Billions for the Bankers, Debt for the People

Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on earth, seem always to be short of money. Wives are working in unprecedented numbers, husbands hope for overtime hours to earn more, or take part-time jobs evenings and weekends, children look for odd jobs for spending money, the family debt climbs higher, and psychologists say one of the biggest causes of family quarrels and breakups is “arguments over money.”

Much of this trouble can be traced to our present “debt-money” system. Too few Americans realize why our founding fathers wrote into Article I of the U.S. Constitution: Congress shall have the Power to Coin Money and Regulate the Value Thereof.

They did this, as we will show, in prayerful hope it would prevent “love of money” from destroying the Republic they had founded.

Money is very cheap to make, and whoever does the “creating” of money in a nation can make a tremendous profit! Builders work hard to make a profit of 5% above their cost to build a house.Auto makers sell their cars for 1% to 2% above the cost of manufacture and it is considered good business. But money “manufacturers” have no limit on their profits, since a few cents will print a $1 bill or a $10,000 bill.

That profit is part of our story, but first let us consider another unique characteristic of the thing – money, the love of which is the “root of all evil.”

An adequate supply of money is indispensable to civilized society. We could forego many other things, but without money industry would grind to a halt, farms would become only self-sustaining units, surplus food would disappear, jobs requiring the work of more than one man or one family would remain undone, shipping, and large movements of goods would cease, hungry people would plunder and kill to remain alive, and all government except family or tribe would cease to function.

Not at all. Money is the blood of civilized society, the means of all commercial trade except simple barter. It is the measure and the instrument by which one product is sold and another purchased. Remove money or even reduce the supply below that which is necessary to carry on current levels of trade, and the results are catastrophic. For an example, we need only look at America’s Depression of the early 1930’s.

THE BANKERS DEPRESSION OF THE 1930’s
In 1930 America did not lack industrial capacity, fertile-farm land, skilled and willing workers or industrious farm families. It had an extensive and highly efficient transportation system in railroads, road networks, and inland and ocean waterways. Communications between regions and localities were the best in the world, utilizing telephone, teletype, radio, and a well-operated government mail system. No war had ravaged the cities or the countryside, no pestilence weakened the population, nor had famine stalked the land. The United States of America in 1930 lacked only one thing: an adequate supply of money to carry on trade and commerce. In the early 1930’s, Bankers, the only source of new money and credit, deliberately refused loans to industries, stores and farms.

Payments on existing loans were required however, and money rapidly disappeared from circulation. Goods were available to be purchased, jobs waiting to be done, but the lack of money brought the nation to a standstill. By this simple ploy America was put in a “depression” and the greedy Bankers took possession of hundreds of thousands of farms, homes, and business properties. The people were told, “times are hard,” and “money is short.” Not understanding the system, they were cruelly robbed of their earnings, their savings, and their property.

MONEY FOR PEACE? NO! MONEY FOR WAR? YES!
World War II ended the “depression.” The same Bankers who in the early 30’s had no loans for peacetime houses, food and clothing, suddenly had unlimited billions to lend for Army barracks, K-rations and uniforms! A nation that in 1934 couldn’t produce food for sale, suddenly could produce bombs to send free to Germany and Japan! (More on this riddle later.)

With the sudden increase in money, people were hired, farms sold their produce, factories went to two shifts, mines re-opened, and “The Great Depression” was over! Some politicians were blamed for it and others took credit for ending it. The truth is the lack of money (caused by the Bankers) brought on the depression, and adequate money ended it. The people were never told that simple truth and in this article we will endeavor to show how these same Bankers who control our money and credit have used their control to plunder America and place us in bondage.

POWER TO COIN AND REGULATE MONEY
When we can see the disastrous results of an artificially created shortage of money, we can better understand why our Founding Fathers insisted on placing the power to “create” money and the power to control it ONLY in the hands of the Federal Congress. They believed that ALL citizens should share in the profits of its “creation” and therefore the national government must be the ONLY creator of money. They further believed that ALL citizens, of whatever State or Territory, or station in life would benefit by an adequate and stable currency and therefore, the national government must also be, by law, the ONLY controller of the value of money.

Since the Federal Congress was the only legislative body subject to all the citizens at the ballot box, it was, to their minds, the only safe depository of so much profit and so much power. They wrote it out in the simple, but all-inclusive: “Congress shall have the Power to Coin Money and Regulate the Value Thereof.”

HOW THE PEOPLE LOST CONTROL TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Instead of the Constitutional method of creating our money and putting it into circulation, we now have an entirely unconstitutional system. This has resulted in almost disastrous conditions, as we shall see.

Since our money was handled both legally and illegally before 1913, we shall consider only the years following 1913, since from that year on, ALL of our money has been created and issued by an illegal method that will eventually destroy the United States if it is not changed. Prior to 1913, America was a prosperous, powerful, and growing nation, at peace with its neighbors and the envy of the world. But – in December of 1913, Congress, with many members away for the Christmas holidays, passed what has since been known as the FEDERAL RESERVE ACT. (For the full story of how this infamous legislation was forced through our Congress, read The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin or Conquest or Consent, by W. B. Vennard). Omitting the burdensome details, it simply authorized the establishment of a Federal Reserve Corporation, with a Board of Directors (The Federal Reserve Board) to run it, and the United States was divided into 12 Federal Reserve “Districts.”

