefit of paper asset holders, is thus a rather ingenious way to rob hundreds of millions of unaware citizens. Not all at once, of course, but in dribs and drabs... a little bit at a time.

Currier's "benign conspiracy" is perhaps not so benign after all. Since we're laying on the quotes this week, here is one more from AldousHuxley, author of the dystopian classic Brave New World. The quote is twice as old as I am, but could have been written yesterday:

"There is, of course, no reason why the new totalitarians should resemble the old. Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not only inhumane (nobody cares much about that nowadays), it is demonstrably inefficient and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost.

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.

The most important Manhattan projects of the future will be vast government-sponsored enquiries into what the politicians and the participating scientists will call 'the problem of happiness' -- in other words, the problem of making people love their servitude."

The problem of happiness. Hmmm. Sound familiar? Not the most pleasant thought, I know. The world can be a depressing place at times. But in spite of all the chicanery and deceit, there is much to be joyful for and much to be grateful for. If you see all this madness as a game - a game you are forced to play, but a game nonetheless - it becomes easier to take things less seriously. Best of all, with a little skill and determination, it is a game you can win.

The Assassination of Congressman Larry McDonald [Korean Airlines flight 007]

2007-11-02T17:35:00.000-04:00

by Todd Brendan Fahey
April 12, 2004

This article and many others may be found at Friends of Liberty

I was a seventeen-year old junior in high school when Dan Rather's face came on the screen, August 31/September 1, 1983, reporting that a passenger aircraft had been shot down by Soviet fighter planes over the Sea of Japan. And aboard was Congressman Lawrence Patton "Larry" McDonald.What Mr. Rather didn't say, as no one dared say, for several days after the event...the damage control operation being, I assume, of incredible proportions...is that Larry McDonald was not only a 5-term U.S. Congressman, Democrat, from Georgia's 7th district, but that he was simultaneously Chairman of the John Birch Society and President of Western Goals Foundation. What Mr. Rather also did not say--never will say--is, that Dr. McDonald (he was a Board certified physician, an M.D., with flight surgeon experience aboard the Vice President's craft, Air Force 2) had announced that he would run for the Presidency of the United States in 1988 (a fact confirmed by McDonald's trusted advisor and former OSS agent Hilaire duBerrier and by officials at John Birch Society's headquarters and also via associates of Dr. McDonald, through his Western Goals Foundation).

Not coincidentally, 1988 was the year that George Bush ran for the Presidency and won.

George Herbert Walker Bush had been or was, currently, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Ambassador to the United Nations; Chairman of the Republican National Committee; a prominent member and director in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and Yale's Order of Skull & Bones, chapter 322.

Dr. Larry McDonald was the most elegant, connected and baritone opponent of World Government on the face of the planet. He was our Patrick Henry and Ben Franklin and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson rolled into one. The man was a soul on fire.

Things came to loggerheads. There was no avoiding it. And when the word came, Larry McDonald was taken out--assassinated--on orders of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, for exposing and attempting and threatening to expose the inner-sanctum secrets of the planners of World Government...

Early in 1985, while as a criminal justice student at Arizona State University, I attended a gathering at Clarendon Towers, Phoenix (a ritzy high-rise), where lived J. Wayne Watson, then a member of the National Council of the John Birch Society. Mr. Watson had sort of taken me under his wing and was instrumental in channelling donations into Students for the John Birch Society at ASU, of which I was founder and chapter leader.

The guest speaker at Clarendon Towers was one Hilaire duBerrier--a former operative of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, under the command of "Wild" Bill Donovan), which was the precursor to the CIA.

Mr. duBerrier was Larry McDonald's most-trusted advisor.

At this meeting, Mr. duBerrier reported (and which was filmed by an old doctor in Phoenix, whose name I possess, and who I am sure is now deceased; the whereabouts of this videocassette are unknown at this time) that:

1) Lawrence Patton McDonald was a cousin of the late General George S. Patton.

2) General George S. Patton had collaborated with German spymaster Reinhard Gehlen (Gehlen Org), toward re-arming the remainder of the German army and mounting a German/US invasion of the Soviet Union.

3) Through nepotism and the fact that Larry McDonald was a genius and a master spy himself, eventually Gehlen Org was given over to Congressman Larry McDonald. Larry McDonald possessed most of the secrets held by the legendary Reinhard Gehlen, and Gehlen's operatives were now under the control of Larry McDonald.

4) Congressman McDonald had planted personnel sympathetic to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights deep into 5 or 6 international Embassies, by which McDonald could obtain information pertinent to the goings-on of these nations.

5) Congressman McDonald had also, somehow, impossibly, managed to retrieve and secure nearly the sum-total of the House Un-American Activity Committee's (HUAC) records of the 1950s, which held sensitive information relative to communist infiltration of many branches of the U.S. Government, including the State Department and Dept. of Treasury, and also files on Hollywood leftists/communists. Many of McDonald's staffers called his office, "HUAC East."

6) Dr. McDonald had extremely friendly and cooperative relationships with at least six (6) U.S. military Generals and two (2) Naval Admirals.

It is surmised by some that the failsafe mechanism that Larry McDonald was building was--in any case of extreme breach of the Constitution--to mount a coup upon Washington, D.C., whereby Larry McDonald and his vast military "followers" (and given the names of the Generals and Colonels loyal to McDonald, there would have been two hundred thousand ready participants, at the whistle call) and would surround Washington D.C. and seize back the control of the U.S. Constitution, as it was intended to be exercised by our Founders.

Dr. Lawrence Patton McDonald was the most dangerous person alive. And he was murdered like a dog BY U.S. GOVERNMENT.

How and Why International Bankers Make War

2007-11-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

The First President of the World

In June of 1919, the victorious powers were in Paris deliberating over the best way to carve up Europe. With each national delegation came a coterie of financial advisors: Paul Warburg negotiating for the Americans and Max Warburg defending the interests of the Germans. Woodrow Wilson found his hour amongst this milieu of dignitaries.

Wilson forbade copies of the Treaty of Versailles being given to the Senate, Congress or any common American. He did not discuss the deals he made on behalf of the American people with their representatives. While British, French and German delegates regularly informed their governments and people of the terms of this “peace,” the Americans were conspicuously kept in the dark.

But not every American. A few select personages in New York were kept informed about the terms of the treaty. Eventually Senator Borah of Idaho learned the source of these leaked government documents. Mr. Jacob Schiff, Mr. J. P. Morgan, Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Thomas Lamont, Mr. Henry P. Davison and Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip were subpoenaed to testify before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate. [1]

The Witnesses:
Five years before Paul Warburg had been appointed to the Federal Reserve Board and J.P. Morgan (the elder) was a driving force behind the Bank's creation. Warburg had designed the Fed system: its aims were the centralization of banking control and a bottomless source of credit for the US Congress. Jacob Schiff was also in the business of lending to governments; he was partner in Kuhn Loeb and Company and related to Warburg by marriage. All three had ties to the older banking houses in Frankfurt and London.

The less famous men were no less interesting:
Henry P. Davison was a member of the J.P. Morgan & Co., chairman of the American Red Cross and League of Red Cross Societies. The Red Cross had privileged access to both sides of the Great War under their neutral flag.

Thomas Lamont was a member of JP Morgan & Co. too, and the US Treasury's advisor to the American Peace Delegation in Paris (the negotiators of the Versailles Treaty). Both sides of the Federal Reserve partnership were represented in this man.

Frank A. Vanderlip was a journalist who became president of the National City Bank (now Citibank). In between these positions he was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. It was under Vanderlip's guidance that National City became the first American bank to expand overseas. He also created the International American Corporation: a banking conglomerate which had 17 branches world wide by the end of the First World War. Vanderlip was also a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. [2]

Comedy

The hearing was a political battle between senators concerned with American national interests and compromised senators desperately trying to absolve the witnesses. From the financiers subpoenaed, only J.P. Morgan Jr., Davison and Vanderlip bothered to show up.

The Senate committee was methodical in the order of witnesses. Firstly, Senator Borah recounted his information about the existence in New York of copies of the peace treaty with Germany. Specifically, powerful financiers had secured copies and were using them to their private advantage. It was illegal to have copies of the undisclosed text: the best information that the Senate had about the treaty was just one Associated Press dispatch.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge volunteered to testify that he had seen a copy of the treaty in New York, but it was shown to him by a friend with absolutely no ties to financial circles. Senator Lodge had never heard of anyone in finance ever seeing the treaty. He repeated this message several times.

President Wilson wrote to the committee himself to reaffirm that unauthorized possession of the treaty in the US was against the law. This was interesting, seeing as his closest advisors were the source of the leak.

The Secretary of State Frank Lyon Polk asserted that all copies of the treaty legally in the United States were in his possession — specifically, they were locked in a safe in his office with the diplomatic seals unbroken.

Senator Elihu Root offered testimony next. The thrust of Senator Root's speech was to extol the munificence of Mr. Davison, and distance himself form this case of corporate espionage. In his effort to clear Davison, Elihu contradicted both the President's and Secretary Polk's testimony: he claimed copies of the treaty were very common in the US. According to Senator Root, every American staffer in Paris (there were over 200) was likely to have leaked the text. It was simply a strange coincidence that he was the only US Senator able to get a copy. (Elihu's treaty had been supplied by Davison.)

Tragedy

In his personal testimony Davison did not try to hide the fact that Thomas Lamont had given him the treaty. Instead, Davison said his power as “Secretary of the Red Cross” and an “international banker” justified his having a copy. Davison's self-importance was astounding. He claimed that only his organizations were able to rebuild Europe: firstly through the Red Cross Organization, then through a consortium of private bankers which would marshal America's resources for a massive loan. The “League of Nations” was the new world power and Davison part of that league — so the US government was inconsequential by comparison.

Davison's “consortium of private bankers” were his Kuhn Loeb, J. P. Morgan and National City Bank connections, as well as their partners in London and Frankfurt. He wanted to use the newly-established banking monopoly — the Federal Reserve System — to make loans to the European governments. American money would be lent out, but the US government would be excluded from the process and private bankers would collect the interest. Mr. Davison thought that the Liberty Bond organization was the perfect organ to implement this plan. (Liberty bonds provided the bulk of the American financing for the First World War.) The fact that this organization could be used outside of Washington's control provides insight into its inner workings.

“Europe must be regarded now as a whole” [3]

The testimonies of J P Morgan and Vanderlip shed more light on how this new loan process would work. JP Morgan tells us that the US Government bought over seven billion dollars worth of European bonds from his firm and Kuhn Loeb & Co. in the years leading up to the war. After that, Vanderlip explains why Europe's debts to the US government must be forgiven. Europe couldn't afford new loans if they had to repay the old ones.

The reader should remember that these bankers make money by selling bonds, not by holding them until they are repaid. When financiers lobby to forgive debt, they are setting up more profits for themselves while asking the general public to eat the losses. The same trick is used today through the IMF, World Bank and their various off-shoots.

Foreshadowing

The way that the new loan was designed would have created an economically unified Europe in one sweep. The bankers would become the central planners of this empire, not unlike the Bolsheviks in Russia two years before, or the planners in Brussels today.

Vanderlip disclosed why it was important that the bankers hold the new loan. He explained how European governments could pay the interest: by giving the bankers first lien on the customs of each country. This means Europe would pay the bankers with their products. The financiers would determine how the loans were parceled out to each country, and what industries get what materials. The point is that the bankers would control the resulting monopolies. This is exactly what international financiers liked about Communism and early Fascism.

Far from being a champion of “self-determination,” the US president assisted these financiers behind Congress's and the Senate's back. Wilson chose to ignore the fact that the House and Senate had to ratify his proposals before they became law or America's commitments. Why? It was obvious that the United States Congress was not politically disposed to the financiers' aims. In Senator Borah's words, Woodrow was acting like “President of the World.”

By digging into the treaty leak in New York, the Committee shed light on an attempt to end the sovereignty of at least fifteen nations: America through political disenfranchisement and those in Europe through economic dictatorship. The reader can judge for themselves how far this plan came to fruition.

[1] Investigation Relevant to the Peace Treaty With Germany: Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing, Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session. Pursuant to Senate Resolution 64: Directing the Committee on Foreign Relations to investigate whether copies of the peace treaty with Germany are in the city of New York, by whom and how they were obtained, and so forth. 1919.

[2] Harvard University's “20th Century Great American Business Leaders.” Accessed June 2007. The Modern History Project, as quoted from: "The Vanderlip, Van Derlip, Vander Lippe Family in America", by Charles Edwin Booth, New York, 1914.

[3] Quotation from Mr. Vanderlip's testimony before the Committee.

The Origins of the Fed

2007-11-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

A Talk by Edward Griffin
Author of The Creature from Jekyll Island

We'll start way back in history to give some kind of historical perspective to this; we'll go back to the first century BC and the tiny kingdom of Phrygia. There was a philosopher by the name of Epictetus and it was Epictetus who said "Appearances are of four kinds: things either are as they appear to be; or they neither are nor appear to be; or they are but do not appear to be; or they are not and yet appear to be." When I read that statement for the first time, I had a big chuckle over it and I thought for sure that if Epictetus were alive today he would probably be a Harvard professor of money and banking; it sounds like so many explanations that I have read about various aspects of the Federal Reserve System. What he did was he took a fairly simple concept but by the time that he was through explaining it, we didn't have any idea what he was talking about. All Epictetus said was that appearances can sometimes be deceiving. That's all he said but by the time he was through explaining the four different ways in which they can be deceiving, we were left back at the switch somewhere.

Nevertheless, I thought, accidentally perhaps, Epictetus had given me a track to run on so-to-speak. Actually it could be the theme since if there's anything in the world that is deceiving it is the Federal Reserve System. In fact, it is one of those appearances of the fourth kind which are those appearances which are not and yet appear to be. I'm going to use that as sort of a hook on the topic. We'll come back to it from time-to-time and punctuate it if I can remember to do that because it tells us something at the most fundamental level about the Federal Reserve System and that is that appearances can be deceiving.

When I did my research on this topic I came to the startling conclusion that the Federal Reserve System does not need to be audited, it needs to be abolished. This is very intriguing to think we should audit the Fed but I discovered that probably if they audited the Fed it would get a clean bill because it's undoubtedly doing exactly what it's supposed to do according to the law. What it is supposed to do according to the law is justification for abolishing it so all we have to do is understand what the Federal Reserve System is supposed to do and we'll be pretty upset about it. The fact of the matter is that most people haven't the foggiest idea of what it is in fact supposed to do.

I came to the conclusion that the Federal Reserve needed to be abolished for six reasons. I'd like to read them to you now just so that you get an idea of where I'm coming from, as they say. I put these into the most concise phrasing that I can to make them somewhat shocking and maybe you'll remember them:

1. The Federal Reserve is incapable of accomplishing its stated objectives.
2. It is a cartel operating against the public interest.
3. It's the supreme instrument of usury.
4. It generates our most unfair tax.
5. It encourages war.
6. It destabilizes the economy.

I don't know what you think about those seven points. I know a lot
of you folks agree with them right off the bat, but I presume that there are some skeptics here tonight and I hope there are otherwise I am the minister talking to the choir. I know in fact that there are always quite a few skeptics that come to these meetings and frankly you are the folks I'm talking to tonight because once, not too long ago, I was in that same frame of mind. I would've thought to myself those are rather extreme statements, I don't think they can be supported by fact. Though time doesn't permit me to cover all of those seven points here tonight, I would like to splash around on the first four topics for a little while and show you that there is in fact quite a bit of reason for a rational person to conclude that those statements are true.

I think the best place to begin is with the formation of the "creature from Jekyll Island"; the creation of the Federal Reserve. It takes me back to the title of the book "The Creature from Jekyll Island" and anybody that's here thinking that we're going to show a movie which is a sequel to Jurassic Park, you're in the wrong place. The title was designed, of course, to attract attention but it does have a great deal of significance to it. For those of you who have not yet had a chance to delve into this, I should explain to you that Jekyll Island is a real island that's off the coast of Georgia. It was on that island back in 1910 that the Federal Reserve System was created at a highly secret meeting that took place there. What I'd like to do is illustrate to you that the meeting did in fact take place and I'll show some of the documentation that is available for that to prove that the secrecy was extreme and then we'll come face-to-face with the question "why the secrecy"? When things are done in secret quite often there's something to hide and we'll explore what it was that they wanted to hide. Once we've come to an understanding of that, then we'll finally understand a very important aspect of the Federal Reserve System which is not generally understood.

Back in 1910, Jekyll Island was completely privately owned by a small group of millionaires from New York. We're talking about people such as J. P. Morgan, William Rockefeller and their associates. This was a social club and it was called "The Jekyll Island Club." They owned the island and it was where their families came to spend the winter months. There was a magnificent structure there, the clubhouse, which was the center of their social activities. That clubhouse is still there, by-the-way. The island has since been purchased by the state of Georgia, converted into a state park and the clubhouse has been restored and you can visit it. I think you'd be very impressed by it. As you walk through the downstairs corridors you'll come to a door and on the door there is a brass plaque and it says: "In this room the Federal Reserve System was created." This is not a secret anymore; it's a matter of public record. Around the clubhouse there were some cottages as they were called which were built by some of the families to quarter themselves. They're attractive little things; they were magnificent examples of the architecture of the turn of the century. One of the cottages through which they take tours if you're interested in doing that, as I recall the guide told us that there were 14 bathrooms in that cottage--not exactly what we would call a cottage.

