Reclaiming the Founding Fathers’ Vision of Prosperity
To understand the core problem in America today, we have to look back to the very founding of our country.
The Founding Fathers fought for liberty and justice. But they also fought for a sound economy and freedom from the tyranny of big banks:
“[It was] the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament which has caused in the colonies hatred of the English and . . . the Revolutionary War.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
- John Adams
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams
“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”.
— Thomas Jefferson
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the Government, to whom it properly belongs.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“The Founding Fathers of this great land had no difficulty whatsoever understanding the agenda of bankers, and they frequently referred to them and their kind as, quote, ‘friends of paper money. They hated the Bank of England, in particular, and felt that even were we successful in winning our independence from England and King George, we could never truly be a nation of freemen, unless we had an honest money system. ”
-Peter Kershaw, author of the 1994 booklet “Economic Solutions”
Indeed, everyone knows that the American colonists revolted largely because of taxation without representation and related forms of oppression by the British. See this and this. But – according to Benjamin Franklin and others in the thick of the action – a little-known factor was actually the main reason for the revolution.
To give some background on the issue, when Benjamin Franklin went to London in 1764, this is what he observed:
When he arrived, he was surprised to find rampant unemployment and poverty among the British working classes… Franklin was then asked how the American colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor houses. He reportedly replied:
“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
In 1764, the Bank of England used its influence on Parliament to get a Currency Act passed that made it illegal for any of the colonies to print their own money. The colonists were forced to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold. Anyone lacking in those precious metals had to borrow them at interest from the banks.
Only a year later, Franklin said, the streets of the colonies were filled with unemployed beggars, just as they were in England. The money supply had suddenly been reduced by half, leaving insufficient funds to pay for the goods and services these workers could have provided. He maintained that it was “the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament which has caused in the colonies hatred of the English and . . . the Revolutionary War.” This, he said, was the real reason for the Revolution: “the colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.”
(for more on the Currency Act, see this.)
Alexander Hamilton echoed similar sentiments:
Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary, said that paper money had composed three-fourths of the total money supply before the American Revolution. When the colonists could not issue their own currency, the money supply had suddenly shrunk, leaving widespread unemployment, hunger and poverty in its wake. Unlike the Great Depression of the 1930s, people in the 1770s were keenly aware of who was responsible for their distress.
As historian Alexander Del Mar wrote in 1895:
[T]he creation and circulation of bills of credit by revolutionary assemblies…coming as they did upon the heels of the strenuous efforts made by the Crown to suppress paper money in America [were] acts of defiance so contemptuous and insulting to the Crown that forgiveness was thereafter impossible . . . [T]here was but one course for the crown to pursue and that was to suppress and punish these acts of rebellion…Thus the Bills of Credit of this era, which ignorance and prejudice have attempted to belittle into the mere instruments of a reckless financial policy were really the standards of the Revolution. they were more than this: they were the Revolution itself!
And British historian John Twells said the same thing:
The British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins … Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies . . . discontent became desperation, and reached a point . . . when human nature rises up and asserts itself.
In fact, the Americans ignored the British ban on American currency, and:
“Succeeded in financing a war against a major power, with virtually no ‘hard’ currency of their own, without taxing the people.”
Indeed, the first act of the New Continental Congress was to issue its own paper scrip, popularly called the Continental.
Franklin and Thomas Paine later praised the local currency as a “corner stone” of the Revolution. And Franklin consistently wrote that the American ability to create its own credit led to prosperity, as it allowed the creation of ample credit, with low interest rates to borrowers, and no interest to pay to private or foreign bankers .
Not Ancient History … One of the Most Vital Issues of Today
Is this just ancient history?
No.
The ability for America and the 50 states to create its own credit has largely been lost to private bankers. The lion’s share of new credit creation is done by private banks, so – instead of being able to itself create money without owing interest – the government owes unfathomable trillions in interest to private banks.
Read this background to understand how money is really created in our crazy current banking system. And read this and this to learn why we are paying trillions of dollars to the big banks in unnecessary interest costs.
America may have won the Revolutionary War, but it has since lost one of the main things it fought for: the freedom to create its own credit instead of having to beg for credit from private banks at a usurious cost.
No More Federal than Federal Express
While many Americans assume that the Federal Reserve is a federal agency, the Fed itself admits that the 12 Federal Reserve banks are private. See this, this, this and this.
