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.
We cannot let this stand. Check this list: http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/03/twilight-of-justice/
Looks like we may need to "water the tree of Liberty" once more. Count me in!
Fascism 2.0
The drones will continue until morale improves.
that and the re-establishment of silver and gold as circulating currency would break the back of the rockefeller nazi cabal....
Tony Bonn.........you always forget to connect the Jews of Rothschilds to the rockefellers........lets not forget that the fucking rothschilds were around long before John D came on the scene.......
Amen, Tony Bonn ...
founding fathers were traitors: http://tinyurl.com/dfztye
and the constitution is a treasonous document written for the sole purpose of subverting the bill of rights
credits: http://tinyurl.com/dfztye
I think its a little strong to call the Founding Fathers traitors. Traitors to who or what, King George & England?
Well, sure.
However, in the act of writing a form of governance (without a Bill of Rights for the governed) that is, the Constitution, it could be said to be treasonous to the People about to be governed. I would have stood beside George Mason on this point and not signed the Constitution.
But...necessity is the mother of invention, the Bill of Rights was ratified by the states as it had to be and was known it would be, its what we wanted or the Constitution itself would have been null & void. It would be rebellion again, wouldn't it?
Still, mine is your lone up tick for now...even after I down ticked your first.
And Lincoln sucked NE banker tit ;-)
Was it possibly not worth about 800,000 Americans dead, killed by other Americans, and countless injured/mamed/dismembered just to keep the N from splitting with the S?
Next you'll be telling us 50M dead unborn babies since Roe vs. Wade might not have been such a great deal.
Traitors to who or what, King George & England?
_______________________________
Traitors to what? Traitors to Justice, Truth and Freedom.
The first in recorded history of man to come up with the idea to parade coercion for freedom, injustice for justice and propaganda and fantasy for truth.
On the top of it, one main additional value to the past deeds was duplicity. Up to the founding fathers, people acting in the same department, were not insincere enough to claim they promoted freedom when actually promoting slavery etc...
One could argue that the founding fathers could not be traitors as they never were loyal to freedom, truth or justice.
One might have a point here since for the FF and the 'americans' to follow, freedom has only be an excuse to serve coercion, justice an easy dress for injustice and propaganda and fantasy so much more tasted than truth.
And one might also wonders if one time in their 236 years long history, 'americans' betrayed once coercion, propaganda and fantasy and injustice.
That is where the 'american' loyalty lies. Adamantly.
lol...
"Traitors to what? Traitors to Justice, Truth and Freedom.
The first in recorded history of man to come up with the idea to parade coercion for freedom, injustice for justice and propaganda and fantasy for truth."
Clearly, history is not your subject. Try not to pretend it is.
"And one might also wonders if one time in their 236 years long history, 'americans' betrayed once coercion, propaganda and fantasy and injustice."
Neither is grammar or punctuation. But you've got disjointed down pat.
"The first in recorded history of man to come up with the idea to parade coercion for freedom, injustice for justice and propaganda and fantasy for truth."
Your tiny little hard-on for America belies your lack of understanding of your own country and your handlers. Kow-tow.
the so-called founding fathers betrayed, with full knowledge of what they had done, the free will men and women living on this land by signing a document which subverted articles of confederation and transferred essential powers of freemen to the federal government. the federal gov't, in this oppressive shape and form, would not have been possible had the constitution not transferred powers from free people to the fed. state.
I'm not gonna get wrapped up Michael Tsarion's views on UFO'S, Jesuits, Mason's, Cosmic Roses, Arabia unicorns, Larouchepac dianetics or whatever the hell...he's a fruit without a stem tying to the root.
What you have yet to discover is, a thief will always be a thief, which freemen will always oppose. My rights don't come from any piece of paper. Paper guarantee's can be amended over time, distorted from the original intent of either party, until one day, the paper contract between them is broken.
Government has no ultimate power, otherwise there would never be civil war or rebellion & overthrow.
Freedom comes from God; just as he gives life a spirit. We don't have to be told we're meant to be free - people know it instinctively.
What you have yet to discover is, a thief will always be a thief, which freemen will always oppose.
________________________
Woooo. Made me laugh. Considering how much of successful thieves 'americans' are, freemen's schedule is fully booked for generations.
Ah, 'americans' and their fantasy... It costs many lives around the world but it is worth it to enable 'americans' to live in their world of fantasy...
Well well, our resident squatting on the roadside chinese shitizen running dog red agent provocateur decides to chime in on concepts of individual freedom & thievery.
How many bones of slaves & the conquered were used as mortar in building your Great Wall again? Was it force or commonality of purpose that built it?
