Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine

First, the article:

Let's not beat around the bush on this issue: The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won't be tested before the injections begin. In Europe, where flu vaccines are typically tested on hundreds (or thousands) of people before being unleashed on the masses, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip the testing process entirely.

And yet, amazingly, people are lining up to take the vaccine, absent any safety testing whatsoever. When the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. announced a swine flu vaccine trial beginning in early August, it was inundated with phone calls and emails from people desperate to play the role of human guinea pigs. The power of fear to herd sheeple into vaccine injections is simply amazing...

[snip]

Notably, there is absolutely no safety data on the use of adjuvants in infants and expectant mothers -- the two groups being most aggressively targeted by the swine flu vaccine pushers. The leads us to the disturbing conclusion that the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster. It's untested and un-tried. Its ingredients are potentially quite dangerous, and the adjuvants being used in the European vaccines are suspected of causing neurological disorders.


The 10 things:

Ten things you're not supposed to know about the swine flu vaccine

(At least, not by anyone in authority...)

#1 - The vaccine production was "rushed" and the vaccine has never been tested on humans. Do you like to play guinea pig for Big Pharma? If so, line up for your swine flu vaccine this fall...

#2 - Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body. This is why they are suspected of causing autism and other neurological disorders.

#3 - The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu by altering (or suppressing) your immune system response. There is zero evidence that even seasonal flu shots offer any meaningful protection for people who take the jabs. Vaccines are the snake oil of modern medicine.

#4 - Doctors still don't know why the 1976 swine flu vaccines paralyzed so many people. And that means they really have no clue whether the upcoming vaccine might cause the same devastating side effects. (And they're not testing it, either...)

#5 - Even if the swine flu vaccine kills you, the drug companies aren't responsible. The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability. Thanks to that blanket immunity, drug companies have no incentive to make safe vaccines, because they only get paid based on quantity, not safety (zero liability).

#6 - No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza. That's an inconvenient scientific fact that the U.S. government, the FDA and Big Pharma hope the people never realize.

#7 - Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don't need one! (Because it can't spread through the population you hang with.) So even if you believe in the vaccine, all you need to do is encourage your friends to go get vaccinated...

#8 - Drug companies are making billions of dollars from the production of swine flu vaccines. That money comes out of your pocket -- even if you don't get the jab -- because it's all paid by the taxpayers.

#9 - When people start dying in larger numbers from the swine flu, rest assured that many of them will be the very people who got the swine flu vaccine. Doctors will explain this away with their typical Big Pharma logic: "The number saved is far greater than the number lost." Of course, the number "saved" is entirely fictional... imaginary... and exists only in their own warped heads.

#10 - The swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren't completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people. (Too bad there isn't some sort of blue dye that we could tag 'em with for future reference...)

Ron Paul: We Need Sunlight to Disinfect the Legislative Process! 8/24/09

No Gravatar

When Does The Revolution Start? - CNN

Check this link ..... http://bit.ly/o0Mpo

Judge Orders Fed To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions

A New York District Judge has ordered the Federal Reserve to disclose the destination of around $2 trillion dollars in bailout funds after the Fed failed to convince the Judge that the records should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

“Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling,” reports Bloomberg, the news outlet that originally filed the lawsuit.

Citing the fact that the US taxpayer is an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks, Bloomberg argued that the risks behind the $2 trillion in lending needed to be made public.

“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t have the right to know,” said Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We’re gratified the court is defending the public’s right to know what is being done in the public interest.”

The Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke in particular have attempted to hide the destination of the bailout funds at every step of the way since Bloomberg first filed the lawsuit over nine months ago.

Judge Orders Fed To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions 150709banner2

During a hearing on Capitol Hill last month, Congressman Alan Grayson confronted Bernanke on which foreign banks had received around half a trillion dollars in credit swaps.

Bernanke responded, “I don’t know.”

“Half a trillion dollars and you don’t know who got the money?” asked Grayson.