Indeed, the money-center banks in New York control the New York Fed, the most powerful Fed bank. Until recently, Jamie Dimon – the head of JP Morgan Chase – was a Director of the New York Fed. Everyone knows that the Fed is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption.
The long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee (Charles McFadden) said on June 10, 1932:
Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies ….
And congressman Dennis Kucinich said:
The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express!
The Fed Is Owned By – And Is Enabling – The Worst Behavior of the Big Banks
Most people now realize that the big banks have become little more than criminal enterprises.
No wonder a stunning list of economists, financial experts and bankers are calling for them to be broken up.
But the Federal Reserve is enabling the banks. Indeed, the giant banks and the Fed are part of a malignant, symbiotic relationship.
The corrupt, giant banks would never have gotten so big and powerful on their own. In a free market, the leaner banks with sounder business models would be growing, while the giants who made reckless speculative gambles would have gone bust. See this, this and this.
It is the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Congress who have repeatedly bailed out the big banks, ensured they make money at taxpayer expense, exempted them from standard accounting practices and the criminal and fraud laws which govern the little guy, encouraged insane amounts of leverage, and enabled the too big to fail banks – through “moral hazard” – to become even more reckless.
Indeed, the government made them big in the first place. As I noted in 2009:
As MIT economics professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson points out today, the official White House position is that:
(1) The government created the mega-giants, and they are not the product of free market competition
***
(3) Giant banks are good for the economy
***
The [corrupt, captured government "regulators"] and the giant banks are part of a single malignant, symbiotic relationship.
Indeed, the Fed and their big bank owners form a crony capitalist cartel that is destroying the economy for most Americans. The Fed has been bailing out the giant banks while shafting the little guy.
Fed boss Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving bailout money were healthy, when they were not. They were insolvent. By choosing the big banks over the little guy, the Fed is dooming both.
No wonder many top economists say that we should end – or strip most of the powers from – the Federal Reserve.
Even long-time Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan says that we should end the Fed.
A Better Alternative
Conservative and liberal economists both point out that the big banks are already state-sponsored institutions … so the government should create a little competition through public banking.
State-owned public banks – like North Dakota has – would take the power away from the big banks, and give it back to the people … as the Founding Fathers intended.
Even a 12-year old sees the wisdom of public banking.
And see this.
The Georgia Wash, he was hep to illuminati all in about the first a speach he give. They knew that you and a I would have to stand up against the banksters. They also did not have much hope in that idea. I know why.
Great article although what could be added to it is that there is an enormous conflict of interesst that exists when private bankers have control over a nations ability to issue money. This conflict of interest issue by itself is enough to warrant nations reclaiming the right to issue their own currency.
I would just like to add this to your excellent article...
The Calling
As much as I deplore food stamps if we did not have them, just imagine the soup kitchen lines and chaos we would have..... it is a great way for the government to hide the physical evidence of what is going on in the economy while sucking blood out of its host.
If we did not have the food stamps, people would have already put it all into gold because they would see lines of people everywhere waiting for lunch and say to themselves "What is wrong?" .... "Didn't grandpa say something about soup lines?"
Can anyone really imagine 47,000,000 Americans standing in line everyday for a bowl of soup? How long do you think it would take before every ,lampost in the country would be decorated with the rotting corpses of bankers , judges, and politicians.......not necessarily in that order.
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
Jefferson never said this anywhere. I spent quite a bit of time reading all his archived texts to try to find it. The clue is that the word "deflation" didn't exist prior to the 1900's.
“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”.
— Thomas Jefferson
Otherwise, I have the same problems with the current system as you do, but I think we need to go back to gold and silver money, and banks that only take deposits and lend, with an insurance fund to cover those deposits.
http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation
Lots of other "quotations" TJ did not say too....but also lots that he did.
More and more people are getting it.
George your becoming one of my heroes.
I think your brave.. if you get the traction you deserve in main stream media..
Both sides will make fun of you at best.
At worst you will crash your Ferrari
Who with the truth is safe in America.. when the elite have no problem killing or starving millions to make a profit.
The enforcers should be doing everything it can to make the government transparent not spying on its people.
The above sentence to to those who mistakenly believed they are hero's because they bust down doors on command, that think they are something to be looked up to.
A real hero sounds like George!
Texas needs a state bank. It would promote huge growth in Texas business and huge growth in employment.
The Capitalist Conspiracy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPOIOUq2eBY
Thanks, I needed that.
there will be blood.................
There might be more than you can imagine in your wildest nightmares.
