The Reincarnation Theory

I told my homeboy when I die, I want to be dead, this time forever. I said I'm sick of this shit, I don't wanna come back here anymore. As he laughed at me, he said something that caught my attention... Dude said, yeah they know how you like to read, so they bombarded you with bad news, knowing that you will read all of that shit, and they made you come back in one the worst periods in time. Is this my own personal hell? Having to be an avid reader. One who reads about and understands all of the ills and deception in the world. My belief is that people are reincarnated maybe because they have not, did not, could not, or didn't want to fulfill their purpose in life. Or, maybe this is all a journey in spiritual awakening, maybe there are different levels of spiritual enlightenment that we must go through to attain what we deem Heaven. If so, I hope I have attained enough enlightenment to stay put when this life is all over for me. It is my belief that all faiths of the world that believe in GOD have some truth and we must combine them to find ultimate truth. I believe that GODly beliefs are an important stepping stone in an adolescents life and that these beliefs do great things for society as a whole. Yet, as we come of age as adults we must also seek the truth for ourselves and not conform to our parents, preachers, teachers, or pastors beliefs or dictations. I also believe that all religions and faiths have the same principles with different characters in their stories. It will always be my belief that we must be tolerant of one another's belief systems, for all of them contain the basic principles of living a healthy life which is what matters most. Peace....

The Economic Rape of America - Chapter Four: THE RAVAGES OF INFLATION

The Economic Rape of America - Chapter Four

THE RAVAGES OF INFLATION

Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them... The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy.
Ezekiel 23, verses 27-29

"In the course of that enquiry I soon saw that prices were raised by paper money, and that the rise of prices was an evil... [O]n seeing in an advertisement a pamphlet bearing for its title "The Iniquity of Banking", I was curious to observe the train of reflection that had been brought forward by another on the same side. ... Mr. Fox [the author] is made to speak of the "encrease in the amount of circulating medium" as what "must, of necessity, have greatly depreciated the value of money"... The system of the Bank of England is there accused of being a bubble, and as being "in every respect as great an imposition, and resting upon as sandy a foundation" as "the South-Sea Bubble"... [T]he country bankers... their mode of traffick produced the joint effect of oppression, fabrication of counterfeit, and robbery... "depriving the labourer of a part of his wages"... the bankers, by issuing their notes, have as effectually robbed him of one third of his wages, as if they had put their hands into his pockets and stolen it...
Mr. Fox, in speaking of the astonishing increase of the circulating medium as having of necessity greatly depreciated the value of money, speaks of the vast addition of our national debt as the cause, or at least a cause... [T]he mere idea... that the... rise of prices has the unrestricted issue of paper money for one of its causes, or even for its principal cause... is an idea that has been long ago stated and from quarters too numerous to be counted... "
I consider the country bankers... as a set of men who, without the smallest particle of guilt, have for such a length of years been levying for their own benefit a tax upon a great part of the community, and upon that part of all others which is least able to endure such pressure - the aged, the infirm, the fatherless, and the widow...
I consider them... as usurpers in effect of another attribute of sovereignty - the right of coining money, in practicing on a vast scale, and with perfect impunity and security, and even universal respect and applause, that sort of act [forgery, even high treason] which produces to the actors a profit, and to the rest of the community a loss...
... The value of money is now no more than half what it was 40 years ago... "
-- Jeremy Bentham, 1801
The reason John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln understood money, banking, and inflation, is that at that time the bankers of the world essentially used the same methods they now use - and there were people like "Mr. Fox" (the author of the pamphlet Bentham came across) who understood what the bankers did, and wrote the same kind of thing you now read in this report. Two hundred years ago, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Jeremy Bentham had a better understanding of inflation than practically all "modern economists."
Let us attempt to throw some light on this phenomenon many regard as a "disease" that "afflicts" the economy of a country, a "disease" we need to "fight" a "war" against, a "disease" for which we need to find a "cure."
WHAT IS INFLATION?
To avoid confusion I shall use the terms "currency inflation" and "price inflation." By "currency inflation" I mean any increase in the quantity of the currency supply. Under "currency supply" I include all money, fiat money, bank deposits, checks, drafts, etc. in circulation - whatever is used generally as currency. By "price inflation" I refer to an increase in the general level of prices.
One of the most basic economic principles is that prices are determined by supply and demand. Increase the demand for an item, and its price rises. Increase the supply of an item, and its price falls. Reduce the supply of an item, and its price rises.
In the case of currency a parallel principle applies: Increase the supply of currency, and its unit value falls; reduce the supply of currency and its unit value rises.
Look at it from another angle. Picture the total quantity of currency. Imagine that this adds up to $1,000,000. Now picture the total quantity of goods and services that can be bought. Imagine that the total quantity of goods and services can be subdivided into 10,000 equal units. The price of each unit will be $100. Now imagine that the total quantity of currency is increased to $2,000,000. What is the price of each unit of goods and services? Answer: $200. A 100% inflation of the currency supply brings about a 100% price inflation.
Inflation is not something which just happens. It is something that humans do. An increase in the supply of currency occurs because someone "manufactures" more currency. So currency inflation is a human action. When prices increase it is because someone raised them. So price inflation is also a human action. Is there a causative link between the two? In their book Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman include a chapter called "The Cure for Inflation." They show five charts which compare the "quantity of money per unit of output" to the "consumer price index" for the U.S., Germany, Japan, U.K., and Brazil for the period 1964-1977. The lines on the charts are virtually parallel. They demonstrate in practice, over a thirteen year period, in five countries, exactly the simple relationship implied by the previous paragraph: Double the currency supply and you double the price. See the U.S. chart, Figure 11, below.

Figure 11
[Insert here]

The five Friedman charts establish the causative link between currency inflation and price inflation. But I have unjustifiably jumped to a conclusion. An alternative conclusion: Double the price and you double the currency supply. So which causes which? The Friedmans show a sixth chart which demonstrates that price inflation follows currency inflation by about two years. This seems to indicate that currency inflation causes price inflation.
If you can understand the above reasoning and calculations, you will be a hundred years ahead of most "modern economists," including most university professors and Nobel Prize winners!
INFLATION AND SMOKING
Smoking is a human action. People smoke because it feels good to them. But in the long term smokers start coughing, feeling bad, and even dying from lung cancer. The good consequences appear immediately. The bad consequences may take years to manifest.
If a smoker tries to stop, some bad consequences called withdrawal symptoms appear immediately. It may take two to three months for the good consequences to become noticeable.
This is why it is so difficult to stop smoking. Simplistically speaking it is easy to say, "the cure for smoking is to stop smoking." In practice it is not that easy.
So too, with inflation. When the additional currency is pumped into the system, the fortunate recipients of the new currency go on a spending spree, the stock market goes up, new economic activity is stimulated, people become more enthusiastic, and new jobs are created. The good consequences appear immediately. But two years later prices go up, consumers complain, and politicians talk about "fighting inflation." The bad consequences appear much later the Fed tightens the screws, and the economy becomes "depressed."
It is easy to say, "the cure for inflation is to stop inflating." But if currency inflation is stopped, the stock market immediately tumbles, interest rates go up, "money" becomes tight, companies go bankrupt, people lose their jobs, and the economy becomes "depressed."
We are addicted to inflation like the compulsive smoker to nicotine and the alcoholic to alcohol.
INFLATION IS A HIDDEN TAX
Let us return to our example of a total quantity of currency of $1,000,000, and a total quantity of goods and services subdivided into 10,000 equal units, so the price of each unit is $100. Suppose you have $200 in your pocket. This enables you to buy two units of goods and services. Now imagine that the currency supply is increased to $2,000,000. The price of each unit goes up to $200. With the $200 in your pocket you can now only buy one unit of goods and services. Effectively, half of your $200 has been "taxed" away - one of your two units has been stolen. The people who stole half of the value of your $200 are the issuers of the currency and the people who first get to spend the new currency. You are the loser. The winners are the bankers, the politicians, and the bureaucrats.
The bankers and politicians have set up the system so they can effectively steal "money" out of your pocket without even coming near you. By printing extra currency, the bankers and politicians can buy the unit they stole from you. Their cost is paper and ink.
Currency inflation is sophisticated robbery. It is economic rape. In the long run, it is also national economic suicide. In 1920 John Maynard Keynes wrote:
"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
THE NATIONAL DEBT AND INFLATION
The basic mechanism whereby currency is created is based on government debt. When the government needs extra currency, beyond what it collects in taxes, it issues interest-bearing IOUs called government bonds. These bonds are exchanged with the Federal Reserve for currency (Federal Reserve Notes), which the government previously printed for the Federal Reserve. This process is called "monetizing the debt." And this is why we talk about a "debt-currency" system.
The owners of the Fed obviously love the system! They receive the interest on the debt, which now amounts to over $290,000,000,000 a year - that is two hundred and ninety billion dollars! All they have to do for this is print pieces of paper and make bookkeeping entries!
Obviously the perpetrators of this gigantic fraud want the national debt to be as large as possible. The bigger the national debt, the more interest they "draw" - "embezzle" is probably a better word! This is why Bentham's "Mr. Fox" identified the national debt as a cause of currency inflation - the Bank of England has been perpetrating the same fraud much longer than the Fed.
U.S. INFLATION HISTORY
Now look at Figure 12 below. (Figure 12 is largely based on a similar chart in The Biggest Con: How the Government is Fleecing You by Irwin A. Schiff.) It is a chart of the "consumer price index" from 1790 to the present. The index is represented by the solid squares. The index represents the "average price level." It is a sophisticated version of the "$100 unit price" of the above example. A $100 unit price in our example is equivalent to a consumer price index of 100; a $200 unit price is equivalent to an index of 200.

