Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The History of Money Part Four: Andy and Abe

PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON (1828 - 1836)

"The bold efforts that the present bank has made to CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT and the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it...If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning." -Andrew Jackson's address to Congress, 1829

When Congress voted to renew the charter of The Second Bank of The United States 2 years early, Jackson responded with the greatest veto in history to prevent the renewal bill from passing. His response gives us an interesting insight.

“I am one of those who do not believe a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic. It is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country... It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners... is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country?... Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence... would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy. If government would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles."-Andrew Jackson 1 1. Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Bank Bill, to the Senate, (1832)

In 1832 Jackson ordered the withdrawal of government money from the Second bank and had it put into state banks. He fired his Treasury Secretary and his first replacement for refusing to do so. The Second Banks head, Nicholas Biddle displayed the power and intention of the bankers when he openly threatened to cause a depression if the bank was not re-chartered, we quote.

"Nothing but widespread suffering will produce any effect on Congress... Our only safety is in pursuing a steady course of firm restriction - and I have no doubt that such a course will ultimately lead to restoration of the currency and the re-charter of the bank." -Nicholas Biddle 1836

By calling in existing loans and refusing to issue new loans the bank did cause a massive depression. It was then Andrew Jackson made these two famous statements: "You are a den of vipers and thieves and I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out!” and "The Bank is trying to kill me - but I will kill it!" -Andrew Jackson

When asked what he felt was the greatest achievement of his volumous career, Andrew Jackson replied without hesitation "I killed the bank!" Even desiring to put those words on his headstone when he died.

Andrew Jackson is the only President in history to have paid off the National Debt. He did this soon after killing the bank, and even began a policy of returning tax money back to the states. Although we had no central bank for over 70 years, this was definately not the end of private financial influence over government, when we look at...

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR (1861 - 1865)

Even with the Central Bank killed off, fractional reserve banking continued like a virus through numerous state chartered banks instead, causing the instability this form of economics thrives on. When people lose their homes someone else wins them for a fraction of their value.

“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.” -Abraham Lincoln

On the 12th of April 1861 the Civil war began. Lincoln, needing money to finance his war effort, went with his secretary of the treasury to New York to apply for the necessary loans. The money changers, wishing or assuming the Union to fail, offered loans at 24% to 36%. Lincoln declined the offer. An old friend of Lincoln's, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago was put in charge of solving the problem of how to finance the war. His solution is recorded as this:
"Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also." -Colonel Dick Taylor

When Lincoln asked if the people of America would accept the notes Taylor said. "The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution."- Colonel Dick Taylor

Lincoln agreed to this solution and Congress printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back to distinguish them from other notes. These were called “Greenbacks”

"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power." -Abraham Lincoln

The solution worked so well Lincoln was seriously considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy. This would have been great for everyone except the money changers who quickly realized how dangerous this policy would be for them. They wasted no time in expressing their view in the London Times. Oddly enough, while the article seems to have been designed to discourage this creative financial policy, its effect shows clearly its advantages.

"If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." Hazard Circular - London Times 1865

From this extract it’s plain to see that it is the advantage provided by adopting of this policy which poses a threat to those not using it. But in 1863 Lincoln needed more money to win the war, and the President could not get the congressional authority to issue more greenbacks, the money changers proposed through their agents in Congress, the passing of the National Bank Act, that instituted Treasury bonds to replace the greenbacks, Lincoln needing war funds was forced to sign it. Thus restoring the exclusive power to inflate the money supply to a priveleged group of banks, and requiring the government to issue debt bonds against the new money created by the banks. Near the end of the war Lincoln said:

"Yes; we may all congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its close. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best blood of the flower of American youth has been freely offered upon our country's altar that the Nation might live. It has been, indeed a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war." –Abraham Lincoln 1865

Since 1863 the entire US money supply would be created out of debt to bankers buying US government bonds and issuing money in the form of national bank notes. Even though some of the greenbacks continued to be in circulation up until 1994, their numbers were never increased but in fact continuously decreased. In spite of this, having the greenbacks in circulation in America created great wealth.

