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Guest Post: The Federal Debt As Criminal Scam, The Federal Reserve As Criminal Syndicate
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The Federal Debt As Criminal Scam, The Federal Reserve As Criminal Syndicate
Is the Federal debt a criminal enterprise, enabled by a criminal syndicate? Read on before you pass judgment.
Correspondent Doug laid out a compelling case that the Federal debt is fundamnentally a criminal scam, operated by the criminal syndicate of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve:
The Federal Reserve is a criminal syndicate buying debt that the government eagerly creates and sells for spending money that dumps the debt on us civilians. What perplexes me is that the scam is so simple and all the intellectuals either don’t get it or are handcuffed by mega-corporate media owners.
The scam in simple terms:
1. Uncle Sam borrows money from The Fed, China, oil exporters, Bank of England, etc. by selling Treasury bonds
2. You are responsible for the bonds, i.e. IOUs
3. Uncle Sam collects taxes and pays the bondholders
4. The debt is breaking us; life will not be the same in the years to come
Uncle Sam borrows all its spending money from the non-government Fed and others, and spends only borrowed dollars raised from exchanging bonds for dollars as a debt plus interest on your back.
Uncle Sam collects income taxes and funnels the money to the holders of these criminal Treasury bonds.
The Fed/Treasury is an evil axis defunding you and me: the debt is $14.5 trillion; this is our debt, not the government’s debt. The government does not generally earn money; we do. Therefore every criminal debt certificate (Treasury bond) the Treasury exchanges for cash is a debt on you and me--a promise to pay for which citizens are responsible to pay, IOUs in simple terms. If the government printed the money instead of the criminal Fed, there would be no debt.
Uncle Sam borrows bucks and you become automatically indentured to pay back the bond and pay the vig! How is this not a criminal enterprise? If you go to a loan shark, at least you get to have the money in your hand and can spend it before you have to repay the loan and pay the vig!
Thank you, Doug, for explaining the criminal nature of the Federal Debt and the agencies and Fed that enable and enforce it. As we know, the Federal budget (and the "supplemental appropriations" that add hundreds of billions of dollars in "off-budget" spending) is consolidated. In other words, the government doesn't specify that taxes collected paid for X spending and that the remaining Y spending is paid by borrowing money via selling TReasury bonds, so what spending is "paid by debt" is a politically charged assessment.
What the ballooning debt actually funds depends on the political convictions and agenda of the commentator, along with what constitutes "waste" in Federal spending. Some attribute the Federal deficit/borrowing to Medicare, others to hot wars and the Military-Industrial Complex, and still others to the endless bail-outs of financial Elites.
The common-sense perspective is to compare the circa 2000-01 $2.1 trillion annual Federal budgets of the pre-Global War on Terror (GWOT) and multi-trillion dollar bail-outs of banks/financial Elites with today's $3.8 trillion annual budget (not counting all the political hot-potato spending hidden in "supplemental appropriations" to keep it out of the scrutinized budget). Since inflation was officially low for most of the decade, this vast increase in Federal spending cannot be explained as inflation; adjusted into real dollars (adjusted for inflation), it is still 40% pre-war, pre-bail-out levels.
Yes, Medicare spending is rising at 6%-7% annually, regardless of which political party is in power, and Social Security spending is outsripping the system's tax revenue income. But clearly, a National Security State with few if any meaningful restraints on its spending (no "anti-terrorist" dictatorship shall go unrewarded/unfunded, etc.) or influence has added trillions in spending with little oversight or accountability.
The same can be said of the endless trillions squandered bailing out the banks and related financial Elites, including the quasi-Federal agencies (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) that funded the criminal enterprise known as the housing bubble/bust.
If the majority of the additional Federal spending was in fact squandered to boost the revenues, earnings and political influence of Elites, fiefdoms and special interests, then the taxpaying citizenry footing the bill did not receive any measurable benefit from all this additional debt. As Doug observed, the taxpayers are in effect borrowing vast sums from the loan sharks and not even getting to spend the money on themselves: the money was squandered on Elites, supposedly on behalf of the taxpayers, who must pay interest (i.e. the vig, "vigorish") on the fast-rising debt.