It’s no surprise that the Fed is reticent to disclose who got the bailout funds, since the man appointed by Henry Paulson to dole out the ill-gotten gains was none other than his fellow ex-Goldman Sachs executive Neel Kashkari. This level of cronyism undoubtedly ensured that Bernanke and Paulson’s bankster gangster friends were well looked after.

“President elect Barack Obama, who in a September 22 campaign speech promised to “Make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business,” refused to comment on the story when contacted by Bloomberg, which is no surprise considering the fact that the man who guaranteed “change” has indicated he will not only follow the Bush administration policy of a socialized financial system, but radically expand it,” we wrote in our original story on the lawsuit back in November.

That foresight has now manifested itself again today, with Obama set to nominate Ben Bernanke, one of the main architects of the bailout under Bush, as Fed chief for a second term.

中國‧“一夜情非嫖妓”‧北京教授告公安局被駁

(中國‧北京)一夜情有感情基礎,不算嫖妓?

北京一名大學教授去年8月與一名外國子發生性關係並支付給女方1500元人民幣遭公安拘留,這名教授不服,以與“女友”發生“一夜情”為理據狀告公安局,北京市第二中級人民法院週一(8月24日)終審駁回他的上訴。

事發去年8月7日,56歲的朱姓大學教授在某公寓房間內與一名外籍女子發生性關係,並支付給女方1500元,經舉報被民警拘捕。當局經立案調查、詢問等程序後依據有關規定對他作出拘留14日的治安處罰決定。

朱姓教授不服,聲稱他與這名外籍女子有感情基礎,雙方發生性關係屬於“一夜情”。而這名女子並非職業娼妓,自己也從未有過嫖娼經歷,要求法院撤銷這項拘留處罰決定。

二中院經審理認為,朱姓教授所稱“一夜情”並非具體明確的法律概念,也不是否定賣淫嫖娼行為的法定抗辯理由。是否構成賣淫嫖娼違法行為的關鍵,在於雙方是否以金錢為媒介發生性關係,因此駁回上訴。

美國‧中情局手法惹爭議‧審疑犯威脅殺兒姦母

(美國‧華盛頓)美國政府週一(8月24日)解密一份中央情報局(CIA)報告,揭發情報人員在審查恐怖嫌犯時,曾威脅殺害嫌犯兒,甚至強姦嫌犯母親,用刑手法再掀爭議!

針對中情局官員涉嫌虐待恐怖嫌犯的指控,美國司法部長霍爾德當天已任命資深檢察官德拉姆展開初步刑事調查。

關押恐怖份子嫌犯的關塔納摩灣監獄,惡名昭彰,囚犯被揭受到非人對待。(圖:美聯社資料圖)
關押恐怖份子嫌犯的關塔納摩灣監獄,惡名昭彰,囚犯被揭受到非人對待。(圖:美聯社資料圖)

美國前總統布什被指授權中情局對恐怖嫌犯進行“升級”拷問。

儘管布什政府一再否認否認虐囚,但據最新解密的中情局報告顯示,部份調查人員的審訊方式已超過當時司法部授權的範圍。

例如,使用未上膛的手鎗和電鑽向疑犯納西里逼供,甚至威脅強姦他的女性親屬。

納西里被指是1999年美國軍艦“科爾號”爆炸案的策劃者。

恐嚇殺主謀孩子

而在審訊911恐怖襲擊案主謀哈立德過程中,中情局的審問人員曾恐嚇,如果美國再受到襲擊,他們會殺死哈立德的孩子。哈立德他曾被183次施用“水刑”。

美國法律禁止美國公民向任何被關押者發出“死亡威脅”。中情局否認曾對嫌犯進行直接威脅。

多次採嚴酷審問手段

在布什時代,美國中央情報局多次對恐怖份子嫌犯採用嚴酷的審問手段,早被批評違反犯人人權,而被公民自由聯盟告上法院,受理訴訟的聯邦法官裁定週一公佈這份2004年撰寫的虐囚案修訂版報告,有關中情局人員虐待嫌犯的細節才公諸於眾。

報告還頗有預見性地稱,“中情局未來可能面臨長時間的嚴重的政治和司法挑戰。”