The clubhouse is where the Federal Reserve System was created. Let's retell that story in detail and see how it came about. The year was 1910, that was three years before the Federal Reserve Act was finally passed into law. It was November of that year when Senator Nelson Aldrich sent his private railroad car to the railroad station in New Jersey and there it was in readiness for the arrival of himself and six other men who were told to come under conditions of great secrecy. For example, they were told to arrive one at a time and not to dine with each other on the night of their departure. They were told that should they arrive at the station at the same time they should pretend like they didn't even know each other. They were instructed to avoid newspaper reporters at all cost because they were well-known people and had they been seen by a reporter they would've asked questions. Especially if two or three of them had been spotted together, this would've raised eyebrows and they would've asked a lot of questions. One of the men carried a shotgun in a big black case so that if he had been stopped and asked where he was going he was prepared to say that he was going on a duck hunting trip. The interesting thing about that part of the story is that we find out later from his biographer that this man never fired a gun in his life, in fact he borrowed that shotgun just to carry with him on this trip as part of the deception.

Once they got on board the private railroad car this pattern continued. They were told to use first names only, not to use their last names at all. A couple of the men even adopted code-names. The reason for that is so that the servants on board the train would not know who these people were. They were afraid that if the servants would talk about it then the word would leak out and it might get into the press. They traveled for two nights and a day on board this car and they arrived after a 1,000 mile journey to Brunswick, Georgia. From there they took a ferry across the inland straits and they ended up on Jekyll Island in the clubhouse where for the next nine days they sat around the table and hammered out all the important details of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System. When they were done they went back to New York.

For quite a few years thereafter these men denied that any such meeting took place. It wasn't until after the Federal Reserve System was firmly established that they then began to talk openly about their journey and what they accomplished. Several of them wrote books on the topic, one of them wrote a magazine article and they gave interviews to newspaper reporters so now it's possible to go into the public record and document quite clearly and in detail what happened there.

Who were these seven men? The first one I have already mentioned, Senator Nelson Aldrich was the Republican whip in the Senate, he was the chairman of the National Monetary Commission which was the special committee of Congress created for the purpose of making a recommendation to Congress for proposed legislation to reform banking. The public was quite concerned in those days over what was going on in the banking industry; a lot of banks were folding, people were losing their investments in banks, they had broken their promise to guard the depositors assets, there were runs on the bank, banks couldn't give the people their money back. In particular they were concerned over the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few large banks in New York on Wall Street. This is what they called the "money trust" in those days. The money trust was a common phrase. Quite a few politicians had been elected to office on their campaign promise to break the grip of the money trust. President Wilson was one of those politicians that campaigned on that even though Wilson was himself hand-picked by the money trust and financed by the money trust and surrounded by the money trust--all of his advisors and politic cronies. The public didn't know that at the time and it was a popular issue. If you campaigned against the money trust you were quite apt to be elected and that was what I call "the people you love to hate" money trust.

That was one of the purposes of the National Monetary Commission which was to propose legislation to break the grip of the money trust and Aldrich was chairman of that committee. He was also the very important business associate of J. P. Morgan. He was the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. which means that eventually he became the grandfather of Nelson Rockefeller, our former vice-president. You remember his full name was Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller; his middle name being derived from his famous grandfather.

The second important person there was Abraham Andrew who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He later became a Congressman and he was very important in banking circles.

Frank Vanderlip was there. He was the President of the National City Bank of New York which was the largest of all of the banks in America representing the financial interests of William Rockefeller and the international investment firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.

Henry Davison was there, the senior partner of the J. P. Morgan Company. Charles Norton was there; he was the President of the First National Bank of New York which was another one of the giants. Benjamin Strong was at the meeting; he was the head of J. P. Morgan's Banker's Trust Company and Benjamin Strong three years later would become the first head of the Federal Reserve System.

Finally, there was Paul Warburg who was probably the most important at the meeting because of his knowledge of banking as it was practiced in Europe. Paul Warburg was born in Germany and eventually became a naturalized American citizen. He was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company and was a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France where he maintained very close working relationships throughout his entire career with his brother, Max Warburg, who was the head of the Warburg banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands. Paul Warburg was one of the wealthiest men in the world. In fact, those of you who are Little Orphan Annie fans will remember Daddy Warbucks. Daddy Warbucks was the characterization of Paul Warburg and everyone at the time was well aware of that fact. I have his photograph in my book and if you compare the photograph to the cartoon drawing you'll see the resemblance between Paul WARburg and Daddy WARbucks. And while we're on the topic of cartoon characters, if you played Monopoly, you remember the drawing of the capitalist with the handle-bar mustache and the cigar? That's J. P. Morgan.

These were the seven men aboard that railroad car who were at Jekyll Island. Amazing as it may seem, they represented approximately 1/4 of the wealth of the entire world. These are the men that sat around the table and created the Federal Reserve System. For the skeptic who's wondering it didn't happen that way surely Griffin is exaggerating to make some kind of a point. Let me put your mind at ease that it did happen that way (perhaps not at ease but in a state of tension).

How do we know? For example, Frank Vanderlip who was at the meeting wrote an article that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on February 9, 1935 and I'd like to read for you just a short excerpt from that article. This is what Vanderlip said: "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."

Why not? why the secrecy? what's the big deal about a group of bankers getting together in private and talking about banking or even banking legislation. And the answer is provided by Vanderlip himself in the same article. He said: "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 not? Because the purpose of the bill was to break the grip of the money trust and it was written by the money trust. And had that fact been known at the get-go, we would never have had a Federal Reserve System because as Vanderlip said it would have had no chance of passage at all by Congress. So it was essential to keep that whole thing a secret as it has remained a secret even to this day. Not exactly a secret that you couldn't discover because anybody can go to the library and dig this out, but it is certainly not taught in textbooks. We don't know any of this in the official literature from the Federal Reserve System because that was like asking the fox to build the henhouse and install the security system.

That was the reason for the secrecy at the meeting. Now we know something very important about the Federal Reserve that we didn't know before, but there's much more to it than that. Consider the composition of this group. Here we had the Morgans, the Rockefellers, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, the Rothschilds and the Warburgs. Anything strange about that mixture? These were competitors. These were the major competitors in the field of investment and banking in those days; these were the giants. Prior to this period they were beating their heads against each other, blood all over the battlefield fighting for dominance in the financial markets of the world. Not only in New York but London, Paris and everywhere. And here they are sitting around a table coming to an agreement of some kind. What's going on here? We need to ask a few questions.

This is extremely significant because it happened precisely at that point in American history where business was undergoing a major and fundamental change in ideology. Prior to this point, American business had been operating under the principles of private enterprise--free enterprise competition is what made American great, what caused it to surpass all of the other nations of the world. Once we had achieved that pinnacle of performance, however, this was the point in history where the shift was going away from competition toward monopoly. This has been described in many textbooks as the dawning of the era of the cartel and this was what was happening. For the fifteen year period prior to the meeting on Jekyll Island, the very investment groups about which we are speaking were coming together more and more and engaging in joint ventures rather than competing with each other. The meeting on Jekyll Island was merely the culmination of that trend where they came together completely and decided not to compete--they formed a cartel.

I need to define that word so that you will know what I mean when I use the word cartel. It is a group of independently owned businesses which come together for the purpose of reducing or eliminating competition between themselves to enhance their profit margin or to secure their positions in the market. They do this by various means one of which is price fixing--no competition on price. There are other means. If we were forming a cartel here I might insist that I get the north and you can have the south and we won't compete. Or I would say I'll produce the gizmo and you can have the widget and we won't compete or we'll share patents and processes and whatever we do we agree to eliminate competition between ourselves. The more layers of agreement that we put one on top of the other, the more we become encased in this cartel structure and we become as one insofar as the market is concerned even though within that grouping we are separately owned.

This is just as true with a banking cartel as it is with any other industry. We come to the conclusion when we analyze the nature of the Federal Reserve System how it operates, read the Federal Reserve Act, place it against the context of the historical background and we come smack to the realization that the Federal Reserve System although it parades around looking as though it's a government operation of some kind, is merely a cartel of banks right under our noses and it is protected by law. I sometimes get the impression that it's been there dangerously operating all these years and we didn't even know it. I saw a video some years ago about the lava tubes in Hawaii. They are very impressive because apparently once in a while the ground will just break out, a hole will fall down and you can look into the hole and you see that there's a river of lava actually flowing just a few feet under your feet and you don't even know it's down there unless something breaks through and you hope you're not on the piece that breaks through. I got the feeling that this is how the Federal Reserve has been operating right under our feet; this cartel has been running and we didn't even know it because that fact has been carefully concealed from us.

Conclusion number 2 about the Federal Reserve System, a very important thing that we didn't know is the cartel. There's even more to it than that. Perhaps the third ingredient is the most important of all and that is the realization that this cartel went into partnership with the government. Now we have hold of something extremely significant. Cartels often go into partnership with governments because they need the force of law to enforce their cartel agreement but in this case they did it in spades.

Whenever a partnership is formed there has to be a benefit to the partners otherwise they don't form it. So we need to ask the question what is the benefit, the payoff, for these two partners? Why did they go into it? Why did the government go into a partnership like this and why does the banking cartel? In answering those questions we finally come to grips with the reality of what this creature from Jekyll Island is. Let's take a look at that; what's the payoff to these two partners? In order to see that we'll have to examine in some detail the mechanism by which the Federal Reserve System creates money. This is a real interesting study. I call it the "Mandrake Mechanism" named after that comic-book character of the 40s, Mandrake the Magician, who could create something out of nothing and then wave his cape and it was back into the void again. That's a pretty descriptive phrase for the way the Federal Reserve System does it.

Let's take a look at it and see how they create money through the Mandrake Mechanism. I am going to do this in a very simplified form. I want to warn you that it's going to sound like it's too simple. It's not. I'm going to strip out all the banking terminology, all the banker language, all the accounting phrases that need to be defined and speak in very plain English that anybody can understand. It may sound to you as though I've simplified it too much and I want to assure you that in spite of the simple language everything I'm going to tell you is absolutely 100% technically accurate. The other thing I want to warn you about is don't try and make sense out of this because it can't be done; this does not make sense and you'll blow a fuse trying to make it make sense. Just remember that it is a scam and if you keep that fact in mind then you'll have no trouble comprehending what's going on.

Here's how it works. It starts with the government side of the partnership, it starts in Congress which is spending money like crazy. It spends far more money than it takes in. It is spending way beyond its income. How can it do that? Basically this is what happens. Let's say Congress needs an extra billion dollars today so it goes to the treasury and says "we want a billion dollars" and the treasury official says "you guys have got to be kidding, we don't have any money here, you spent it all a long time ago, everything that we've taken in taxes you fellows have spent by March." Congress says "we thought that was true but we thought we'd stop by just in case somebody sent some more in." They get together and they go down the street and they get the idea that we'll borrow the money. So they stop at the printing office and they don't print money at the printing office, they print certificates and they're very fancy things with borders on the edge with an eagle across the top and a seal at the bottom and it says "US Government Bond" or "Note" or "Bill" depending on the length of the maturity of it. If you hold it up to the light it really says "IOU" because that's what it is. They print these things up and it looks very impressive and then they offer them to the private sector; they're hoping that people will come up and loan money to the federal government and a lot of people do and are anxious to lend money to their government. Why? Because they've been told by their investment advisors that that's the most sound investment that you can make. Why? We've all heard that these loans are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. They're not quite sure what that means but it sure sounds good. I'd like to explain for you who are in doubt what that means. The full faith and credit of the US government means that the government solemnly promises to pay back that loan plus interest if it has to take everything you and I have in the form of taxes in order to do it, it's going to do it. It will take everything we have if necessary to hold its pledge. People don't realize that they're putting themselves on the line, they're going to get their own money back minus a substantial handling fee.

Plenty of money is loaned to the government but never enough. Congress needs more money than that. They say not to worry. They go further down the street to the Federal Reserve building. The Fed has been waiting for them, that's one of the reasons it was created. By the time they get inside the Federal Reserve building the officer of the Fed is opening his desk drawer. He knows they're going to be there and he's ready and he pulls out his checkbook and he writes a check to the US Treasury for one billion dollars or whatever the amount is that they need. He signs the check and gives it to the treasury official.

We need to stop here for a minute and ask a question. Where did they get a billion dollars to give to the treasury? who put that money into the account at the Federal Reserve System? The amazing answer is there is no money in the account at the Federal Reserve System. In fact, technically, there isn't even an account, there is only a checkbook. That's all. That billion dollars springs into being at precisely the instant the officer signs that check and that is called "monetizing the debt," that's the phrase they throw at you. That means they just wrote a check, a big rubber check. If you and I were to do that we would go to jail but they can do it because Congress wants them to do it. In fact, this is the payoff, this is the benefit to the government side of this partnership, this is how the government gets its instant access to any amount of money at any time without having to go to the taxpayer directly and justify it or ask for it. Otherwise, they would have to come to the taxpayer and say we're going to raise your taxes another $3,000 this year and of course if they did that, they would be voted out of office real fast. They like the Mandrake Mechanism because it's a no questions asked source of money. You may have noticed that it's been many years since Congress has even discussed what anything costs, it's not an issue. It doesn't make any difference what the cost is because regardless of the overrun they know they can go down the street to the Federal Reserve and by law the officer has to write that big check and give it to them and they're off and running.

There in a nutshell is the reason the government likes the Mandrake Mechanism--easy instant access to any amount of money of any kind without the taxpayer being involved directly in the loop. But what about the banking side? This is where it really gets interesting. Let's go back to that billion dollar check. The treasury official deposits the check into the government's checking account and all of a sudden the computers start to click and it shows that the government has a billion dollar deposit meaning that it can now write a billion dollars in checks against that deposit which it starts to do real fast. For the sake of our analysis, let's just follow $100 out of that billion in a check that for some reason they write to the fellow that delivers the mail to our door. The postal worker gets a check for $100 and he looks at this thing and he can't imagine in his wildest dreams that that money didn't exist two days ago anywhere in the universe. It's spendable so he wouldn't even care if you told him. He deposits it now into his personal checking account. Now we're finally out of the Federal Reserve and out of the government's check and we're into the private banking system. We're in finally to that part of the partnership which is involved in the cartel. A $100 deposit has now been made in the local bank and the banker sees that and runs over to the loan window and opens it up and says "attention, everybody, we have money to loan, someone just deposited $100." Everyone is overjoyed at that because that's one of the reasons they come to the bank, they come to borrow money. That's a sign of national health if you're in debt so they're anxious to know that the bank has money to loan, they line up for these loans. They heard the banker and they say $100 that's not very much and he says not to worry we can loan up to $900 based on that $100 deposit. How can that be done? It gets complicated the way they do it and I'll tell you in very simple terms. The Federal Reserve System requires that the banks hold no less than 10% of their deposits in reserve. The bank holds 10% of that $100 in reserve, $10, and it loans this first fellow in line $90. What does he do with it? He wants to spend it so he puts it into his checking account. In fact it probably goes directly into his checking account. Let's assume that they gave it to him and he puts it back, when he puts it back it's a deposit isn't it?

Only a $100 deposit but $900 in loans and that deposit is still there. Where did the $900 come from and the answer is the same--there was no money. This springs into existence precisely at the point at which the loan is made. Notice the difference, an important distinction is when the money is created out of nothing for the government it is spent by the government. On the banking side, however, when it's created out of nothing it's not spent by the banks it is loaned by the banks to you and to me and we spend it. Notice that when they loan it to us we have to pay them interest on it. Think about this for a minute. This money was created out of nothing and yet they collect interest on it which means that they collect interest on nothing. Not too shabby! What a concept, why didn't I think of that! I wish I had a magic checkbook like that where I could just write checks all day long and didn't have to have any money any place just checks, loan it to you folks and you're silly enough to pay me interest on it. That's how it works.

Now you see what the benefit is to the banking cartel for being involved in this Federal Reserve System, interest on nothing. The process doesn't end there, however. It has consequences to you and to me. I've heard some people say "isn't that interesting, these fellows are sure smart, I guess they deserve to be rich." It's as though we're out of the loop, it doesn't affect us any, they got rich but we're ok. Well no, they got rich alright but they got it by taking it from us. How does that work? Let's follow this.

This newly created money goes out into the economy and it dilutes down the value of the dollars that were already out there. It's like pouring water into a pot of soup, it dilutes the soup. So by throwing more and more money into the economic soup out there the money gets weaker and weaker and weaker and we have the phenomenon called inflation which is the appearance of rising prices. I emphasis the word "appearance" because in reality prices are not rising at all. What we're seeing is that the value of the dollar is going down, that's the real side of the equation. If we had real money based on gold or silver or anything tangible that couldn't just be created out of thin air, it could be based on microphones, that they couldn't just create with the stroke of a pen, you would see then that prices would remain stable over a long period of time.

To illustrate that point, it's interesting to know that if we had lived in ancient Rome with a one ounce gold coin we would've been able to buy a very fine toga, a hand-crafted belt and a pair of sandals--that was the price in Rome. Today, if we have a one ounce gold coin what can we buy with it? We can go into any men's store and buy a very fine suit, a hand-crafted belt and a pair of shoes. The price of these items hasn't changed in thousands of years when expressed in terms of real money but when expressed in terms of these things we carry around in our pockets called Federal Reserve notes which is not really money at all, fiat money anyway, the prices keep going up and up and up because the value of those units keeps going down and down and down because they keep making more and more and more of them and dumping them into the economic soup.