As Doug asked: how is this not a criminal enterprise?
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This will be the way it is - until complete collapse!
How many times since 1913 will this crap be regurgitated. Speech upon speech by Lindbergh, McFadden et. al..... so long known.
Oh, and of course the good Dr. Paul...... talk talk talk.
Talking us into death by distraction, while the larger issues flutter in the wind like a frayed (but gold fringed mind yuh) flag.
It's all a huge lie, a construct. Only relentless self-education and the willingness to absorb bitter truth will open any eyes.
Could any of this be True? Do the Research...
ORI
One reason for no action is that the problem has never been expressed in simple enough terms. The average person simply doesn't understand the problem. Here is my take on it:
If the Fed makes $100, but we taxpayers owe them $101.00 in return, where do we get the extra dollar to repay them? From the Fed?? Yes, from the Fed because there are no dollars except for those produced by the Fed.
But then we would owe them interest on that dollar, too!
So the Fed lends us a second $100. We take a dollar from that hundred and pay the interest, leaving us with $99. But owe $101!
So the Fed lends us a third $100. We take two dollars from the hundred to pay the interest, leaving us with $98. But we owe $101!
This cycle continues with ever increasing loss of our spending power because a higher portion of our money is needed to pay the interest.
It is impossible for us to become debt free because every dollar we receive comes with interest owed. In fact our debt grows.
Meanwhile, the private bankers who create the federal reserve notes like cotton candy see themselves becoming richer and richer.
It is a Ponzi scheme that started 98 years ago. We are just now seeing the folly of the arrangement.
This needs to be taught to everry student in school along with an explanation that when Congress creates the money there is no debt. We can vote them out of office, too, if they print too much or too little whereas we have no say over the Fed's actions.
Paying interest is known as asset stripping.
collecting that interest is known as usury
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"
-- The Delcaration of Independence
Hmmmmmm. I thought the Treasury printed the money (except for QE1,2) and the Fed loans it back to the gov't. In 1913 we found out we were to dumb to manage the money so we allowed the bankers (aka Fed) to 'manage' it .......for a fee. Am I missing something here?
What is worse than Fed at the printer is politicians at the printer. Currently, Fed is politicized already as Fed prints money for Treasury using primary dealers as conduit.
bonds = terms of bondage until you pay off the terms to acquire freedom, except the terms are written by banksters and politicians who own your labor.
The fed and politicians are both owned by the corporate fascist state. Same lipstick, different pigs.
If you really want something besides talk, try putting this into action;
http:www.zerohedge.com/print/365866
Maybe we need to have a party too.
====
Time For Europe’s Bond-Burning Party
Jeff Nielson
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/european-sovereign-debt-cant-we-all-just-net-along#comment-1681867
and here you are wrong my friend...not until complete collapse, its too much of a nice game for them win win, why should they stop since the burden is on us,
rewrite:
this will be the way it is - for as long as we allow it
Indeed, the system isn't tending toward "general equiblirium" in the long-run. It's tending toward self-destruction in the long-run: http://www.spiritoftruth.org/hypothesis.htm
The "Money Masters" time is almost up IMHO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs
Let's add one more critical element to the scam: under fractional reserve banking - the commercial banks get to create money out of thin air. See Modern Monetary Mechanics. Private corporations create the money and then lend it at interest to the sovereign.
The interest is the grift, debt-slavery of the people the goal.
That's why CHS correspondent Doug is wrong when he states that, "this is our debt, not the government’s debt."
Actually, it is the government's debt. The fuckers in the White House and on Capitol Hill are the ones who've incurred the debt and used it to keep the nation under their collective thumb, and the slithering reptilian bankers were all too happy to go along with the plan.
If that's not odious debt, I don't know what is. Go get the money from the crooks that engineered this scam (and their families and next of kin).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt
Yes, and my credit card bill is a criminal scam, and my wife is in a criminal syndicate!
