The Federal Reserve is setting America up for economic disaster

The Hill ^ | September 18, 2017 | Armstrong Williams

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions.

• America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs)

• The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and

• So-called "foreign aid" is merely a clever means of shifting the bad debt incurred by banks and wealthy financiers to American taxpayers.

The book is narrated in a notably conspiratorial tone and contains some obvious contradictions. For example, it contends that President Lincoln was once a liberator who sought to avoid being goaded into a destructive civil war by European powers jealous of America’s success, and had designs on colonizing Mexico. However, the book still raised some very good points that deserve serious consideration.

One that stood out is that over successive generations, people with concentrated wealth have sought to use the American military and the purse power of the taxpayer for personal gain. In fact, Griffin argues, the creation of the current iteration of the Federal Reserve System was a political act designed to hide the fact that a private banking cartel would manage the U.S. currency.

The Federal Reserve, as Griffin explains, is neither "federal" nor a "reserve." It is not owned by the federal government, and it does not hold real assets in reserve. In reality, it is a giant debt factory backed by the "full faith and credit" of the government, or taxpayers.

One thing is clear. In the aftermath of the global recession of 2008, America and the world have been swimming in debt. America’s national debt alone has skyrocketed. While the Fed continues to justify flooding the market with cheap "reserve notes" based on the theory that it must supply these notes in order to support asset prices, the overall effect has been to debase the currency and prolong the pain of the American people.

As an entrepreneur who owns real assets — real estate, spectrum licenses and a publishing library, among others — I was able to benefit, at least on paper, from the Fed’s asset inflation strategy. I have been able to refinance my debt at attractive rates, and I've seen asset prices (but not necessarily values) climb. But others, especially workers (who derive the bulk of their income from salary instead of capital appreciation) and savers (retirees living on a fixed income), have lost under this post-recession scheme.

Workers lost because their spending power diluted drastically over the past 10 years. The costs of housing and energy have continued to rise in areas where the highest concentrations of jobs are located. For example, a young college graduate who wants to earn a high salary in the tech industry has to live in Silicon Valley, where even a base salary of $100,000 won’t enable them to afford to purchase a home there. Home prices are so out of line with average salaries that cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are seeing an epidemic of homelessness never experienced since the Great Depression of 1929.

Savers have lost because the interest income they were counting on earning from their lifetime of saving has dwindled to less than nothing. These days, in most cases, you actually have to pay the bank to keep your money there. And so many retirees have had to tap into their home mortgages or take on additional consumer debt merely to survive. As America faces the largest retirement boom in its history — the retiring baby boomers — more than two-thirds of them do not have enough savings to retire comfortable. And on top of that, the Social Security system that was to be a back-stop against poverty for older Americans is practically insolvent.

The unwieldy national debt also causes friction for entrepreneurs. Governments have sought to increase taxes, regulations and fees on entrepreneurial activity in order to service the ballooning debt. This has sucked critical capital out of the system that entrepreneurs need in order to grow businesses and drive employment. With consumers still reeling from the great recession, demand for goods and services is lagging employment growth by a significant margin, further constraining opportunities for entrepreneurs.

The great project to rescue the American economy by the Fed has hit an obvious wall. The debt it used to goose the economy is now gumming up the system and constraining real growth. The looming question of what actually happens when the debt bubble finally bursts is one that not even the soberest economists at the Fed have been able to confront effectively. Unless we deal finally with the false notion that "central economic planning" can replace actual capitalism as the driver of American growth, we may be in store for far, far worse.

Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is author of the brand new book, "Reawakening Virtues." He served as an adviser and spokesman for Dr. Ben Carson's 2016 presidential campaign, and is on Sirius XM126 Urban View nightly from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Article link:

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/351153-the-federal-reserve-is-setting-america-up-for-economic-disaster

[DoughtyOne]

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...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

Just $183.00 dollars and cents to 93.00%

[DoughtyOne]

If I get one, I get ten a week, letters just like this one.

All the others have special links for insiders only, and special discounts.

I believe Armstrong is correct to address this, but I also think Trump is doing his best to address the issue too.

He has advocated for tax cuts to spur the economy, and I think Ryan and McConnell are going to be forced to follow through.

In two years, I want to see our debt start falling.

I believe it is possible.

By the end of Trump’s second term, I want one third or more of the debt we have right now, retired.

[PGR88]

The Federal Reserve together with our fiat currency are the absolute foundation of the progressive nanny-state.

For example, when you note that 50 million Americans are on foodstamps, or your university professors seem to be all marxist intersectional gender professors, or ACORN is collecting government money to register leftist voters, and 1000 other leftist projects - just think where all the money to support these things comes from - massive debt, in a fiat currency, at manipulated interest rates, controlled by Fed and government.

[combat_boots]

The I r s takes in about 3T per qtr

Trump proposed roughly a 3.7T budget

Where does the $$$$ go?

[SubMareener]

It’s $3T per year in taxes. Currently about $4T in spending.

[Garth Tater]

"It’s $3T per year in taxes. Currently about $4T in spending."

Well, how can that be? Where does the rest of the money come from? Thin air???



/s

[SubMareener]

The nation that has killed 60 million babies is under judgement from YHWH. He is done with the United States of America.