That's still not the end of the process. We lost some purchasing power through this process called inflation. We lost something and very few people ask the question "who got it"? It's as though nobody got it, we all lost it, it's like it evaporated and went up to heaven somewhere. No, somebody got it. For every loser there's a winner. Or I should say for every fifty losers there's one winner that gets it all. Somebody got it. Who? Those people that got our lost purchasing power are the ones who were right up at the point where the fresh money was injected into the economic pot of soup. The ones that got the money first gained because they had full purchasing power at that instant when the money was created. By the time they spent it and gave it to you and you spent it on something and gave it to him and by the time that it got out to the edge of the pot where most of us are it's diluted. The ones that were right up at the nozzle got our lost purchasing power. Who are they? Obviously the government was up there first. Remember the billion dollar check, the very beginning of this process went to the government and they spent it instantly and that money went out into the economy and that was the beginning of this ripple effect. Who else? The next ones were the people who were up at the loan window. They got the money that was freshly created by the banking system because they were the borrowers. We all know that in times of inflation borrowers gain, this is no mystery. We've been told and advised to borrow money and stay up to the hilt in debt because you borrow in dollars but because of inflation you can pay back with 50 cent pieces.

So everybody knows about this part of it. What they forget is that the alleged benefits of doing this are surrendered to the bank in the form of interest payments. They're really not gaining that much. The gain that they are getting through the inflation process they're having to give to the bank in the form of interest on nothing. And it seems that they're gaining because they have these paper profits. The value of this real estate is going up and up and up or the value of my stock is going up and up and up but it's all paper. As far as purchasing power is concerned it's not going up, up, up at all. Nevertheless they're still having to pay for that illusion in the form of interest payments on nothing.

Then comes the inevitable contraction of the economy. People don't realize that the economy moves traditionally like a sawtooth--it goes up gradually for a long period of time and seems like forever it's going to go up, you can plan on it forever and don't worry about it and then clunk! it falls down very quickly and then it starts the next long climb and people forget that every once in a while it comes down very abruptly. When it contracts people are extended out there and they can't service their debt and make the payments and they lose their assets.

Another interesting thing about this is that when the bank loans you money which it created out of nothing, it costed nothing to make it, it wants something from you. It wants you to sign on the dotted line and pledge your house, your car, your inventory, your assets so that in case for any reason you cannot continue to make your payments they get your marbles, they get all of your assets. They're not going to lose anything on this. Whether it's expansion or contraction, inflation or deflation the banks are covered and we like sheep go right along with it because we haven't figured it out, we don't know that this is a scam. Of course we have no choice either right now because it's all enforced by law. We have no escape. We have no choice but it's even better that we don't understand it because we can't complain about it either. There you have it.

The two groups that got our lost purchasing power--is anyone surprised?--the two members of the partnership, the government and the banking cartel. The two groups that comprise the Federal Reserve System.

This lost purchasing power which is going from us to them is a tax. We don't think of it as a tax but it is. We have no escape from it. In fact, it's more a tax than the income tax or the excise tax which you can escape in one way or another. You can't escape this one. There are no deductions, no exemptions, everyone pays it and it is the most cruel, unfair tax of all because it falls most heavily on those who can least afford to pay it. It falls on those on fixed incomes, those who are retired. Anyone who has saved their money is paying this tax in direct proportion to the degree to which they have been frugal. It's a tax even though we don't think of it as that and it's time to think of it as that. It's a tax that goes from us to the government and to the banking cartel.

Let's summarize. What is the benefit to the members of the partnership? The government benefits because it is able to tax the American people any amount it wishes through a process which the people do not understand called inflation. They don't realize they're being taxed which makes it real handy when you're going for re-election. On the banking side they're able to earn perpetual interest on nothing. I emphasis the word "perpetual" because remember when the loan is paid back it's turned around and loaned out to somebody else. Once that money is created the object of the bank is to stay "loaned up" as they say. In reality the banks can never stay 100% loaned up and that ratio varies a lot but the objective is to stay loaned up to whatever extent is possible. Generally speaking once this money is created in the loan process it is out there in the economy forever, perpetually earning interest for one of the members of the banking cartel which created that money.

There you have in a condensed form a crash course on the Federal Reserve System and I can assure you that you know more about the Federal Reserve than you would probably if you enrolled in a four year course in economics because they don't teach this reality in school.

So what, they say? Can you imagine that? I knew when I wrote this book and it got out that there would be some objection to it but I never dreamed what it would be. I couldn't think of any objection to it, I thought what are they going to say, what are the defenders of the Federal Reserve System going to say to me? I figured they were going to try and pick some error that I had made in some technical issue and try and make me look like a buffoon. But I never dreamed that the only opposition, at least that I've run into so far, is the question "so what"?

I was on the Pat Buchanan radio show about a month ago and they have a cohost which is usually a representative of the opposing point of view and this day they had a fellow by the name of Barry Lind(?) who was an ACLU type high-powered intellectual and I was kind of nervous thinking here it comes, I'm going to get it now and I'm going to be made a fool of right in front of all these millions of people out there in radio land. I was really worried. It's kind of hard on these radio shows to get your point across as they don't let you speak like you folks let me do here. The lion's share of the time goes to Buchanan and then the cohost gets his shot and then the commercials come in and you've got three minutes to say your whole thing and they're always interrupting you. I made my little shot as best I could and it was Barry Lind's turn and he looked at me and he said: "Well, what you say is true, but so what?" I couldn't believe it. And then he capped it with, which is the real argument: "We're living well aren't we?"

This is an interesting question and I have run into that repeatedly since then. What are you complaining about? we're living well aren't we? And the implication is that without this scam we couldn't be living well, without this scam somehow we'd be still crawling around in caves. We wouldn't have society with a high standard of living, we wouldn't have any of the things that we cherish without this scam, that's the whole implication. So how do you answer that? So what?

First of all, we are not living that well. People like Barry Lind are undoubtedly living very well and there are plenty of people in the system who are living very well. Generally those are the ones who are up at the nozzle where this new money is coming into the system or they're involved in the government or they have government subsidies of they're close to the nozzle. For most people, away from the nozzle, it's not going so well, we're not living that well. It is a matter of fact that the only reason that America has been able to maintain the appearance of a high standard of living since the Federal Reserve System has gotten into full swing, especially after WWII, is because of the shift towards two family incomes. It now takes two working people to just maintain the semblance of where we used to be with one person working in the family. And in spite of the two family income real wages are down for the common man today, real wages in terms of the number of hours a person must work in order to acquire the necessities of life. Young couples who are living on a single income now have a lower standard of living than their parents did. The net worth of the average household is falling. The leisure time for the average American is shrinking. The percentage of families who own their own homes is dropping. The age at which a family acquires its first home is rising. The number of families that are counted in the middle class is falling. The number of people below the poverty line is rising. Personal bankruptcies today are about three times what they were in the 1960s and over 90% of Americans are broke at the age of 65. So we're not living well at all as a result of this creature.

Furthermore, there's another thing wrong with it. That is that when you have a money supply based upon thin air it not only expands but it contracts. If it were based on gold or silver or microphones, the money supply couldn't expand and contract because there they are but when it's politically motivated it can contract and that is the core cause of all of the booms and busts that have plagued America for so many years. In other words, this is the concept behind the recession and the depression and that is another thing that's wrong with it.

The third thing that's wrong with it is that it is dishonest. You don't really need anything more than that do you? Even if it were the element that was creating our prosperity, even if it didn't cause recessions and depressions the fact that it is fraud, the fact that it is deception, it's dishonest and theft is really a good enough reason in my opinion to get rid of it. That's what's wrong with this scam.

Let's go back to Jekyll Island. They had an interesting problem there which was what to call their creature. This partnership between government and banks which we've been discussing was not new with the Federal Reserve System. In fact, it was a concept that was created in Europe in the 16th century. It was perfected with the formation of the Bank of England in 1694 and from that point forward all of the governments of Europe had used this Mandrake Mechanism. They didn't call it the Mandrake Mechanism, of course, they called it a "central bank," that's the technical phrase for this partnership. If you want to look it up in a textbook or encyclopedia you'll find it under the heading "Central Bank."

From the Bank of England forward all the governments of Europe had central banks for a very good reason. The kings and princes of Europe had learned from hard experience that they could raise the taxes of their subjects only so high and then they had a revolt on their hands and they tended to lose their jobs (and heads). It appears that that natural level was about 40-43%; people will tolerate taxes up to about 40-43% and then they start digging in their heels and they just won't allow it to go any further. But with the central bank mechanism in place the lid was off. Now these governments could tax their people 50%, 60%, 70% and in some cases 80% of everything they produced and they did not have a revolt on their hands. They did not have resentment because the people didn't know that they were paying a tax. They knew that prices were going up, but they didn't understand why, they didn't know who was getting their lost purchasing power.

It was a nifty arrangement for these governments. It was at that point in history that governments' wars began to heat up. They always had wars but they were relatively small things because wars are expensive and the people won't pay more than 40% for everything including wars. But now that they had a way to tax higher than that, they could engage in very expensive wars. It's at that point in history that Europe plunged headlong into continuous war and big, very, very expensive wars. The people paid for them uncomplainingly through the process of inflation.

So when it came time to transplant this concept to America these seven men on Jekyll Island knew very well that they were creating a central bank; that was the reason that Paul Warburg was so valuable because he was the man with the intense knowledge, the detailed technical knowledge of how central banks operate. But they had a problem. How could they conceal that from the American people because Congress was already on record as saying they did not want a central bank in America. I don't think they knew what that phrase really meant, but they knew that Europe had them, whatever they were, and we didn't want any. They said in America if we're going to have banking reform we don't want what they do over in Europe, we want something that is unique for America and its principles and economy.

The problem before these men on Jekyll Island is what to call the central bank so that nobody would know it was a central bank. And they theorized over this and this was their strategy: they said first let's give it a name and we'll add the word "Federal" to it to make it sound like it's government. Then we'll add the word "Reserve" to make it seem like there are reserves somewhere, like it was a banking concept. We'll add the word "System," a very important word even though it may seem obscure now because remember in those days the concern was the concentration of financial power in New York so they had to sell the idea of a system of regional banks which would diffuse that power all over the nation. First they talked about ten regions and then they said that wasn't enough, twelve regions, we'll have twelve banks. And we'll build big buildings out there in all of those regions so the local yokels can go and look at the building and say "golly we've got one of those out here." Diffusion of power away from New York; you can go and touch the building. The word "System" was very important.

When you look at it you realize that what they created there was not federal, there are no reserves, it's not a system at all in the sense of diffusion of power and these Federal Reserve banks aren't even banks. On all four words we're dealing with appearances of the fourth kind. It was brilliant strategy.

The next thing was to sell this creature to the public. The first draft of the Federal Reserve Act as it was presented to Congress was called the Aldrich Bill named after the sponsor, Senator Nelson Aldrich. This was against the good advice of Paul Warburg. He said: "Nelson, don't put your name on that bill because you are so identified with big business interests that Congress will vote it down; the people will not accept it." And apparently Aldrich's ego was too big. He must've said: "Well no, after all I'm highly respected in the Senate and I am the Chairman of the National Monetary Commission" and for whatever reason he insisted that his name be on the bill. It appears that he wanted to go down in history as the originator of the Federal Reserve System. Warburg was right. When the bill was introduced Congress put thumbs-down on it. "The Bill of Big Business."

They took the bill back for it was just a minor setback, they scrambled the paragraphs around a little bit, took Aldrich's name off real fast and they found a couple of Democrats to sponsor the bill. This was different. Everybody knew that the Republicans represented big business but they also knew that Democrats represented the common man, the little guy, the fellow on the assembly line (like Ted Kennedy). They found a couple of millionaire Democrats to sponsor the bill. They found Carter Glass in the House and Senator Robert Owen who himself was a banker. Now it was the Glass-Owen bill and it was totally different and acceptable.

The next thing, Aldrich and Vanderlip began to give speeches and interviews to newspaper reporters condemning the bill. They said: "This bill will be ruinous to banking. It will be terrible for the country." By the time the common man read that in his newspaper he said: "Oh golly, I guess these big bankers don't like the bill very much so it must be pretty good."

These fellows were not stupid. You have to give them credit. They didn't get to be where they were by being country bumpkins. They understood politics, they understood mass psychology and they played their cards exceedingly well. Meanwhile these same individuals out of their own pockets were paying the price for the costs of bringing up what they called grassroots study clubs all over the country. They sponsored these clubs and they held public meetings and printed brochures and pamphlets extolling the virtues of the Federal Reserve System. They gave large amounts of money to some of the better known universities in America; they created newly formed departments of economics with that money; they hand picked their own people to be the professors to head up those departments and then those professors with all of their academic credentials gave speeches and wrote scholarly essays extolling the virtues of the Federal Reserve System. And then at the insistence of Paul Warburg who was forever the master strategist, they added several very sound provisions to the Federal Reserve Bill. By that I mean they added some provisions which seriously restricted the ability of the Federal Reserve to create money out of nothing. Warburg's associates said, "Paul, what are you doing? We don't want those in there this is our bill." And his response was this, he said, "Relax fellas, don't you get it? Our object is to get the bill passed. We can fix it up later." Those were his exact words. "We can fix it up later." He was so right. It was because of those provisions that they won over the support of William Jennings Bryan the head of the Populist Movement, the last hold-out against the bill. Bryan was concerned that this would be an instrument for ruining the nation's money supply but when he saw those provisions he said, "Oh well, those are good provisions, I guess I can support the bill now" never dreaming that this was temporary. Everything is temporary in politics. When people go to sleep things can get changed.

Warburg was right and they fixed it up later. The Federal Reserve Act since it was passed has been amended over 100 times. Every one of those provisions were long ago removed and many more have been added which greatly expand the power and reach of the Federal Reserve System to create money out of nothing. With this kind of professional strategy and deception these people were real professionals and the public didn't stand a chance. It is no surprise that popular support was finally gained for the bill and on December 22, 1913 the bill was passed by Congress and the following day was signed into law by President Wilson and the creature from Jekyll Island finally moved into Washington, DC.

Let's stand back from the creature a few paces and take a look at its general form and shape and see what it is we got. We got a corporation chartered by Congress which was given an exclusive franchise to create our nation's money supply. We got a mechanism whereby Congress has been able to raise unlimited taxes from the American people without them even knowing that they're paying a tax and we got a mechanism whereby the banks can earn perpetual interest on nothing. That is the shape and form of the creature from Jekyll Island.

Here's an interesting question, Who owns the Federal Reserve System? You hear a lot of discussion on this particularly on talk radio nowadays. When the subject of money comes up somebody calls in and says, "Did you know the Federal Reserve is completely owned by the private banks? It's a private corporation. What we need to do," they say "is abolish the Fed and turn it over to the government so they can operate it for the benefit of the people." Some of you are laughing and I'm sure there are some people here thinking what's wrong with that so let's analyze it.

First of all it is a half-truth and it is a non-solution. Let's deal with the half-truth first. It is true that the Federal Reserve System is not an agency of the federal government in any shape or form. As I mentioned before, it is a corporation that is chartered by Congress and like all corporations it has stock certificates and those stock certificates in this case are held by the banks within the Federal Reserve System. Every bank that's in the system is an owner of the Federal Reserve--remember this is a cartel. They own it in one sense of the word, in the sense that they have stock certificates but up to that point it looks as though it has all the attributes of a privately held corporation. But that's as far as it goes because those stock certificates do not carry with them any of the attributes of private ownership. For example, the holders of these certificates cannot sell them. If you can't sell something then you don't really own it, that's one of the tests of ownership, your ability to dispose of it. You cannot sell it. Furthermore the larger banks put up more money than the smaller banks, it's a ratio to their assets, so the larger banks have more stock certificates in the system than the small ones and yet regardless of the number that they hold, every bank has just one vote. There's another violation of the principle of private ownership. Furthermore that vote doesn't buy them anything. They can't vote for anything of substance; they cannot vote for their national management which is the most important thing, isn't it? The board of directors and chairman of the Federal Reserve System are appointed by the President, they're not elected by the banks that are part of the system, the President does that.

All that the local banks can vote for with their vote are the boards of directors of the regional banks, so-called, which are subdivisions within the system. They can't even vote for the leadership in their local subdivisions because the chairman and the vice-chairman of those 12 regional banks are appointed by the national board. They can vote for their officers at those regional banks, the president, the vice-president and treasurer but guess what? Those are subject to veto by the national board. Get the picture? All power has always been at the top of this system. The only thing that the charter allows them to vote for, those boards of directors, of substance is to set the interest rates within their regions. But this should come as no surprise to anybody that even that is subject to veto by the national board. You see this concept of diffusion of power throughout the regions of the US is a scam. There is no power at the local level. There is nothing that these boards of directors who are voted in by the banks who hold the certificates can do of substance. All they're allowed to do really is play golf.

It is not a privately held corporation in the traditional sense of the word. This idea of diffusion of power over the 12 regional banks was just a necessity of 1913 to sell the concept to the American people. If it hadn't been for this aversion against the concentration of power in New York they would never have had these 12 regions; it's just a leftover from the necessity to sell it and doesn't serve any function whatsoever. So it's not a corporation in the traditional sense of the word, it's not a government agency in the traditional sense of the word so what is it? It's a hybrid, part corporation and part government, part private, part government. In fact, it is exactly what you would expect it to be considering the fact that it is a partnership between the private banking cartel and the government. It's a unique structure which was designed to perform a unique function.