Everything is legal till you get caught.
THey have not been caught yet ( legaly)
Everything is legal if you're the ruler.
"Breaking a law" is merely "necessity."
"All laws repugnant to the constitution are null and void."
Marbury v. Madison 1803
The US cannot sustain a global military empire along with a comprehensive welfare/police state. Regardless of who is President, this will unwind. The problems that Ron Paul warned against during his 35 years as a statesman are now in the forefront of the national debate. Perhaps Ron Paul can help roll back government before it collapses under its own weight.
yes, and the increasing scarcity of oil makes long distance projection much more difficult.
The world is going to get a lot larger
What scarcity of oil? I haven't had any problem getting any fuel either in North America or Europe and I haven't noticed anyone else being turned away. There's only a scarcity of of $50/bbl oil. There's plenty of $100/bbl oil.
As drilling technology improves, one can expect that oil won't be rising much faster than the real inflation rate for the foreseeable future at least. Why not compare oil to gold for the last 50 years or so?
Amazing how all those oil experts line up with you. Gold is a value depository not a depleting energy source that is the foundation of the world's economy. You can throw all the dream technology you want at the problem but the price will continue to go up, the supply will go down, and this debt based economy will fold.
>the price will continue to go up
Agreed - oil will rise in price when measured in clownbux. But it hasn't changed in 60 years compared to real stores of value, i.e. gold.
>this debt based economy will fold.
History shows that fiat currencies always collapse. Nothing to do with oil.
As long as we are talking "the real price," tell me how many barrels of oil it takes to extract one today compared to one hundred years ago. Is EROEI not a real price?
Fiat currencies do always collapse but are you suggesting that being one of the most oil dependent countries who produce 6 units but consume 19 units daily and who finances endless (and unproductive) wars for these resources (which is also nothing new) is not contributing to our debt and decline ?
FeralSerf,
You are quite right. There is no oil crisis. This is objectively true and indisputable as reflected by the market data.
What we have here is a yearning for manufactured crises and socialistic interventions to help "save" us. Much is to be blamed on self-aggrandizing engineer-types who have only the dimmest conception of economics and self-organized systems.
Ron Paul is a clueless dope. People who praise Ron Paul are brainless sheep. This ought to clear it.
I guess that makes me a brainless sheep you "classless" turkey!
Brainless sheep who hoard gold at exhorbitant prices... until the Government limits gold ownership... and starts putting you clowns in jail. It's the Medieval Serf Wealth Strategy, baby, how retro.
Title says it all: Criminal Ponzi Porn Culture.
OK. I have just called 1-800-SEC-0330 . They said, they cannot take my complaint since they are too busy shreding documents.
You have to email them what you want them to review, preferably with the email title:
But there's porn involved. Isn't that their sweet spot (pun intended)?
"Rich men write their books of laws for poor men to defend
but true law's only written in the hearts of honest men.
(from a song I heard once)
part of the problem is the total lack of transparency.... these are real people behind the scam, not faceless institutions.... who owns the fed? who owns the largest corporations? all the same group of people overlapping. they are your criminals. this ends when they are brought to justice.
Best Guess Fed ownership:
The top 4 banks: B of A, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup & Wells Fargo-Wachovia control roughly 54% of the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank. The top 10 banks, including Goldman Sachs, HSBC and the Bank of New York control roughly 70% of the stock.
John the single word "transparency" says an incredible amount about the problem. If capitalism is to enjoy any future whatsoever post collapse this word will be singularly at the top of everyone's agenda. Acedemic's in all discipline's now realize universally that transparent open source technologies succeed where closed and secretive research fails.. Financial invention and innovation is entirely black box and intentionally so. They would like to say it is black box because ordinary joe could not possibly understand the complexity.. when the real reason is to enable black box accounting and hide the simple ponzi nature of the scam.. in a dictionary of new financial technobable used profusely by my friends on ZH.