Yes, truly one of the "great wonders of the world" where labor & lives have always been cheap...just like your comments.
nmewn asked AnAnonymous, the George Dishwashington of CCCP (Cheap Chinese Citizenism Propaganda), these questions:
[sound of crickets chirping]
+1 while you know that I smirk when I hear or read about "natural" rights at the end it really boils down to this: either you are a free man or you aren't - and this is a personal decision
governments are social constructs - every society is designed, by the various written and unwritten agreements that shape it
yet a real free man is not bound to laws, only to his conscience - and faces the consequences of his actions... like a man
Reported to Mr Obama for sexisum, he said that the intern camps are full at the moment though so will have to get back to you.
That one, Shevva, was mine from this morning.
Its just the way normal guys talk...its gets lengthy explaining what a human is just to get to the punchline of what is being discussed.
sure, sure, sure. try exercising your natural rights, if you think you have any.. but, as you said, the government has no power over you; otherwise you will declare civil war on and rebel against your government and overthrow your government if it doesnt let you exercise your natural rights because your rights the gov't respects and would never violate. and if the gov't does violate your rights, you tell me that you accept that violation because it is only natural that contracts are to be broken over time. than why not get rid of the constitution all together (?) if it is now a broken contract and no longer needed because we really dont need any guarantees that come from a piece of paper.
"My rights don't come from any piece of paper"
apparently, neither does your economy
wow public banking, now that is going to get the goat of more than one fellow in ZH.
WHat next consider banks as a utliity service, not an Oligarchy fortress, and make all utlities public as well?
Lol, Maggy, Maggy wake up; Ronnie you too; he wants to go back to FDR and Atlee...
Always loved Jefferson's lines
Think it takes two co-conspirators to finish the job. Think history shows this when empires fatten up and rot. They overconsume, their debt explodes, and the "finance" industry balloons, unchecked, as the two criminals lean on each other to keep the charade going. The US dare not turn on the big boys cause each are tools of the other. Wildcards, like Iceland, exist, but that's up to the people.
Yep. Even familiarity with those Jefferson quotes can't diminish the shock of their accuracy and prophecy. I think the intimacy and pernicious deployment of the finance cartel into government is so complete, you can hardly tell them apart. A bank creature that lives in symbiosis with politics but poisons everything else around it.
exactly. the politicos either welcome or don't realize the parasite
They welcome them...symbiosis.
all this talk makes me pine for a shower
w/o reading, did WhoreHay Warshington somehow blame it all on Bush and Cheney.......in you know his normal "unpartisan" fashion?
I would sincerely be interested to learn which jack-off organization pays you to post such trivel, or are you 12 and borrowing Grandma's computer?
And for the record, were we still in the Democracy I grew up in, Bush, Cheney and the rest of the cabal would be in Gitmo for the rest of their lives, or swinging from the gallows erected in front of the WH.
The banking control of the US government is one more item, that can also be traced back to the victory by the US National Empire faction, in the US Civil War of 1861-1865, defeating the South that tried to uphold the principle of resistance to federal power at the local state level.
In that war of killing 600,000 people - a full 1% of the population at the time - Abraham Lincoln's banker and Treasury Secretary was Salmon P. Chase.
To help make sure that the new centralising bank policies were upheld 'legally' in the new centralised US Empire, in 1864 Lincoln appointed Chase to be Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court ... so everything the banking community wanted, and all the central banking policies, would be enforced as 'legal'.
Chief Justice Chase was a dutiful 'banking judge', ruling against those who wanted to uphold a right of resistance against central government and central banking power.
---
In the new centralised US Empire America, they began to sell Americans on the perverted anti-Constitutional idea that the 'Supreme Court' in America was power beyond question, when actually the US Constitution authorises the Congress to remove any judge merely for lack of 'good behaviour', e.g., making bad decisions; and despite how it was also clear to most in the 1780s and 1790s that states were sovereign and had a right to secede.
That perverse illusion of Americans, falsely thinking their Supreme Court is the 'highest power' - so Americans get on their knees before a corrupt US Supreme Court, and merely beg for 'justice' from it, which they do not receive - is still haunting and destroying and killing Americans today, as the US judges make all government crimes, torture and murder 'legal'.
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A few years after Chase died in 1873, in 1877, the 'Chase Manhattan Bank' in New York was named after him, to honour his role in Lincoln's 'National Bank Acts' of 1863, and his combining the powers of national central banking and 'highest law' in America.
So it seems the USA has been a 'bankster-run country' ever since 1864, and the bloody mass-killing defeat of states opposing US central power.