性虐待女性親屬
審訊者學中東方法

美國中情局虐囚手法多元化,除了早前曝光的蟲刑、水刑、剝奪睡眠法外,近日解密的報告更揭露,審查人員曾恐嚇性侵另一位囚犯的母親。

據瞭解,性虐待女性親屬是中東地區為了從囚犯那裡得到信息的常用方法。

向“基地”領導人施水刑

豈料,一名中情局審訊者有樣學樣,竟也使用這種威嚇方法威脅嫌犯納希里,指他如果不提供今後的恐怖襲擊計劃,就找人在他面前性侵他的母親。

審訊人員對納希里說:“們要把你媽媽帶到這裡,我們還會把你全家都帶過來。”

納希里於2002年11月被捕,在美國中情局一所秘密監獄裡被關了4年,也是被施以水刑的3名“基地”組織領導人之一。

水刑指受審者被綁在木板上,臉部用布或紙張蓋住,然後有人向他的臉上噴水,或者將他的頭朝下浸入水中,產生即將窒息或溺水身亡的感覺。

納希里也曾被以手鎗、“高速運轉中”的電鑽威脅過。

其它的逼供方法還包括“點穴法”,曾經有1名審訊者使用點穴法,把手指頭按在一名囚犯的脖子上“控制囚犯的靜動脈”。

報告指出,這種“點穴法”違法。

這些曝光的虐囚方式預料將再次引起人權爭議。

審訊報告曝光政界震動
奧巴馬反恐或受挫

中情局審訊報告曝光在美國政界引發震動!

不少觀察人士紛紛指出,奧巴馬自上任以來一直致力於領導一場與布什時代不同的反恐戰,希望能儘快從戰略和戰術層面重新審度布什政府的政策,與過去劃清界限。

不過,司法部一旦正式調查中情局人員涉嫌虐囚,會使奧巴馬政府尋求在反恐戰中翻開新一頁的努力,遭受挫折。

分析人士指出,一旦檢察部門對中情局展開新一輪調查,甚至一些被指稱參與虐囚行為的中情局人員遭刑事起訴,那麼美國政界又將爆發一場如何真正保障國家安全的論戰。

以前副總統切尼為首的政界保守派已經多次公開批評奧巴馬政府的政策,將使“美國國家安全受到新的威脅”。

白宮同時也擔心,911事件以來已經人困馬乏、資源消耗巨大的中情局,會進一步在士氣方面遭受重創。

不少情報界人士透露說,中情局上下如今普遍的感覺就是被奧巴馬政府拋棄,認為現任政府沒有盡力保護這個肩負反恐重擔的國家安全機構。

新加坡‧“收車”前載搶匪‧德士司機被搶財劫車

(新加坡)一名德士司機在晚上“收車”前載最後一趟客,不料上車的卻是一名搶匪,搶走了他全部的收入之外,還把德士給駕走。

幸好不久之後,他在附近的停車場尋回德士,而放在儲物格內的腰包,也因沒被刀匪發覺取走。

這名德士司機姓梁(34歲),是在週日(8月23日)晚上遇劫。

他說,事發當上,他像往常一樣,算在晚上10時收工回家。但晚上9時35分,他在後港3道看到一個背著長肩袋的子揮手召車,便決定載多一趟再收工。

他說,搶匪言行舉止,和一般乘客沒有兩樣,他沒有起半點疑心。

但在轉入金泉路不久,他突然感覺頸項一陣冰涼,起初以為是被安全帶鐵扣卡住,後來才驚覺是一把菜刀。搶匪以華語夾雜福建話威脅他拿錢出來。

他說︰“他說他只是要錢,叫不要亂動,他大概是知道我可以用腳按警鈴,還叫我的腳不要亂動。那把菜刀長約20公分。

我擔心稍微一動,頸項會被割傷,所以不敢動。”

當時四週很暗,他無法從望後鏡看到搶匪的模樣。他把口袋中的250元拿出來,搶匪接過了錢命令他下車。接著搶匪從後座移到駕駛座位,把德士開走。過了1小時才發現遺失的德士。