We have the tools and the acedemic minds to implement and create a fantastic streamlined transparent financial world..Unfortunately it will not happen until the old one destroys itself IMHO
Default and start over. Thats all that is going to happen.
of course, the FED and government know it is an impossibility to extract tax revenue in a deflationary environment. That is why it will be QE?
The way I see it now, this Buffett tax will be passed as a way to control the double-digit inflation QE 3 will produce (of course it will not work to stem any of it off meaningfully). I don't see QE 3 till early 2012 which will coincide with the expiration of the Bush taxcuts and the implementation of the new Buffett tax. Good luck to our central planners.
How is this news to regular Zero Hedge readers?
Perhaps ZH is always looking for a larger, un-exposed audience?
ORI
This is Un-American Talk!
The Job Creators need those dollars..
The Job Creators are doing God's Work with the Transaction Fees collected on the Trillion's in Debt!
The Job Creators need their share of dividends from the Federal Reserve Bank (which they own) to go along with the Transaction Fees to continue doing God's Work!
Job Creators know what you Sheepish Consumers (who have been maxed out by the system) Don't know! it is very expensive doing God's Work!
Have a Heart! Vote for Austerity! Vote for Tax Cuts for the Job Creators!
After 2 years and $30 Trillion Dollars they still have to lay people off to show a bottom line gain to ensure the Bonuses get passed around at the top!
That Hurts! Not being able to make lots of money and cut jobs.. call it a loss of 50% come Bonus Time!
and without HUGE Bonuses how do you expect the Dumb Money to come back to the markets? it is hard to put on a happy / feel good show when your Bonuses are half as big as they could be!
Thank God for the Job Creators and our Service Economy!
For those of you that are now Jobless! You took one for the team so that Bonus monies could flow to the top! God needs you to suffer so the Top can look like they are profitable! Be Proud of your new found poverty! and no worries! More Austerity is coming! All so that God's Work can continue!
If you cannot tell the difference between God's Work and Corporate Bonuses.. neither can I, you are not alone!!
God's Work? While I appreciate sarcasm, this is clearly the work of the Other Guy.
"God moves in mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm."
- William Cowper
The ponzi is believing that medicare and SS will still be there in the immediate future. Take that away, and TPTB crime syndicate no longer have any carrots left to dangle.
I say bring it on!
You have been reported to AttackWatch for using the banned word "ponzi" when referring in any way to our great benefactor.
Nothing to see here...move on.
Why utter credit, when you can borrow it? (we should alway indebt ourselves instead of create it out of thin air ourselves! /sarcasm off)
American Credit System, the federal gov't for real projects, not EVERYTHING, can emit the credit. It doesn't need to borrow it.
Regular taxes, excise, tariffs, cover the rest.
The actual physical economy portion of our economy...the big projects that kickstart this...from which all other real private business can hook onto, DOES NOT NEED TO BE BORROWED. It can be emitted.
The federal reserve is a scam. It forces us to borrow to do everything. Either we borrow and do something, or we don't borrow and things collapse. Talk about stick a king dong dildo in my ass or mouth choice. Throw away the dildo. It's not necessary.
Of course we like the dildo in our ass and mouth at the SAME TIME..because we now today borrow and STILL do NOTHING.
Emit credit for the worthwhile projects, and there are a ton of them with decades/centuries of payoff once completed.
Monetarism is not conducive for the physical economy. The American Credit System is.
Of course people still borrow from banks. They're just not the only game in town regarding everything that is done in this country.
Does mag-lev funds have to be borrowed from banks? NO
Does fusion funds? No
NAWAPA funds? No
Space program (all facets of NASA)? No
Other worthwhile projects that people say can't be 'borrowed'...NO...because it WON'T be borrowed.
If you think this is inflationary, you are a fool. When you create wealth, supply, so on and so forth, you increase the amount of goods those dollars are attached too. Also the credit emission in many cases can be 'retired' through paying off the debt. (you see since it isn't money flowing into a bank....it can be RETIRED...not just funneled into another sub prime loan)
We don't need the scam. We need to end the scams, the frauds, our belief in monetary dogmatic bullshit that do nothing but limit our reality based on nothing.