"In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not [however] pay off its debt, or retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply."- John Kenneth Galbraith

The American economy has been based on government debt since 1864 and it is locked into this system. Talk of paying off the debt without first reforming our banking system is a complete impossibility. That same year Lincoln had a pleasant surprise. Turns out the Tsar of Russia, Alexander II, was well aware of the money changers scam. The Tsar was refusing to allow them to set up a central bank in Russia. If Lincoln could limit the power of the money changers and win the war, the bankers would not be able to split America and hand it back to Britain and France. The Tsar declared that if France or Britain gave help to the South, Russia would consider this an act of war. Britain and France would instead wait in vain to have the wealth of the colonies returned to them, and while they waited Lincoln won the Civil War. With an election coming up the next year, Lincoln himself would wait for renewed public support before reversing the National Bank Act he had been pressured into approving during the war to continue it's funding. Lincoln's opposition to the central banks financial control is well documented. He would certainly have killed off the national banks monopoly had he not been killed himself only 41 days after being re-elected.

"Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution." - W. Cleon Skousen.

Even after his death, the idea that America might print its own debt free money set off warning bells throughout the entire European banking community. On April 12th 1866, the American congress passed the Contraction Act, requiring the treasury to call in and retire some of Lincoln's greenbacks. With only the money changers standing to gain from this, it's not hard to work out the source of this action.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The History of Money Part Three: Rothschilds vs America

THE ROTHSCHILDS (1743) A goldsmith named Amshall Moses Bower opened a counting house in Frankfurt Germany in 1743. He placed a Roman eagle on a red shield over the door prompting people to call his shop the Red Shield Firm pronounced in German as "Rothschild". His son later changed his name to Rothschild when he inherited the business. Loaning money to individuals was all well and good but he soon found it much more profitable loaning money to governments and Kings. It always involved much bigger amounts, always secured from public taxes. Once he got the hang of things he set his sights much higher by teaching his five sons in the art of money creation, before sending them out to the major financial centers of the world to create and dominate the central banking systems.

J.P. Morgan was thought by many to be the richest man in the world during the Second World War, but upon his death it was discovered he was merely a lieutenant within the Rothschild Empire, personally owning only 19% of the J.P. Morgan Companies. "There is but one power in Europe and that is Rothschild." -19th century French commentator 1 (1. Niall Ferguson, THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD, Money's Prophets, 1798-1848)

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1764 - 1781)

By the mid 1700's Britain was at its height of power, but was also heavily in debt. Since the creation of the Bank of England, they had suffered four costly wars and the total debt now stood at £140,000,000. In order to make their interest payments to the bank, the British government set about a program to try to raise revenues from their American colonies, largely through an extensive program of taxation. There was a shortage of material for minting coins in the colonies, so they began to print their own paper money, which they called Colonial Script. This provided a very successful means of exchange and also gave the colonies a sense of identity. Colonial Script was money provided to help the exchange of goods. It was debt free paper money not backed by gold or silver.

During a visit to Britain in 1763, The Bank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklin replied. "That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one." -Benjamin Franklin 1 1.

They learned that the people's confidence in the currency was all they needed, and they could be free of borrowing. That would mean being free of the Bank of England. In Response the world's most powerful central bank used its influence on the British parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764. This act made it illegal for the colonies to print their own money, and forced them to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold.

Here is what Franklin said after that. "In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed."- Benjamin Franklin

"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. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War." -Benjamin Franklin's autobiography

By the time the war began on 19th April 1775 much of the gold and silver had been taken by British taxation. They were left with no other choice but to print money to finance the war. This money was called “The Continental” dollar, but it lost all of its value due to the war. This paper money is all you read about in modern textbooks, because of its failure.What is interesting is that Colonial Script was actually working so well, that it became a threat to the largest and most powerful established economic system of the time. The idea of issuing money as Franklin put it "in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry" without charging interest was not causing any problems or inflation. This unfortunately was alien to the Bank of England which only issued paper money for the sake of making a profit for its shareholder's.

THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA (1781-1785)

If you can't beat them, join them, might well have been his argument when arms dealer, Robert Morris suggested he be allowed to set up a Bank of England style central bank in the USA in 1781. Desperate for money, the $400,000 he proposed to deposit, (to allow him to loan out many times that through fractional reserve banking) must have looked really attractive to the impoverished American Confederate Congress. Already spending the money they would be loaned, no one made a fuss when Robert Morris couldn't raise the deposit, and instead suggested he might use some gold, which had been loaned to America from France. Once in, he simply used fractional reserve banking, and with the banks growing fortune he loaned himself, and his friends, the money to buy up all the remaining shares. The bank then began to loan out money multiplied by this new amount to eager politicians, who were probably too drunk with the new 'power cash' to notice or care how it was done.

The scam lasted only five years, until in 1785, when the value of American money dropped like a lead balloon. The banks charter didn't get renewed. The shareholder's walking off with the interest did not go unnoticed by another Morris. "The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will... They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by (the power of) government, keep them in their proper spheres." -Governor Morris 11.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787, 7/2
FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES (1791-1811)

It worked once, and works in England, why not try again? It's been six years. There are a lot of new hungry politicians. Let's give it a try. And so there it was, in 1791, the First Bank of the United States (BUS). Not only deceptively named to sound official, but also to take attention away from the real first bank which had been shut down. Its initials however gave a clear indication that Americans were once again being taken for a ride. And true to its British model, the names of the investors were never revealed. Having gotten away with it a second time, some of them probably wished Amschel Rothschild had picked a different time to make his pronouncement from his private central bank in Frankfurt, Germany.

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

Not to worry, no one was listening, the American government borrowed 8.2 million dollars from the bank in the first 5 years and prices rose by 72%. This time round the money changers had learned their lesson; they had the new Constitutional government guarantee a twenty year charter. The first Secretary of State, and then Vice-President, who could see an ever increasing debt with little chance of ever paying it back, had this to say:

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."-Thomas Jefferson,

1798 while the independent Anti-Federalist press, who had not been bought off yet, called the scam "a great swindle, a vulture, a viper, and a cobra." As with the real first bank, the government had been the only depositor to put up any real money. The remainder being raised from loans the investors made to each other, using the magic of fractional reserve banking. When time came for renewal of the charter in 1811, the bankers were warning of bad times ahead if they didn't get what they wanted. The charter was not renewed by congress or the fourth President, James Madison. Five month later Britain had attacked America and started the war of 1812.

Friday, January 4, 2008

History of Money Part Two: Bankers vs The Tally Stick

MEDIEVAL EUROPE (1000 - 1100 A.D.) Here we find goldsmith's offering to keep other people's gold and silver safe in their vaults, and in return people walking away with a receipt for what they have left there. These paper receipts soon became popular for trade as they were less heavy to carry around than gold and silver coins.

After a while, the goldsmith's must have noticed that only a small percentage of their depositor's ever came in to demand their gold at any one time. So cleverly the goldsmith's made out some receipts for gold which didn't even exist, and then they loaned it out to earn interest. A nod and a wink amongst themselves and the governments that borrowed the money, they incorporated this practice into the banking system. They even gave it a name to make it seem more acceptable, christening the practice a technical term: 'Fractional Reserve Banking' which translates to mean, lending out most of the money than you have on deposit, and keeping only a fraction in reserve while telling all your depositors they have their money safe with you. Inventing money based on the magic that it can exist in two places at once.

Today banks in America are allowed to loan out more than ten times the amount they actually hold on deposit. The reserve requirement is 10% for “demand” (checking account) deposits, and 0% for savings accounts. For every $10 deposited in a checking account, they lend $9 of it, while leading the depositor to believe they have all of it. The fact of the matter is that $9 likely becomes a new deposit when it is loaned out, and 90% of that is considered loan-able also. So while you wonder how they get rich charging you 10% interest, it's not 10% a year they make on that amount but likely 10% multiplied by 9.999...