Figure 12[Insert here]

Figure 12 has one scale on the left and another on the right. The left-hand scale uses the "average price level" of 1967 as a "base" of one hundred. This is like saying that in 1967 our "unit price" was $100. Around 1977 the index reached 200, meaning that on average prices had doubled between 1967 and 1977. (Over a period of ten years the bankers and politicians stole half of the value of all cash savings in America.)
In 1983 the government changed to the right-hand scale. By 1983 the 1967-based index had gone up to 300. (Over a period of sixteen years the bankers and politicians stole two-thirds of the value of all cash savings in America.) Periodically, when the index gets "too big," the government starts with a new base. This they did in 1983. Effectively, they divided the 1967-based index by three, giving us the right-hand scale. Currently the consumer price index is about 140. This doesn't look as bad as 420!
Next, look at the straight broken line (normal price trend) from 1790 to 1913. Notice that it is a slight downtrend. This means that on average prices declined slowly during this period. With stable, honest money prices gradually decline. The reason for this is that people become more productive, technology improves, and in general we find ways to produce more from less. Had there been no wars, the consumer price index from 1790 to 1913 would have been very close to a gradually declining straight line. During war the currency supply is inflated to pay for war expenditures. After the war the debts incurred are paid off and the currency supply deflated. At least, this is what happened before 1913.
Now look at the straight broken line from 1913 to the present (inflationary price trend caused by Federal Reserve). A fundamental change occurred in 1913: the Federal Reserve System was established. Notice that after World War I their was some price deflation, but after World War II there was only a slowing down of price inflation. Also notice that between 1913 and 1970 price inflation was relatively low. We could call this "stage 1" inflation. Since 1970 the rate of price inflation has been much higher - "stage 2" inflation. The final stage, or "stage 3" inflation is called hyperinflation. That is where the currency, within a year or less, loses all its remaining value and becomes worthless.
This pattern of inflation, including stage 3, has been repeated many times in history. The Romans did it. The Chinese did it. The French did it. The Confederacy did it. The Germans did it. The South Americans did it and are still doing it. Currently, most countries in the world are doing either stage 1 or stage 2 inflation. Harry Figgie, founder of the Action Group to Save America's Economy has projected that we will enter stage 3 around 1995.
WHO INFLATES THE CURRENCY SUPPLY?
By now it should be abundantly clear that it is the Federal Reserve bankers, aided by politicians and bureaucrats, who inflate the currency supply.
WHY DO THEY INFLATE THE CURRENCY SUPPLY?
If instead of working for your money, you could simply print it, would you slave your guts out for a few bucks?
CONSEQUENCES OF CURRENCY INFLATION

• Currency inflation causes prices to rise.
• It is a hidden tax that transfers wealth from the producers to the parasitic bankers, politicians, and bureaucrats.
• It transfers wealth from the lender to the borrower. (The borrower gets currency with today's value, but repays the loan with next year's currency which has a lower value.)
• It encourages spending and debt, and discourages saving and capital formation.
• It shifts taxpayers into higher tax brackets, thus effectively increases tax rates without the government having to raise taxes.
• It brings about illusory capital gains on which individuals and companies are taxed.
• It distorts economic calculation. Businessmen don't know whether prices rise because of currency inflation or increases in demand. It is more difficult to make rational economic decisions.
• During times of extreme currency inflation people become overoptimistic. Businessmen tend to overexpand and malinvest. Later, when the rate of currency inflation is reduced, the economy contracts and the malinvestments need to be liquidated - often in the form of bankruptcies.
• The Federal Reserve currency manipulation greatly magnifies the boom-bust cycles in the economy. They also cause extreme fluctuations in stock, financial, and commodity markets. Insiders profit from these fluctuations, while most small investors lose.
• The government uses price inflation to foster hatred against businessmen and as an excuse expand economic intervention.
• In the long run, currency inflation wipes out the wealth of the middle class and wrecks the economy.
• Currency inflation destroys civilization.