新加坡‧生活素質調查報告‧國人最擔心飯碗問題

(新加坡)根據一項“新加坡人生活素質調查報告”調查顯示,70%新加坡人最擔心飯碗問題。

儘管這項調查數據是在2006年收集,惟新加坡國立大學商學院的高級講師邱淑娟博士認為,人們的價值觀應該不會在幾年裡出現巨大變化,這項調查結果多少還是能反映眼前的情況,相信對決策者還是會有所幫助。

邱淑娟、陳素娟副教授和高雅勁教授週一(8月24日)公佈“新加坡人生活素質調查報告”。這項在3年前進行的亞洲指標調查工作(Asia Barometer),涵蓋範圍包括新加坡和東亞另6個國家/地區與城市(中國、香港、日本、韓國、台灣和越南)。

調查主要是要瞭解各地人民對生活環境、社會經濟和政治等方面的看法,以及人們如何看待自己的生活水平、對生活的滿意度、及對國家認同感和政治權利等。

8000人接受專業調查

這7個國家和地區總共有超過8000人接受專業調查機構的面對面訪問。

另外,平均有將近80%的新加坡人表示享受眼前的生活,這個比例比排在榜首的越南的90%來得低。台灣人只有23%享受生活,比香港的將近25%還要低。

有趣的是,雖然新加坡人是出了名的“投訴王”,但調查結果卻顯示,新加坡人是所有7個國家與地區中最快樂的,快樂指數平均高達72.5%,位居榜首。

最低的是台灣,平均只有30.6%的人表示快樂,中國有52%,香港47%,日本54%,越南排第二高,有64%表示快樂。

TIME雜誌:台灣寧要「謀財」也不要「害命」的總統

這期出刊的TIME雜誌,針對這次莫拉克颱風在台灣造成的災害,以及掀起馬團隊的政治風暴,作了一整面篇幅的報導。

文章一開頭便針對馬第一個失去民心的錯誤。在全國動員救災的當下,馬英九還戴著充滿活力的藍白棒球帽,穿著POLO衫出席台灣世界青少棒球錦標賽,另外,文章指出最致命的錯誤是,馬總統對外媒表示因為民眾沒做好準備,以及不肯撤離家園,才會造成這麼多的死傷。

文章拿10年前發生在台灣的九二一地震相比,馬英九表現出的冷漠,和1999年主政的李登輝總統緊急緩和地震所帶來的災情,形成一個鮮明的對比。

文章還引述先前許多台灣網友的戲稱:「走了一個謀財的,來了一個害命的。」並將文章改成:

人們露宿並喊著口號,「相比無能的,我們更寧願要一個貪腐的總統!」

原 文:People even camp up with the stinging slogan "We'd rather have a corrupt President than an inept one!!": ---referring to former leader Chen Shui-Bian, who is on trial for corruption.

倒扁副總指揮 九九率眾上街「嗆馬」

中國媒體今天引述台媒報導,以「走了一個謀財的,來了一個害命的」來形容馬英九團隊的前紅衫軍副總指揮莊嚴,24日表示,台當局的救災表現,連他都如此氣憤,相信災民更是有滿腹的怨言,因此成立「馬英九民怨總部」,打算在9月9日相約凱達格蘭大道,上街「嗆馬」。

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雙十國慶 紅衫軍零星抗議雙十國慶大會十日在總統府前舉行,零星的紅衫軍在各管制路口高喊口號表達立場,並未造成混亂。

前倒扁大將、紅衫軍副總指揮莊嚴表示,這次「八八水災」政府救災不力,而且藍綠至今仍在分你我,馬英九也使用「他們跟我們」詞彙,根本與災民不同心。眼看民怨沸騰,他決定成立「馬英九民怨總部」,更決定要在9月9日讓大家「上街頭一吐怨氣」。

他說,馬英九20日曾承諾,重建工作「一個月內會有初步的成績單」,9月8日莫拉克風災正好滿一個月,莊嚴因此決定於9月9日舉行活動,當天除「一吐怨氣」“”外,還有個更重要的目的:檢視台當局重建成績單,如果成績單無法讓民眾滿意,民怨自然就無法消退。