Glass-Steagall
American Credit System
Reject ALL FORMS of fucktard Monetarism.
excuse me I'm gonna be sick
It's not my debt.
To Gohn Galt:
It's not my debt.
If you carry Federal Reserve Notes...yes, it is your debt.
Sadly yes. Wish we could charge it back, void it or start over without the overlords. Every time I turn around there is a new gov agency to shake me down.
Definitely going to stay working abroad for a while.
The Federal government is spending 40% more than it takes in. Unfunded liabilities clock in at around $100 trillion. Consequently, we have been in a civil war for quite some time now between the producers and the conumers, it is just more subliminal than CWI. At the end of the day though, we are still in a war over slavery, but in this case it is indentured debt bondage. The federal governmentnow has attached a debt of about half a million dollars plus to every worker.
Now that might be okay for older folks who knew damn well they were part of a Ponzi scheme for decades, but it is morally reprehensible to believe that your children are somehow beholden to this debt. That's why civil war at some level is inevitable, sane people do not eat their young. But this time around the form of war will be different because there is new territory to conquer - i.e. cyberspace and digital currency. Also, the regime cannot count on the conservative military to keep its citizens down, so has resorted to a proxy war through its army of brownshirt unionists, illegal aliens salted with MS13, bureaucrats and anarchists. The National Civilian Security Force was a real threat, just unrealized.
I wrote a book called "Surviving Civil War II" that might interest some. http://www.futurnamics.com/civilwar.php I'm obviously not the only one thinking this way and people should just be aware that the economic collapse that is unfolding will not be stopped by resort to the status quo solutions, which are nothing more than an reintroduction of slavery through monetary degradation. Inflation is a tax done without representation by our Federal Reserve, which in part now bails out the banker and political classes. That theft isn't going to survive the test of time, we are only debating the timeline when the shtf now.
The FED is/was a BANK,
a private central bankster.
"A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army...We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
Thomas Jefferson
Operation Twisted -
Even if you can't pay back the $14.5 trillion, the Interest payments on that alone will cripple the US for years to come. Remember that you can not keep interest payments at zero forever, you also do not have the personal savings deposits that Japan has, that make it possible for them to have at least the possibility of keeping consumer prices low or even deflating.
The US can not do a Japan, they do not have the private savings needed...
The Federal reserve is thinking about Operation twist, a 1960 method of rotating out of holding short term treasuries,
and "twisting" into holding long term treasuries (in order to keep longterm rates down and flatten out the yield curve.
(which will then probably reverse,reflecting the deep recession the US has entered during the GFC in 2007 and never left)
Again, this is just a bandaid fix to the $14.5 trillion Debt problem.
Just 2% Interest on the US $14.5 trillion Debt will be a staggering $290 billion USD per year in interest payments alone !
It is clear that the US Congress including the FED have run out of clues and options.
Operation twist is no different from subprime lending, and we all know how that ended...
wr;)
There is zero chance of removing TPTB without a systemic collapse. That's why you won't see one. That's why there is zero chance the Fed will print the USD out of existence. That's why the Euro is not going anywhere. That's why they are buying up gold and kicking the can.
Long before the system collapses, or you see hyperinflation, or severe deflation, they will pull the plug and put us on a gold referrenced monetary standard. TPTB are TPTB. They have no intention of abdicating.
Wow! These articles get worse and worse. The taxpayers are on the hook for all of this because TREASURY, AND ONLY TREASURY allows the printing of dollars via the floating of bonds. It is ONLY OUR elected officials that are responsible for burdening its citizenry. PERIOD. As a matter of fact, in the ORIGINAL charter of the FED, they were ONLY ALLOWED to hold 'blue chip' corporate bonds as collateral. The allowance of treasury bonds, which BOTH the BANKERS and elected officials of the day knew were garbage and would open a can-of-worms, was retroactively made legal by either the FDR or Hoover administration (I believe FDR but don't have facts in front of me now).