This simple, but terrible, law completely removed from Congress the right to “create” money or to have any control over its “creation,” and gave that function to the Federal Reserve Corporation. This was done with appropriate fanfare and propaganda that this would “remove money from politics” (they didn’t say “and therefore from the people’s control”) and prevent “Boom and Bust” from hurting our citizens. The people were not told then, and most still do not know today, that the Federal Reserve Corporation is a private corporation controlled by bankers and therefore is operated for the financial gain of the bankers over the people rather than for the good of the people. The word “Federal” was used only to deceive the people.

MORE DISASTROUS THAN PEARL HARBOR
Since that “day of infamy,” more disastrous to us than Pearl Harbor, the small group of “privileged” people who lend us “our” money have accrued to themselves all of the profits of printing our money’ – and more! Since 1913 they have “created” tens of billions of dollars in money and credit, which, as their own personal property, they then lend to our government and our people at interest. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” had become the secret policy of our National Government. An example of the process of “creation” and its conversion to people’s “debt” will aid our understanding.

THEY PRINT IT – WE BORROW IT AND PAY THEM INTEREST
We shall start with the need for money. The Federal Government, having spent more than it has taken from its citizens in taxes, needs, for the sake of illustration, $1,000,000,000. Since it does not have the money, and Congress has given away its authority to “create” it, the Government must go the “creators” for the $1 billion. But, the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, doesn’t just give its money away! The Bankers are willing to deliver $1,000,000,000 in money or credit to the Federal Government in exchange for the Government’s agreement to pay it back – with interest! So Congress authorizes the Treasury Department to print $1,000,000,000 in U.S. Bonds, which are then delivered to the Federal Reserve Bankers.

The Federal Reserve then pays the cost of printing the $1,000,000,000 (about $1,000) and makes the exchange. The Government then uses the money to pay its obligations. What are the results of this fantastic transaction? Well, $1 billion in Government bills are paid all right, but the Government has now indebted the people to the Bankers for $1 billion on which the people must pay interest! Tens of thousands of such transactions have taken place since 1913 so that by the 1980’s, the U.S. Government is indebted. to the Bankers for over $1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) on which the people pay over $100 billion a year in interest alone with no hope of ever paying off the principal. Supposedly our children and following generations will pay forever and forever!

AND THERE’S MORE

Is the UK heading down the same road to ruin as America?

House prices are falling, so said the Nationwide Building Society on Friday, after it’s figures showed prices dropping for the fifth consecutive month.

 The gloomy outlook on house prices coincided with new data showing consumer confidence at a 15-year low and weaker household spending, raising the risk of severe economic slowdown.

Annual house price inflation fell to 1.7 per cent, its lowest in 12 years, Nationwide said, and unless the housing market does better in April than this month, the inflation measure will dip below zero in a month’s time.

With Britain facing the likelihood of house prices falling year- on-year and mortgages becoming harder to acquire, the prospect has risen of a US-style vicious circle of falling prices, ever more pessimistic expectations, falling demand and even more cautious lending.

Such a scenario, alongside a sharply slowing economy, sent sterling to a new low against the European single currency on Friday. The value of one euro rose above 79p ; it has risen by almost 18 per cent against sterling since the credit crisis started last summer.

Official figures published on Friday also showed strains in the British economy. Household spending grew by only 0.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2007, the Office for National Statistics said, revising down earlier estimates.

Separate figures from the research group GfK NOP also showed consumer confidence fell in March to the lowest level since 1993.

Economists expect consumer spending to slow further over the coming months in response to tighter credit conditions, rising food and energy bills and greater economic uncertainty.

“With falling house prices, sluggish real incomes, plunging confidence and general weakness in surveys of retailers, we expect the official retail sales data to weaken markedly in coming months,” said Michael Saunders, economist at Citi.

Richard McGuire, strategist at RBC Capital Markets, said anecdotal evidence of lenders raising mortgage rates as demand surged “compounds the poor outlook for the consumer and housing sectors clearly evidenced in the data.”

The housing market is the key and current prices can only be sustained if homeowners are willing to take on an even greater debt burden. This proportion is already high when compared to historical levels.

According to Leigh Goodwin, an analyst at Fox-Pitt, Kelton, someone buying a house today will, on average, spend 24 per cent of their income servicing the mortgage over its 25-year life. This compares to just 14 per cent at the peak of the last housing boom, in 1989.

These figures suggest that one of the factors in peoples’ decision to buy property is an expectation that it will continue to rise in value. If house prices fall, this spiral could go into reverse, triggering a broader slump.

“When house prices fall, the mortgage goes from being the last thing people stop paying to be being the first thing they stop paying,” says Mr Goodwin. “The potential for something very nasty is with us.”