THE TALLY STICKS (1100 - 1854)

King Henry the First produced an ingenious monetary system based on sticks of polished wood with notches cut along one edge to signify the amount. The stick was split in half lengthwise so each half still had a record of the notches. The King kept one half for proof against counterfeiting, and then spent the other half into the marketplace where it would continue to circulate as money. Because only Tally Sticks were accepted by Henry for payment of taxes, there was a built in demand for them, which, along with the counterfeit protection, gave people confidence to accept these fancy sticks as money. He could have used anything really, so long as the people agreed and perceived that it had value. His willingness to accept these sticks as legal tender made it easy for the people to agree.

Money is only as valuable as the faith people have in it, and without that faith even today's money is just paper. Even gold is valuable only because we believe it.The tally stick system worked well for 726 years! It was the most successful form of non metallic currency in known history, and the British Empire was actually built under the Tally Stick system, but how is it that most of us are not aware of its existence?

Perhaps the fact that in 1694 the Bank of England at its formation attacked the Tally Stick System gives us a clue as to why most of us have never heard of it. The gold holding elite realized it was money outside the power of the money changers (the very thing King Henry had intended), and their fortunes were shrinking because they could not manufacture wealth so easily.What better way to eliminate the vital faith people had in this rival currency than to pretend it simply never existed and not discuss it? That seems to be what happened after the shareholder's in the Bank of England bought their original shares with these notched pieces of wood and then began to berate the system.

The Bank of England was set up as a privately owned bank through wealthy investors buying shares, with tally sticks no less! Even the Bank of England’s nationalization is not what it at first may appear, as its independent resources unceasingly multiply and dividends continue to be produced for its shareholder's.

The original investors, whose names were kept secret, were meant to invest one and a quarter million pounds, but only three quarters of a million was received when it was chartered in 1694. It then began to lend out many times more than it had in reserve, collecting interest on the lot. This is not something you could just impose on people without preparation. The money changers needed to create the climate to make the formation of this private concern seem acceptable.

Here's how they did it. With King Henry VIII relaxing the Usury Laws in the 1500's, the money changers flooded the market with their gold and silver coins becoming richer by the minute through interest. The English Revolution of 1642 was financed by the money changers backing Oliver Cromwell's successful attempt to purge the parliament and kill King Charles. What followed was 50 years of costly wars; costly to those fighting them but very profitable to those financing them. So profitable that it allowed the money changers to take over a square mile of property still known as the City of London, which remains one of the three main financial centers in the world today.

The 50 years of war left England in financial ruin. The government officials went begging for loans from guess who, and the deal proposed resulted in a government sanctioned, privately owned central bank which could produce money from nothing, essentially legally counterfeiting a national currency for private gain. Now the politicians had a source from which to borrow all the money they wanted to borrow, and the debt created was secured against public taxes. This was much easier for politicians than publicly authorizing more tally sticks.

You would think people would have seen through this, and realized they could produce their own money and owe no interest, but instead the Bank of England has been used as a model and now nearly every nation has a Central Bank with fractional reserve banking at its core. These central banks have the power to dictate a nation’s economy and become that nation’s real governing force.

What we have here is a scam of mammoth proportions covering what is actually a hidden tax, being collected for private concerns. The country sells bonds and securities to the bank in return for money it cannot raise in taxes. The bonds are paid for with bank money produced from NOTHING. The government pays interest on the money it borrowed by borrowing more money in the same way. There is no way this debt can ever be paid, it has and will continue to increase. If the government did find a way to pay off the debt, the result would be that there would be no bonds to back the currency, so to pay the debt would be to kill the currency!