Is it a solution to abolish the Fed and turn it over to the Congress to run on behalf of the people? At least we get the dirty bankers out of the loop, right? And that makes everybody feel good...well, we're not paying interest to the banks anymore but what happens? Now the government is running the whole thing by itself. Now that solves a lot of problems doesn't it? Now they're creating money out of nothing all by themselves. Well, they've always been able to do that. The government doesn't want to do that, that's the reason they got into this partnership in the beginning because when the government creates money directly it's too obvious. That's why the kings and princes of Europe couldn't do it. They printed money, that's how they did it generally, but when the government prints money you can see all this money around that says the government on there and you know exactly what's going on. They like to work through the banking system because when it appears in your checking account it doesn't say government on it and you don't know how it got there.

The government really doesn't want to do it that way but even if they did it wouldn't make much difference because it's not important who owns the Federal Reserve System. The important thing is what it does and as long as it a central bank, which means as long as it has the power and the mandate to create money out of nothing it will create money out of nothing. That's what it will do and it will continue to do exactly the same thing and be run no doubt by the same people as it is now and we would not have solved anything. We must keep in mind that in Europe all of the central banks there are in fact direct agencies of their respective governments; they are not hybrid organizations at all like ours. And yet in those countries they do exactly the same as the Federal Reserve System has been doing here. Just turning it over to the government is a non-solution.

Let's talk briefly about what the objectives of the Federal Reserve System are. We've been told over and over again that the purpose of the Fed is to stabilize the economy. Right now with the interest rates going up, up, up what are we told? why are they doing that? Well, that's to stabilize the economy so we won't have massive inflation right? It's being done for us folks! Don't you feel just warm all over knowing that they're looking out for you? That's always the answer; the purpose of the Fed is to look out for us and stabilize the economy, put an end to banking anarchy and all that sort of thing. Right now the textbook that is most commonly used in our school systems in economics is a book written by Paul Samuelson and in that book here's what he says regarding the purpose of the Fed: "The Federal Reserve sprang from the panic of 1907 with its alarming epidemic of bank failures. The country was fed-up once and for all with the anarchy of unstable private banking." That's what the students are learning.

Let's let that go for the moment and say ok if that is the purpose of the Fed, let's give it a report card and see how well it has done in stabilizing the economy. Since it was created in 1913 the Federal Reserve System has presided over the crashes of 1921 and 1929, the Great Depression of 1929-1939, recessions in the years 1953, 1957, 1969, 1975 and 1981, and a stock market Black Monday in 1987. We all know that corporate debt is soaring, personal debt is greater than ever before, both business and personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, banks and savings and loan associations have failed in greater numbers than ever before in our history, interest on the national debt now consumes half of all of our tax dollars, heavy industry has all but been replaced by overseas competition, we're facing an international trade deficit for the first time in our history, 75% of downtown Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas are now owned by foreigners and over half of the nation now officially is in a state of recession.

That is the report card for the Federal Reserve System after 80 years of stabilizing our economy. I don't even think it's controversial to say that it has failed to meet its stated objectives. The only controversial part is why has it failed? My answer is because those have never been its real objectives at all.

What are its objectives? What are the objectives of any cartel? To make money for the members of the cartel, to improve the profit margins of the members of the cartel and to stabilize themselves in the marketplace. That is the true objective of the Federal Reserve System. Now if we hold that up as our guiding principle and give the Federal Reserve a report card it gets a different grade.

In particular I'd like to have you look with me at three particular objectives which were very well discussed in that period in which the Federal Reserve System was created. We always have to go back to that because we can learn so much from that period of history. There were three things that the bankers, particularly the ones on Jekyll Island, wanted the Federal Reserve Act to accomplish. What are they? The first one was to stop the erosion of their power away from New York. Just the opposite of what the Federal Reserve Act was sold to us as to accomplish, to keep the power of New York. They were concerned that as the nation was expanding westward and southward new banks were springing up all along the frontier and every year a little bit more of the nation's capital would drift away from New York. They still had the lion's share, of course, but they could see the chart and they knew that they had to put a stop to that now while they still had the power to do so. Competition is a sin said John D. Rockefeller I and that includes competition from these upstart banks.

It's a good point to mention that when I'm talking about the banking cartel I'm talking primarily about the big New York banks and not the local bank down the street that's struggling under the system. One of the purposes of the Federal Reserve System was to keep the lid on those new competitive banks so they could never grow and become large like the ones on Wall Street. The small banks have always been the target in this system and needed to be kept in line, to be regulated out of existence, a process which you've noticed has been going on for many, many years. There is objective number one, to keep control over the money markets in New York.

Objective number two was to reverse the trend of what is called private capital formation. That's banker language for a process in which an individual or a corporation uses their own savings to pay for something instead of going to the bank and borrowing it, if you can imagine that happening. It was happening at the turn of the century. The trend was that businesses in particular were withholding some of their dividends each quarter and putting that money into a sinking fund and then as the money accumulated or as the capital formed, then they finally had enough that they could use their own money to build that new factory or to launch a research & development project or whatever instead of going to the banks and borrowing for it. The banks were very concerned over this trend because this is their life-blood. Loaning money is what they do so how do you loan money when people don't want to borrow it? The answer they knew, and they talked a lot about this, was to lower interest rates, get those rates down so that they were so attractive that people would be crazy not to come to the banks and borrow money at those good interest rates.

How do you lower interest rates? Today it's easy when you've got the lever at the Federal Reserve you just throw it up or down and interest rates go up or down; you have total control over it. In 1913 there was no lever. The money in those days was backed by gold and silver and they couldn't control it. They hated that. These guys hate gold and silver behind money because under those conditions interest rates are the result of the natural forces of supply and demand; they couldn't just create money out of nothing. It was the result of the interaction of millions of people bidding for products and services and digging money out of the ground, literally gold and silver and converting into money.

They were looking for a way to artificially push the interest rates down. How do you do that? They said the only way you can do that is with a flexible currency. That was the cry that they put up in those days. What the nation needs, they said, is a flexible currency to meet the demands of industry and agriculture. You still hear that phrase today--"flexible currency." What does that mean? You need a dictionary sometimes to look these phrases up. Flexible currency does not mean the paper stuff in our pockets that bends, it means money created out of nothing. The trick here is not hard to figure out. If you can create money out of nothing, you don't have to charge an awful lot of interest on it to show a profit. It's that simple. If you have a flexible currency you can in fact lower interest rates and still do pretty well, can't you? They wanted a flexible currency so they could lower interest rates and entice people back into the banks to borrow money and to reverse the trend toward private capital formation. Objective number two.

The third objective was to pass on the inevitable losses within the banking system on to the taxpayer in the name of protecting the people. Those were three of the major objectives at the time the Federal Reserve System was created. I say those are the true objectives of the Fed. On that basis, let's give it a report card.

Did it keep control in New York in the hands of the larger banks? The answer is a resounding yes. Anyone who knows about the financial markets knows that this is definitely what's happened. Yes we have big banks in the west and in the south but they're nothing compared to those banks in New York which are astride the world with offices in Peking and Moscow and Africa and everywhere; these are the giants and they have remained that way from the very beginning because of the Federal Reserve System.

A few years ago there was a book that was published by Simon & Schuster and it was called "Secrets of the Temple" written by William Grider(?). It was a best-seller and it was advertised as a scathing attack against the Federal Reserve System. When I heard that I couldn't believe my ears. A scathing attack against the Federal Reserve System published by Simon & Schuster? one of the big publishing houses? I thought, I don't have to finish my own book, they've done it. So I ran down and got a copy of the book and devoured it and read it in one day and I was totally amazed on two points. First of all, much to my surprise, I did not expect this, Grider's history was, I thought, excellent. I thought it would be a whitewash but his history was right-on. He had all the gory details and I couldn't believe it but I knew these things were true because I was right then in the middle of researching them.

On the subject of the concentration of power in New York, I'd like to read to you an excerpt from Grider's book. He said: "At the time [he's talking about 1913] the conventional wisdom in Congress was that the government institution would finally harness the money trust, disarm its powers and establish broad democratic control over money and credit. The results were nearly the opposite. The money reforms enacted in 1913 in fact helped to preserve the status quo, to stabilize the old order. Money center bankers would not only gain dominance over the new central bank but would also enjoy new insulation against instability and their own decline. Once the Fed was in operation the steady diffusion of financial power halted. Wall Street maintained its dominant position and even enhanced it."

The other thing that amazed me was Grider's conclusion. He proved that the Federal Reserve had always acted against the public interest. He proved that it was designed to do that from the very beginning so what do you suppose his conclusion was regarding a solution? that we abolish the Fed? No, nothing that extreme. How about a major overhaul? No, not necessary. What then? Grider said, you see it's all so complicated, we're learning as we go, we've made a lot of mistakes but don't worry folks we're on it now, relax, it's under control, all we need now is wiser men.

That is the kind of powderpuff criticism it takes to be published by Simon & Schuster or any of the other major publishing houses which are firmly interlocked in the investment web on Wall Street. It doesn't make any difference how accurate your history is; it doesn't make any difference how much you point with alarm or how righteous you may sound if you have no realistic solution to the problem then who cares? They like that because it gives the people the impression that something's being done, somebody is really calling attention to the problem. But they have no solution or they're carefully selected so that the ones with the real solutions do not get the media, do not get the major publishing houses.

This is a tactic which we have to better understand especially in these critical days ahead. A tactic of controlled opposition. It makes no difference how accurate you are when you're pointing to the problems in America. If you don't have a solution what difference does it make? If your solution is put wiser men in there or if your solution is vote Republican and don't ask questions about what kind of Republican then you are controlled opposition and this is something we have to be very, very alert to in these critical days ahead.

Back to the topic. The Federal Reserve System gets an A on its report card for maintaining control over the financial markets in New York. What about reversing the trend toward private capital formation. Boy, did they ever. Periodically they get those interest rates down so low and everybody is lured into the banks. Borrow like crazy and then the economy crunches down and they're all stuck with this overhead and they can't make their interest payments.

We've seen businesses go out of existence because they cannot service their debt. You've seen people lose their homes and their cars because they cannot service their debt. There are many giant corporations today that are just hanging in there by the skin of their teeth because of their debt overhead. The fact is that many of these companies now send more money to the banks every quarter in the form of interest payments on their loans than they send to their stockholders as dividends on their stock. Think about that for a minute. The banks which had no part in the operation of the company whatsoever, the banks which made this money out of nothing are making more money from these industries than the people who work for the money, save the money, invested the money and risked the money to own those corporations. This is because they quite successfully reversed the trend toward private capital formation and they did it with a flexible currency. The Federal Reserve System gets an A+ on its report card for objective number two.

Finally, did they pass along their inevitable loses to the taxpayer in the name of protecting the people? This is what I call "Operation Bail-Out." Every time one of the big banks gets into trouble, not the small banks remember, they're the competition, the big banks get into trouble and they are bailed out at taxpayers' expense. Always in the name of protecting the people. If a large corporation is in trouble because it can't make its interest payments to the bank anymore, they go to Congress and say "we can't let this corporation fold; look at the thousands of jobs that would be lost; look how the people would suffer." When a third world country can no longer make its interest payments to a large bank in New York, what happens? The bank goes to Congress and says "you know, you'd better do something about this because if we have to write that loan off of our books we may be bankrupt, we could fold. And look at all of the depositors, good Americans, who have their accounts with us who would lose their deposit. Maybe the FDIC won't be able to cover; we could have a crisis on our hands. If our bank falls maybe the other banks will fall too and we'll have a national recession. Look how the people will suffer." So Congress dutifully steps forward, remember it's a partner in this, and votes the funds to guarantee the loans or in some way to pass the payments on directly or indirectly in some very ingenious methods to the taxpayer. That money is raised primarily through the Federal Reserve System and we pay it through the Mandrake Mechanism.

So the Federal Reserve System has done pretty well on that. In case you have missed a few of the more memorable games, I'd like to review them for you. Penn Central Railroad was bailed out in 1970. That was a good year because Lockheed Corporation was bailed out the same year. Commonwealth Bank of Detroit was bailed in 1972; New York City in 1975; Chrysler in 1978; First Pennsylvania Bank in 1980; Continental Illinois, the largest of the banks so far, in 1982. And look at all of these third world countries which cannot pay their interest payments. They are paying their interest payments and you're doing it for them because the Federal Reserve System creates the money that we send to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and then they give it to those countries so that they can pay the interest to the banks. Maybe you've missed that little trail but that's how it works.

The Federal Reserve System gets an A+++ on all of these points and it has surely been a huge success in terms of the people who created it.

Actions have consequences and one of the consequences of this scam is what we call a "national debt." Its rapidly approaching 5 trillion dollars that we know about, it's much higher than that if you include the unfunded debt and all of the things that are off-budget and all of the funny stuff that they do with the accounting in Washington. With all honest accounting you'd find it was much, much higher than that.

But even at 5 trillion dollars it's a staggering figure. I'm told if we had a stack of $100 bills about 40 inches high we'd be a millionaire. A stack of $100 bills equaling 5 trillion dollars would rise into space 3,350 miles. That's a lot of money and it all came from us and it's earning perpetual interest.

Another way of measuring that is that we've had a known inflation of 1,000% since the Federal Reserve System was created. Another way of phrasing that is that a dollar in 1913 today buys about nine cents worth of goods. That's how much money has been taken from us, taxed from us, through this hidden process.

I say 1,000% inflation that is known because it's much more than that. Have you ever wondered, as I used to, why don't we have more inflation than we have had? I knew they were creating this money like crazy, why only this inflation? And then I found out. Have you ever heard the expression that we're "exporting our inflation." Every once in a while you find that phrase in the financial section of the newspaper. It used to drive me crazy--how can you export inflation? It's one of those phrases that people use and I'm not sure most of the people who use the phrases know what they mean. Like the other day I read that the Federal Reserve System bought dollars today to bolster up the dollar. How can you buy dollars? What do you buy it with? They buy it with other currencies, the Federal Reserve holds a lot of different currencies, yens and deutsch marks and that kind of thing so they just swap currencies around.

This expression of exporting inflation--what does that mean? It means 70% of the American currency that has been created by our Federal Reserve System is no longer in America, it's overseas. Other nations use American dollars as their unofficial money supply. Especially those countries which have no realistic money of their own. These countries that undergo inflation rates of 5,000 and 10,000% a year, you can't work with money like that. Women have to take wheelbarrows full of paper money to the grocery store to buy a bottle of milk. You can't carry on any serious economic transaction with money like that and they don't, they use American dollars.

All the banks in those systems have dual types of money. American dollars are the mainstay of economic transactions in most of those countries. That's where a lot of our money went. We have been spared the inflationary impact of all that money because had it stayed here, it would've bid against the existing money here and would have diluted our pot even more and we would've known what the inflation should've been.

What happens when the day comes when for whatever reason these countries can no longer, or no longer wish to, use American dollars? What are they going to do with those dollars? They'll send them back. They'll buy something with them while they can. It'll be a big rush. It'll be our refrigerators, our automobiles, our real estate, our high-rise buildings, our corporate stock, our politicians, whatever's for sale. All of this money will come in and then we'll find out in a very short period of time what the true inflation rate really should have been all of these years.

Incidentally, if you've followed in the newspapers the talk about the new money that they're going to release, they're talking about two-tiered money, one for overseas and one for here. It will probably be a different color. Frankly I think they're recognizing this fact that the money would return and they're going to make it illegal for all of this overseas money to come back by making it a different color so that they won't be able to bring it here or if you do bring it here you won't be able to spend it here, it won't be legal here. Those are some of the consequences of the actions of the Federal Reserve Scam.

I have one last topic that I want to talk to you about and then I'll get to the conclusion. This is an extremely important topic and it has to do with usury. In ancient times usury was defined as interest on a loan, any interest on any loan. In modern times that has been redefined to mean excessive interest on a loan. Moderate interest seems logical to us in recognition of the fact that if we work hard for our money, we save it and surrender its use for a period of time being a sacrifice on our part and then loan it to somebody else for their venture, we're entitled to a reasonable return on that sacrifice. A reasonable interest rate is a concept that very few people have problems with, it seems logical and fair.

But what is this thing called excessive interest? Thomas Edison said, "People who will not turn a shovel-full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of materials will collect more money than will the people who will supply all the materials and do all the work." I wondered when I read that if Tom was exaggerating so I got my calculator out. I assumed that there was going to be a $100,000 house built. I assumed that $30,000 would have to go for land, architect's fees and permits and that kind of thing. $70,000 would go for the actual construction of the house, building materials and labor. I assumed that the buyer would go to the bank and put 20% down and then borrow the balance at 10% over 30 years. I punched in the numbers and discovered that the borrower will pay to the bank in interest $172,741 compared to $70,000 paid for the construction of the house. In other words, about 2 1/2 times as much money will be paid to the bank in interest than will be paid to those who provide all the labor and all the materials. And you may say to yourself, yes but that's fair, after all a 30 year loan is a long loan and people work for their money and sacrifice its use and loan it and so forth and deserve to be compensated. No. Not this money. Nobody worked for this money, nobody saved this money. There was no sacrifice of any kind for this money. This money was created out of nothing and I suggest that $172,741 interest on nothing is excessive!