So, the crime syndicate was, is and always will be the polictical class that is SUPPOSED to represent the will of its citizenry, but CHOOSES to do otherwise. Today you effectively have the wholesale printing of money by Treasury, DUH!
FAIL once again Chucky, but keep trying. Even a blind pig....
@Sophist. Seems to be the politicians are doing the will of people. The will is to get more now and let someone else pay later. Remember Huey Long: "Don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax the man behind the tree".
Democracies get the government they deserve (attributed to DeToqueville). We're rewarded with power mad, thieving criminals because the that's what the people want. 47% of the citizens now have zero net tax liability. That number will be over 50% after 2012. Do you think for a moment those people will ever vote for someone who is going to make them pay a penny? We'll have a permanent majority parasitic class, and a permanent political class that takes from ever deterioratng set of producers. It will end badly
We're not Japan as some say; we're Argentina. We're headed exactly the same way. Default, then dictatorship. It is as plain as day
Odious, bitchez!
I define it is as a debt kiting scheme that has monetized 2 Centuries of American goodwill from around the world. ALL OF US are responsible for this. It is US who want the entitlements, the SS, the Medicare, the disability, the unneeded military bases in our Congressional districts, the 12 aircraft carrier battle groups with which to fight the dreamed up new version of WW2, the 900 or so bases around the world to “protect” ourselves, etc
In Honor of the Federal Reserve for their 2 day meeting:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbK0C9AYMd8
Just like some poor dumbass parading around with what he thinks is his hot mistress... thing is, he only gets to do the payin' - none of the layin' (that's reserved for the real boyfriend! )
Helloooo...ooo.... taxpayer suckers!!!
"Welcome to the party pal!!!!!"
If Ron Paul is John McLane, than who does The Bernank play?
Yippee-ki-yay
Hans Gruber of course.
"Therefore every criminal debt certificate (Treasury bond) the Treasury exchanges for cash is a debt on you and me--a promise to pay for which citizens are responsible to pay, IOUs in simple terms. If the government printed the money instead of the criminal Fed, there would be no debt."
This is an idiotic conclusion. There is no difference, except for the maturities, between UST bonds and cash, i.e. FRNS. They're both debt. It says so right on the face of each one of them. And "if the government printed the money" (actually the government's Bureau of Engraving and Printing does print the money), the debt still exists. These little pieces of paper are notes, i.e. debt instruments.
>They're both debt. It says so right on the face of each one of them.
You're mistaken. The dollar says "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private".
It can satisfy debts, but it is not itself a debt.
Wrong! A note most certainly is a debt. And furthermore debts, e.g. Federal Reserve Notes, can satisfy other debts. It says right on the face of a Federal Reserve Note or a United States Note: "Will Pay to the Bearer on Demand". Why would it pay to the bearer if it was not a debt instrument? What intrinsic value does that piece of paper have but as a debt instrument?
"note
Definitions (2)
1. A short-term debt security, usually with a maturity of five years or less.
2. A legal document that obligates a borrower to repay a mortgage loan at a specified interest rate during a specified period of time or on demand; here also called promissory note."
http://www.investorwords.com/3351/note.html
What are you a doctor of?
In other news, Everyone is buying Ipads from their Amazon account.
There are no accidents. Only crime scenes.
How about we just don't pay the Federal Reserve back? Default on them.
works in Iceland
Any Federal Reserve Notes that you have would be worthless.
One thing I don't hear discussed much as a way out of this mess. WWIII
1 Thins out the herd.
2 In the end you have lots of infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt.
3 Who ever "wins" gets to be the reserve currency.
This is good for another 70 80 years of can kicking.
You have been reported to AttackWatch for stealing Krugman's ideas.
4. The central banks lend to all sides at interest with funds created by a keystroke!
>Uncle Sam borrows bucks and you become automatically indentured to pay back the bond and pay the vig! How is this not a criminal enterprise? If you go to a loan shark, at least you get to have the money in your hand and can spend it before you have to repay the loan and pay the vig!