與3年前的倒扁活動不同,莊嚴表示,此次的活動最主要是讓大家情緒發洩,而不是一定要馬英九下台。

德銀經濟學家:風災不影響台灣長程經濟

(中央社記者林沂鋒台北25日電)德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)首席經濟學家華特爾(NorbertWalter)表示,莫拉克風災重創南台灣對經濟發展會有短暫影響,但是不會影響台灣長程經濟發展。

華特爾並表示,全球經濟剛剛落底,但亞洲經濟正在回復。

台北歐洲商會中午舉行例行午餐會,邀請華特爾探討全球經濟衰退情形。他接受媒體詢問對台灣經濟發展看法時表示,台灣與世界經濟緊密結合,受到去年金融海嘯影響,台灣當然深受其害。

華特爾表示,台灣在2009年第二季以後有一些回升的跡象,但是改進都在很低層,要回到過去榮景,還有一段路要走。

他分析,這次比較沒有受到金融海嘯影響的國家,首先是經濟獨立、不依賴世界經濟的國家,例如印度或印尼,其次是中國大陸。

華特爾表示,中國大陸在金融海嘯期間推出很多刺激經濟或內需方案,讓經濟快速復甦。他說,相較於歐美國家受到金融海嘯強烈衝擊,亞洲國家算是比較穩定。

華特爾評估,全球經濟剛落底,亞洲經濟正在回復,預估從現在開始到2010年,除了日本以外,亞洲經濟有回升的狀況。

對於兩岸發展,華特爾說,兩岸政治關係改進,帶動雙方經濟發展,大陸在金融海嘯期間推出很多刺激經濟方案,台灣因而受惠。

至於莫拉克颱風與H1N1新流感是否影響台灣經濟,華特爾表示,風災或疫情對經濟影響是無可避免的,例如中國四川大地震的確對經濟造成影響。但是他認為,風災或疫情影響都屬短暫,不會影響長程發展。

防止斷頭 花旗集團抵押貸款部門增聘1400人

(中央社台北25日綜合外電報導)花旗集團(Citigroup)表示,該公司抵押貸款部門今年增聘1400名員工,希望能有助逾期放款的減少。美國政府已對銀行業者施加壓力,要他們遏止房產喪失贖回權的惡化。

花旗集團CitiMortgage部門執行長達斯 (SanjivDas)表示,該部門已有2600人處理逾期繳款事務,最近數月又增加這批人手。他受訪時說,這項聘僱令該部門員工總數回到1萬人左右,是去年開始連串裁員前的水準。

達斯說,「我們不僅大幅增加人力,還大量投資購置電話線和基礎設施」,以執行歐巴馬政府的計畫。

白宮藉由施壓及提供750億美元獎勵來增加銀行業參與其反房屋斷頭計畫 (anti-foreclosure programs),希望能讓多達900萬人保住他們的房產。美國財政部4月推出的「家庭可負擔換約計畫 (Home AffordableModification Program, HAMP)」成為銀行業接受問題資產紓解計畫 (TARP)援助的一項條件。

花旗集團去年從TARP基金獲得450億美元資金挹注,以免因次貸和相關證券虧損而破產。

America's brightest historical minds speak to you about monetary reform. Part 2

My previous article discusses money and credit creation and the trillion dollars/year benefit of monetary reform. Here is the discussion of this topic from sourced historical quotes from many of our brightest minds, part 2 of 2, beginning with New York City mayor John Hylan and ending with Congresspersons Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