With its formation, the Bank of England soon flooded Britain with money. With no quality control and no insistence on value for money, prices doubled with money being thrown in every direction. One company was even offering to drain the Red Sea to find Egyptian gold lost when the sea closed in on their pursuit of Moses. By1698 the national debt expanded from £1,250,000 to £16,000,000 and up went the taxes the debt was secured on.

In times of economic upheaval, the deflation required to stop massive inflation, wealth is rarely destroyed but instead is merely transferred. Those who benefit the very most when money becomes scarce again are those who inflated in the first place and control the quantity of what everyone wants, the money changers. When the majority of people are suffering through economic depression, you can be sure that a minority of people are continuing to get rich.

Even today the Bank of England expresses its determination to prevent the ups and downs of booms and depressions, yet there have been nothing but ups and downs since its formation with the British pound rarely being stable. cont......(next the Rothschilds)

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

The History of Money Part One: Jesus and The Money Changers

Tell someone you are going to a convention of accountants and you might get a few yawns, yet money and how it works is probably one of the most interesting things on earth. It is fascinating and almost magical how money appeared on our planet. Unlike most developments we enjoy, which can be traced back to a source, civilization, or inventor, money appeared in places then unconnected all over the world in a remarkably similar way.

Consider the American Indians using Wampum, West Africans trading in decorative metallic objects called Manilas and the Fijians economy based on whales teeth, some of which are still legal tender; add to that shells, amber, ivory, decorative feathers, cattle including oxen & pigs, a large number of stones including jade and quartz which have all been used for trade across the world, and we get a taste of the variety of accepted currency.

There is something charming and childlike imagining primitive societies, our ancestors, using all these colorful forms of money. As long as everyone concerned can agree on a value, this is a sensible thing for a community to do. After all, the person who has what you need might not need what you have to trade. Money solves that problem neatly; real value with each exchange, and everyone gaining from the convenience. The idea is really inspired which might explain why so many diverse minds came up with it.

BUT ALL IS NOT WELL

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." -President James Madison

Money, money, money, it's always just been there, right? Wrong!
Obviously it's issued by the government to make it easy for us to exchange things. Wrong again!

The truth is, most people don't realize that the issuing of money is essentially a private business, and that the privilege of issuing money has been a major bone of contention throughout history.Wars and revolutions have been fought, and great depressions have occured, in the battle over who issues the money. However the majority of us are not aware of this, and this is largely due to the fact that in any contest, the victor is the author of history; the winning side became, and increasingly continues to be, a vital and respected member of our global society, having an influence over large aspects of our lives including our education, our media, and our governments.

While we might feel powerless in trying to stop the manipulation of money for private profit at our expense, it is easy to forget that we collectively give money its value. We have been taught to believe printed pieces of paper have special value, and because we know others believe this too, we are willing to work all our lives to get what we are convinced others will want in exchange for the goods and services we want from them.An honest look at history will show us how our innocent trust has been misused. Let's start our exploration of money with-

JESUS FLIPS (many coins) 33 A.D.

Jesus was so upset by the sight of the money changers in the temple, he waded in and started to tip over the tables and drive them out with a whip, this being the one and only time we read of Him using force during His entire ministry. So what caused the ultimate pacifist to become so aggressive? For a long time the Jews had been called upon to pay their temple tithes with a special coin called the half shekel. It was a measured half ounce of pure silver with no image of a pagan emperor on it. It was, to them, the only coin acceptable to God. But because there was only a limited number of these coins in circulation, and the money changers at the temple had a virtual monopoly on them, they were in a buyers market. Like anything else in short supply, they were able to raise the price to what the market would bear. They were making huge profits with their monopoly on these coins and turned this time of devotion into a mockery for profit. Jesus saw this as stealing from the people and proclaimed them to be: "A den of thieves". 1 1. King James NT, Mt 21:13, Mr 11:17, Lu 19:46

Once a certain type of money is accepted as a form of exchange, those who produce, loan out and manipulate the quantity of it are obviously in a very strong position. They are the "Money Changers". cont.............