Of course governments are criminal enterprises. It's the same with taxation. You are forced to pay protection money under threats of aggression. Then you get back services you don't want or need. Sometimes the services involve blowing up children with the wrong skin color 5000 miles away. Sometimes the services involve putting you in an oven.
Anyone who says governments are not organized crime and full of the most immoral, grasping individuals is probably getting a cut of the stolen loot.
nice
I "have" and it "is". Third time has certainly been the charm for a privately held central bank here in the U. S. Where is Andrew Jackson!?
I stopped reading at "Uncle Sam borrows money from..."
But the people are not responsible for the government's debt. This has been proven over and over again. When the Confederate government ended, its bonds and its currency were worth nothing. Same for various governments that have collapsed in South America, Eastern Europe and around the world.
What is more you are not even paying the interest. The government is borrowing and spending 40% more money than they take in. And, they are never going to pay back any of it.
That is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
True, if people are paying attention. Americans, if not made aware of how laws are being used to fuck them, may get sucked away into "the law is the law" mentality and allow the banking institutions to take ownership of everything under crony laws.
Especially frustrating when the Money was given to someone else and you owe the Debt.
The Money was printed and given to Banks to cover their bad loans, yet we got the bill.
They should institute a Tax on the Bankers to repay the Debt created to Bail them out and repay the Debt plus Interest they created thur their recklessness.
Same old story... the sad part of it all is that no one is willing to do anything about it and rather "take care" of themselves...
The post is childish nonsense.
The bailout of the banks was stupid (at least without getting some meaningful reforms in exchange) but it was hardly criminal.
In fact, the real point is that all of these policies that you dislike were LEGAL, every one of them occurring pursuant to laws passed by elected representatives.
You can argue that different representatives should have been elected or that once elected they should have passed different laws but don't run around spouting that it was criminal.
You are right in pointing out this was all 'legal'. It was legal to kill Jews in Nazi Germany as well.
This post is not nonsense--it points out a real wrong.
The laws have been corrupted. The corruption has lit the fuse to total financial chaos.
What are the odds our bought officials will self-correct? What percentage of them even comprehend this, when we've had 98 years for people to get confused?
The odds of this unwinding smoothly are low, IMO. We should all do our best to see this through by promoting the Paul-view of the world, and electing people that understand. It's a duty, really. The ZH malcontents are the only hope for a peaceful solution.
I'm glad I live in Idaho, though.
Your OT holocaust reference continued the nonsense seamlessly.
In response to the scond paragragh....
Does a bear shit in the woods...???
...mark of the Beast ...Bitchez.
Charles Hugh Smith certainly uses broad brush strokes with not much factual data.
Who is primarily responsible for the massive increases in the national debt?
www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html,
Before Reagan, The traditional Republicans and Democrats reduced the national debt in 27 out of 35 years.
Reagan, Bush Sr., and bush jr. increased the national debt in 20 out of 20 years.
When running for political office, these so-called republicans tell us over and over they are fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars, but that's just not true.
They tell us over and over that "the" government is too big and spends too much.
When they assume office they increase the size of "our" government and increase government spending.
With all the tax cuts they have given, and the increase in government spending, they have to borrow Trillions of dollars to make up for their budget deficits.
Wow, the signal to noise is getting bad on ZH lately. This may be the worst post I've ever seen here. I think we've been taken over by Fox news and Prison Planet.
Re institute the Poll Tax. That way people that do not pay property taxes will not be able to vote for benefits for themselves.
I know this is probably not realistic but until the only people that can vote are those that pay taxes and not the ones on the Receiving end of the Government and Tax Payer Largess will we will not get our Budget and Deficit under control.
People that never have or ever will pay taxes should not be able to in debt those who do.
The Liberal Democrats would be out of Business.