INFLATION QUOTES
"When the currency expands, the loaf contracts."
-- Democratic Party campaign slogan, 1836
"... [Of] all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
-- Daniel Webster
"The purpose of inflation, as it has been throughout history, is to transfer capital from some persons to others. ... But no money manipulator in the course of history had the totally free hand which monetary authorities enjoy today.
... To better understand how the system works... consider the creation of the Bank of England. In the late seventeenth century, a big-time banker named William Paterson had a bright idea. He figured out how he could obtain a 139-percent return on his money each year. His method was simplicity itself. He collected seventy-two thousand pounds in gold and silver coin, almost all of it borrowed, and formed a bank to print paper money receipts for 16 2/3 times the value of his coin. He immediately lent the funny money - £1,200,000 - to the King of England, who used it to finance a war. Since the king paid an interest of 8.3 percent, Paterson received £100,000 annually in interest on an actual capital of £72,000. It was a great deal for Paterson, and the king did not complain. But it wasn't so great for everyone else. Since Paterson actually had only six percent as much gold as he needed to redeem his notes, he was clearly defrauding the taxpayers, whom the king obligated to retire Paterson's inflationary loan. When people started grumbling, the king simply granted Paterson a monopoly privilege to print paper money. Thus the Bank of England was established, and along with it, a principle that inflationists have clung to ever since: the best way to bring paper money into circulation is to finance government deficits."
-- James Dale Davidson, Chairman of the National Taxpayers Union, 1980
THE PROSPECT OF HYPERINFLATION
Harry E, Figgie, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Figgie International Inc. and founder of the Action Group to Save America's Economy, gave a lecture to the League of Women Voters in Cleveland Ohio on July 26, 1990, from which the following is extracted:
"I am here today because I fully believe that this great country is heading into serious trouble, because of the government's dangerous inability to reduce its debt or control ongoing budget deficits.
I became involved in this issue quite by accident in 1982, when Peter Grace made me co-chairman of the President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control - the Grace Commission. And as a result of that, I became privy to some information that showed me how threatening our government's spending policies are.
This past Tuesday, I met with several congressmen on the subject, including Congressman Dennis Eckhart from Cleveland and Congressman Dick Armey from Texas. I showed six different congressmen the debt and deficit projections, and every one of them said, "Gee, I didn't know it was that bad. I didn't realize where we were headed." They had no idea that the ball game's going to be over in 1995...
I want to put this massive problem into the context of the person in the street, and show you why the government is headed into real trouble. Let's say you have a net take-home pay of $1,000, and you take $100 of that $1,000 and put it into some kind of pension plan, like a Keogh or an IRA... The other $900 just makes ends meet. Now suppose somebody gives you free credit cards... But you realize you can't use these credit cards.
Then, all of a sudden, you meet a very tall man, with a long white beard, a big stovepipe hat, red and white striped pants, and a blue coat with stars all over it. And he says, "My name is Sam - Uncle Sam. I am a financial advisor. I want you to follow my advice. I want you to use your credit cards. When they bill you, just send them a 30-year IOU at 8 percent interest."
And you say, "Yeah, but I have to pay the interest, even if they accept the IOUs."
Sam says, "Do you remember that $100 you were putting in a pension? Take that hundred bucks and use that to pay the interest, and put an IOU in your pension. Twenty years from now, you'll have 20 years of IOUs, but what do you care?"
And you remind him, "Uncle Sam, there's a difference between you and me. You've got a printing press in your basement which gives you unlimited credit, but I'm going to go to jail if I do that."
That's why Americans are concerned. Because they know we can't keep going on like this.
... [L]et me explain the difference between deficit and debt... The deficit is the shortfall we have in any one year. If you take in $100 billion and spend $110 billion, you get a deficit of $10 billion. Now at the end of that year, you've got to do something with that $10 billion you owe, so you move it over to your long-term shortfall - and that becomes your debt.
In '82, the annual deficit was $128 billion, up from $4 billion in 1974. The debt in '82 was at $1 trillion, up from $484 billion in '74. But it had taken us 200 years from the start of the republic until 1974 to create that debt of $484 billion. We had gone through World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam - and we still had a very manageable situation.
Since 1982, when the debt fist hit a trillion dollars, it has tripled - it is now $3 trillion.
Now when Peter Grace called me and a number of others down to Washington in '82, we were commissioned by President Reagan to find some savings in government. And I can tell you, it was like shooting fish in a rain barrel. We contributed $77 million in corporate money and about 500 employees, and found over $424 billion in savings in about nine months. We could easily have identified over a trillion, but Reagan wasn't interested in going further.
Of the $424 billion we identified, Congress instituted $152 billion in savings by 1986. Spread annually, that averages to $38 billion in savings a year. And at the same time, President Reagan pushed through a $50 billion tax increase. Now you take the $50 billion of new revenue and the $38 billion we saved, that's $88 billion that should have gone to reduce the deficit, which at that time was $128 billion. So we should have dropped the annual deficit to $40 billion. Instead of that, the government says we ran a $152 billion deficit last year.
The problem is, in the last 10 years, government revenue has risen at 8 percent a year, compounded, but expenditures have gone up 11 percent. That doesn't sound like too much, but let me put in perspective. Right now Congress has 116 percent more money to spend than they had 10 years ago. But they have spent 186 percent more than they spent 10 years ago. Every time you give them $1.00, they're spending between $1.58 and $1.68. And I'll tell you what I learned in Washington, they not only don't understand this problem, they don't care about it...
The thing that finally brought me up short and has ruined my last eight years were the projections Peter [Grace] got from his economist... verified... by the Citizens Against Government Waste - so, they are current. We were at $1 trillion in debt in 1982. That debt is going to go to $13 trillion in the year 2000. And we were at an annual deficit of $128 billion, and the deficit is going to go to $2 trillion.
... [W]hen we hit the $500 billion deficit... in 1995... we have lost our ability to control our economy by taxation. And we run the risk of... hyperinflation.
Back in '82, I said, "Well, we've got some time and nobody's going to be this stupid. We're going to get people to understand this thing." And I'm sorry to tell you that as I stand here in 1990, we're somewhere between 1990 and 1993 in our deficit projections, a little ahead of target. I was with Senator Robert Dole the other day - he'd just come from the White House budget negotiations - and he said, "We didn't make any progress again today, but we will."
Now you've all heard about Gramm-Rudman. It used to be Gramm, Rudman and Hollings, but Senator Hollings said he wanted a divorce from the bill because it was such a travesty. Gramm-Rudman originally said we would have a zero deficit in 1991, but revised that to $60 to $65 billion a couple years later. The reason Congress runs around like chickens with their heads off right now is, technically - unless they get a budget agreement - they've got to cut $100 billion out of the budget this year, because they're at $168 billion.
The thing I want to tell you is that the $168 billion you hear is a travesty - a lie foisted on the American people. [Emphasis added.]
Remember all those IOUs that you were peeling out to your pension fund and your credit card fees? Government doesn't count those as part of the cash deficit. We have, for six years, run an actual deficit in the U.S. government of over $250 billion, and this year we're running between $360 and $435 billion.
Let me explain that to you. Start with the Gramm-Rudman bill. That's $168 billion. Now, remember the credit card example, when you took $100 away from the Keogh or the IRA and you sent them an IOU? The government is doing that to nine trust funds, including Social Security, military pensions, railway pensions, and postal pensions. Uncle Sam is taking $120 billion in trust fund surpluses and replacing that with IOUs. Instead of funding them with cash, they're funding them with federal deficit. They don't count those IOUs or the interest on them. And when those IOUs start coming due, the government is going to owe trillions to Social Security, which will be supporting more retirees with fewer workers. [Emphasis added]
So that's the first thing that's been foisted off on the people. The S&L crisis is another. Mosbacher, our country's head economist, made very sure when Bush stuck his neck out on the savings and loan crisis that those costs were taken off the deficit. Current estimates are that the S&Ls will cost us $500 billion overall, and $100 billion next year. There's another $100 billion that's not being counted.
So the deficit has gone from $168 billion to $388 billion, and I haven't talked to you about the student loan problem... the $300 to $500 billion toxic waste cleanup that's going to come from our military bases... crack babies or AIDS or any new programs Congress is talking about.
So we're running, right now, a true deficit of between $300 and $500 billion. And my estimate is that at $500 billion, we lose our capability to control that by taxation. Now don't ever think for a minute that Congress doesn't want inflation, because they know the only way they can pay off the debt is with inflated dollars...
What our charts show is that in '95 we're not going to be able to control our deficit and our debt by taxation, and we're going to move to what's called hyperinflation...
To find out about hyperinflation, we looked at all the countries in the world... We picked Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia as the best examples.
Now the problem I run into when I talk to people about this is that they say, "Oh, you studied the Banana Republic." And I have two parts to my answer. The first is, "Welcome to the United States Banana Republic." And the second answer, and most people don't know this, is that in 1938, the fifth largest market in the world was the country of Argentina. It was very sophisticated, very well run, and very knowledgeable. It had excellent agriculture, excellent manufacturing, and resources. They are now the world's 78th largest market. So, if you think it can't happen in the United States, it can. It happened in Argentina.
For our study, we were very fortunate because we were able to meet with 80 top businessmen... , government officials, bankers, financial executives. Dr. Gerry Swanson, an economist from the University of Arizona, led the team... They took four trips over a two-year period.
... [A]ll 80 of these businessmen said to us, "What's wrong with the United States? You are on exactly the same course that we were on, but about 20 to 30 years behind us."
They said, "Everything that we did wrong, you are doing wrong. For example, you have large deficits. You have a deterioration in your balance of payments. You have eroded the confidence in your currency. You have a tendency to blame outsiders and call for protectionism. And finally, the exchange value of your currency is falling." Twice since the mid-'70s we've devalued our currency and there's pressure now to devalue again.
They said, "All five factors are in place, and the United States is following the path to hyperinflation. We can't understand why you can't see it coming."
When Gerry came back from his last trip, I said, "Gerry, give me a synopsis." He said, "Well, for years in my economic courses at the University of Arizona, I've been teaching that deficits cause inflation." Then he said, "They do. I just saw it in three countries."
I said, "Okay, tell me about hyperinflation. How much time do you have before hyperinflation sets in?" He said, "In Brazil, it set in in three days." Three days.
Now, the terrible thing about hyperinflation is once it gets started, you can't stop it... During the time we were studying this, Argentina's inflation hit 5,000 percent, Brazil's got to 5,000 percent, and Bolivia's got to 25,000 percent with bursts up to 50,000.
Let me tell you how bad that is. We have a book here that we published on how to survive hyperinflation if you're a businessman. We have a picture of a guy with a huge bag going into a bank in Bolivia. At the bank they simply weighed it, and they gave him a note of exchange. Now the terrible thing about that is nobody looked in the bag. They didn't care whether he had newspapers in there, old socks, $1,000 bills, $10,000 bills or dollar bills. They didn't care what it was, it was so worthless. That is what happens in hyperinflation.
So to say that this can't happen here is wrong. I hear the argument periodically that the reason it won't happen to us is that our deficit is only 5 percent of our gross national product. The Brazilian and Argentine deficits are only 8 percent of their gross national products. It's not a huge jump from 5 to 8 percent. So when these economists give you the garbage that our deficit is only a few percentage points of the gross national product, it doesn't mean a thing...
For eight years, I've been ready to beat my head against Congress, but it wasn't until we got to this so-called "budget crisis" that I could even get in to see these congressmen...
If Argentina can go from fifth to 78th because of this kind of deficit problem, we can go from first to 50th, very, very easily. You hear people jumping on us over becoming a second-rate power, and here I'm talking about a third-rate power in the United States...
But, I guarantee you, if this hits... your savings, your bonds, your insurance, your pension - you might as well use them for tissue, because they aren't going to be good for anything else... "

The Economic Rape of America - Chapter Three: THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKERS

The Economic Rape of America - Chapter Three

THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANKERS

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers."
Matthew 21, verses 12-13