But then, are we to live as slaves? I say no.
I'm with you. As Patrick Henry declared, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
steve from virginia, i happen to agree with you AND bank guy in brussels 99 out of 100 posts each. could you guys maybe share a brewsky and kiss and make up, this dissention amongst the clan is very traumatizing to my id. thanks in advance.......................
If only more Americans paid attention to history in school, they would see the problem and demand a solution.
Why? History is monetized and perverted as bad, if not worse, than US mortgages.
"Long live fraud finance and captured broken government" is what history will say about today.
This is exactly what the people support, as will history reflect.
thank you,GW.
Billions of rounds. Drones. Surveillance cameras. Lab-made viruses. Mass mind control. Engineered weather.
....they know their history and don't plan on losing again.
lose again?
when have they ever lost control?
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nirvana/themanwhosoldtheworld.html
they seemingly lost control for several decades in the US until Jackson's exit.
They will eventually lose again. Power has the regretable feature to begin to feed on itself.
That's what I'm hoping for. Let's hope there's little collateral damage.
Not in our lifetime ... the financial crisis of 2008 ( created by the FED ) and the financial crisis coming ( created by the FED ) are the golden opportunities that TPTB are waiting for to establish a more direct control of the sheeple. They will use it and probably a series of domestic and foreign crises to usher a subjugation of our sovereignty to that of a world government.
The 'Islamic' wave and the 'China' wave will 'appear' to be at odds with this new order, but will also be controlled and manipulated by its new masters. It is possible that for the first time China, and Islamic leadership will be included in the grand association.
We are ruled by those not of our choosing ... and will always be
God is our only master.
You said it. There are no coincidences, just their fictional narrative.
It's time to step outside of their system and live. Adopting local currencies and growing food are a good start.
The ONLY good thing about 2008 crash - a lot of people learned how the banks operate and how it is obvious that government is not working for us (99% that is). At least that was a case with me.
GW writings while always on the spot I approach with reluctance, like I am just about to watch the movie based on true story - medieval peasant uprising, where I know that leader was caught, crowned with hot iron crown and butchered.
(Google Matija Gubec and probably a lot of others). Story of us.
The power that the banks and financial institutions have obtained means they can frequently dictate policy to the government. In this new form of inverted totalitarianism, it will be interesting to see if this much power and influence in one sector of civil society will cause even more social unrest. Given what we have seen in Cyprus, Spain and Greece, my guess is yes.
http://tinyurl.com/cdrnm7f
FOURTH TURNING..........BITCHEZ !!!!
Prepare to Meet Shiva!
Reading it now. Watched Rollover last week. The matrix is in the que on netflix. Actually, there should be a list of ZH mandatory material.
-Fight club
-Matrix
-Money Masters
-Fourth Turning
-Idiocracy
-Rollover
-Shawshank Redemption
Alice in Wonderland
I rarely comment but that is going to change. Nobody wants to talk to me anymore. I am the crazy relative that thinks the sky is falling. I saw this crap comming very early only because I am extreamly risk averse. I was downsized from the best job I was ever going to have. My boss said " sorry, it is the economy. So I decided to learn about this economy guy. So I found an economics text (Abel Bernanke) and I read much of it. With a mild understanding I continued to search. by '05 I had the feeling that our economic system was fucked up. When the first wave of shit hit the fan in '07-'08 I realized i was not paranoid. Since then I have been a broken record. 95% of my friends and family are sick of me. I have been very open about financial and survival prepping. To make a long comment short, vote up if your friends and family also think your nuts. I would like to think that I am not the only jackass that opened his mouth.
Yup. I'm nuts.
The whole family thinks so along with all my friends and my boss......so, it must be true.
Have a Silent Plan and plan silently.
Others, of a like-mind, will find you - and you will find them.
When the SHTF, refuse to help them.
When the SHTF, refuse to help them.
When the SHTF, refuse to help them.
Just say, you asked for it.
I understand that response. Having been on the receiving end of more than my share of jibes and insults for nothing more than the sin of waking up sooner than others, I get it, I really do. The refusal to help is a natural response, but it also poisons your own well. They dont gain to be sure, but then neither do you, other than to enjoy a well earned but short-lived smug sense of satisfaction.
Maybe instead, when the SHTF, and your friends and family ask for help (and in doing so, acknowledge you were right all along and assuming they have some redemptive qualities), you find ways for them to contribute. IOW, dont extend charity, but penance. "Sure, I'll help you...if you help me (us). You can start by weeding the garden out back and if you do a good job, there's an ear of corn in it for you."