John F. Hylan was Mayor of New York City from 1918 to 1925. The following 12 revealing paragraphs were reported by the New York Times on Dec. 10, 1922. New York has long been the US banking and financial headquarters, with the mayor’s office about a half-mile from the New York Stock Exchange. HYLAN ADDS PINCHOT TO PRESIDENCY LIST; FORESEES A REVOLT. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F07EED6153AEF33A25753C1A9649D946395D6CF
"What each party wants is a man whose sympathies are with the people and not with gold, a candidate with a proven progressive record. If the international bankers and the food profiteers control both parties, there undoubtedly will be a third party, but it strikes me that they won’t be able to.
One of the most astounding facts about our American life is that the wealth and property of the country and the control of the machinery of government are in the hands of less than 2 per cent of the inhabitants. That is to say, a small group of excessively wealthy individuals, members of the Republican and Democratic Parties alike, have, through the exercise of powerful, sinister and, too often, unlawful influence, usurped the government and seized public property on such a wholesale scale that they have become the virtual dictators of the destinies of more than 110,000,000 people (the US population at the time). That is a situation which, to my mind, constitutes the greatest menace to the safety of our republic.
A small group of international bankers and money lenders, public utility exploiters and tariff beneficiaries have actually dictated nominations for offices up to the Presidency. They have placed the slickest, cleverest, and most cunning manipulators in official positions, even in the minor posts, where they could be of service when called upon by the invisible power which, utterly devoid of all humanity, seeks but to wallow in riches.
This invisible power, whose black and menacing form hovers over every fireside in the land, stealthily and secretly reaches out and seizes in its filthy paws our vaunted institutions of free government with the same ruthlessness and relentlessness as the grim specter of death pursues its numberless victims.
So absolute is the power of America’s secret dynastic rulers that they have, without hindrance, written the very platforms and pledges of political parties, and because of substantial contributions to campaign chests they have arrogated to themselves the right to dictate the governmental policies of the administration elected to office regardless of party.
Woe to the public officials who dare to resent their dictatorship! If there be such public officials who will not submit to their imperious dictation, then the flood-gates of lying press propaganda are released, sweeping the unhappy public servant to an earthly as well as political grave, or compelling him to compromise with his conscience and become their subservient tool to the end of his term.
I say to you in all candor that either alternative might have been my lot, and that I might not now be Mayor of the City of New York if one of the greatest, most useful of citizens and, through his publications, the most powerful individual in the United States, William Randolph Hearst, had not enabled me, through the columns of his newspapers in greater New York to present my side of the city administration’s case to the people and thus offset the deluge of mendacious misstatements in the opposition press.
It has also become increasingly obvious that these wealth lords are able, in many instances, to place their own hand-picked Judges upon the Bench, thus insuring decisions in favor of organized corporate greed at the price of human life; while the instances of promotion of such Judges in recent years has been an open secret to us all. This is said with all due respect to the courts and with a genuine appreciation of the exemplary conduct and superior attainments of our judiciary as a body.
…The wealth lords of America are already busily engaged in attempts to insure their control of the nominees of the Republican and Democratic Parties in 1924. They will endeavor at that time to place in nomination at both conventions candidates whom they can control. If this can be accomplished, the election will be of small interest to them, for the people will have to elect one or the other of their candidates.
It would seem the part of wisdom for the people in every State in the Union to watch carefully the maneuvers of corrupt big business and to organize themselves thoroughly to ensure the nomination of men in both the major parties of fighting personalities and progressive tendencies. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties must adopt progressive platforms attuned to the needs of the times and select men who will carry out such platforms if they expect to receive the support of the people generally. Only in this way may we ever hope to be liberated from the economic serfdom and human slavery to which we have been so long subjugated.
I cannot escape the feeling that the most recent movement inspired by the worst kind of bigotry is another attempt engineered by the ruling minority or money lenders of America to create dissension among the different creeds and races of our people, thus diverting attention from their own sinister machinations.
The regrettable feature of this unwholesome situation is that there are some among us who are unwittingly mislead into fellowship with such pernicious organizations. Even a few clergymen who are supposed to extol before the world the virtues of charity and forgiveness and to stand out as living exemplars of these humane doctrines have been found susceptible to the clink of dirty gold which such membership places upon their palms.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board has cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.” – Rep. Louis McFadden, June 10, 1932. Source: Congressional Record, June 1932, pg 12595-12603. McFadden was the president of the Pennsylvania Bankers' Association (1914-15) and president of the First National Bank of Canton, Pennsylvania (1916-25). He had been Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee for over 10 years when he made this speech denouncing the Federal Reserve System.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. (Woodrow Wilson). The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.” - Franklin Roosevelt, letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373.
“If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.” - Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 1934 foreword to 100% Money, by Irving Fisher. Fisher was a Yale economist whose proposal for monetary reform lost to Keynes’ deficit spending plan during the Great Depression.
"The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market....The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank."
- Curtis Dall (FDR's son-in-law), My Exploited Father-in-Law, 1967. pages 34-43: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7882835/My-Exploited-Father-in-Law . Dall was a graduate of Princeton, manager at Lehman Brothers, Partner at Merrill Lynch, and Vice Presidential nominee for the Constitution Party in 1960.