I think it's time for a new definition of usury as follows: any interest on any loan of fiat money (meaning money made out of nothing). This example of a $100,000 home, as shocking as it is, producing $172,741 unearned interest, this is just a grain of sand in the Sahara. You have to multiply that by all the homes in America, by all of these hotels in America, all the high-rise buildings, all the factories, all the airplanes, automobiles, farm equipment, schools, everything, all the physical assets of America. You apply this same ratio and can you see it in your mind? We're talking about a river of unearned wealth that is so wide you can't even think of crossing it, flowing perpetually into the banking cartel. A dead short across the productive element of society. Money being taken from people who are working hard providing the material and the labor. They don't even know that this is being taken from them and it's in this huge river of wealth flowing into the banking cartel. It's a staggering thought.

You are led to the question of where is this river flowing? Where's it going? Get a picture of this that it's all going into a lake somewhere and maybe there's a dam and the wealth is building up and somewhere they're getting it all. Getting it no, they're spending it. They're not accumulating it at all. What are they spending it for? The answer may surprise you. They're not buying more yachts and mansions with this money, they've already got all of those they possibly want. In fact they got rid of the mansions on Jekyll Island a long time ago because they were bored with that. That's not it. When a person has all the wealth that you could possibly want for the material pleasures of life, what is left? Power. They are using this river of wealth to acquire power over you and me and our children.

They are spending it to acquire control over the power centers of society. The power centers are those groups and institutions through which individuals live and act and rely on for their information. They are literally buying up the world but not the real estate and the hardware, they're buying control over the organizations, the groups and institutions that control people. In other words, to be specific, they are buying control over politicians, political parties, television networks, cable networks, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, wire services, motion picture studios, universities, labor unions, church organizations, trade associations, tax-exempt foundations, multi-national corporations, boy scouts, girl scouts, you name it. Make your own list of organizations and you will find that this is where those people have been for many decades spending this river of wealth to acquire operational control particularly over those institutions and individuals, those organizations that represent opposition to themselves. That's a critical area for expenditure on their part.

This process has gone on not only to a marked degree in America and in the other industrialized nations of the world, but it has gone on in the so-called third world or underdeveloped nations to such a degree that I would say the process is now complete. They own these countries already. Have you ever wondered what's going on there at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank? Kind of an obscure operation isn't it? you don't read much about it except once in a while on the back page of the newspaper you find out that Congress at the insistence of the President authorized another $100 billion for the International Monetary Fund. And then the article tells you that this money will be used to make loans to underdeveloped nations or grants to them to raise their standard of living. Do you believe that? That's one of those appearances of the fourth kind if you ever saw one. If the money is to be used to raise the standard of living of these countries they're not doing a very good job of it because after all of these decades, after all of these hundreds of billions of dollars, you cannot point to one country that has had its standard of living raised one iota by that. In fact in most cases it's the other way around and that's not an accident because the money has not been used to raise the standard of living. The money does not go to the people in those countries. It goes to the politicians of those countries, to their governments and the money is designed and spent to strengthen their power structures, their ability to control their populations. They usually start off as inefficient dictatorships but by the time they get all this money from the IMF, they are now efficient dictatorships. They have a well-equipped army, a better bureaucracy, total control of their subjects. That's where the money's being spent.

These countries have been purchased because the politicians in those countries are now totally addicted to this money. We talk about welfare families in America that are third and fourth generation welfare, they're on the dole forever, they cannot dream of anything else. The politicians in these countries are the same way and it's now second, third and in some cases fourth generation international welfare from the United Nations funding. They have no ideology--communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism, what difference does it make? where's the money? As long as they live well, they have their mansions, their yachts, their limousines, they go to New York to the UN and have their suites at the Waldorf-Asoria and that's all they care about.

These countries have been purchased through this means and are now owned by this group at the UN and they're firmly in place in the new world order where they're just waiting for you and me to show up. That's the other side of this coin. Not only does this transfer of wealth from America to these countries not raise their standard of living but it does lower ours. That too, believe it or not, is part of the plan. Just waste, get rid of money, get rid of productive power to reduce our standard of living. A strong nation is not a candidate to surrender its sovereignty but a weak nation is. If America can be brought to her knees where she is struggling for survival, if people are hungry, if we have riots in our streets, then Americans could possibly be grateful for any assistance we could get from the UN. Those wonderful blue-helmeted peace-keeping forces could bring order back to our streets or international money, a new world money with purchasing power again might be welcomed by the unthinking, unknowing American public. That is what we're dealing with.

What I'm trying to say is that the name of the game out there is not wealth, it is power.

Congressman Louis T. McFadden on the Federal Reserve Corporation

2007-11-01T20:45:00.000-04:00

On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, AND TREASON. The petition for Articles of Impeachment was thereafter referred to the Judiciary Committee and has YET TO BE ACTED ON.

Due to his having served as Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee for more than 10 years, Congressman McFadden was the best posted man on these matters in America and was in a position to speak with authority of the vast ramifications of this gigantic private credit monopoly. As Representative of a State which was among the first to declare its freedom from foreign money tyrants it is fitting that Pennsylvania, the cradle of liberty, be again given the credit for producing a son that was not afraid to hurl defiance in the face of the money-bund. Whereas Mr. McFadden was elected to the high office on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, there can be no accusation of partisanship lodged against him. Because these speeches are set out in full in the Congressional Record, they carry weight that no amount of condemnation on the part of private individuals could hope to carry.

This web page, consisting of quotations from several speeches made on the Floor of the House of Representatives by the Honorable Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania, should be printed, linked to, and circulated far and wide.

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.

"This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the mal-administration of that law by the Fed and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

"Some people who think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign owners; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into states to buy votes to control our legislatures; there are those who maintain International propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us into granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.

"These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this Country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this Country to finance Japan in a war against Russia. They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between Germany and Russia, and thus drove a wedge between the allies in World War. They financed Trotsky's passage from New York to Russia so that he might assist in the destruction of the Russian Empire. They fomented and instigated the Russian Revolution, and placed a large fund of American dollars at Trotsky's disposal in one of their branch banks in Sweden so that through him Russian homes might be thoroughly broken up and Russian children flung far and wide from their natural protectors. They have since begun breaking up of American homes and the dispersal of American children. "Mr. Chairman, there should be no partisanship in matters concerning banking and currency affairs in this Country, and I do not speak with any.

"In 1912 the National Monetary Association, under the chairmanship of the late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, made a report and presented a vicious bill called the National Reserve Association bill. This bill is usually spoken of as the Aldrich bill. Senator Aldrich did not write the Aldrich bill. He was the tool, if not the accomplice, of the European bankers who for nearly twenty years had been scheming to set up a central bank in this Country and who in 1912 had spent and were continuing to spend vast sums of money to accomplish their purpose.

"We were opposed to the Aldrich plan for a central bank. The men who rule the Democratic Party then promised the people that if they were returned to power there would be no central bank established here while they held the reigns 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 from the cradle to the grave.

"The Federal Reserve Bank destroyed our old and characteristic way of doing business. It discriminated against our 1-name commercial paper, the finest in the world, and it set up the antiquated 2-name paper, which is the present curse of this Country and which wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened down upon the Country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution sough to save us.

President Jackson's Time

"One of the greatest battles for the preservation of this Republic was fought out here in Jackson's time; when the second Bank of the United States, founded on the same false principles of those which are here exemplified in the Fed was hurled out of existence. After that, in 1837, the Country was warned against the dangers that might ensue if the predatory interests after being cast out should come back in disguise and unite themselves to the Executive and through him acquire control of the Government. That is what the predatory interests did when they came back in the livery of hypocrisy and under false pretenses obtained the passage of the Fed.

"The danger that the Country was warned against came upon us and is shown in the long train of horrors attendant upon the affairs of the traitorous and dishonest Fed. Look around you when you leave this Chamber and you will see evidences of it in all sides. This is an era of misery and for the conditions that caused that misery, the Fed are fully liable. This is an era of financed crime and in the financing of crime the Fed does not play the part of a disinterested spectator.

"It has been said that the draftsman who was employed to write the text of the Aldrich bill because that had been drawn up by lawyers, by acceptance bankers of European origin in New York. It was a copy, in general a translation of the statues of the Reichsbank and other European central banks. One-half million dollars was spent on the part of the propaganda organized by these bankers for the purpose of misleading public opinion and giving Congress the impression that there was an overwhelming popular demand for it and the kind of currency that goes with it, namely, an asset currency based on human debts and obligations. Dr. H. Parker Willis had been employed by Wall Street and propagandists, and when the Aldrich measure failed - he obtained employment with Carter Glass, to assist in drawing the banking bill for the Wilson administration. He appropriated the text of the Aldrich bill. There is no secret about it. The text of the Federal Reserve Act was tainted from the first.

"A few days before the bill came to a vote, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, wrote to Senator John W. Weeks as follows:

New York City, December 17, 1913

"'My Dear Senator Weeks:

"'Throughout my public life I have supported all measures designed to take the Government out of the banking business. This bill puts the Government into the banking business as never before in our history.

"'The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seen to me highly dangerous especially where there is political control of the Board. I should be sorry to hold stock in a bank subject to such dominations. 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.

Very Truly Yours, Henry Cabot Lodge.'"

"In the eighteen years that have passed since Senator Lodge wrote that letter of warning all of his predictions have come true. The Government is in the banking business as never before. Against its will it has been made the backer of horse thieves and card-sharps, bootlegger's smugglers, speculators, and swindlers in all parts of the world. Through the Fed the riffraff of every country is operating on the public credit of the United States Government.

The Great Depression

"Meanwhile and on account of it, we ourselves are in the midst of the greatest depression we have ever known. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, our Country has been ravaged and laid waste by the evil practices of the Fed and the interests which control them. At no time in our history, has the general welfare of the people been at a lower level or the minds of the people so full of despair.

"Recently in one of our States, 60,000 dwelling houses and farms were brought under the hammer in a single day. 71,000 houses and farms in Oakland County, Michigan, were sold and their erstwhile owners dispossessed. The people who have thus been driven out are the wastage of the Fed. They are the victims of the Fed. Their children are the new slaves of the auction blocks in the revival of the institution of human slavery.

The Scheme of the Fed

"In 1913, before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Mr. Alexander Lassen made the following statement: "The whole scheme of the Fed with its commercial paper is an impractical, cumbersome machinery- is simply a cover to secure the privilege of issuing money, and to evade payment of as much tax upon circulation as possible and then control the issue and maintain, instead of reducing interest rates. It will prove to the advantage of the few and the detriment of the people. It will mean continued shortage of actual money and further extension of credits, for when there is a shortage of money people have to borrow to their cost.' "A few days before the Fed passed, Senator Root denounced the Fed as an outrage on our liberties. He predicted: 'Long before we wake up from our dream of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold- which alone could have kept us from catastrophe- will have vanished and no rate of interest will tempt it to return.'

"If ever a prophecy came true, that one did.

"The Fed became law the day before Christmas Eve, in the year 1913, and shortly afterwards, the German International bankers, Kuhn, Loeb and Co. sent one of their partners here to run it.

"The Fed Note is essentially unsound. It is the worst currency and the most dangerous that this Country has ever known. When the proponents of the act saw that the Democratic doctrine would not permit them to let the proposed banks issue the new currency as bank notes, they should have stopped at that. They should not have foisted that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They should not have made the Government [liable on the private] debts of individuals and corporations, and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners. "As Kemerer says: 'The Fed Notes, therefore, in form, have some of the qualities of Government paper money, but in substance, are almost a pure asset currency possessing a Government guarantee against which contingency the Government has made no provision whatever.'

"Hon. L.J.Hill, a former member of the House, said, and truly: "They are obligations of the Government for which the United States received nothing and for the payment of which at any time, it assumes the responsibility: looking to the Fed to recoup itself.'

"If this United States is to redeem the Fed Notes, when the General Public finds it costs to deliver this paper to the Fed, and if the Government has made no provisions for redeeming them, the first element of unsoundness is not far to seek.

"Before the Banking and Currency Committee, when the bill was under discussion Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati said: 'The imperial power of elasticity of the public currency is wielded exclusively by the central corporations owned by the banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce, interest rates throughout the Country can be arbitrarily raised and the bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the slightest benefit to the people. The 12 Corporations together cover and monopolize and use for private gain- every dollar of the public currency and all public revenue of the United States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by their Government, without the consent of and on terms fixed by these 12 private money trusts.'

"In defiance of this and all other warnings, the proponents of the Fed created the 12 private credit corporations and gave them an absolute monopoly of the currency of these United States- not of the Fed Notes alone- but of all other currency! The Fed Act providing ways and means by which the gold and general currency in the hands of the American people could be obtained by the Fed in exchange for Fed Notes- which are not money- but mere promises to pay.

"Since the evil day when this was done, the initial monopoly has been extended by vicious amendments to the Fed and by the unlawful and treasonable practices of the Fed.

Money for the Scottish Distillers

"Mr. Chairman, if a Scottish distiller wishes to send a cargo of Scotch whiskey to these United States, he can draw his bill against the purchasing bootlegger in dollars and after the bootlegger has accepted it by writing his name across the face of it, the Scotch distiller can send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City where the Fed will buy it and use it as collateral for a new issue of Fed Notes. Thus the Government of these United States pay the Scotch distiller for the whiskey before it is shipped, and if it is lost on the way, or if the Coast Guard seizes it and destroys it, the Fed simply writes off the loss and the government never recovers the money that was paid to the Scotch distiller.

"While we are attempting to enforce prohibition here, the Fed is in the distillery business in Europe and paying bootlegger bills with public credit of these United States. "Mr. Chairman, by the same process, they compel our Government to pay the German brewer for his beer. Why should the Fed be permitted to finance the brewing industry in Germany either in this way or as they do by compelling small and fearful United States Banks to take stock in the Isenbeck Brewery and in the German Bank for brewing industries? "Mr. Chairman, if Dynamit Nobel of Germany, wishes to sell dynamite in Japan to use in Manchuria or elsewhere, it can draw its bill against the Japanese customers in dollars and send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City where the Fed will buy it and use it as collateral for a new issue of Fed Notes- while at the same time the Fed will be helping Dynamit Nobel by stuffing its stock into the United States banking system.

"Why should we send our representatives to the disarmament conference at Geneva- while the Fed is making our Government pay Japanese debts to German Munitions makers?

"Mr. Chairman, if a German wishes to raise a crop of beans and sell them to a Japanese customer, he can draw a bill against his prospective Japanese customer in dollars and have it purchased by the Fed and get the money out of this Country at the expense of the American people before he has even planted the beans in the ground. "Mr. Chairman, if a German in Germany wishes to export goods to South America, or any other Country, he can draw his bill against his customers and send it to these United States and get the money out of this Country before he ships, or even manufactures the goods.

"Mr. Chairman, why should the currency of these United States be issued on the strength of German Beer? Why should it be issued on the crop of unplanted beans to be grown in Chili for Japanese consumption? Why should these United States be compelled to issue many billions of dollars every year to pay the debts of one foreigner to another foreigner? "Was it for this that our National Bank depositors had their money taken out of our banks and shipped abroad? Was it for this that they had to lose it? Why should the public credit of these United States and likewise money belonging to our National Bank depositors be used to support foreign brewers, narcotic drug vendors, whiskey distillers, wig makers, human hair merchants, Chilean bean growers, to finance the munition factories of Germany and Soviet Russia?

The United States has been Ransacked

"The United States has been ransacked and pillaged. Our structures have been gutted and only the walls are left standing. While being perpetrated, everything the world would rake up to sell us was brought in here at our expense by the Fed until our markets were swamped with unneeded and unwanted imported goods priced far above their value and made to equal the dollar volume of our honest exports, and to kill or reduce our favorite balance of trade. As Agents of the foreign central banks the Fed try by every means in their power to reduce our favorable balance of trade. They act for their foreign principal and they accept fees from foreigners for acting against the best interests of these United States. Naturally there has been great competition among foreigners for the favors of the Fed.

"What we need to do is to send the reserves of our National Banks home to the people who earned and produced them and who still own them and to the banks which were compelled to surrender them to predatory interests.

"Mr. Chairman, there is nothing like the Fed pool of confiscated bank deposits in the world. It is a public trough of American wealth in which the foreigners claim rights, equal to or greater than Americans. The Fed is the agent of the foreign central banks. They use our bank depositors' money for the benefit of their foreign principals. They barter the public credit of the United States Government and hire it out to foreigners at a profit to themselves.

"All this is done at the expense of the United States Government, and at a sickening loss to the American people. Only our great wealth enabled us to stand the drain of it as long as we did.

"We need to destroy the Fed wherein our national reserves are impounded for the benefit of the foreigners.

"We need to save America for Americans.

Spurious Securities

"Mr. Chairman, when you hold a $10.00 Fed Note in your hand, you are holding apiece of paper which sooner or later is going to cost the United States Government $10.00 in gold (unless the Government is obliged to go off the gold standard). It is based on limburger cheese (reported to be in foreign warehouses) or in cans purported to contain peas (but may contain salt water instead), or horse meat, illicit drugs, bootleggers fancies, rags and bones from Soviet Russia (of which these United States imported over a million dollars worth last year), on wines whiskey, natural gas, goat and dog fur, garlic on the string, and Bombay ducks.

"If you like to have paper money- which is secured by such commodities- you have it in Fed Note. If you desire to obtain the thing of value upon which this paper currency is based, that is, the limburger cheese, the whiskey, the illicit drugs, or any of the other staples- you will have a very hard time finding them.

"Many of these worshipful commodities are in foreign Countries. Are you going to Germany to inspect her warehouses to see if the specified things of value are there? I think more, I do not think that you would find them there if you did go.