No charity (esp of the self-righteous unearned kind), but mutual cooperation borne of the needs of survival. Then, if they refuse to help (having been awakened by the gravity of their situation), they will have truly "asked for it," but your conscience and karma will be clear.
People wake up in their own ways and in their own time. One can curse the fact that you're now awake while others still slumber, or you can be grateful that you woke up w/time (though not much) still to prepare. Being mad at the still-sleeping sheep is unproductive and ignores the fact that, until recently, most of us were still asleep too.
!!!!! NO WAY !!!!!
I mean, you have a right to do whatever you want with your time, effort and money, but every minute and every dime you hand to BLIND MORONS is a minute and dime you cannot invest in YOURSELF or in other SANE, ALERT, AWAKE, HONEST, BENEVOLENT individual who can improve this world, rather than support predators!
Sure, if they finally want advise about how to live, give them a bit... then watch to see whether they take your advise (when it isn't easy). But the world is DROWNING in disasters that are mostly justified by the ideas you promote --- to misdirect the goods and goodies from those who earned it into the paws of those who blatantly did not. Why further the actions that destroyed this planet?
Help those who will make life better... who have demonstrated they will make life better. Otherwise, you just sanction and support the dark side, the destructive side.
Those folks you mention need to learn the fundamental lesson the hard way --- the real, honest way. That is, every individual deserves to enjoy/bare/suffer ALL the consequences of his own actions, and enjoy/bare/suffer ZERO consequences of the actions of others. They will never learn this necessary lesson unless they suffer the consequences of their STUPID actions.
LIKE
i am just like you since 2006. I said to myself something is really fucked up and i started my research on the internet. in 2006 there was no zerohedge. there was mike mish shedlock and roubini though. mish was pissed that he lost his computer job and roubini was talking about a housing bubble. yeah, i found that infamous case-shiller property graph, too. house prices were not in decline then. ah, good old times.
in september 2008 everything got a lot clearer but during the period between 2006-2008 i was like a ghost among other people. i was so alone. actually i still am. a close friend of mine is a corporate type and he is enjoying the fucking corporate profits at the moment. but me and my friend we are falling apart as days go by. we hardly talk anymore. sad.
(/all sarc void)
Hey there (and everyone else). One of the few times I can say "sympathize" in lieu of emphatic "this-n-that's...". Herd/Asch/group dynamics were proto-catalysts responsible for present geist-spector exististenz, ala your xperience. "In the beginning" circumstance disallowed naif homologation /w ab abstemious diet of unfuns. Bolting from blues aided by magic salve, years past by with limelighty-toast of town-iness, often translated as "was in successful music-group, replete with the womens and years of globe-going". Round the same time you hit book-Econ-edification (05/06) the (un)fun decoupled, with death of parent, followed by best friend followed by (adopted) daughter death. All 3 had zilch health-care, culpable for 2 of the deaths (murder). Both worked their ass off. Traveling-dude I am, lived in 3rd world barrios as well as some mega-swanks. All that/this learned me the FX of FX, the bat-shit wack results of the "Goddamn gReat Experiment". Ergh, don't wanna hijack thread. Right after BearsManLeeb I picked up 1st book on Econ. 2nd was currency wars, then as much as I could get on. There was a little issue involving record label un paying me (anyone have a ballpark fig. for amount of $ net based upon an IRS UOME, stating I owed 66,XXX$ tax?)...
Knew about "the PM" and it's importance (late from the rocks-musics), but was in clear finally last year, when I saw IRL and swapped fiat for.....
1 Ag Philharmonic<--I liked it cause of the instruments.
Everyone here knows that shitty deal- when someone really close to u dies, the "awesome" friends (maybe) hang out for a week then split. The Bankster fuckos and Fucko Fiat Fux became
"Nemesis". After years telling ppl about the great-fucking of all time- and doing everything I could think of to try and get 1 single goddamn person to consider maybe thinking about PMs/World mess, 1 by 1 (didn't know term "bugs" till 2010) friends remaining stopped calling. Lady-Friend was in non-segregated secret account, ended up marrying that one, after that, the 2 siblings, always had good relationship couldn't stand me /w my sound-money/Hedgey conspiracy. And that was the end of all relationships. I'm aware this sounds victimish, but fucking hell, I tried my damned-est to help so many ppl- ones stuck in slave-shit. They hate it! I've tried five times, that "trick" ppl talk about...."give some of them Real Money...they'll feel the weight/mind will change handling real money". IDGAF about five stupid ASEs. It's year 3 or 4 (forget birthday/holiday) of the alone-ness (have 2 kitteh). Don't live in the Styx- think it makes it worse, total twilight-matrix crap.
