"The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the Revolutionary War." - Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography
You may have heard it said that all wars are fought over economics. Certainly it is not possible to understand the history of the world without knowing something about economics, and I don't mean the simple concept of supply and demand influencing prices. Macroeconomics
makes the world go 'round.
"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 the money and its issuance." - President James Madison
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." - banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild [then one of the most powerful men in Europe], 1790
Yet they don't so much as say the word macroeconomics
in most high schools, nor teach any of its principles, not even in history class when it is of critical importance. They tell you what GDP is, perhaps, but it's more of a vocab term than anything. Most people are never introduced to global economics in college, either.
Here's one of the open secrets that are carefully not taught in the public schools: where our money comes from. I don't mean physical paper and coins. Of all the US dollars in existence-- in people's savings and checking accounts, in cash registers, in money market accounts and CD's, and sitting in foreign bank accounts-- of that enormous total, only around 6 or 7% actually exists as paper and coins. Most money is just a line in a spreadsheet somewhere. And even if you're holding a piece of paper, it doesn't represent anything concrete. It's not tied to gold or silver. Money these days is just zeroes and ones.
The total Amount of Dollars increases over time. For one thing, the US population increases, and much of the time people are also growing wealthier. That means the Amount of Dollars (known as the money supply) has to increase, too. More obviously, there's inflation: that $2 loaf of bread used to cost 10 cents; so there must be more money floating around now. Presumably the American government "prints" new money to accomodate the growing economy, right?
The Constitution would give a hearty "Yes!" to that question, but alas, the Constitution has been routinely ignored on this point since shortly after the Revolution. The US government does not make new money. The private banks make new money-- and they make it out of thin air.
There are two ways this magical money creation occurs. Both of them are difficult to believe.
Here's the first way [note: I edited this example in response to emtel's corrections in the comments; please see comments for further info]. Let's say I deposit $10,000 in a savings account. The bank can loan out 90% of what was actually deposited in its vaults. Thus, by repeated loans between various accounts and banks, they can multiply that original deposit by a factor of 10. I don't know how they decided on the 10 to 1 rule, but it's been that way since the 18th century. So, I put in my $10,000, and the bank can turn around tomorrow and loan $9,000 to my neighbor Joe. Joe then takes his loan and buys a car, and the car dealer deposits $9,000 in his
I've got $10,000 and a deposit slip to prove it. The car dealer has $9,000 and a deposit slip to prove it. $9,000 just got conjured into existence because some loan officer entered the numbers 9 0 0 0 into the system. Bam!
9 big ones, out of nowhere. And, on down the line after a series of such loans, and the banks could be holding deposits of close to $100,000, all originating in my 10K deposit.
And now Joe's paying the bank interest on that loan. You know... because the bank did all that hard work coming up with his $9,000. I sure wish I
could conjure money and then loan it to people with interest-- whoo boy, I'd be rich fast!
If the banks do this too much, of course, they flood the country with too many dollars and each individual dollar starts to be worth less. This is called inflation. People also use that money to buy tons of goods made in foreign lands-- buying way more, in fact, then we sell to them, because we Americans are so cash-happy. This is called a trade deficit. Both inflation and the trade deficit are now getting out of hand, which in this case is due to credit card and mortgage lending which definitely
got out of hand. The banks have been grossly irresponsible, and it isn't going to end well. We may likely see the collapse of the dollar. The rich won't mind, of course, because their
money isn't in dollars.
The second way money comes into existence is when the government needs money. Let's say the government wants to spend more money than it's taking in. Let's say they're short by a billion dollars. The Constitution says they can simply create a billion dollars at will because they control the money presses. But J P Morgan says otherwise. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act which created the privately owned
"Federal Reserve" says otherwise (the federal
part is meant to be funny-- ha ha ha!).
What the government actually does is they print Treasury bonds, which are government IOU's. They print Treasury bonds-- just pieces of paper, really-- and they take them over to the Federal Reserve Bank on bended knee and beg the Fed to please buy the T-bonds so they can have their billion dollars.
The Federal Reserve is, let me say again, not a government entity, but rather a cartel of private banks. JP Morgan Chase owns the largest share of stocks (not that you
can buy any stocks in the Fed, because it isn't publicly traded, naturally). JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs and the Rockefellers and some foreign banks all own the Fed. Yes, the government appoints chairmen and governors, but the appointees are bankers themselves, and in the end it's the banks that have to 'abra cadabra'
the money into existence. As I said, that whole "Federal" bit in the title is just for laughs.
These private banks take the government's IOU's (T-bonds) and give the government money, charging them interest. You will see, if you pull out a paper dollar, that it reads "Federal Reserve Note" at the top. John F. Kennedy attempted to introduce an actual government currency tied to silver, under sole control of the US government, known as United States Notes. He did this by Executive Order. They started printing this true US currency, but Kennedy was assassinated some weeks later, and LBJ reversed the executive order and destroyed all United States Notes. President Lincoln also tried to introduce a true US currency, the Greenback, but I guess we know how that ended.
Not only do the banks control the issuance of new money, but the government owes interest
to the private banks, because they've had to give them interest-paying Treasury bonds just to get their hands on some cash. It's exactly like my neighbor Joe owing interest on his $9K car loan, even though all the bank had to do was wave a wand. This interest the government pays on new money is a major reason we have a national debt. Have you ever heard someone say we owe that debt "to ourselves"? That's BS. The taxpayers owe that money to JP Morgan Chase and their ilk, because the private banks are the only ones who can issue money, and then they charge us for it! They charge us for doing what the Constitution says only the government can do.
The banks are stealing from us, individually and as a nation. They are flat out robbing us.
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending [these] tremendous advantages...will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests." - Rothschild Brothers of London communiqué to associates in New York June 25, 1863
"It is well enough that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford
You might ask what happens when the people come to the banks and request money, but the banks refuse. What happens if they won't make any more money?
From 1929 to 1933 the money supply, the Amount of Dollars, shrank by a third. Milton Friedman blamed the Great Depression on this lack of money; he blamed the Federal Reserve. If there isn't enough money entering the system, people can't buy things, and the economy can't recover. Some people will tell you the rich bankers did this intentionally. First they threw money around like it was water throughout the 1920's, and then when their cash-happy bubble burst and money was desperately needed, they clammed up and gave America the cold shoulder. This allowed them to buy up other people's assets at pennies on the dollar. It allowed them to steal land gotten through foreclosure, foreclosure caused in part by their own misuse of the money supply.
"Capital must protect itself in every possible manner.... Debts must be collected; bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed... by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers." - USA Banker's Magazine, August 25 1924
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations... will deprive the people of their property, until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
What a singular success for the wealthy elites that knowledge of macroeconomics is not considered a necessary part of being "educated". The robber baron fathers of the public schools have made sure almost none of us know that we're being robbed blind.