"On April 27, 1932, the Fed outfit sent $750,000 belonging to American bank depositors in gold to Germany. A week later another $300,000 in gold was shipped to Germany. About the middle of May $12,000,000 in gold was shipped to Germany by the Fed. Almost every week there is a shipment of gold to Germany. These shipments are not made for profit on the exchange since the German marks are below parity with the dollar.

"Mr. Chairman, I believe that the National Bank depositors of these United States have a right to know what the Fed is doing with their money. There are millions of National Bank depositors in the Country who do not know that a percentage of every dollar they deposit in a Member Bank of the Fed goes automatically to American Agents of the foreign banks and that all their deposits can be paid away to foreigners without their knowledge or consent by the crooked machinery of the Fed and the questionable practices of the Fed.

[Ed. Note- Problem with next paragraph in original] "Mr. Chairman, the American people should be told the truth by their servants in office. In 1930, we had over a half billion dollars outstanding daily to finance foreign goods stored in or shipped between several billion dollars. What goods are these on which the Fed yearly pledge several billions of dollars. In its yearly total, this item amounts to several billions of dollars of the public credit of these United States?

"What goods are those which are hidden in European and Asiatic stores have not been seen by any officer of our Government but which are being financed on the public credit of the United States Government? What goods are those upon which the United States Government is being obligated by the Fed to issue Fed Notes to the extent of several billions of dollars a year?

The Bankers' Acceptance Racket

"The Fed has been International Banks from the beginning, with these United States as their enforced banker and supplier of currency. But it is none the less extraordinary to see these twelve private credit monopolies, buying the debts of foreigners against foreigners, in all parts of the world and asking the Government of these United States for new issues of Fed notes in exchange for them. "The magnitude of the acceptance racket as it has been developed by the Fed, their foreign correspondents, and the predatory European born bankers, who set up the Fed here and taught your own, by and of pirates, how to loot the people: I say the magnitude of this racket is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 9,000,000,000 per year. In the past ten years it is said to have amounted to $90,000,000,000.00. In my opinion it has amounted to several times that much;. coupled to this you have to the extent of billions of dollars, the gambling in the United States securities, which takes place in the same open discount market- a gambling on which the Fed is now spending $100,000,000.00 per week.

"Fed Notes are taken from the U.S. Government in unlimited quantities. Is it strange that the burden of supplying these immense sums of money to the gambling fraternity has at last proved too heavy for the American people to endure? Would it not be a national [calamity to] again bind down this burden on the backs of the American people and by means of a long rawhide whip of the credit masters, compel them to enter another seventeen years of slavery?

"They are trying to do that now. They are trying to take $100,000,000.00 of the public credit of the United States every week, in addition to all their other seizures and they are sending that money to the nefarious open market in a desperate gamble to reestablish their graft as a going concern.

"They are putting the United States Government in debt to the extent of $100,000,000 a week, and with the money they are buying our Government securities for themselves and their foreign principals. Our people are disgusted with the experiences of the Fed. The Fed is not producing a loaf of bread, a yard of cloth, a bushel of corn, or a pile of cordwood by its check-kiting operations in the money market.

"Mr. Speaker, on the 13th of January of this year I addressed the House on the subject of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In the course of my remarks I made the following statement: In 1928 the member banks of the Fed borrowed $60,598,690,000. from the Fed on their fifteen-day promissory notes. Think of it. Sixty billion dollars payable on demand in gold in the course of one single year. The actual amount of such obligations called for six times as much monetary gold as there is in the world. Such transactions represent a grant in the course of one single year of about $7,000,000 to every member of the Fed.

"Is it any wonder that American labor which ultimately pays the cost of all banking operations of this Country has at last proved unequal to the task of supplying this huge total of cash and credit for the benefit of the stock market manipulators and foreign swindlers? "In 1933 the Fed presented the staggering amount of $60,598,690,000 to its member banks at the expense of the wage earners and taxpayers of these United States. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the Fed advanced $58,000,000,000 to member banks.

"In 1930 while the speculating banks were getting out of the stock market at the expense of the general public, the Fed advanced them $13,022,782,000. This shows that when the banks were gambling on the public credit of these United States as represented by the Fed currency they were subsidized to any amount they required by the Fed. When the swindle began to fall, the bankers knew it in advance and withdrew from the market. They got out with whole skins- and left the people of these United States to pay the piper. "My friend from Kansas, Mr. McGugin, has stated that he thought the Fed lent money on rediscounting. So they do, but they lend comparatively little that way. The real discounting that they do has been called a mere penny in the slot business. It is too slow for genuine high flyers. They discourage it. They prefer to subsidize their favorite banks by making them $60,000,000,000 advances and they prefer to acquire assistance in the notorious open discount market in New York, where they can use it to control the price of stocks and bonds on the exchanges.

"For every dollar they advanced on discounts in 1928, they lent $33.00 to their favorite banks for whom they do a business of several billion dollars without income tax on their profits to these United States.

The John Law Swindle

"This is the John Law swindle over again. The theft of Teapot Dome was trifling compared to it. What King ever robbed his subject to such an extent as the Fed has robbed us? Is it any wonder that there have been lately ninety cases of starvation in one of the New York hospitals? Is there any wonder that the children are being abandoned?

"The government and the people of these United States have been swindled by swindlers deluxe to whom the acquisition of American or a parcel of Fed Notes presented no more difficulty than the drawing up of a worthless acceptance in a Country not subject to the laws of these United States, by sharpers not subject to the jurisdiction of these United States, sharpers with strong banking "fence" on this side of the water, a "fence" acting as a receiver of a worthless paper coming from abroad, endorsing it and getting the currency out of the Fed for it as quickly as possible exchanging that currency for gold and in turn transmitting the gold to its foreign confederates.

Ivar Kreuger, the Match King!

"Such were the exploits of Ivar Krueger, Mr. Hoover's friend, and his rotten Wall Street bakers. Every dollar of the billions Kreuger and his gang drew out of this Country on acceptances was drawn from the government and the people of the United States through the Fed. The credit of the United States Government was peddled to him by the Fed for their own private gain. That is what the Fed has been doing for many years.

"They have been peddling the credit of this Government and the [signature of this] Government to the swindlers and speculators of all nations. That is what happens when a Country forsakes its Constitution and gives its sovereignty over the public currency to private interests. Give them the flag and they will sell it.

"The nature of Kreuger's organized swindle and the bankrupt condition of Kreuger's combine was known here last June when Hoover sought to exempt Krueger's loan to Germany of $125,000,000 from the operation of the Hoover Moratorium. The bankrupt condition of Krueger's swindle was known her last summer when $30,000,000 was taken from the American taxpayers by certain bankers in New York for the ostensible purpose of permitting Krueger to make a loan to Colombia. Colombia never saw that money.

"The nature of Krueger's swindle was known here in January when he visited his friend, Mr. Hoover, at the White House. It was known here in March before he went to Paris and committed suicide.

"Mr. Chairman, I think the people of the United States are entitled to know how many billions of dollars were placed at the disposal of Krueger and his gigantic combine by the Fed, and to know how much of our Government currency was issued and lost in the financing of that great swindle in the years during which the Fed took care of Krueger's requirements.

"A few days ago, the President of the United States with a white face and shaking hands, went before the Senate of behalf of the moneyed interests and asked the Senate to levy a tax on the people so that foreigners might know that these United States would pay its debt to them.

"Most Americans thought it was the other way around. What does these United States owe foreigners? When and by whom was the debt incurred? It was incurred by the Fed, when they peddled the signature of the Government to foreigners- for a Price. It is what the United States Government has to pay to redeem the obligations of the Fed.

Thieves Go Scot Free

"Are you going to let these thieves get off scot free? Is there one law for the looter who drives up to the door of the United States Treasury in his limousine and another for the United States Veterans who are sleeping on the floor of a dilapidated house on the outskirts of Washington?

"The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is here asking for a large loan from the people, and the wage earners and the taxpayers of these United States. It is begging for a handout from the Government. It is standing, cap in hand, at the door of the R.F.C. where all the jackals have gathered to the feast. It is asking for money that was raised from the people by taxation and wants this money of the poor for the benefit of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., the German International Bankers.

"Is there one law for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and another for the hungry veterans it threw off its freight cars the other day? Is there one law for sleek and prosperous swindlers who call themselves bankers and another law for the soldiers who defended the flag? "The R.F.C. is taking over these worthless securities from the Investment Trusts with United States Treasury money at the expense of the American taxpayer and the wage earner.

"It will take twenty years to redeem our Government. Twenty years of penal servitude to pay off the gambling debts of the traitorous Fed and to vast flood of American wages and savings, bank deposits, and the United States Government credit which the Fed exported out of this country to their foreign principals.

"The Fed lately conducted an anti-hoarding campaign here. They they took that extra money which they had persuaded the American people to put into the banks- they sent it to Europe- along with the rest. In the last several months, they have sent $1,300,000,000 in gold to their foreign employers, their foreign masters, and every dollar of that gold belonged to the people of these United States and was unlawfully taken from them.

Fiat Money

"Mr. Chairman, within the limits of the time allowed me, I cannot enter into a particularized discussion of the Fed. I have singled out the Fed currency for a few remarks because there has lately been some talk here of "fiat money". What kind of money is being pumped into the open discount market and through it into foreign channels and stock exchanges? Mr. Mills of the Treasury has spoken here of his horror of the printing presses and his horror of dishonest money. He has no horror of dishonest money. If he had, he would be no party to the present gambling of the Fed in the nefarious open discount market of New York, a market in which the sellers are represented by 10 discount corporations owned and organized by the very banks which own and control the Fed.

"Fiat money, indeed!

"What Mr. Mills is fighting for is the preservation, whole and entire, of the banker's monopoly of all the currency of the United States Government.

"Mr. Chairman, last December, I introduced a resolution here asking for an examination and an audit of the Fed and all related matters. If the House sees fit to make such an investigation, the people of these United States will obtain information of great value. This is a Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Consequently, nothing should be concealed from the people. The man who deceives the people is a traitor to these United States.

"The man who knows or suspects that a crime has been committed and who conceals and covers up that crime is an accessory to it. Mr. Speaker, it is a monstrous thing for this great nation of people to have its destinies presided over by a traitorous government board acting in secret concert with international usurers.

"Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers- but the truth is- the Fed has usurped the Government. It controls everything here and it controls all of our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.

"No man and no body of men is more entrenched in power than the arrogant credit monopoly which operated the Fed. What National Government has permitted the Fed to steal from the people should now be restored to the people. The people have a valid claim against the Fed. If that claim is enforced the Americans will not need to stand in the bread line, or to suffer and die of starvation in the streets. Women will be saved, families will be kept together, and American children will not be dispersed and abandoned.

"Here is a Fed Note. Immense numbers of the notes are now held abroad. I am told that they amount to upwards of a billion dollars. They constitute a claim against our Government and likewise a claim against our peoples' money to the extent of $1,300,000,000 which has within the last few months been shipped abroad to redeem Fed Notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Fed. The greater part of our money stock has been shipped to other lands.

"Why should we promise to pay the debts of foreigners to foreigners? Why should the Fed be permitted to finance our competitors in all parts of the world? Do you know why the tariff was raised? It was raised to shut out the flood of Fed Goods pouring in here from every quarter of the globe- cheap goods, produced by cheaply paid foreign labor, on unlimited supplies of money and credit sent out of this Country by the dishonest and unscrupulous Fed.

"The Fed are spending $100,000,000 a week buying government securities in the open market and are making a great bid for foreign business. They are trying to make rates so attractive that the human hair merchants and the distillers and other business entities in foreign land will come her and hire more of the public credit of the United States Government to pay the Fed outfit for getting it for them.

World Enslavement Planned

"Mr. Chairman, when the Fed was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here which would make the savings of the American school teacher available to a narcotic-drug vendor in Acapulco. They did not perceive that these United States was to be lowered to the position of a coolie country which has nothing but raw material and heart, that Russia was destined to supply the man power and that this country was to supply the financial power to an "international superstate". A superstate controlled by international bankers, and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure?

"The people of these United States are being greatly wronged. They have been driven from their employments. They have been dispossessed from their homes. They have been evicted from their rented quarters. They have lost their children. They have been left to suffer and die for lack of shelter, food, clothing and medicine.

"The wealth of these United States and the working capital have been taken away from them and has either been locked in the vaults of certain banks and the great corporations or exported to foreign countries for the benefit of the foreign customers of these banks and corporations. So far as the people of the United States are concerned, the cupboard is bare.

"It is true that the warehouses and coal yards and grain elevators are full, but these are padlocked, and the great banks and corporations hold the keys.

"The sack of these United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history.

"Mr. Chairman, a serious situation confronts the House of Representatives today. We are trustees of the people and the rights of the people are being taken away from them. Through the Fed the people are losing the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Their property has been taken from them without due process of law. Mr. Chairman, common decency requires us to examine the public accounts of the Government and see what crimes against the public welfare have been committed.

"What is needed here is a return to the Constitution of these United States.

"The old struggle that was fought out here in Jackson's time must be fought our over again. The independent United States Treasury should be reestablished and the Government should keep its own money under lock and key in the building the people provided for that purpose.

"Asset currency, the devise of the swindler, should be done away with. The Fed should be abolished and the State boundaries should be respected. Bank reserves should be kept within the boundaries of the States whose people own them, and this reserve money of the people should be protected so that the International Bankers and acceptance bankers and discount dealers cannot draw it away from them.

"The Fed should be repealed, and the Fed Banks, having violated their charters, should be liquidated immediately. Faithless Government officials who have violated their oaths of office should be impeached and brought to trial.

"Unless this is done by us, I predict, that the American people, outraged, pillaged, insulted and betrayed as they are in their own land, will rise in their wrath, and will sweep the money changers out of the temple.

"Mr. Chairman, the United States is bankrupt: It has been bankrupted by the corrupt and dishonest Fed. It has repudiated its debts to its own citizens. Its chief foreign creditor is Great Britain, and a British bailiff has been at the White House and the British Agents are in the United States Treasury making inventory arranging terms of liquidations!

Great Britain, Partner in Blackmail

"Mr. Chairman, the Fed has offered to collect the British claims in full from the American public by trickery and corruption, if Great Britain will help to conceal its crimes. The British are shielding their agents, the Fed, because they do not wish that system of robbery to be destroyed here. They wish it to continue for their benefit! By means of it, Great Britain has become the financial mistress of the world. She has regained the position she occupied before the World War.

"For several years she has been a silent partner in the business of the Fed. Under threat of blackmail, or by their bribery, or by their native treachery to the people of the United States, the officials in charge of the Fed unwisely gave Great Britain immense gold loans running into hundreds of millions of dollars. They did this against the law! Those gold loans were not single transactions. They gave Great Britain a borrowing power in the United States of billions. She squeezed billions out of this Country by means of her control of the Fed.

"As soon as the Hoover Moratorium was announced, Great Britain moved to consolidate her gains. After the treacherous signing away of American rights at the 7-power conference at London in July, 1931, which put the Fed under the control of the Bank of International Settlements, Great Britain began to tighten the hangman's noose around the neck of the United States.

"She abandoned the gold standard and embarked on a campaign of buying up the claims of foreigners against the Fed in all parts of the world. She has now sent her bailiff, Ramsey MacDonald, here to get her war debt to this country canceled. But she has a club in her hands! She has title to the gambling debts which the corrupt and dishonest Fed incurred abroad.

"Ramsey MacDonald, the labor party deserter, has come here to compel the President to sign on the dotted line, and that is what Roosevelt is about to do! Roosevelt will endeavor to conceal the nature of his action from the American people. But he will obey the International Bankers and transfer the war debt that Great Britain should pay to the American people, to the shoulders of the American taxpayers.

"Mr. Chairman, the bank holiday in the several States was brought about by the corrupt and dishonest Fed. These institutions manipulated money and credit, and caused the States to order bank holidays.

"These holidays were frame-ups! "They were dress rehearsals for the national bank holiday which Franklin D. Roosevelt promised Sir Ramsey MacDonald that he would declare.

"There was no national emergency here when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office excepting the bankruptcy of the Fed- a bankruptcy which has been going on under cover for several years and which has been concealed from the people so that the people would continue to permit their bank deposits and their bank reserves and their gold and the funds of the United States Treasury to be impounded in these bankrupt institutions.

"Under cover, the predatory International Bankers have been stealthily transferring the burden of the Fed debts to the people's Treasury and to the people themselves. They the farms and the homes of the United States to pay for their thievery! That is the only national emergency that there has been here since the depression began.

"The week before the bank holiday ws declared in New York State, the deposits in the New York savings banks were greater than the withdrawals. There were no runs on New York Banks. There was no need of a bank holiday in New York, or of a national holiday.

Roosevelt and the International Bankers

"Roosevelt did what the International Bankers ordered him to do! [emphasis added]

"Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Chairman, or permit yourself to be deceived by others into the belief that Roosevelt's dictatorship is in any way intended to benefit the people of the United States: he is preparing to sign on the dotted line! "He is preparing to cancel the war debts by fraud!

"He is preparing to internationalize this Country and to destroy our Constitution itself in order to keep the Fed intact as a money institution for foreigners. "Mr. Chairman, I see no reason why citizens of the United States should be terrorized into surrendering their property to the International Bankers who own and control the Fed. The statement that gold would be taken from its lawful owners if they did not voluntarily surrender it, to private interests, show that there is an anarchist in our Government.