Apologize for the bio, as anyone can see weeks/months pass without 1 human-human interaction (buying smokes and accident prone items & transactions with retail ppl=poop)
I understand everyone here who knows this weird shitdamn shits, it appears we're not alone, just far away.
thanks everyone sharing-supporting!
A Lone Wolf
I have also been a lone wolf crying in the wilderness and I am considered really out of step with my peers. I have made several converts mainly by explaining the workings for Federal Reserve and its perverse effect on our lives (basically no one knows that it is a private banking cartel, so with that eye opener, I have a small window into which my arguments proceed. Further, very few understand that the FED buys the bonds that the Treasure issues)
That being said, I do believe that the structure, force, momentum, wealth and longevity of the corruption and rot makes it very possible that this will go on for a long time into the future. Should enlightenment about the FED, slay the dragon, it will resurrect in another form with the same pernicious goals.
As I watch and wait I will use several key events as a guide to the possibility of things changing for the worse and prompt me into a more active mode:
1.) US Dollar reserve currency challenged or shared with another vehicle (very unlikely)
2.) A rapid collapse of the US / Global Bond Market (very unlikely)
3.) A move by the US to surrender elements of its sovereignty to a Global body (likely)
4.) A revolution in China (very unlikely)
5.) The collapse of the Eurozone (likely a slow process)
6.) The candidacy for President of Michelle Obama in 2016 as her husband moves into a Global role. (Mr. Obama has proven he is the perfect Manchurian Candidate)
You are definitely not alone. I mostly lurk here - I've posted a bit over the years but am not sure if my IQ is high enough to get too much into things. I will say this though - anyone who can add and subtract can figure this stuff out for themselves.... if they can can pull themselves away from Survivor (TM) long enough to give it a try. You're not a jackass. You're just the only in the room who is willing to engage his/her neurons and challenge him/herself. Good luck - keep your head up and and your ass down and enjoy your life - you'll be fine.
I hear you.....Hard to talk to family. The MSM and government say everything to bullshit you. If it weren't for government subs like Food stamps
etc. Where do you think the unemployment would be? People thin kthe government will take care of them .....LOL Wake up sheeeeeple.....
Don't say much to my imidiate family any more because I have some things covered. I do have many discusions with young impresional minds in our public indoctination system. Stories from zerohedge allways start the conversations. Many don't care, but I know I have opened several minds and they are now able to see some of the problems. Needless to say my door is closed during these conversations. Since it is a gun free zone, the door is also locked, as that is my only protection.
My 78 year old aunt was out here from NYC at a family gathering not too long ago and we got in a huge argument about market manipulation. Her husband lost ungodly amounts of money on the stock market a few years back, however she refused to listen to me and suggested that I watch Jim Cramer because he actually knows what he is talking about. On this same day I almost convinced my grandmother to buy a monster box of eagles. My aunt started raging at me and told me leave everyone alone with my conspiracy theories, so I stopped and went home shortly after.
You are most definitely not alone man.
I've toned it down a bit. Those closest to me will benefit without having go through the terror of what is coming down the pike. If I kept trying to get them to understaind they would just think they are waiting for the great pumkin with me.
For me it's like watching an oncoming train wreck in slow-motion. You can see it coming but you can't do a damned thing about it. So, do your best to try to save your family; stick with your friends. Hope for the best. The post-apocalyptic humus will be a drastic place to try and live; but live we must try.
@MS So I'm not the only charlie brown.
If it gets as bad as I think it will. I will not have the resources to protect anyone but my own... maybe.
Eleven-you're not alone, you only seem alone because so many are just waking up. Good luck, take care and pray. A lot.
Outside of zh, I've only found 1 person that understands the magnitude of what is going on (fractional reserve banking/fiat currency/peak oil/resources and political financial leadership pretending everything is ok while they save themselves). My dad sort of knows, watches too much Fox and thinks hes got the full picture. If I start getting into everything, I get shut down with I'm a pessimist. I'm an optimist for me and my family, I've grown to accept the math behind what is going on. Other than zh, it's pretty lonely.