Posted on 08/05/2014 12:01:29 PM PDT by mgist
Part One: The Origins of the Fed (good video at link)
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” – FDR letter to Colonel Edward House, Nov. 21 1933
All our lives we’ve been told that economics is boring. It’s dull. It’s not worth the time it takes to understand it. And all our lives, we’ve been lied to.
War. Poverty. Revolution. They all hinge on economics. And economics all rests on one key concept: money.
Money. It is the economic water in which we live our lives. We even call it ‘currency’; it flows around us, carries us in its wake. Drowns those who are not careful.
We use it every day in nearly every transaction we conduct. We spend our lives working for it, worrying about it, saving it, spending it, pinching it. It defines our social status. It compromises our morals. People are willing to fight, die and kill for it.
But what is it? Where does it come from? How is it created? Who controls it? It is a remarkable fact that, given its central importance in our lives, not one person in a hundred could answer such basic questions about money as these.
Prior to 1913, there was no federal income tax, the states had rights and representation in Washington DC, there was no Federal Reserve Bank and the federal government lived under the enumerated powers afforded it within the US Constitution.
1913 was one of the worst years in American history as the people thereafter became fiscally responsible for the unethical actions of a few in banking and government. the Fed grabbed “supreme powers” and the Federal Reserve became the arm of government that would sink the nation in a mountain of debt.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2835236/posts
The Fed controls money. It is the instrument by which the government dilutes the value of YOUR and MY money, which we already have, in savings accounts.
It is theft, since it takes from us what we earned honestly.
ping for later
Rules for Changing a Limited Republican Government into an Unlimited
Hereditary One Volume (?) 1784-1796 - Philip Freneau
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and swell it to the utmost the items will bear. Allow as many extra claims as decency will permit. Assume all the debts of your neighbors - in a word, get as much debt as can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you can, “advertise” for more, and have the debt made as big as possible. This object being accomplished, the next will be to make it as perpetual as possible; and the next to that, to get it into as few hands as possible. The more effectually to bring this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide it, subdivide it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of two-thirds; let there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6 percents, and present 6 percents, and future 6 percents. To be brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a few only can understand it; and let all possible opportunities and informations fall in the way of these few to cinch their advantages over the many.
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest against their constituents, and to ensure the part they are to act. All this, however, must be carried on under the cover of the closest secrecy; and it is particularly lucky that dealings in paper admit of more secrecy that any other. Should a discovery take place, the whole plan may be blown up.
8. The ways in which a great debt, so constituted and applied, will contribute to the ultimate end in view are both numerous and obvious. (1) The favorite few, thus possessed of it, whether within or without the government, will feel the staunchest fealty to it, and will go through thick and thin to support it in all its oppressions and usurpations. (2) Their money will give them consequence and influence, even among those who have been tricked out of it. (3) They will be the readiest materials that can be found for a hereditary aristocratic order, whenever matters are ripe for one. (4) A great debt will require great taxes; great taxes, many taxgatherers and other officers; and all officers are auxiliaries of power. (5) Heavy taxes may produce discontents; these may threaten resistance; and in proportion to this danger will be the pretense for a standing army to repel it. (6) A standing army, in its turn, will increase the moral force of the government by means of its appointments, and give it physical force by means of the sword, thus doubly forwarding the main object.
9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for establishment of a great incorporated bank. the use of such a machine is well understood. If the Constitution, according to its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so much the better. Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.
In fashioning the bank, remember that it is to be made particularly instrumental in enriching and aggrandizing the elect few, who are to be called in due season to the honors and felicities of the kingdom preparing for them, and who are the pillars that must support it. It will be easy to throw the benefit entirely into their hands, and to make it a solid addition of 50, or 60, or 70 percent to their former capitals of 800 percent, or 900 percent, without costing them a shilling; while it will be difficult to explain to the people that this gain of the few is at the cost of the many, that the contrary may be boldly and safely pretended. The bank will be pregnant with other important advantages. It will admit the same men to be, at the same time, members of the bank and members of the government. The two institutions will thus be soldered together, and each made stronger. Money will be put under the direction of the government, and government under the direction of money. To crown the whole, the bank will have a proper interest in swelling and perpetuating the public debt and public taxes, with all the blessings of both, because its agency and its profits will be extended in exact proportion.