“When our Federal Government, that has the exclusive power to create money, creates that money and then goes into the open market and borrows it and pays interest for the use of its own money, it occurs to me that that is going too far. I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... The Constitution of the United States does not give the banks the power to create money. The Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to create money, but now, under our system, we will sell bonds to commercial banks and obtain credit from those banks. I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with this Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue. I make that statement after years of study.” - Wright Patman, Representative in the U.S. Congress from 1929 to his death on March 7, 1976, and chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency for 40 years. For 20 of those years, he introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act of 1913. Quote from excerpts from September 29, 1941, as reported in the Congressional Record of the House of Representatives (pages 7582-7583).
"The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nationstates involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future." - U.S. Senator and 1964 Republican candidate for President Barry Goldwater in his l964 book: With No Apologies (Morrow, 1979), page 280.
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds' central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups." - Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966, p. 324. Quigley was a professor at Princeton, Harvard, and Georgetown. Bill Clinton acknowledged Quigley by name in his 1992 Acceptance Speech as the Democratic Party nominee for President. A recorded interview of Quigley: http://www.infowars.com/?p=2757 .
The following nine paragraphs are from Jerry Voorhis’ 1973 book, The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon. Voorhis was a Yale grad and member of Congress from 1937-1947. He was defeated by Nixon’s first Congressional election when Nixon linked Voorhis to communism from one campaign contribution.
“But what actually happens when our government engages in deficit financing? The obvious way the government can get more buying power into the people's hands is by itself putting more money into the stream of commerce than it takes out in taxes. The tragedy of the situation is that, up to date, the only way our government has enabled itself to spend more money than it takes in has been by forcing this sovereign nation to borrow its own credit from private sources.

This has been true, despite the fact that if deficit financing accomplishes its purpose at all it will increase production and trade, enhance tax revenues, and broaden the base of government credit.

To the extent that government bonds are sold for cash to individuals or to institutional purchasers other than banks the government is taking out of circulation approximately as many dollars as it will put back in when it spends the money.

To accomplish its purpose, deficit financing must result in the creation of new money, and the use of it to increase mass buying power. Only if this happens will there be any stimulation of idle plants to go back into production, or more employment.

Under these circumstances what ought to happen is that the credit of this great nation should be drawn upon directly by the government-not that it should go more deeply into debt.

For the credit of this or any nation is squarely based upon and derived from the production of wealth by the nation plus the power of the government to tax. A nation like the United States thus possesses an almost unlimited amount of credit. Otherwise it could not possibly have persuaded investors to buy $480 billion of government securities.

By whatever percentage it can be anticipated that production and hence potential tax revenues will increase as a result of deficit spending, by that same amount the credit of the nation and its government will be increased. This same percentage of the volume of money previously in circulation should appear on the books of the Treasury as a credit entry to be drawn upon just like tax revenues. To do that would be nothing more than rational and proper bookkeeping. It would also be morally right bookkeeping. And it would make some sense of Mr. Nixon's "full employment budget" idea.

But this is not what happens at all. Instead the sovereign government of the United States goes hat in hand to the private banking system and asks it to create the new money that the economy needs. The government gives-the word is used advisedly-it gives to the banking system, including the Federal Reserve banks, government bonds, the debt of all the people. Interest-bearing bonds, that is, bonds bearing as high an interest rate under today's regime as the banks decide to demand. Else they won't buy the bonds. The banks "buy" the bonds with newly created demand deposit entries on their books-nothing more. It is fountain-pen money and considerably more inflationary than would be the same amount of dollar bills created by the government. The deposits the banks create with which to own the people's debt are backed by nothing except the bonds themselves! In other words, they are backed by the credit of the American people.