"All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."
-- John Adams, Founding Father
(In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1787)
Congressman Louis T. McFadden said the following during a speech before Congress on June 10, 1932:
"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. The Federal Reserve Board, a government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the 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 maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign 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 legislation; and there are those who maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime."
PERVASIVE MONEY PROBLEMS IN AMERICA
Americans, living in "the richest nation on earth," always seem to be short of money. Women are working in unprecedented numbers, men hope for overtime hours to earn more. Many take part-time jobs evenings and weekends. Children look for odd jobs to earn spending money. But the family debt climbs higher. And psychologists say one of the biggest causes of family quarrels and breakups is "arguments over money." Much of this trouble can be traced to our "counterfeit money" system, which leaves government free to perpetrate the most destructive monetary and economic crimes.
On the national scale, in just ten years the federal debt has grown from less than one trillion dollars to over four trillion. (In Chapter Nine we will discover that the real national debt is much bigger.) The annual interest on that debt is over $250 billion. And now we are told (not asked) that we must come up with between $200 billion and $500 billion to "save" the S & L institutions. All this for only one reason: to protect and perpetuate a fundamentally flawed system whose only object is to enrich and empower the Federal Reserve bankers who own and operate the system.
During the last few years America has become by far the largest debtor nation of the world. And our politicians have made their "contributions" with boundless "generosity!" John Danforth, Republican senator from Missouri, was reported in the Arizona Republic of April 21, 1992 as follows:
"I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."
PAPER CURRENCY CAN BE A VERY PROFITABLE HUMAN CREATION
Economists use the word "create" when speaking of the process by which paper currency comes into existence. "Creation" means making something that did not exist before. Lumbermen make boards from trees, workers build houses from lumber, and factories manufacture automobiles from metal, glass, and other materials. But in all these cases they did not create. They only changed existing materials into more usable and more valuable forms. Not so with currency. Here we actually create something out of nothing. A piece of paper of little value is printed so it becomes worth a piece of lumber. That difference in value is literally created out of nothing. And with different numbers printed on the piece of paper, it can buy the automobile or even the house. The value of the paper has been created in the true sense of the word.
Paper currency can be created honestly or fraudulently. Gold and silver certificates, being receipts for gold and silver, with a guarantee to pay the bearer on demand, are honest paper currency. Federal Reserve Notes currently in circulation constitute fraudulent, counterfeit paper currency.
Counterfeit paper currency is very cheap to "create," and whoever prints it makes a huge profit! Builders work hard to make a profit of 5% above their cost in building a house. Auto makers sell their cars 1% to 2% above the cost of manufacture, which is considered good business. But counterfeit paper currency "manufacturers" have no limit on their profits since a few cents will print a $1 bill, a $100 bill, or even a $10,000 bill.
THE DANGER OF A MONOPOLISTIC CENTRAL BANK
Thomas Jefferson understood the danger of putting the power to control the currency of a nation in the hands of a few individuals in the form of a monopolistic central bank. This is why he opposed Alexander Hamilton's scheme to establish the First Bank of the United States. Let me repeat what he said in 1791:
"If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."
President Andrew Jackson also understood the danger. He refused to renew the charter (a grant of monopoly) of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1836 Jackson said to the bankers trying to persuade him to renew their charter (so they could continue their harmful monopoly):
"You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning."
On December 22, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, Congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. (father of the famous aviator) said to the House:
"This Act establishes the most gigantic trust** on earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts** will soon realize that they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress... The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government."
[** At that time the word "trust" was synonymous with "monopoly."]
THE DEPRESSION OF THE 1930s
In 1930 America did not lack industrial capacity, fertile farmland, skilled or willing workers, or industrious families. It had an extensive and highly efficient transportation system in railroads, road networks, and inland and ocean waterways. Communications between regions and localities were the best in the world, utilizing telephone, teletype, radio, and a well-operated mail system. No war had ravaged the cities or the countryside, no pestilence weakened the population, nor had famine stalked the land.
In America's Great Depression, Murray N. Rothbard, Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, describes how the creation of the Federal Reserve System increased the bankers' ability to inflate the currency supply sixfold. During 1923 to 1929 the bankers did inflate the currency supply enormously. Such an artificial inflation inevitably brings about a subsequent need for deflation. Federal Reserve bankers, the source of America's currency and credit, reduced the currency supply by refusing loans to stable and growing industries, stores, and farmers. At the same time they demanded payment on existing loans. They also increased interest rates. Currency was rapidly taken out of circulation and was not replaced. America was put in a depression and in deep trouble. Goods were available to be purchased, jobs waiting to be done, but little currency was available. Twenty-five percent of workers were laid off. Banks took possession of tens of thousands of farms and businesses through foreclosure. Gloom settled over America.
The contraction of the currency supply caused the stock market to collapse and the ensuing depression. Seven months before the collapse, Paul Warburg, the main architect of the Federal Reserve System, in his annual report to the stockholders of his International Acceptance Bank, wrote:
"If the orgies of unrestrained speculation are permitted to spread, the ultimate collapse is certain not only to affect the speculators themselves, but to bring about a general depression involving the entire country."
Both the inflation and the deflation, causing the depression, had been planned - as predicted by Jefferson in 1791!
CURRENCY INFLATION ENDED THE "GREAT DEPRESSION"
The depression lasted until 1939, when the Federal Reserve System began to send large amounts of currency into circulation for military preparedness. As soon as the currency supply went up, people were hired back to work, farms sold their produce instead of plowing it under, mines reopened, factories began to hum, both industrial and residential construction began anew, and the "Great Depression" was over. Some politicians were blamed for it and others took credit for ending it. The truth was that bankers caused it and bankers ended it. The people were never told that simple truth. The bankers who "manufacture" and "control" our currency have used their huge profits to "buy" our politicians, and ultimately to control our government.
POWER TO COIN AND REGULATE MONEY
When we see the disastrous results of an artificially created shortage of currency, we can better understand why our Founding Fathers insisted on placing the power to create and control money in the hands of Congress. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution states, "The Congress shall have power... to coin money, regulate the value thereof... "
But in 1913 Congress passed the "Federal Reserve Act," relinquishing the power to create and control money to the Federal Reserve Corporation, a private company owned and controlled by bankers. The word "Federal" was used only to deceive the people. The term "central bank" was carefully avoided. The Federal Reserve Act created a Board of Directors, the Federal Reserve Board, to run the Federal Reserve Corporation with a monopoly to create and control the currency of the United States.
This infamous legislation was accompanied with appropriate fanfare and propaganda that it would "remove money from politics" and "prevent boom and bust from hurting our citizens." The people were not told then, and still do not know today, that the Federal Reserve Corporation is a private monopoly controlled by bankers, operated for the financial gain of the bankers at the expense of the people.
Since that day of infamy a small group of privileged people who lend us "our money," have accrued to themselves all of the profits of printing paper currency - and more! Since 1913 they have created trillions of dollars in currency and credit, which as their own personal property, they then lend to our government and our people, with interest. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" had become the secret policy of our national government.
The main architect of the Federal Reserve System was Paul Moritz Warburg, who came from a famous German banking family. The kingpin who steered the Federal Reserve Act through Congress was Senator Nelson Aldrich, Chairman of the Finance Committee. He was the maternal grandfather of Nelson A. Rockefeller, of Standard Oil and Chase Manhattan Bank. Aldrich's daughter, Abby Greene Aldrich, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1901. At the time, many people regarded Senator Aldrich as the Rockefeller family's mouthpiece in the Senate.
The Federal Reserve Act was passed during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Just before he died Wilson is reported to have said that he had been deceived and "I have betrayed my country." He also said:
"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit has been concentrated. The growth of the nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world - no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
WHO OWNS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?
There has been much speculation about who owns the Federal Reserve Corporation. It has been one of the best kept secrets of the century, because the Federal Reserve Act Act of 1913 provided that the names of the owner banks be kept secret. However, R. E. McMaster publisher of the newsletter The Reaper, asked his Swiss banking contacts which banks hold the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Corporation. The answer:

1. Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin
2. Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
3. Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
4. Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
5. Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
6. Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
7. Chase Manhattan Bank of New York
8. Goldman Sachs Bank of New York.