10. “Divide and govern” is a maxim consecrated by the experience of ages, and should be familiar in its use to every politician as the knife he carries in his pocket. In the work here to be executed, the best effects may be produced by this maxim, and with peculiar facility. An extensive republic made up of lesser republics necessarily contains various sorts of people, distinguished by local and other interests and prejudices. Let the whole group be well examined in all its parts and relations, geographical and political, metaphysical and metaphorical; let there be first a northern and a southern section, by a line running east and west, and then an eastern and western section, by a line running north and south. By a suitable nomenclature, the landholders cultivating different articles can be discriminated from one another, all from the class of merchants, and both from that of manufacturers.
One of the subordinate republics may be represented as a commercial state, another as a navigation state, another as a manufacturing state, others as agricultural states; and although the great body of people in each be really agricultural, and the other characters be more or less common to all, still it will be politic to take advantage of such an arrangement. Should the members of the great republic be of different sizes, and subject to little jealousies on that account, another important division will be ready formed to your hand. Add again the division that may be carved out of personal interests, political opinions, and local parties. With so convenient an assortment of votes, especially with the help of the marked ones, a majority may be packed for any question with as much ease as the odd trick by an adroit gamester, and any measure whatever carried or defeated, as the great revolution to be brought about may require.
It is only necessary, therefore, to recommend that full use be made of the resource; and to remark that, besides the direct benefit to be drawn from these artificial divisions, they will tend to smother the true and natural one, existing in all societies, between the few who are always impatient of political equality and the many who can never rise above it; between those who are to mount to the prerogatives and those who are to be saddled with the burdens of the hereditary government to be introduced - in one word, between the general mass of the people, attached to their republican government and republican interests, and the chosen band devoted to monarchy and Mammon. It is of infinite importance that this distinction should be kept out of sight. The success of the project absolutely requires it.
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks. Here the aid of the former encroachments and all the other precedents and way-paving maneuvers will be called in of course. But, in order to render the success more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, “the general welfare.” If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases “in all cases whatsoever.” To oppose the power may consequently seem to the ignorant, and be called by artful, opposing the “general welfare”, and may be cried down under that deception.
h/t FReeper Publius…
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/freneau/republic2monarchy.htm
…for the above link in post #7…here...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3185549/posts
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
“I don’t really understand the Federal Reserve. “
They print money out of thin air and give to the gov at interest. Whether we are talking $100 or $100 trillion, there is no way to pay it back.
We pinched pennies for decades, saving money for retirement. We had a nest egg with enough cash to keep us going, provided we used only the interest each year. Then the Federal Reserve and their henchmen in the federal government decided to take good care of the banks (particularly Goldman Sachs that didn’t lose a dime), after their gambling debts caused the market to crash and burn in 2008.
The interest rates on our savings withered to nothing. The saver class was robbed by the Federal Reserve so they could take care of their banking cronies. Hank Paulsen’s (Bush’s Treasury Sec.) Goldman stock portfolio was safe, and that’s all that mattered. But it has been a bleak retirement for we peons, and we both work part time now.
The FED is the foundation and sina qua non of the progressive-nanny state.
Every social-engineering project from social-security to on-demand abortion have their roots in progressive government being able to create debt and print money from nothing.
“1913 was one of the worst years in American history ...”
http://www.amazon.com/The-Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal/dp/0912986212
Indeed! Additionally, that was the time-frame where Senators went from being picked by state legislatures to popular state elections.
KYPD
It is a government agency created by the government to create money out of thin air for the treasury to spend without the need for taxes.
Actually, it’s not a gov agency.
Could you please elaborate on this statement?
A stepwise example on, say, debt-creation → abortion would be appreciated.
“Some people 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 customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”
– The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s
http://globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-federal-reserve/10489
LOL, so when the “Feds” print money they give it to themselves. WHAT A RACKET!
Actually it was Rockefeller that funded Margaret Sanger, and the origins of Planned Parenthood.
From the Rockefeller archives.