The biggest problem is that the Democrats continue to help bread these voters. They pay any unmarried Woman a monthly benefit for every child she has. They give her Welfare so she does not have to work. They provide a house for her, her children, food and medical care so she never has to work a day in her life. Don't we all wish the Government gave us a check every month for each child we had.
All she has to do is breed children that will become Democrats and take money from Taxpayers.
it's brilliant in a perverse sort of way
That debt is indeed ours to pay. But there is one way out of it, short of dying.
Vote with your feet. Emigrate.
You still are liable for what the US government does so long as you retain US citizenship. But once you gain citizenship elsewhere, you can renounce US, and you are free and clear.
In most (but not all) cases, it takes years to earn citizenship, so get packing.
It's a shame it has to come to that, but I didn't cause the problems. I can't fix them. So it is not my responsibility.
I understand the basics of fractional reserve lending but then I read somewhere that even though we pay interest on the debt to the Fed reserve the Fed then returns that interest back to the treasury department. Is that true? I have my doubts, I took it from a mainstream source that is probably a lackey of the system. It makes no sense that the Fed would charge interest and then give that back straight to where it received it from.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
in a nutshell, the shell game.
found this on a yahoo post, unknown user...
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and
then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are
against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation
and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on
appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme
Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are
directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the
domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that
problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its
Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally
chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.
They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator,
a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't
care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The
politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the
lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine
how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that
what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con
regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive
amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker,
who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The
President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to
accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole
responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and
approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?
John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow
House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If
the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree
to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot
replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of
incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic
problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you
fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the
federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they
want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they
want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ....
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement
plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they
hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and
advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to
regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let
them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical
forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them
from doing what they take an oath to do.
"The Federal Debt IS a Criminal Scam, The Federal Reserve IS a Criminal Syndicate"...
now, let's complete the circle: JPM & GS are the two biggest member/owner banks of the Fed LOAN SHARKING DEBT EXTORTION cartel, and they are both just the 2 biggest FRONTS for the rotchilds' Euro/London/NY/ (and now ta) based multi-families, multi-national cooperative "web of debt" cabal.
Oh - and they DO INTENTIONALLY CRASH individual stocks & bond issues - MANIPULATING the market(s) to make their puts and shorts come to fruition is STANDARD PRACTICE for the debt cartel (as former GS trader Jim Cramer explained in his infamous "FOMENTING" video "it's illegal, but OF COURSE you manipulate the stocks you are shorting... otherwise your hedge find will go bust.")
This is FINANCIAL WARFARE, and, on a large enough scale, becomes ECONOMIC WARFARE.
oh - and, yes, The Fed DID INTENTIONALLY CREATE the conditions that led to the GREAT DEPRESSION - disenfranchising and enslaving large numbers of 'the enemy's' people is of course THE main tactic of old time (pre-economic) warfare.
See the story of Congressman LOUIS McFADDEN, who was probably KILLED (assassinated) for TRYING TO AUDIT the Fed, and IMPEACH then Fed Chairman Eugene Meyer, and those politicians providing COVER TO (votes AGAINST auditing) the Fed's TREASONOUS debt war on its host (usa) during the Depression....
p.s. - after being HOUNDED OUT of the Fed (by the courageous Congressman McFadden) for CAUSING the GREAT DEPRESSION, what did EUGENE MEYER do as an encore act??
Why - he BOUGHT the WASHINGTON POST, and for the next half-dozen decades, his paper - backed by all the resources of the treasonous fiat money debt extortion cabal (that owned OTHER 'major media' newspapers & media outlets) - SMEARED ANYONE who wanted to audit the Fed !!
If my daddy goes to the track and loses our rent money and our family becomes worse off, who is to blame, the bookies or my father?
The failure last weekend to use Wall Street as a backdrop for protest was doomed and will never achive any meaningful results. There is a proper forum in both civil and criminal courts to take the people's case against the Federal Reserve Bank. Follow the link below to the plan that recovers all the money, and jails the criminals...all of them..
http:www.zerohedge.com/print/365866