In The Secrets Of The Federal Reserve, Eustace Mullins indicates that, because the Federal Reserve Bank of New York sets interest rates and controls the daily supply and price of currency throughout the U.S., the owners of that bank are the real directors of the entire system. Mullins states:
"The shareholders of these banks which own the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are the people who have controlled our political and economic destinies since 1914. They are the Rothschilds, Lazard Freres (Eugene Mayer), Israel Sieff, Kuhn Loeb Company, Warburg Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests."
THEY PRINT IT - WE BORROW IT AND PAY THEM INTEREST
An example of the process of currency creation and its conversion into "people's debt" will aid our understanding. The Federal Government, having spent more than it has taken from its citizens in taxes, needs (for the sake of illustration) $1 billion. Since it does not have the currency, and Congress has given away its authority to create it, the government must go to the creators for the $1 billion. But the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, does not give its currency away for free! The bankers are willing to deliver $1 billion in currency or credit to the federal government in exchange for the government's agreement to pay it back with interest. So Congress authorizes the Treasury Department to print $1 billion in U.S. Bonds, which are then delivered to the Federal Reserve bankers. (The bonds are a kind of "IOU" that bears interest.)
The U.S. Treasury prints $1 billion in bank notes. The printing cost is about $20.62 per 1,000 bills - it costs the same irrespective of the denomination - the cost of printing a $1 note is about the same as for a $100 note: about .0206 cents. The Federal Reserve "buys" these bills from the U.S. Treasury, paying only for the printing costs. The bills are then exchanged at full face value for the bonds. The government uses the currency to pay its obligations. What are the results of this fantastic transaction? Well, the government's bills are paid all right, but the U.S. Government has now indebted the people to the Federal Reserve bankers for $1 billion plus interest!
Since this process has been going on since 1913, the people are now indebted to the bankers to the tune of trillions of dollars. The people are taxed billions of dollars each month just to pay the interest on this "national debt." With both the principal and the interest climbing every month, there is no hope of ever paying off this "debt." The working people of the United States now "owe" the approximately 300 banking families and their consorts more than the assessed value of all the assets in the United States. And realize, the bankers got all this for the cost of paper, ink, and bookkeeping!
THE MOUNTAIN OF DEBT
You say this is terrible! Yes it is, but this is only part of the sordid story. Under this "debt-currency" system, those U.S. Bonds referred to above have now become assets of the banks, called their "reserve." Regular commercial banks use these assets to issue loans to individual and commercial customers. Since the banking laws require only about a 12% reserve, this means the banking fraternity can lend up to eight times the amount of the bonds they have on hand. As a result of the $1 billion discussed here, they can lend $8 billion to private customers at interest. This means that together with the $1 billion lent to the government, the bankers can lend out $9 billion at interest for the original cost to them of about $400,000 for the printing! And because the Federal Reserve bankers have been granted a monopoly, the only way our people and businesses can get currency to carry on trade and expand industry and farming is to borrow it from the bankers!
USING DEBT TO EXPAND CONTROL
In addition to the vast wealth drawn to them through this almost unlimited usury, the bankers who control the currency are able to approve or disapprove large loans to big and successful corporations. Bankers can refuse a loan, thereby depressing the price of a corporation's shares on the stock exchange. This enables the bankers' agents to buy large blocks of the shares at depressed prices. Then they can approve a multi-million dollar loan to the corporation, resulting in its share price rising, allowing the bankers' agents to sell the shares, sometimes making huge profits. In this manner billions of dollars are made to buy even more shares.
Using this method since 1913, the bankers and their agents have purchased secret or open control of almost every large corporation in America. Using that control, they force the corporations to borrow huge sums from their banks so that corporate earnings are partially siphoned off in the form of interest paid to the banks. This leaves little "actual profit" to be paid out as dividends.
When bankers lend more, the currency supply expands. When they reign in the loans, the currency supply contracts. By expanding or contracting the currency supply, the bankers can make the stock market go up or down at their pockets' content! They can cause "busts and booms" almost as they wish.
That is why President James A. Garfield said, "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."
At the time of writing (July, 1992), the New York stock market has been hovering around record highs for months, while the economy continues to suffer a protracted slump. The bankers no doubt want the stock market to be high and the economy to recover before the coming presidential election. Keep in mind that they endorse all three presidential candidates. Tweedledum and Tweedledee; or Louie, Huey, and Dewey; or Larry, Mo, and Curly - they are all in the hands of the bankers.
WHY LOANS EVENTUALLY SHRINK THE CURRENCY SUPPLY
The only way new currency goes into circulation in America under this wicked system is when someone borrows it from a banker. When people are confident of success, they borrow more currency, which increases the currency supply, and all seem to prosper for a while. Then, as they pay off their loans, the available currency supply shrinks and currency becomes "scarce." Borrowers must always take more currency out of circulation when they repay their loans, than they put in circulation when they receive their loans. Interest and charges make the repayment total larger than the loan. This means that only more people borrowing still more can keep the medium of exchange available to the nation.
This example may aid understanding. When a citizen goes to a banker to borrow $100,000 to purchase a home or a farm, and the loan is granted, the banker gives the borrower a check for $100,000 or credits the borrower's account with $100,000. The borrower, in turn, writes the necessary checks to the builder, seller, subcontractors, etc. (who, in turn, write more checks), thereby putting $100,000 of "checkbook currency" into circulation. However, on a 30-year mortgage with 10% interest, the banker wants $828 per month, or a total of $316,080. The buyer must take that $316,080 out of circulation, reducing the overall amount in circulation by $216,080.
The banker has not really produced anything of value, except the slip of paper called a check or deposit slip. Yet the banker ends up having $216,080 more than he had before, minus a few hundred dollars of clerical and office costs. But the people, as a whole, have $216,080 less.
WHY SMALL LOANS HAVE THE SAME EFFECT
For those who haven't quite grasped the impact, let us consider an auto loan for only three years. Step one: citizen borrows $6,000 and pays it into circulation (to the dealer, factory, etc.). Citizen agrees to repay the banker $7,200. Step two: Citizen pays $200 per month. In 36 months citizen has taken $7,200 out of circulation and paid it to the bank. Net result? $1,200 less currency in circulation.
Since currency requirements increase with expanding population, industry, and commerce, and paying off any loan decreases the available currency supply, it is clear that we would quickly run out of currency, unless more and more people borrow more and more currency to keep currency in circulation!
Multiply the above examples by hundreds of millions of times since 1913, and you can see why America has fallen from a prosperous debt-free nation to the most debt-ridden country in the world. Practically every home, farm, and business is heavily mortgaged to the bankers. Practically all our cars, furniture, and clothes are purchased with borrowed currency. The interest to the bankers on personal, state, and federal debt totals more than 25% of the combined earnings of the working population!
THE COST TO THE BANKERS? PRACTICALLY NOTHING
In the tens of millions of transactions made each year like those shown here, relatively few bank notes change hands, nor is it necessary that they do. 95% of all "cash" transactions in the U.S. are by check. Checks are thus effectively also currency. The banker creates the so-called "loan" by writing a check or deposit slip, not against actual money, but against your promise to pay back the loan. The only cost to the bank is the paper, ink, and a few dollars in salaries and office costs for each transaction. It is "check-kiting" on an enormous scale! The profits are enormous as shown below.
THE COST TO YOU? PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING
In 1910 the U.S. federal debt was $1,147,000,000 - $12 per citizen. State and local debts were practically non-existent, and government was small and not oppressive.
By 1920, after only six years of the Federal Reserve handling our currency, the federal debt had jumped to $24 billion - $228 per citizen. The Federal Government began to grow like an invisible cancer in its early stages.
By 1968 the federal debt had jumped to $347 billion - $1,717 per citizen. Ten years later, by 1978 it had doubled again to $763 billion - $3,500 per citizen. That is a debt of $17,500 for every family of five in America. Federal debt has been growing faster and faster since. And the Federal Government has become a debilitating cancer rapidly sapping and weakening its victim.
Today in 1992 the federal debt is over $4 trillion. (And they "cook the books" on the low side to come up with that figure - see Chapter Nine.) The $4 trillion national debt amounts to $16,000 per citizen, or $80,000 per family of five. And if that debt were calculated in terms of working or tax-paying families, it would be considerably higher. The Federal Government has become a bloated, out-of-control parasite, a terminal cancer. The economy seems so weak that even after many months of blowing up the currency supply, signs of recovery have to be searched for. The entire system may be on the brink of complete collapse.
The above figures do not include state, municipal, school district, business, or personal debts, which total an additional $3 trillion. Total debt in America is thus over $7 trillion - $28,000 per citizen - $120,000 per family of five. This is more than twice the assessed value of all the land and buildings in America. Effectively all of America has been signed over to the bankers. They can take America and we would still owe them another America! Of course, it is to their advantage not to take actual title to the property, so we will not realize that we really own nothing. Instead they leave us with "ownership" so we will willingly continue to work and pay ever higher tributes to the bankers.
What we really have is national bankruptcy. Let me repeat the words of Senator John Danforth:
"I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."
THE INEXORABLE TRANSFER OF WEALTH TO THE BANKERS
To grasp the fact that periodic withdrawal of currency through interest payments to the bankers will inexorably transfer all wealth in the nation to the receivers of interest, imagine yourself in a poker or dice game. Everyone has to buy chips (the medium of exchange) from a "banker" who does not risk chips in the game, but watches the table and every hour reaches in and takes 10% to 15% of all the chips on the table. As the game progresses, the number of chips in the possession of each player will go up and down with his or her "luck." However, the total number of chips available to play the game (carry on business and trade) will decrease steadily, while the "banker's" mountain of chips just grows and grows.
The game will get low on chips, and some players will run out. If they want to continue to play, they must buy or borrow more chips from the "banker." The "banker" will sell (lend) the player more chips only if the player signs a "mortgage" agreeing to give the "banker" some real property (car, home, farm, business, etc.). If the payments should go into default, the banker takes the property. The payments must be made on time, whether the player wins (makes a profit) or not.
It is easy to see that no matter how skillfully the players play, eventually the "banker" will end up with all of his chips back. Except for the very best or "luckiest" players, the rest, if they stay in the game long enough, will end up owing to the "banker" their cars, their homes, their farms, their businesses, and perhaps even their watches, rings, and the shirts off their backs!
Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, and the second richest man in Britain at the time, said:
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them but leave them in power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
Our real-life situation is much worse than any poker game. In a poker game no one is forced to go into debt, and anyone can quit at any time and keep whatever he or she still has. But in real life, even if we borrow little ourselves from the bankers, the local, state, and federal governments borrow billions in our name, squander it, then confiscate our earnings from us and pay it to the bankers with interest. We are forced to play their game, and it seems we can only leave the game by dying. We pay as long as we live, and our children pay after we die. If we cannot pay, the same government sends the police to take our property and give it to the bankers. The bankers risk nothing (at least, the Federal Reserve bankers) in the game; they just collect their percentage and "win it all." In Las Vegas all the games are "rigged" to pay the house (owner) a percentage. They rake in millions. The Federal Reserve bankers' "game" is similarly rigged, and it pays off in billions.
In recent years bankers have added more "cards" to their game. "Credit" cards are promoted as a convenience and a great boon to trade. Actually, they are ingenious devices by which bankers collect %2 to 5% of every retail sale from the seller and 18% or more interest from buyers. A real stacked deck!
POLITICIANS AND BANKERS IN THE SAME LEAGUE
Democrat, Republican, and Independent voters have wondered why politicians always spend more tax currency than they collect. The reason should now be clear. When you study our "debt-currency" system, you soon realize that the politicians are not the agents of the people. They are the agents of the Federal Reserve bankers, for whom they plan ways to place the people further in debt. Let me again quote the words of Senator John Danforth:
"I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."
Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution states, "The Congress shall have power... to coin money, regulate the value thereof... " But what have our politicians done? In 1913 they traitorously gave the U.S. Treasury to the Federal Reserve bankers - lock, stock, and barrel! Someone recently asked, "What's the difference between Kindergarten and Congress?" Answer: "One has adult supervision!" Actually, we shouldn't criticize Congress, after all, we have the best Congress money can buy. Chapter Ten examines Congress in more detail.
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM AUDIT
The Federal Reserve has never been audited by the government. In 1975 a bill H. R. 4316, to require Federal Reserve audits, was introduced in Congress. Due to pressure from the currency-controllers, it was rejected. No audit of the Federal Reserve has ever been done.
MOUNTING DEBTS AND WARS
We, as a people are now ruled by a "banker-owned system" that has usurped the mantle of government, disguised itself as our legitimate government, and set about to pauperize and control the people. It is now a centralized, all-powerful apparatus whose main purposes are spending the people's currency, promoting war, and propagandizing to perpetuate itself in power. Our two large political parties (the "Demopublicans" also called "Republicrats") have become its servants, the various departments of government its spending agencies, and the Internal Revenue Service its collection agency.
Unknown to the people, our "banker-owned system" operates in close cooperation with similar apparatuses in other nations, also disguised as "governments." Some, we are told, are friends. Others, we are told, are enemies. "Enemies" are built up through international manipulations and used to frighten the American people into going billions of dollars more into debt to the bankers for "military preparedness," "foreign aid to stop communism," "minority rights," etc. Citizens, deliberately confused by brainwashing propaganda, watch helplessly while our politicians give our food, goods, and gold to banker-controlled alien governments under the guise of "better relations," "easing tensions," or "humanitarian aide." Our banker-controlled government takes our finest and bravest sons and sends them into foreign wars, where tens of thousands are murdered and hundreds of thousands are crippled. Other thousands are morally corrupted and addicted to drugs. When the "war" is over we have gained nothing, but we are scores of billions more in debt to the bankers - which was the real reason for the war in the first place!
MORE THAN JUST ECONOMIC RAPE
The profits from these massive debts have been used to erect a complete and almost hidden economic and political colossus over our nation. Our "banker-owned system" keeps telling us they are trying to do us good, when in truth they work to harm and injure the people. These would-be despots know it is easier to control and rob an ignorant, poorly-educated, and confused people than it is an informed population, so they deliberately degrade our educational systems. For the same reason they secretly favor drug use, alcohol, racial conflict, and crime in general. Their "war on drugs," as an example, only produces more drug use and a host of related crimes. Everything which debilitates the minds and bodies of the people is secretly encouraged, as it makes the people less able to oppose them, or even to understand what is being done to them. The system wants mediocre, unthinking, helpless "sheople."
Family, morals, and all that is honorable is being swept away, while our "banker-owned system" builds their new subservient man, the foundation of their "new world order." Our new rulers are trying to change our whole political, social, and racial order, but they will not change the debt-currency economic system by which they rob and rule. Our people have become tenants and "debt-slaves" to the bankers and their agents in the land our fathers conquered. It is conquest through the most gigantic fraud and swindle in the history of humankind. And we remind you again: The key to their wealth and power over us is their monopolistic ability to "create" currency out of nothing and to lend it to us at interest. If Congress had not allowed them to do that, they never would have gained secret control over our nation.
CONTROLLED NEWS AND INFORMATION
This currency-lender conspiracy ("consPIRACY") is as old as Babylon. Even in America it dates far back before 1913. Actually, 1913 was the year in which the way opened for complete economic conquest of our people. The conspiracy is old enough to America so that the system's agents have been for many years in positions such as newspaper publishers, editors, columnists, church ministers, university presidents, professors, textbook authors, attorneys, accountants, labor union leaders, movie makers, radio and TV commentators, politicians from school board members to U.S. Presidents, and many others.
These agents control the information available to our people. They manipulate public opinion, elect who they will locally and nationally, and never expose the crooked currency system. They promote school bonds, municipal bonds, expensive and detrimental farm programs, "urban renewal," "foreign aid," and many other schemes which will put the people more in debt to the bankers. Thoughtful citizens wonder why billions are spent on one program and billions on another which may duplicate or even nullify it, such as paying some farmers not to raise crops, while at the same time building dams or canals to irrigate more farm land. Crazy or stupid? Neither. The goal is more debt. Thousands of government-sponsored ways to waste "money" are perpetrated continually. Most make no sense, but they are never exposed for what they really are: builders of billions for the bankers and debts for the people.
So-called "economic experts" write syndicated columns in hundreds of newspapers, craftily designed to prevent the people from learning the simple truth about our debt-currency system. Commentators on radio and TV, educators, and politicians blame the people as wasteful, lazy, or spendthrift, and blame the workers and consumers for the increase in debts and the inflation of prices, when they really know that the basic cause is the debt-currency system itself. Our people are drowned in charges and counter-charges designed to confuse them and keep them from understanding the evil currency system that so silently robs the workers, farmers, and business people of the fruit of their labor. And, increasingly, the system is being used to rob us of our rights and freedoms, supposedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
In his book Inventing Reality, Michael Parenti wrote:
"Ten business and financial corporations control the three major television and radio networks (NBC, CBS, ABC), 34 subsidiary television stations, 201 cable TV systems, 62 radio stations, 20 record companies, 59 magazines, 58 newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, 41 book publishers and various motion picture companies like Columbia Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. Three quarters of the major stockholders of ABC, CBS and NBC are banks, such as Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Citibank, and Bank of America.
The overall pattern is one of increasing concentration of ownership and earnings. According to a 1982 Los Angeles Times survey, independent daily newspapers are being gobbled up by the chains at the rate of fifty or sixty a year. Ten newspaper chains earn over half of all newspaper revenue in this country. Five media conglomerates share 95 percent of the record and tapes market with Warner and CBS alone controlling 65 percent of the market. Eight Hollywood studios account for 89 percent of U.S. feature film rentals. Three television networks earn over two-thirds of total U.S. television revenues. Seven paperback publishers dominate the mass market for books...
While having an abundance of numbers and giving an appearance of diversity, the mass media actually are highly centralized outlets that proffer a remarkably homogenized fare. News services for dailies throughout the entire nation are provided by the Associated Press and United Press International (which may soon merge with AP or go under), The New York Times-Washington Post wire services, and several foreign wire services like Reuters. The ideological viewpoint of these news conduits are pretty much the same, marked by prefabricated standardization of news which is constricting and frightening."
In his book The Media Monopoly, Ben H. Bagdikian writes:
"The power to control information is a major lever in the control of society. Giving citizens a choice in ideas and information is as important as giving them a choice in politics. If a nation has narrowly controlled information it will soon have narrowly controlled politics."
When a few informed and concerned people or organizations who know the truth begin to expose the bankers and their agents, or try to stop any of their mad schemes, the messengers are ridiculed and smeared as "right-wing extremists," "super-patriots," "bigots," "racists," "fascists," or "anti-semites." Any name is used to discredit them, and to stop other people from listening. Books and articles such as you are now reading are kept out of schools, freedomries, and book stores.
Some, who are especially vocal in their exposure of the treason committed against our people, are harassed by government agencies such as the IRS, FDA, EPA, OSHA, and others, causing them financial loss or bankruptcy. Sometimes their businesses and homes are violently raided at gunpoint, and their money, currency, equipment, and records confiscated, so it is very difficult, if at all possible to continue their business. In Chapter One the National Commodity and Barter Association was mentioned as an example of such raids. But the most striking case has been that of Ezra Pound, which is covered below.
Using these methods, the Federal Reserve bankers and their agents have been completely successful in preventing most Americans from learning the things you are reading in this report. However, in spite of their control of information, they realize that more and more citizens are learning the truth. Therefore, to prevent retaliation and armed resistance to their plunder of America, they plan to register all firearms and eventually disarm all citizens. They want to eliminate all guns not in the hands of their government police or army. Our wise Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution so that the people could protect themselves against the government.
Love of life, interest in your freedom, compassion for humanity, concern for your children, and the safety of all you have worked for should make you deeply interested in this, America's greatest problem. Our generation has not suffered under the bankers' yoke as the coming generations will. Usury and taxes will continue to take a larger and larger part of the earnings of the people and put them deeper into the pockets of the bankers and their agents. Increasing "government" regulations will prevent citizen protest and opposition to their control. Is it possible that your grandchildren will own neither car nor home, but will live in "government-owned" apartments and ride to work in "government-owned" buses, and be allowed to keep just enough of their earnings to buy a minimum of food and clothing, while their rulers wallow in luxury? In Asia and Eastern Europe this used to be called communism. In America it is called democracy or capitalism.
Horace Greeley stated, "While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous currency system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."
THE CASE OF EZRA POUND
Ezra Pound was a poet, one of America's greatest - if not the greatest. He played a major role in the development of writers and poets, such as E.E. Cummings, T.S. Elliot, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and William Carlos Williams. He also studied politics, economics, banking, and monetary theory. He disapproved of war. During World War II, he hid a number of Jews from the Nazi exterminators; if discovered the penalty would have been death. He broadcast a series of talks on Italian radio aimed at Americans. He had wanted America to stay out of the war, and he said some uncomplimentary things about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also stated some of his political and monetary ideas. He was accused of being a traitor. At the end of the war he was imprisoned in an American concentration camp near Pisa, Italy for six months without trial. Then he was transferred to America where he was declared insane and imprisoned in a mental hospital in Washington D.C. for thirteen years. After which the treason charges, for which he had never stood trial, were dropped, and he was released. He returned to Italy, where he lived until his death in 1972.
The reason he was not tried seems to be that his prosecutors didn't have a case that would hold up in court and/or they were afraid that he would repeat in court what he had said over the radio in Italy. Wendell Muncie, M.D., one of the psychiatrists involved in his "sanity hearing," said that Pound's insanity consisted of three factors: his passion for the U.S. Constitution, his espousal of the Confucian ethic, and his desire for world peace. No formal diagnosis of Pound's supposed "insanity" has been found. His captors in Washington openly admitted that Pound was a political prisoner. A Congressional investigation started in 1957 and completed in 1958 exposed the inadequacy of the case against Pound and led to his release.
Here are some extracts from Pound's radio talks:

• "I think an alliance with Stalin's Russia is rotten." (January 29, 1942)
• "Liberty is not a right but a duty." (March 8, 1942)
• "Sovereignty inheres in the right to issue money. And the American sovereignty belongs by right to the people, and their representatives in Congress have the right to issue money and to determine the value thereof. And 120 million, 120 million suckers have lamentably failed to insist on the observation of this quite decided law. ... Now the point at which embezzlement of the nation's funds on the part of her officers becomes treason can probably be decided only by jurists, and not by hand-picked judges who support illegality." (April 9, 1942)
• Quotes read by Pound: 1. "'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.' -- Thomas Jefferson.
  2. 'I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy.' -- Abraham Lincoln.
  3. 'The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy; it denounces as public enemies all who question its methods, or throw light upon its crimes.' -- William Jennings Bryan." (July 26, 1942)
• Back to Pound's own words: "Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt." (March 25, 1943)
• "The phase of the usury system which we are trying to analyze is more or less Patterson's perception that the Bank of England could have benefit of all the interest on all the money that it creates out of nothing. ... Now the American citizen can, of course, appeal to his constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to coin money or regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. Such appeal is perhaps quixotic." (March 30, 1943)
• "That text is known to them that have the patience to read it, possibly one one-hundredth of one percent of the denizens. They forget it, all save a few Western states. I think somebody in Dakota once read it. The Constitution." June 30, 1943)

THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND ILLEGAL
Although there has never been a court case that challenged the legality of the Federal Reserve System, there was a challenge to the National Recovery Act or NRA, which was ruled unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court - Schechter Poultry v. U.S., 29 U.S. 495, 55 U.S. 837.842 (1935) - ruled that, "Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others its legitimate functions." Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution states, "The Congress shall have power... to coin money, regulate the value thereof... " By passing the Federal Reserve Act, Congress abdicated and transferred to the Federal Reserve bankers its constitutionally legitimate function of issuing and controlling money. If the Supreme Court ruling on the NRA is applied to the Federal Reserve System, the unconstitutionality and illegality of the Fed becomes obvious.
TELL THE PEOPLE
America will not shake off her illegal banker-controlled dictatorship as long as the people are ignorant of the hidden controllers. International bankers, who control most of the governments of the nations and most sources of information, seem to have us completely in their grasp. They are afraid of only one thing: an awakened citizenry armed with the truth. An ignorant citizen is the banker-government's best "client." An informed citizen is the banker-government's worst nightmare.
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Georgia, said:
"This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defect remedied very soon."
PRIVATE BANKING
In California a very private "non-bank" has been operating successfully for fifteen years. It caters for accounts in gold or Federal Reserve Notes. It is completely private and doesn't report to anyone. It pays interest on both gold and Federal Reserve Note balances. Ideally, we need to establish a network of private banks throughout the country, and eventually throughout the rest of the world. See Chapter Twelve.

Hip-Hop Isn't Dead Yet: There Is Still A Pulse...

Back in 2006, Nas changed his name to The "N" and proclaimed Hip-Hop was dead. It wasn't the first time Hip-Hop was deemed without a lifeline, many don't realize that Andre 3000 said it first back in 2001, long before Nas, and as Stacks remarked the average nigga on the corner asked what the fuck you mean. Maybe Dre foresaw the future of a genre that was once rebellious, political, educating, prideful, innovative, and exciting. Towards the middle of the decade, Hip-Hop took an unprecedented left turn and as it did it downshifted into a gear that slowed the music down. Lyrics became much less prevalent, the focus of the music became catchy, yet, senseless hooks and albeit banging beats. Much of the blame has been placed on Southern rap artists for dumbing down Hip-Hop and Rap, although the Mecca of Hip-Hop, New York didn't live up to its own standards either. Nationwide, the music began to suffer and certain overt stereotypes were pumped through the airwaves and on the tube continuously. Myself, a very prideful Southerner was disappointed in the direction Hip-Hop and Rap music began taking, especially in the South. With the history of the South, I am always inclined to think that we have much more of a story and struggle than other regions. It seemed as though Southern rappers forgot that some of the greatest Hip-Hop artists to grace the mic are from the South and they settled for debauchery, hedonism, blatant lies,  and stereotypical coonery. For a while, it was like Southern artists had forgotten their roots and the fact that they grew up on The Geto Boys, 8Ball & MJG, UGK, The Dungeon Family, No Limit, and Cash Money. I'm speaking from a standpoint of being a Hip-Hop loving Southerner, but I'm sure that my East Coast, Mid-West, and West Coast diehard Hip-Hop fans feel the same about their respective areas and some of the new rappers that have came out of their regions. But alas, the genre is returning from the grave nationwide, and I am welcoming the zombies that are feeding on our brains. Hip-Hop and Rap is getting back to that human music as the young homie Kendrick Lamar calls it. We have the likes of: Jay Elect, Big K.R.I.T. ( King Remembered In Time), J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul and the whole TopDawg movement, Drake, Pac-Div, B.O.B., CyHi Da Prince, Blu, Curt@ins, Poe Picasso, Charles Hamilton, Wiz Khalifa, Nipsey Hussle, Laws, Curren$y and the Fly Society, Big Sean, L.E.$., Mickey Factz, Nickelus F, Kid Cudi, Saigon, Skyzoo, Torae, Smoke DZA, Wale, and a few other new artists. Forgive the long list, but I felt the need to make you familiar with some of these names if you are not already.

The Economic Rape of America Chapter 2

The Economic Rape of America - Chapter Two

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE U.S. DOLLAR

You that trample on the needy, and bring ruin to the poor of the land, saying... We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances.
Amos 8, verses 4-5

"It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the history of the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as of certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency."
-- Andrew Jackson, 1836
"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
-- John Maynard Keynes, 1920
It is the continuous loss of value that constitutes the destruction of the dollar. Because it happens gradually most of us are not alarmed by it. It is like the frog in hot water. If you throw a live frog into boiling water, it jumps out immediately. But if you put in a pot of cold water on the stove, it just sits. If you gradually heat the water, the frog just sits. By the time the frog realizes the water is too hot, it doesn't have the strength to jump and it burns to death. In relation to the sinking value of the dollar most of us are "sitting frogs!"
This chapter is largely based on The Biggest Con: How the Government is Fleecing You by Irwin A. Schiff. According to Schiff, "U.S. politicians, contrary to the Constitution and the U.S. criminal code, have conned all citizens out of their money savings. This monetary swindle was perpetuated despite a reasonably literate electorate, despite our well-developed financial and banking institutions, and despite our many institutions of higher learning and the nation's extensive network of information media." Let us now examine the "mechanics" of the swindle.
THE GREAT MONEY SWINDLE
Look at Figure 1 below, which depicts a Certificate of Deposit for ten silver dollars issued in 1880. Banking originated in the middle ages. Because of the inconvenience of carrying a lot of silver or gold, some of it was deposited with a blacksmith, jeweler, or goldsmith. A certificate of deposit was issued. The certificate could be used as payment. The holder could present the certificate to the "banker" and receive the silver or gold it represents, guaranteed by the terms, "payable to the bearer on demand." Note that the certificate says, "This certifies that there have been deposited with the Treasurer U.S. ten silver dollars." This Certificate of Deposit is in the tradition of how banking originated.

Figure 1:

CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT
THIS CERTIFIES THAT
there have been deposited with
THE TREASURER U.S.
TEN
SILVER DOLLARS

payable to the bearer on demand

UNITED STATES CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT 1880
(REDEEMABLE IN SILVER)

Now examine Figure 2. This is a Silver Certificate which states, "This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of The United States of America ten dollars in silver payable to the bearer on demand." For all intents and purposes this Silver Certificate is equivalent to the Certificate of Deposit in Figure 1. But there is a very important difference: the Silver Certificate also states, "This certificate is legal tender for all debts, public and private." This is a reflection of a "legal tender law." It in effect says, "Citizens are not qualified to choose their money; government dictates what shall be used as money." This sets the stage for the swindle. Government can debase the currency and force citizens to use it.

Figure 2:

SILVER CERTIFICATE
THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE IS ON DEPOSIT IN THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THIS CERTIFICATE IS LEGAL TENDER
FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

TEN DOLLARS
IN SILVER PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND

UNITED STATES SILVER CERTIFICATE 1934
(REDEEMABLE IN SILVER)

In Figures 3 and 4 below we see the same difference between the gold certificates of 1907 and 1928. As soon as citizens grant their government the power to dictate what shall be used as money, they open the door to being swindled. Regrettably, that is precisely what has happened to the American public. And it happened gradually - like it happened to the frog who burnt to death.

Figure 3:

THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE IS ON DEPOSIT IN THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TEN DOLLARS IN GOLD COIN
PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND

UNITED STATES GOLD CERTIFICATE 1907
(REDEEMABLE IN GOLD)

Figure 4:

THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE HAVE
BEEN DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THIS CERTIFICATE IS A LEGAL TENDER
IN THE AMOUNT THEREOF IN PAYMENT OF ALL
DEBTS AND DUES PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

TEN DOLLARS
IN GOLD COIN PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND

UNITED STATES GOLD CERTIFICATE 1928
(REDEEMABLE IN GOLD)

Look at Figure 5 below. Here we have a Federal Reserve Note, dated 1928, "Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank." This means the holder of the note could exchange it for $10 worth of gold at the U.S. Treasury. However, at a Federal Reserve Bank they could, instead of gold, give the holder "lawful money." In Chapter One we saw that "lawful money" is defined by law as gold and silver. No doubt, the term "lawful money" is introduced as part of the plot to gradually debase the currency. The water is gradually getting warm!