We have been under judgement ever since the 1962 School Prayer ruling. The first official Muslim Brotherhood front organization founded in the U.S. was the Muslim Students Association (MSA), established on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois in 1964. The Muslim Brotherhood is a type of the Assyrian that YHWH used to bring judgement on the 10 tribes that made up Israel. Al Qaeda is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their 9/11 attack was a perfect fulfillment of Isaiah 9:8-13.

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade things have really gotten worse. Since then we have never won a war, before then we never lost one. With Obama we finally got Isaiah 3:4-5 “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. The people will be oppressed, everyone by another and every one by his neighbor; The child will be insolent toward the elder and the base to the honorable.”

All this moral decay was codified by Judges, just as the moral decay in Sodom and Gomorrah was, according to the Jewish sages, was codified by Judges. That puts us as “in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28-37). The “great sign in the heaven” from Revelation 12:1-2 actually occurs on September 23-24, 2017. See the image at: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_1y_hLqVXf4/maxresdefault.jpg

As for Donald Trump, I view him as a type of Samson, whom YHWH raised up to bring down the Temple of Dagon on the Philistines.

Now look at Donald Trump’s slogan: “Make America Great Again”. Alexis de Tocqueville said: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Donald Trump knows that in a country overrun with Philistines one can not campaign on “Make America Good Again”. However, if you look at what he says he will do, how offended he is by people lying about him, how offended he is with dirty tricks, how he hates the corruption in American government, etc. you know that he is trying to do is make America good again. So Donald Trump is bringing people out of the shadows, so to speak, and giving them hope that things can be better. This puts them out in the world where the Holy Spirit can bring believers into contact with those who are to be saved. So that is the spiritual aspect of the Trump campaign.

On the Bible Prophecy side, how is YHWH going to convince the Iranians that 2017 would be about the last time they, with their allies, can wipe out the United States and attack Israel to wipe it off the map?

How about we elect Donald Trump and he starts to make the American Military so strong that no one will want to mess with us? How about if he starts to root out the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the Government? In fact, the threat of having Donald Trump in the Whitehouse may well trigger the attack that is described in Ezekiel 38:10-13, which YHWH does not stop, so that the attack in Ezekiel 38:14-23, which YHWH will stop can take place. Then the End will come.

When the world gets to these critical points, there isn’t anything one can do to change the course set by YHWH for the world. It is much easier if you focus on that narrow way YHWH has for you to do as your part in His magnificent Word.

[Jarhead9297]

The debt is a microcosm to what truly will break this country and Trump in fact no one will solve it and that is unfunded liabilities to the tune of 3.5-4 trillion dollars.

[SubMareener]

Well, they claim that they borrow it, but basically yes, it comes out of thin air. They don’t actually print it anymore it is all done with computers.

[Jarhead9297]

I’m sorry 350-400 trillion dollars

[jjotto]

https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book

...During Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, the IRS collected more than $3.3 trillion, processed more than 244 million tax returns and other forms, and issued more than $426 billion in tax refunds...

[veracious]

That was the plan from the beginning.

[central_va]

A 20% tariff plus a freeze in government spending and a huge marginal rate cut would solve all of our problems. Instead we hurl towards disaster when a solution is available.

[combat_boots]

Thanks 🙏

[DoughtyOne]

Jarhead, this nation’s unfunded debts are like our household debt.

$1 million dollar homes seem like unfunded debt. Over time families make payments and pay the debt down.

Over time the U.S. will pay down it’s unfunded debts.

Under Trump we will also reformulate some things beginning to eliminate the unfunded debts out into the future.

Getting our budget under control, and passing new legislation will resolve issues.

Sure, if it all came do today, it would sink us. It won’t.

It’s sort of like going down the freeway at 70 mph. Your driver’s education teacher tells you, you need to be at least 1 car length behind the person in front of you for ever ten MPH you’re going.

What they don’t tell you, is that the car in front of you has to slow down too. You’ll slow down together, and the seven car length rule is not realistic.

You learn that driving on freeways during rush hour traffic bumper to bumper, realizing there are very few accidents.

We need to get the fiscal debt off the books. We are starting to work on that in earnest.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions.

And some of the stupid errors.

The Federal Reserve, as Griffin explains, is neither "federal" nor a "reserve." It is not owned by the federal government, and it does not hold real assets in reserve.

For instance.

Workers lost because their spending power diluted drastically over the past 10 years.

Inflation was lower in the last 10 years than in the 10 years prior to that. Which was lower than in the 10 year period before that.

Home prices are so out of line with average salaries that cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles

Would rather blame the Fed than their own moronic, restrictive housing policies.

[Garth Tater]

They actually do borrow it. The US dollar is a debt-based currency and comes into existence due to a loan made by one of the Federal Reserve member banks.

When the Federal govt sells bonds to the Fed to finance their deficit the Federal Reserve creates the fake-money they use to purchase the bonds out of thin air. Same deal with all the other loans they make. When you take a loan out on your house you are actually being given cash that was created out of thin air.

It's good to be King owner of the magic-money machine!

[Toddsterpatriot]

When you take a loan out on your house you are actually being given cash that was created out of thin air.

You are mistaken. Every loan is fully funded.

The bank you borrow from had to borrow the money they lent to you. Either from depositors or other banks, mostly.