"The statement that it is necessary for the people to give their gold- the only real money- to the banks in order to protect the currency, is a statement of calculated dishonesty!

"By his unlawful usurpation of power on the night of March 5, 1933, and by his proclamation, which in my opinion was in violation of the Constitution of the United States, Roosevelt divorced the currency of the United States from gold, and the United States currency is no longer protected by gold. It is therefore sheer dishonesty to say that the people's gold is needed to protect the currency.

"Roosevelt ordered the people to give their gold to private interests- that is, to banks, and he took control of the banks so that all the gold and gold values in them, or given into them, might be handed over to the predatory International Bankers who own and control the Fed.

"Roosevelt cast his lot with the usurers. "He agreed to save the corrupt and dishonest at the expense of the people of the United States.

"He took advantage of the people's confusion and weariness and spread the dragnet over the United States to capture everything of value that was left in it. He made a great haul for the International Bankers.

"The Prime Minister of England came here for money! He came here to collect cash!

"He came here with Fed Currency and other claims against the Fed which England had bought up in all parts of the world. And he has presented them for redemption in gold.

"Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of compelling the Fed to pay their own debts. I see no reason why the general public should be forced to pay the gambling debts of the International Bankers.

Roosevelt Seizes the Gold

"By his action in closing the banks of the United States, Roosevelt seized the gold value of forty billions or more of bank deposits in the United States banks. Those deposits were deposits of gold values. By his action he has rendered them payable to the depositors in paper only, if payable at all, and the paper money he proposes to pay out to bank depositors and to the people generally in lieu of their hard earned gold values in itself, and being based on nothing into which the people can convert it the said paper money is of negligible value altogether.

"It is the money of slaves, not of free men. If the people of the United States permit it to be imposed upon them at the will of their credit masters, the next step in their downward progress will be their acceptance of orders on company stores for what they eat and wear. Their case will be similar to that of starving coal miners. They, too, will be paid with orders on Company stores for food and clothing, both of indifferent quality and be forced to live in Company-owned houses from which they may be evicted at the drop of a hat. More of them will be forced into conscript labor camps under supervision.

"At noon on the 4th of March, 1933, FDR with his hand on the Bible, took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S. At midnight on the 5th of March, 1933, he confiscated the property of American citizens. He took the currency of the United States standard of value. He repudiated the internal debt of the Government to its own citizens. He destroyed the value of the American dollar. He released, or endeavored to release, the Fed from their contractual liability to redeem Fed currency in gold or lawful money on a parity with gold. He depreciated the value of the national currency.

"The people of the U.S. are now using unredeemable paper slips for money. The Treasury cannot redeem that paper in gold or silver. The gold and silver of the Treasury has unlawfully been given to the corrupt and dishonest Fed. And the Administration has since had the effrontery to raid the country for more gold for the private interests by telling our patriotic citizens that their gold is needed to protect the currency.

"It is not being used to protect the currency! It is being used to protect the corrupt and dishonest Fed. "The directors of these institutions have committed criminal offense against the United States Government, including the offense of making false entries on their books, and the still more serious offense of unlawfully abstracting funds from the United States Treasury! "Roosevelt's gold raid is intended to help them out of the pit they dug for themselves when they gambled away the wealth and savings of the American people.

Dictatorship

"The International Bankers set up a dictatorship here because they wanted a dictator who would protect them. They wanted a dictator who would protect them. They wanted a dictator who would issue a proclamation giving the Fed an absolute and unconditional release from their special currency in gold, or lawful money of any Fed Bank.

"Has Roosevelt relieved any other class of debtors in this country from the necessity of paying their debts? Has he made a proclamation telling the farmers that they need not pay their mortgages? Has he made a proclamation to the effect that mothers of starving children need not pay their milk bills? Has he made a proclamation relieving householders from the necessity of paying rent?

Roosevelt's Two Kinds of Laws

"Not he! He has issued one kind of proclamation only, and that is a proclamation to relieve international bankers and the foreign debtors of the United States Government.

"Mr. Chairman, the gold in the banks of this country belongs to the American people who have paper money contracts for it in the form of national currency. If the Fed cannot keep their contracts with United States citizens to redeem their paper money in gold, or lawful money, then the Fed must be taken over by the United States Government and their officers must be put on trial.

"There must be a day of reckoning. If the Fed have looted the Treasury so that the Treasury cannot redeem the United States currency for which it is liable in gold, then the Fed must be driven out of the Treasury.

"Mr. Chairman, a gold certificate is a warehouse receipt for gold in the Treasury, and the man who has a gold certificate is the actual owner of a corresponding amount of gold stacked in the Treasury subject to his order.

"Now comes Roosevelt who seeks to render the money of the United States worthless by unlawfully declaring that it may No Longer be converted into gold at the will of the holder.

"Roosevelt's next haul for the International Bankers was the reduction in the pay of all Federal employees.

"Next in order are the veterans of all wars, many of whom are aged and inform, and other sick and disabled. These men had their lives adjusted for them by acts of Congress determining the amounts of the pensions, and, while it is meant that every citizen should sacrifice himself for the good of the United States, I see no reason why those poor people, these aged Civil War Veterans and war widows and half-starved veterans of the World War, should be compelled to give up their pensions for the financial benefit of the International vultures who have looted the Treasury, bankrupted the country and traitorously delivered the United States to a foreign foe.

"There are many ways of raising revenue that are better than that barbaric act of injustice.

"Why not collect from the Fed the amount they owe the U.S. Treasury in interest on all the Fed currency they have taken from the Government? That would put billions of dollars into the U.S. Treasury.

"If FDR is as honest as he pretends to be, he will have that done immediately. And in addition, why not compel the Fed to disclose their profits and to pay the Government its share?

"Until this is done, it is rank dishonesty to talk of maintaining the credit of the U.S. Government. "My own salary as a member of Congress has been reduced, and while I am willing to give my part of it that has been taken away from me to the U.S. Government, I regret that the U.S. has suffered itself to be brought so low by the vultures and crooks who are operating the roulette wheels and faro tables in the Fed, that is now obliged to throw itself on the mercy of its legislators and charwomen, its clerks, and it poor pensioners and to take money out of our pockets to make good the defalcations of the International Bankers who were placed in control of the Treasury and given the monopoly of U.S. Currency by the misbegotten Fed. "I am well aware that the International Bankers who drive up to the door of the United States Treasury in their limousines, look down with scorn upon members of Congress because we work for so little, while they draw millions a year. The difference is that we earn, or try to earn, what we get- and they steal the greater part of their takings.

Enemies of the People They Rob

"I do not like to see vivisections performed on human beings. I do not like to see the American people used for experimental purposes by the credit masters of the United States. They predicted among themselves that they would be able to produce a condition here in which American citizens would be completely humbled and left starving and penniless in the streets.

"The fact that they made that assertion while they were fomenting their conspiracy against the United States that they like to see a human being, especially an American, stumbling from hunger when he walks. "Something should be done about it, they say. Five-cent meals, or something! "But FDR will not permit the House of Representatives to investigate the condition of the Fed. FDR will not do that. He has certain International Bankers to serve. They not look to him as the man Higher Up who will protect them from the just wrath of an outraged people.

"The International Bankers have always hated our pensioners. A man with a small pension is a ward of the Government. He is not dependent upon them for a salary or wages. They cannot control him. They do not like him. It gave them great pleasure, therefore, to slash the veterans.

"But FDR will never do anything to embarrass his financial supporters. He will cover up the crimes of the Fed.

"Before he was elected, Mr. Roosevelt advocated a return to the earlier practices of the Fed, thus admitting its corruptness. The Democratic platform advocated a change in the personnel of the Fed. These were campaign bait. As a prominent Democrat lately remarked to me; "There is no new deal. The same old crowd is in control."

"The claims of foreign creditors of the Fed have no validity in law. The foreign creditors were the receivers- and the willing receivers- of stolen goods! They have received through their banking fences immense amounts of currency, and that currency was unlawfully taken from the United States Treasury by the Fed.

"England discovered the irregularities of the Fed quite early in its operations and through fear, apparently, the Fed have for years suffered themselves to be blackmailed and dragooning England to share in the business of the Fed. "The Fed have unlawfully taken many millions of dollars of the public credit of the United States and have given it to foreign sellers on the security of the Debt paper of foreign buyers in purely foreign transactions, and when the foreign buyers refused to meet their obligations and the Fed saw no honest way of getting the stolen goods back into their possession, they decided by control of the executive to make the American people pay their losses!

Conspiracy of War Debts

"They likewise entered into a conspiracy to deprive the people of the U.S. of their title to the war debts and not being able to do that in the way they intended, they are now engaged in an effort to debase the American dollar so that foreign governments will have their debts to this country cut in two, and then by means of other vicious underhanded arrangements, they propose to remit the remainder.

"So far as the U.S. is concerned, the gambling counters have no legal standing. The U.S. Treasury cannot be compelled to make good the gambling ventures of the corrupt and dishonest Fed. Still less should the bank deposits of the U.S. be used for that purpose. Still less should the national currency have been made irredeemable in gold so that the gold which was massed and stored to redeem the currency for American citizens may be used to pay the gambling debts of the Fed for England's benefit. "The American people should have their gold in their own possession where it cannot be held under secret agreement for any foreign control bank, or world bank, or foreign nation. Our own citizens have the prior claim to it. The paper [money men] have in their possession deserves redemption far more than U.S. currency and credit which was stolen from the U.S. Treasury and bootlegged abroad.

"Why should the foreigners be made preferred creditors of the bankrupt U.S.? Why should the U.S. be treated as bankrupt at all? This Government has immense sums due it from the Fed. The directors of these institutions are men of great wealth. Why should the guilty escape the consequences of their misdeeds? Why should the people of these U.S. surrender the value of their gold bank deposits to pay off the gambling debts of these bankers? Why should Roosevelt promise foreigners that the U.S. will play the part of a good neighbor, 'meeting its obligations'?

"Let the Fed meet their own obligations.

"Every member of the Fed should be compelled to disgorge, and every acceptance banker and every discount corporation which has made illegal profits by means of public credit unlawfully bootlegged out of the U.S. Treasury and hired out by the crooks and vultures of the Fed should be compelled to disgorge.

Federal Reserve Pays No Taxes

"Gambling debts due to foreign receivers of stolen goods should not be paid by sacrificing our title to our war debts, the assets of the U.S. Treasury- which belong to all the people of the U.S. and which it is our duty to preserve inviolate in the people's treasury.

"The U.S. Treasury cannot be made liable for them. The Fed currency must be redeemed by the Fed banks or else these Fed banks must be liquidated.

"We know from assertions made here by the Hon. John N. Garner, Vice-President of the U.S. that there is a condition in the [United States such] would cause American citizens, if they knew what it was, to lose all confidence in their government.

"That is a condition that Roosevelt will not have investigated. He has brought with him from Wall Street, James Warburg, the son of Paul M. Warburg. Mr. Warburg, alien born, and the son of an alien who did not become naturalized here until several years after this Warburg's birth, is a son of a former partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., a grandson of another partner, a nephew of a former partner, and a nephew of a present partner.

"He holds no office in our Government, but I am told that he is in daily attendance at the Treasury, and that he has private quarters there! In other words, Mr. Chairman, Kuhn, Loeb and Company now has control and occupy the U.S. Treasury.

Preferred Treatment for Foreigners

"The text of the Executive order which seems to place an embargo on shipments of gold permits the Secretary of the Treasury, a former director of the corrupt, to issue licenses at his discretion for the export of gold coin, or bullion, earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank for international settlement. Now, Mr. Chairman, if gold held in trust for those foreign institutions may be sent to them, I see no reason why gold held in trust for American as evidenced by their gold certificates and other currency issued by the U.S. Government should not be paid to them. "I think that American citizens should be entitled to treatment at least as good as that which the person is extending to foreign governments, foreign central banks, and the bank of International Settlements. I think a veteran of the world war, with a $20.00 gold certificate, is at least as much entitled to receive his own gold for it, as any international banker in the city of New York or London.

"By the terms of this executive order, gold may be exported if it is actually required, for the fulfillment of any contract entered into prior to the date of this order by an applicant who, in obedience to the executive order of April 5, 1933, has delivered gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates. "This means that gold may be exported to pay the obligations abroad of the Fed which were incurred prior to the date of the order, namely, April 20, 1933.

"If a European Bank should send 100,000,000 dollars in Fed currency to a bank in this country for redemption, that bank could easily ship gold to Europe in exchange for that currency. Such Fed currency would represent "contracts" entered into prior to the date of the order. If the Bank of International Settlements or any other foreign bank holding any of the present gambling debt paper of the Fed should draw a draft for the settlement of such obligation, gold would be shopped to them because the debt contract would have been entered into prior to the date of order.

Crimes and Criminals

"Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of constitutional privilege.

"Whereas, I charge. . .Eugene Meyer, Roy A. Young, Edmund Platt, Eugene B. Black, Adolph Casper Miller, Charles S. Hamlin, George R. James, Andrew W. Mellon, Ogden L. Mills, William H. Woo W. Poole, J.F.T. O'Connor, members of the Federal Reserve Board; F. H. Curtis, J.H. Chane, R.L. Austin, George De Camp, L.B. Williams, W.W. Hoxton, Oscar Newton, E.M. Stevens, J.S. Wood, J.N. Payton, M.L. McClure, C.C. Walsh, Isaac B. Newton, Federal Reserve Agents, jointly and severally, with violations of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and whereas I charge them with having taken funds from the U.S Treasury which were not appropriated by the Congress of the United States, and I charge them with having unlawfully taken over $80,000,000,000 from the U.S. Government in the year 1928, the said unlawful taking consisting of the unlawful creation of claims against the U.S. Treasury to the extent of over $80,000,000,000 in the year 1928; and I charge them with similar thefts committed in 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933, and in years previous to 1928, amounting to billions of dollars; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally with having unlawfully created claims against the U.S. Treasury by unlawfully placing U.S. Government credit in specific amounts to the credit of foreign governments and foreign central banks of issue; private interests and commercial and private banks of the U.S. and foreign countries, and branches of foreign banks doing business in the U.S., to the extent of billions of dollars; and with having made unlawful contracts in the name of the U.S. Government and the U.S. Treasury; and with having made false entries on books of account; and

"Whereas I charge them jointly and severally, with having taken Fed Notes from the U.S. Treasury and with having put Fed Notes into circulation without obeying the mandatory provision of the Fed Act which requires the Fed Board to fix an interest rate on all issues of Fed Notes supplied to Fed Banks, the interest resulting therefrom to be paid by the Fed Banks to the government of the U.S. for the use of the Fed Notes, and I charge them of having defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S. of billions of dollars by the commission of this crime, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having purchased U.S. Government securities with U.S. Government credit unlawfully taken and with having sold the said U.S. Government securities back to the people of the U.S. for gold or gold values and with having again purchased U.S. Government securities with U.S. Government credit unlawfully taken and with having again sold the said U.S. Government security for gold or gold values, and I charge them with having defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S. by this rotary process; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully negotiated U.S. Government securities, upon which the Government liability was extinguished, as collateral security for Fed Notes and with having substituted such securities for gold which was being held as collateral security for Fed Notes, and with having by the process defrauded the U.S. Government and the people of the U.S., and I charge them with the theft of all the gold and currency they obtained by this process; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully issued Fed currency on false, worthless and fictitious acceptances and other circulating evidence of debt, and with having made unlawful advances of Fed currency, and with having unlawfully permitted renewals of acceptances and renewals of other circulating evidences of debt, and with having permitted acceptance bankers and discount dealer corporations and other private bankers to violate the banking laws of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired to have evidences of debt to the extent of $1,000,000,000 artificially created at the end of February, 1933, and early in March 1933, and with having made unlawful issues and advances of Fed currency on the security of said artificially created evidences of debt for a sinister purpose, and with having assisted in the execution of said sinister purpose; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having brought about the repudiation of the currency obligations of the Fed Banks to the people of the U.S. and with having conspired to obtain a release for the Fed Board and the Fed Banks from their contractual liability to redeem all Fed currency in gold or lawful money at the Fed Bank and with having defrauded the holders of Fed currency, and with having conspired to have the debts and losses of the Fed Board and the Fed Banks unlawfully transferred to the Government and the people of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully substituted Fed currency and other irredeemable paper currency for gold in the hands of the people after the decision to repudiate the Fed currency and the national currency was made known to them, and with thus having obtained money under false pretenses; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having brought about a repudiation of the notes of the U.S. in order that the gold value of the said currency might be given to private interests, foreign governments, foreign central banks of issues, and the Bank of International Settlements, and the people of the U.S. to be left without gold or lawful money and with no currency other that a paper currency irredeemable in gold, and I charge them with having done this for the benefit of private interests, foreign governments, foreign central banks of issue, and the bank of International Settlements; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with conniving with the Edge Law banks, and other Edge Law institutions, accepting banks, and discount corporations, foreign central banks of issue, foreign commercial banks, foreign corporations, and foreign individuals with funds unlawfully taken from the U.S. Treasury; and I charge them with having unlawfully permitted and made possible 'new financing' for foreigners at the expense of the U.S. Treasury to the extent of billions of dollars and with having unlawfully permitted and made possible the bringing into the United States of immense quantities of foreign securities, created in foreign countries for export to the U.S. and with having unlawfully permitted the said foreign securities to be imported into the U.S. instead of gold, which was lawfully due to the U.S. on trade balances and otherwise, and with having lawfully permitted and facilitated the sale of the said foreign securities in the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully exported U.S. coins and currency for a sinister purpose, and with having deprived the people of the U.S. of their lawful medium of exchange, and I charge them with having arbitrarily and unlawfully reduced the amount of money and currency in circulation in the U.S. to the lowest rate per capita in the history of the Government, so that the great mass of the people have been left without a sufficient medium of exchange, and I charge them with concealment and evasion in refusing to make known the amount of U.S. money in coins and paper currency exported and the amount remaining in the U.S. as a result of which refusal the Congress of the U.S. is unable to ascertain where the U.S. coins and issues of currency are at the present time, and what amount of U.S. currency is now held abroad; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having arbitrarily and unlawfully raised and lowered the rates of money and with having arbitrarily increased and diminished the volume of currency in circulation for the benefit of private interests at the expense of the Government and the people of the U.S. and with having unlawfully manipulated money rates, wages, salaries and property values both real and personal, in the U.S. by unlawful operations in the open discount market and by resale and repurchase agreements unsanctioned by law, and