Figure 5:

REDEEMABLE IN GOLD ON DEMAND
AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY
OR IN GOLD OR LAWFUL MONEY
AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK

WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND TEN DOLLARS

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE 1928
(REDEEMABLE IN GOLD OR "LAWFUL MONEY")

Now look at Figure 6. This is a National Currency Note, dated 1929, "Redeemable in lawful money of the United States Treasury or at the Bank of Issue." The "gold" is gone. Another step of the swindle has been taken. The water is getting hot!
Observe that neither the Figure 5 Federal Reserve Note, nor the Figure 6 National Currency Note say anything about "legal tender."

Figure 6:

NATIONAL CURRENCY
SECURED BY UNITED STATES BONDS DEPOSITED WITH THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND
TEN DOLLARS

REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY OF
THE UNITED STATES AT UNITED STATES
TREASURY OR AT THE BANK OF ISSUE

NATIONAL CURRENCY 1929
(REDEEMABLE IN "LAWFUL MONEY")

Now look at Figure 7 below, a Federal Reserve Note, dated 1934. "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank." Compare this to the Figure 5 Federal Reserve Note. One difference is that the "gold" has been dropped. Another difference is that the 1934 Federal Reserve Note has become "legal tender." Maybe, when a swindle is pulled on a grand scale, the cruder it is, the more likely it succeeds!

Figure 7:

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AND IS REDEEMABLE IN
LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY
OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK

WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND TEN DOLLARS

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE 1934
(REDEEMABLE IN "LAWFUL MONEY")

Figure 8 shows a recent Federal Reserve Note. It cannot be redeemed for anything. It is a note to pay nothing. The swindle is complete. The water is near boiling. The frog is almost dead. Its awareness is far too low for it to realize what happened…
"Counterfeit" means "to copy or imitate in order to deceive" or "something likely to be mistaken for something else of higher value."

Figure 8:

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER
FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

TEN DOLLARS

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE 1988
(NOT REDEEMABLE; A NOTE TO PAY WHAT?
"WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND" HAS DISAPPEARED)
IS THIS COUNTERFEIT MONEY?

Now examine Figure 9 below. Here we have a 1953 $2 United States Note. It is "legal tender at its face value" and it says, "Will pay to the bearer on demand." But what is its "face value" and how will the "two dollars" be paid? Compare this to the 1976 $2 Federal Reserve Note in Figure 10. Here there is nothing about "face value" or "will pay to the bearer on demand." Can we conclude that by 1976 the bankers and politicians were so secure in their belief that the American public had become too brainwashed to notice the swindle, and that there was no longer any need for pretensions like "face value" and "will pay to the bearer on demand?"

Figure 9:

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER
AT ITS FACE VALUE FOR ALL DEBTS
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND
TWO DOLLARS

UNITED STATES NOTE 1953
(NOT REDEEMABLE; A NOTE TO PAY WHAT?)
IS THIS COUNTERFEIT MONEY?

Figure 10:

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER
FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TWO DOLLARS

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE 1976
(NOT REDEEMABLE; A NOTE TO PAY WHAT?
"WILL PAY TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND" HAS DISAPPEARED)
IS THIS COUNTERFEIT MONEY?

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE SWINDLE
The stage for the swindle was set by the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, "Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the value thereof" - see Chapter Five. This opened the door to a government monopoly being established. The second step was passage of the National Bank Act of 1863, which effectively outlawed private currency. The monopoly was now complete. In 1913 the Federal Reserve System was created, when Congress (unconstitutionally) delegated its monopoly currency power to the Federal Reserve Corporation, a private company.
Our Founding Fathers thoroughly understood currency debasement and how it usually leads to the destruction of civilization. The Coinage Act of 1792 provided the death sentence for anyone convicted of debasing U.S. coins.
In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily reduced the amount of gold the dollar represented from one twentieth of an ounce to one thirty-fifth of an ounce. This amounted to a 43% devaluation (or debasement) of the dollar - a declaration of bankruptcy stating that the U.S. Treasury would "settle" its debts by paying 57 cents in the dollar. It also meant, in terms of gold, that overnight the government had robbed the American people of 43% of their savings. By the standards of our Founding Fathers this was a crime punishable by death.
In 1934 Roosevelt's "New Deal" took away the American citizen's right to own gold, a right Americans had enjoyed since the first pilgrims arrived. This also meant the discontinuation of gold certificates.
In 1963 silver certificates were discontinued. On November 26, 1963, the day of John F. Kennedy's funeral, the first 50 million "no-promise" Federal Reserve Notes were released into circulation. We shall return to this topic.
In 1913 when the Federal Reserve System was established, Federal Reserve District banks were required to maintain a 40% gold backing for Federal Reserve Notes, and a 35% gold backing for deposits. In 1945 the gold backing for both notes and deposits was dropped to 25%. In 1965 the gold backing requirement for deposits was eliminated completely. And in 1968 the gold backing requirement for Federal Reserve Notes was eliminated.
Up to 1965, U.S. coins (dollar, half-dollar, quarter, and dime) contained 90% silver and 10% copper. "Coins" of the same denominations minted since 1965 have a copper core covered with a thin layer of nickel. Are these tokens counterfeit coins? According to Irwin Schiff:
"Correctly understood, the U.S. government's coinage operation violates Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution empowered Congress to "coin money," not to produce worthless tokens. The government's coinage operation also violates Title 18, Section 1001, of the U.S. criminal code which reads as follows: "Whoever, in any manner within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact or makes any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years or both. June 25, 1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 749." Since the design, composition and structure of U.S. cupro-nickel coins is nothing more than "a trick, scheme, or device" to conceal their true value, character, and composition, all persons who have been and are now involved in their authorization should be prosecuted under this statute."
"Bankruptcy" means settling with your creditors for less than you owe them. It is a repudiation of your debts and financial obligations. On August 15, 1971 the U.S. government announced that it was "ending the dollar's convertibility, closing the gold window, cutting the dollar's tie to gold, and allowing the dollar to float." This was a declaration of bankruptcy, a repudiation of the obligation of the U.S. government to redeem its paper IOUs for gold.
On December 18, 1971 the U.S. government raised the "official gold price" from $35 to $38. This was a devaluation of 8.57%. Again, this was a declaration of bankruptcy. On February 12, 1973 the "official gold price" was increased to $42.22 - a devaluation of 10%. However, both of these devaluations were somewhat strange. Because dollar convertibility into gold had been canceled on August 15, 1971, the new "official prices" of gold were "prices" at which the U.S. government refused to sell gold!
Around 1976 Americans' right to own gold was restored, with the gold price at about $180 an ounce. Currently the gold price is around $350 per ounce. This means that during the past 60 years the U.S. dollar, in terms of gold, has been devalued by 82.5%. Put in another way, only 17.5% of the dollar's value remains.
THE EFFECTS OF THE SWINDLE
To make sense of the effects of the great money swindle we can use AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) as an analogy. [See #TL09A: AIDS: Bad Science or Hoax? for an alternative view of the nature of AIDS.] Money is to the economy as blood is to the individual. The AIDS virus gets into the blood, but for many years nobody realizes that anything is wrong. The politicians and Federal Reserve bankers get into the money, but hardly anyone recognizes what has happened. In both cases, for a long time there are no observable symptoms. In the case of AIDS this is called stage one.
Then symptoms start to appear. The victim is afflicted with unusual infections. Because the immune system has been considerably weakened, the body struggles with an infection that a healthy body would handle with ease. The illness can be severe, but eventually the victim recovers - in a fashion. This is analogous to the Great Depression of the thirties. It is AIDS stage two.
Eventually the immune system becomes so weak that the patient cannot recover after being struck by an infection. AIDS stage three. The U.S. economy may not yet be in stage three. The current depression started around 1987. For every sign of recovery there seems to be another sign of regression. And the government "cooks the books" (like not counting as unemployed people who have given up looking for work) to make it look better than it really is.
The economy, and particularly the U.S. dollar, has been raped by AIDS-infected Federal Reserve bankers and politicians. To "rape" means "to seize or take away by force; to despoil." "Rape" the noun means "an outrageous violation."
In 1791 Thomas Jefferson said:
"If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."
To really cure the economy we need to get the Federal Reserve bankers and the politicians out of our money. And that may be more difficult than getting the AIDS virus out of the blood of its victims…
PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATIONS
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated after issuing the Greenback, which was a non-interest-bearing note. President James A. Garfield expressed his concern about currency problems just before his assassination.
On June 4, 1963 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 providing him with the authority "to issue silver certificates against all silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption…" This seems like an attempt to bypass the Federal Reserve System by issuing real, silver-backed money to replace counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
There is a rumor that the "Kennedy silver certificates" were actually printed and that one of the first things President Lyndon B. Johnson did after assuming power was to have the "Kennedy silver certificates" destroyed. In 1964 Johnson, serving as the voice of the Federal Reserve bankers, said, "Silver has become too valuable to be used as money." This amounted to a brazen boast that the bankers would eliminate any money with intrinsic value. On November 22, 1963, the day of Kennedy's funeral, the first 50 million "no-promise" Federal Reserve Notes were released into circulation. The symbolic celebration of the Federal Reserve bankers?