Rockefeller’s connection to Margaret Sanger, and the Planned Parenthood abortion industry
Letter from Lawrence B. Dunham to Raymond B. Fosdick, 1931 February 06
http://rockefeller100.org/items/show/2562
Rockefeller helped form Social Security
http://rockefeller100.org/exhibits/show/social_sciences/social-science-research-counci
Another good article from 1992.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fed_reserve.htm
Reveals who is controlling our economy and who gets elected.
Disconcertingly, it states that “They make up an international banking cartel of wealth beyond comparison (Reference 1, 14).” And that “the FED started buying up the media in the 1930’s and now owns or significantly influences most of it Reference 3, 10, 11, P. 145).”
Both statements make perfect sense in the communist path onto which America has been lead.
I think it also helps explain why drug money was the only liquid capital in banks that maintained the economy. Which explains why banks are having a free for all, partnering with drug cartels, and laundering money with impunity, and without severe inflation.
“Meanwhile, finance and real estate sectors in Mexico and the United States are awash with cartel profits, with one United Nations analyst arguing that drug money was the “only liquid investment capital” that kept the international economy from completely” imploding in 2008
http://m.thenation.com/article/180587-how-mexican-drug-trade-thrives-free-trade
There is nothing “government” or “federal about the Federal Reserve.
But what is it? Where does it come from? How is it created? Who controls it?
The Federal Reserve is an excellent illustration of government avoiding accountability by delegating responsibility; this technique is used everywhere, by all three branches, in various forms to keep essentially unacceptable policies/rules/regulations/laws
in place.
First, let's start with the origination of the item [power/authority] we're examining; so we go straight to the Constitution which says:
Congress shall have the power […] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
So we clearly see that the ability to set the value of the dollar (and to coin monies) is that of the Congress.
Enter the Federal Reserve; whose purpose, according to their site, was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. The Federal Reserve was created on December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law.
They further say that there are four areas this responsibility falls into:
Supervising and regulating banksis absolutely unneeded; put them under the simple common law and vigorously pursue them when they engage in fraud or larceny.
Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.
Providing certain financial services to the U.S. government
cooking the books— this it the real reason that the Federal Reserve is never audited; because just creating money out of thin air doesn't work in any accounting, if they were to be audited then the scam would be over.
stable priceswhich only seem to go up) they wring their hands and cry about how they don't have any control/authority/accountability in those matters, that the Federal Reserve is private, and so on.
We see this employed WRT the executive as well: The EPA's CO2 regulations, the NSA's domestic espionage, the FBI/DEA/ICE/ATF operation known as Fast & Furious, the IRS's political targeting — in all of these cases the Congress could (a) dissolve the agency, (b) cut funding, (c) reduce/restrict the agency's jurisdiction. — They do not. Why? Because they agree with these operations.
We can see this technique in the Judicial realm where a federal judge declares a state's constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional and — after the State's supreme court certifies the standing of the citizens to ensure their constitution upheld — the USSC tosses the case challenging this out due to lack of standing.
— It would be bad political juju to rule on it, so they just say it's not our responsibility
all the while giving a wink and nod to the federal judges that they can/should throw out the state's laws [or constitutions] on the matter.
The executive does much of the same; enforcing laws that are clearly contraconstitutional while hiding behind its the law, you have to get congress to change it
while winking and nodding to congress and the bureaucrats.
One need only look at society when money was not fiat money. With a non fiat currency, the government must compete with citizens for money. Interest rates are purely market rates. Government was very limited - prior to 1913, total Federal spending was approx. 3% of GDP. Society and its institutions (such as churches, education) were greater than government and government was limited in its control of society.
With a fiat currency, and politically-controlled interest rates, and particularly DEBT - not only has government increased to 40% of GDP, it is able to fund itself through inflation - the tax on your savings, your work, and natural increases in productivity.
Through this has grown the progressive state - and its insistence to control every aspect of society. Specific to abortion - you can ask yourself - how much money does Planned Parenthood get from the US Government every year? Your government-regulated (and subsidized) health-care now insists that it be part of every insurance program. How many other Government rules effect this? How has the growth of the welfare state effected single-motherhood and the family?
Money is the prose of life. Control it and you control society
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.