"Whereas I charge them jointly and severally, with having brought about the decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges in October, 1929, by unlawful manipulation of money rates and the volume of U.S. money and currency in circulation: by theft of funds from the U.S. Treasury by gambling in acceptances and U.S. Government securities; by service rendered to foreign and domestic speculators and politicians, and by unlawful sale of U.S. gold reserves abroad, and

"Whereas the unconstitutional inflation law imbedded in the so-called Farm Relief Act by which the Fed Banks are given permission to buy U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and to drew forth currency from the people's Treasury to the extent of $3,000,000,000 is likely to result in connivance on the part of said accused with others in the purchase by the Fed of the U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 with U.S. Government's own credit unlawfully taken, it being obvious that the Fed do no not intend to pay anything of value to the U.S. Government for the said U.S. Government securities no provision for payment in gold or lawful money appearing in the so-called Farm Relief bill- and the U.S. Government will thus be placed in a position of conferring a gift of $3,000,000,000 in the U.S. Government securities on the Fed to enable them to pay more on their bad debts to foreign governments, foreign central banks of issue, private interests, and private and commercial banks, both foreign and domestic, and the Bank of International Settlements, and

"Whereas the U.S. Government will thus go into debt to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and will then have an additional claim of $3,000,000,000 in currency unlawfully created against it and whereas no private interest should be permitted to buy U.S. Government securities with the Government's own credit unlawfully taken and whereas currency should not be issued for the benefit of said private interest or any interests on U.S. Government securities so acquired, and whereas it has been publicly stated and not denied that the inflation amendment of the Farm Relief Act is the matter of benefit which was secured by Ramsey MacDonald, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, upon the occasion of his latest visit to the U.S. Treasury, and whereas there is grave danger that the accused will employ the provision creating U.S. Government securities to the extent of $3,000,000,000 and three millions in currency to be issuable thereupon for the benefit of themselves and their foreign principals, and that they will convert the currency so obtained to the uses of Great Britain by secret arrangements with the Bank of England of which they are the agents, and for which they maintain an account and perform services at the expense of the U.S. Treasury, and that they will likewise confer benefits upon the Bank of International Settlements for which they maintain an account and perform services at the expense of the U.S. Treasury; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having concealed the insolvency of the Fed and with having failed to report the insolvency of the Fed to the Congress and with having conspired to have the said insolvent institutions continue in operation, and with having permitted the said insolvent institutions to receive U.S. Government funds and other deposits, and with having permitted them to exercise control over the gold reserves of the U.S. and with having permitted them to transfer upward of $100,000,000,000 of their debts and losses to the general public and the Government of the U.S., and with having permitted foreign debts of the Fed to be paid with the property, the savings, the wages, and the salaries of the people of the U.S. and with the farms and the homes of the American people, and whereas I charge them with forcing the bad debts of the Fed upon the general public covertly and dishonestly and and with taking the general wealth and savings of the people of the U.S. under false pretenses, to pay the debts of the Fed to foreigners; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with violations of the Fed Act and other laws; with maladministration of the h evasions of the Fed Law and other laws; and with having unlawfully failed to report violations of law on the part of the Fed Banks which, if known, would have caused the Fed Banks to lose their charters, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with failure to protect and maintain the gold reserves and the gold stock and gold coinage of the U.S. and with having sold the gold reserves of the U.S to foreign Governments, foreign central banks of issue, foreign commercial and private banks, and other foreign institutions and individuals at a profit to themselves, and I charge them with having sold gold reserves of the U.S. so that between 1924 and 1928 the U.S. gained no gold on net account but suffered a decline in its percentage of central gold reserves from the 45.9 percent in 1924 to 37.5 percent in 1928 notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. had a favorable balance of trade throughout that period, and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired to concentrate U.S. Government securities and thus the national debt of the U.S. in the hands of foreigners and international money lenders and with having conspired to transfer to foreigners and international money lenders title to and control of the financial resources of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having fictitiously paid installments on the national debt with Government credit unlawfully taken; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the loss of the U.S. Government funds entrusted to their care; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having destroyed independent banks in the U.S. and with having thereby caused losses amounting to billions of dollars to the said banks, and to the general public of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the failure to furnish true reports of the business operations and the true conditions of the Fed to the Congress and the people, and having furnished false and misleading reports to the congress of the U.S., and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having published false and misleading propaganda intended to deceive the American people and to cause the U.S. to lose its independence; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with unlawfully allowing Great Britain to share in the profits of the Fed at the expense of the Government and the people of the U.S.; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having entered into secret agreements and illegal transactions with Montague Norman, Governor of the Bank of England; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with swindling the U.S. Treasury and the people of the U.S. in pretending to have received payment from Great Britain of the amount due on the British ware debt to the U.S. in December, 1932; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having conspired with their foreign principals and others to defraud the U.S. Government and to prevent the people of the U.S. from receiving payment of the war debts due to the U.S. from foreign nations; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with having robbed the U.S Government and the people of the U.S. by their theft and sale of the gold reserves of the U.S. and other unlawful transactions created a deficit in the U.S. Treasury, which has necessitated to a large extent the destruction of our national defense and the reduction of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy and other branches of the national defense; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, of having reduced the U.S. from a first class power to one that is dependent, and with having reduced the U.S. from a rich and powerful nation to one that is internationally poor; and

"Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the crime of having treasonable conspired and acted against the peace and security of the U.S. and with having treasonable conspired to destroy constitutional Government in the U.S.

"Resolve, That the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized and directed as a whole or by subcommittee, to investigate the official conduct of the Fed agents to determine whether, in the opinion of the said committee, they have been guilty of any high crime or misdemeanor which in the contemplation the Constitution requires the interposition of the Constitutional powers of the House. Such Committee shall report its finding to the House, together with such resolution or resolutions of impeachment or other recommendations as it deems proper.

"For the purpose of this resolution the Committee is authorized to sit and act during the present Congress at such times and places in the District of Columbia or elsewhere, whether or not the House is sitting, has recessed or has adjourned, to hold such clerical, stenographic, and other assistants, to require of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, to take such testimony, to have such printing and binding done, and to make such expenditures as it deems necessary."

After some discussion and upon the motion of Mr. Byrns, the resolution and charge was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

The Federal Reserve Monoply Over Money

2007-11-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

by Congressman Ron Paul

Recently I had the opportunity to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appeared before the congressional Joint Economic committee. The topic that morning was the state of the American economy, and many of my colleagues raised questions about how the Fed might better "regulate" things to ease fears of an economic downturn. The tenor of my colleagues' questions suggested that Mr. Bernanke's job is nothing less than to run the U.S. economy, like some kind of Soviet central planner.

Certainly it's true that Mr. Bernanke can drastically affect the economy at the drop of a hat, simply by making decisions about the money supply and interest rates. But why do members of Congress assume this is good? Why do we accept without objection that a small group of people on the Federal Reserve Board wields so much power over our economic well-being? Is centralized, monopoly control over our money even compatible with a supposedly free-market economy?

Few Americans give much thought to the Federal Reserve System or monetary policy in general. But even as they strive to earn a living, and hopefully save or invest for the future, Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank are working insidiously against them. Day by day, every dollar you have is being devalued.

The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch-- Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference-- that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.

The Fed's inflationary policies hurt older people the most. Older people generally rely on fixed incomes from pensions and Social Security, along with their savings. Inflation destroys the buying power of their fixed incomes, while low interest rates reduce any income from savings. So while Fed policies encourage younger people to overborrow because interest rates are so low, they also punish thrifty older people who saved for retirement.

The financial press sometimes criticizes Federal Reserve policy, but the validity of the fiat system itself is never challenged. Both political parties want the Fed to print more money, either to support social spending or military adventurism. Politicians want the printing presses to run faster and create more credit, so that the economy will be healed like magic- or so they believe.

Fiat dollars allow us to live beyond our means, but only for so long. History shows that when the destruction of monetary value becomes rampant, nearly everyone suffers and the economic and political structure becomes unstable. Spendthrift politicians may love a system that generates more and more money for their special interest projects, but the rest of us have good reason to be concerned about our monetary system and the future value of our dollars.

Congressman Ron Paul
Project Freedom

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.
Copyright © 2006-2007 Dr. Ron Paul

Paul Van Eeden Article: Sue Opec

2007-11-01T09:57:00.001-04:00

May 9, 2008

American consumers, I am sure, would love to drive now and pay for gasoline later. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are promising them exactly that: a federal gas tax holiday this summer. This has to be one of the dumbest things I have heard so far in this election campaign.

The Federal Government is currently running a deficit, spending more money than it receives in taxes. If the government now foregoes gasoline tax revenues, this deficit will grow at an even greater rate. Every dollar the government does not receive in gasoline taxes will have to come either from other taxes, or from increased borrowing. If the government gets the money from other taxes then consumers did not get a break at all, they just paid in other ways. If the government borrows more money to make up for the missing gasoline tax revenues, the American people’s total liability will increase while they drive on credit this summer. But at some point this liability will have to be paid.

Yet these are not the only flaws in this gas tax holiday proposal. Left alone, markets have a way of dealing with price changes and their underlying causes. Rising prices force consumers to ration their consumption, leading to a decrease in demand and ultimately either falling prices or stabilizing prices. If Hillary or McCain were president and did manage to temporarily reduce the gasoline price by foregoing the federal gas tax, it would artificially stimulate consumption of gasoline thereby increasing demand and exacerbating whatever is causing the price to rise in the first place. Yet this simple economic principle is completely lost on both presidential candidates.

But Hillary wouldn’t stop there. She proposes that big oil companies pay the federal gasoline taxes instead of consumers, since these companies are making so much profit lately. This would be on top of the royalties and income taxes they are already paying. She supports this proposal by stating that the oil price must be manipulated and therefore the “windfall profits” that oil companies are receiving should be seized by government.

Let’s look at the use of profits. Regardless of why the oil price increased, the increase in price suggests that there is substantial demand for oil. It would make sense then to try and stimulate the discovery and production of more oil, so that the supply will increase and mitigate the effect that demand is having on the price. These “windfall profits” are precisely what is needed to help the situation: oil companies will use the money to boost their search for new oil deposits, and bring more marginal oil wells into production thereby alleviating the rise in the oil price with increased supply. What Hillary wants to do is take this ability away from the oil companies and, instead, spend it on whatever pet projects she can dream up to please some voter, somewhere. Such senseless pandering is precisely what causes immense misallocations of capital and leads to waste and loss of productivity.

Now, let’s look at the manipulation of the oil price. Hillary is adamant that the oil price must be manipulated or it would not be so high. Being past peak oil immediately comes to mind, but for our purposes let’s assume that whether or not we are past peak oil there is sufficient oil right now, today, to meet immediate demand.

OPEC states with regular monotony that the increase in the oil price is not due to lack of supply, which is at odds with Clinton, and others, who advocate suing OPEC. Hillary says that an Exxon executive testified under oath before a House of Representatives committee that the oil price should be about $50 to $55 a barrel based on market forces. From this she concluded that the oil price must be manipulated. In fact, there is some truth to both statements.

If we look at the exchange rate of the US dollar against the euro, and the twelve currencies that comprise the euro before its launch, we see that in January 1970 it took 1.151 “euros” to buy a dollar. Today it takes 0.644 euros to buy a dollar. For the sake of simplicity let’s use the euro-dollar exchange rate as a benchmark for the dollar’s devaluation on foreign exchange markets. From this exchange rate we can see that the oil price would have been 44% lower today were it not for the decline of the US dollar exchange rate. That would make the oil price, not $120 a barrel, but only $67 a barrel. $67 is still more than $50, or $55, but it’s close enough to show that the oil price is approximately 80% higher today than it would have been if the government was not so hell-bent on destroying the dollar.

This leads to our second conclusion: Hillary Clinton is also correct in suspecting market manipulation, but it is not the oil price that is being manipulated, but the dollar itself. By increasing the supply of dollars the government devalues every dollar in existence by an equivalent amount. The impact of this inflation is not uniform through the economy or markets but, with time, it does filter through to everything. If we look at the price of oil in US dollars and simultaneously look at the inflation of the dollar we can see that oil has in fact not gone up in value at all – it is the dollar that has declined in value. So the manipulation is clearly evident, but it is not the supply of oil that is being manipulated, but the supply of dollars, to decrease the dollar’s value on the assumption that that would stimulate spending and economic activity. That is the cause of the rise in the oil price.

For those who cannot fathom that it’s as simple as this, or that inflation of the money supply directly affects the value of the dollar, consider these words from Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, in a speech he made on November 21, 2002 before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C.: “Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services.”

Aside from the fact that the assumption that inflation can create economic activity is entirely false, the idea that OPEC is somehow to blame for the rise in the oil price is absurd. Look at the chart below that shows the oil price in US dollars and the increase in the supply of dollars as measured by M3. We see that the oil price is trying desperately to catch up with the dollar’s inflation. In fact, if anything, oil companies and oil producers have been subsidizing American gasoline consumers for the past 22 years!

The manipulation is clearly in the dollar. By rapidly increasing the money supply and thereby decreasing the value of the dollar the government is directly and solely responsible for the increase in the oil price. If Hillary, McCain or Obama had any sense of responsibility they would tackle this issue first and foremost, since inflation of the money supply is also the primary reason for the increase in the wealth gap -- it hurts people with lower incomes far more than high-income earners, or those with a high net worth

Another way to look at the same data is to adjust the oil price for inflation, by dividing the oil price by the increase in the supply of dollars (M3), as I’ve shown in the chart below.

Now you can see that while the oil price is certainly not constant, there has been very little in the way of a real (inflation adjusted) increase in the price of oil since 1959, aside from the spike in the oil price during the dollar crisis of 1979 and 1980. In fact, on an inflation adjusted basis, the oil price is lower today than it was in 1959. From this chart we can again clearly see that it is not OPEC, or the oil companies, that are to blame for the rising price of oil, but the government’s irresponsible inflation of the money supply.

On another front, a proposal was tabled in the Senate this week to mandate higher cash collateral for energy futures trading. The thought is that since energy speculators must be responsible for driving up the price of oil, the government should increase the cost of such trading, thereby making it harder for energy speculators to engage in futures transactions.

This proposal again demonstrates the complete lack of any fundamental understanding of how a market works, and will have exactly the opposite effect to what its proponents have in mind. Professional speculators are seldom the cause of unjustified price increases or decreases (although they can be). Quite the contrary -- if speculators deem prices too low they will buy a commodity thereby preventing prices from falling further. Similarly, if they deem prices too high they will engage in short sales thereby mitigating price spikes. The end result is less volatility, not more volatility. Financial speculators are usually very well informed and intelligent people, and they risk their own capital or capital entrusted to them. They look at markets and assess the potential real return on capital before they attempt a trade, and therefore as a whole are unlikely to take unnecessary risks or do stupid things -- unlike ignorant bureaucrats who every so often feel the need to pacify voters with more senseless regulation.

Now, I am not going to try and argue that speculators as a group are always right, or that they do not sometimes get carried away and drive prices too high or too low -- they are still human. But when speculators make such serious mistakes they typically lose their own capital, or the capital entrusted to them, and so the market eliminates them or, at least, “educates” them to make better decisions in the future. However, taken over a longer period of time and across a spectrum of commodities, speculators as a group undoubtedly reduce volatility in prices. In the rare instances when speculators do drive prices far too high, or too low, it is usually the result of unsophisticated “retail” gamblers trying to get rich quick at the end of a market cycle.

In the case of oil, the incredible inflation rate of the US dollar, as measured by M3, is clearly devaluing the currency and causing the oil price, and many other commodity prices, to soar. By making it more expensive and difficult for speculators to participate in the market, legislators will achieve only an increase in price volatility and the loss of market share to foreign exchanges that do not impede speculators from doing their work.

Notwithstanding anything said thus far, the oil price had a good run and so in the short term a pull back in the price of oil should be expected. But this would merely be normal market volatility, as we are currently seeing in the gold price. Over the long term the price of oil is going up. The days of $50 or $55 oil are gone forever.

The only thing sadder than the general lack of understanding of basic economics among politicians is the severe lack of knowledge among the voting population that compels them to vote, time and again, for candidates and policies that ensure the deterioration of their living standards while simultaneously sacrificing their civil liberties “in the name of freedom”.

Paul Van Eeden

May 09, 2008

Federal Reserve Video - Part 1

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Federal Reserve Video - Part 2

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Federal Reserve Video - Part 3

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Federal Reserve Video - Part 4

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Federal Reserve Video - Part 5

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