For a good historical discussion of Abraham Lincoln, Salmon P Chase, and America's first post-1789 fiat currency
'The Civil War and Greenbacks'
http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/the-civil-war-and-greenbacks
The banking control of the US government is one more item, that can also be traced back to the victory by the US National Empire faction, in the US Civil War of 1861-1865, defeating the South that tried to uphold the principle of resistance to federal power at the local state level.
___________________________________
The South tried to uphold to the principle of resistance to federal power at the local state level?
When? Certainly not before the civil war for sure.
'American' societies are a success of the State and the Civil war was another exhibition of 'americans' fighting for the control of the State apparatus.
Up to the civil war, the South had no qualms with the federal power since they had their hands on it. It was their puppet. They used it lavishly to constraint the soon to become Unionist North. Finally, those resented it and went to war to state who the boss was, alright. With the known conclusion, the state apparatus went under the control of the North.
'Americans' have this talent they usually come with a big, thick lie as an opening and use it as a litmus test: you either submit to it and congregate around it or you are against them.
The South never stood for states'rights during that war. Fighting the civil war to protect the rights of the states is the romantic tale 'americans' from the South invented to cover they went to war to protect their grip on the Federal State apparatus and lost the control of it.
They were the State champion and lost it to the North contender.
Better though to craft a story about states'rights rather than admitting they failed their attempt at asserting hegemony.
It takes 'americans' to relay that kind of tales as the South, when they had the control of the federal state, showed many times and on a large scale, their disdain for the states'rights.
The way 'americans' work.
The way an 'american' world is doomed to work.
Why don't you start an egalitarian movement in China ? After you fix that bowel movement problem in the streets.
Bah, they are already 'americans' in China and they will run that movement the 'american' way.
Welcome to an 'american' world, it is a cosy place to live, you'll see. 'Americans' at every corner.
.
This comment postulates an incredible level of unproficiency from Chinese Citizenism Communautist Party leaders.
Don't tell it is not good for the Chinese Citizenism Communautist Party.
Far, far from what this propagandist recants.
Joseph Keppler and Puck magazine should come to mind to anyone believing current state of political/economical affairs is anything new...: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/cartoon-anti-trust-...
Radio transmissions are a combination of two kinds of waves: audio frequency waves that represent the sounds being transmitted and radio frequency waves that "carry" the audio information. These properties of the wave allow it to be modified to carry sound information.
Thanks for the history lesson... a nice post script for a great article.
@ Bank guy
Granted what you say is true, but I wonder about Lincoln's refusal to bow to the bankers demands for funds during the war, then get them from Russia? I'm not sure Lincoln was the villian throughout...perhaps that's why he was shot.
UK had troops in Canada & FR had them in Mexico, ready to invade for the Southern side.
Why? UK, FR & City of London banksters wanted US split & weakened. Some say southern Sec'y of War Judah Benjamin was a Rothschild agent.
Lincoln made them mortal enemies when he printed debt-free greenbacks as legal US tender, to pay for the war. This cut banksters from their main profit of lending to govt's, especially during wars.
Please note that all 4 assassinated US presidents supported debt-free money, as did Andy Jackson, who survived an attempt on his life & then killed the Fed of his day, the 2nd Bank of the US.
His campaign slogan was 'Jackson & no Bank".
"UK had troops in Canada " ??
Canada did not exist during the U.S. Civil war. Britain always had troops in the northern colonies.
"actually the US Constitution authorises the Congress to remove any judge merely for lack of 'good behaviour', e.g., making bad decisions"
So why is John Roberts still on the court?
He voted in favor of the second amendment.
Congress has plenary power over U.S. District Courts and Courts of Appeal. Congress can limit their jurisdiction and even abolish them altogether. However, it cannot limit the jurisdiction or powers of the Supreme Court.
Article I, Section 8, (9) and Article III, Section 1.
I've heard people that I consider credible claim that the U.S. Congress can indeed limit some of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court through the legislative process. They cited some pretty big legal experts as I recall.
Those types of things are beyond my expertise, but I'm still curious as to some of the arguments one way or another.
I did look up the articles/sections you cited and didn't see anything that jumped out at me saying that the Congress was forbidden from doing so.
I know this is a pretty old article & comment thread, but if you happen to see this and could point out specific passage(s) etc. in the Constitution I'd be most appreciative.
Here's a link to the transcript of the U.S. Constitution.
Thank you.
Good question. Add that asshole Scalia to the list.
Ginsburg is for her people and no one else.
Do Jewish women like the daily prayer of Judaic males? "Thank you g_d you did not make me a slave, a gentile, nor a woman." For that matter, I wonder how gentile women like this vs. Any out there?
Judaism: "The worship of the Judaic male as god." Michael Hoffman