What the government has "borrowed" from the banks, what the people must for years pay interest on, is nothing more nor less than the credit of the nation, which obviously the nation possessed in the first place or the bonds themselves would be no good!”
“The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.” – Harry Truman, as quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 26.
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went (1975), p.29. Galbraith wrote five best-selling books on economics (best-selling to the public), was President of the American Economic Association, economics professor at Harvard, and advisor to four US Presidents.
"Much discussion of money involves a heavy overlay of priestly incantation. Some of this is deliberate. Those who talk of money and teach about it and make their living by it gain prestige, esteem and pecuniary return, as does a doctor or a witch doctor, from cultivating the belief that they are in a privileged association with the occult — that they have insights that are not available to the ordinary person. Though professionally rewarding and on occasion personally profitable, this too is a well established form of fraud. There is nothing about money that cannot be understood by the person of reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence.... The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise the truth, not to reveal it. Most things in life — automobiles, mistresses, cancer — are important principally to those who have them. Money, in contrast, is equally important to those who have it and to those who don't. Both, accordingly, have a concern for understanding it. Both should proceed in the full confidence that they can."
– John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went - 1975, p15.
“As you know, I am entirely sympathetic with the objectives of your Monetary Reform Act…You deserve a great deal of credit for carrying through so thoroughly on your own conception…I am impressed by your persistence and attention to detail.” – Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute in his letter to the producer of The Money Masters (undated) – www.themoneymasters.com .
“Government-issued fiat money, on the other hand, is not a sovereign debt but a sovereign credit instrument, backed by government acceptance of it for payment of taxes….Credit drives the economy, not debt. Debt is the mirror reflection of credit. Even the most accurate mirror does violence to the symmetry of its reflection. Why does a mirror turn an image right to left and not upside down as the lens of a camera does? The scientific answer is that a mirror image transforms front to back rather than left to right as commonly assumed. Yet we often accept this aberrant mirror distortion as uncolored truth and we unthinkingly consider the distorted reflection in the mirror as a perfect representation. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? The answer is: your backside.
If fiat money is not sovereign debt, then the entire financial architecture of fiat money capitalism is subject to reordering, just as physics was subject to reordering when man’s world view changed with the realization that the earth is not stationary nor is it the center of the universe.”
- Henry C.K. Liu, professor of urban and regional development at UCLA, Harvard, and Columbia University in The Coming Trade War: Part II: Dollar Hegemony Against Sovereign Credit. AToL, 6-24, 2005.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaking to the House floor to abolish the Federal Reserve and enact monetary reform: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pVV4n2lKHk .
“It's (Federal Reserve) an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value…Since the Fed has been in existence, the dollar has lost about 97% of its value. You're supposed to encourage savings, but if something loses its value, why save dollars? There's no encouragement whatsoever.” – Congressman Ron Paul, CNBC debate with Faiz Shakir, March 20, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k94VWPjUQSM )

LA County Nonpartisan Examiner

America's brightest historical minds speak to you about monetary reform. Part 1

My previous article discusses money and credit creation and the trillion dollars/year benefit of monetary reform. Here is the discussion of this topic from sourced historical quotes from many of our brightest minds, part 1 of 2 starting with Benjamin Franklin and ending with Thomas Edison (my personal favorite in his explanation to the New York Times in 1921).

Quotes on the history of creating and managing money:
“Experience, more prevalent than all the logic in the world, has fully convinced us all, that it (paper money issued directly by government) has been, and is now of the greatest advantages to the country.” – Benjamin Franklin, The American Weekly Mercury, March 27, 1729. http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/paper1.htm
“The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident as never afterwards to be much disputed.” – Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, page 65: http://books.google.com/books?id=izkLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=The+utility+of+this+currency+became+by+time&source=web&ots=oXus0ZmYXu&sig=-iNLTJs_TxPJoRqkNBg8InIM2a0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result .
“All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” – John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (1787-08-25), The Works of John Adams
“This institution (privately-owned central banks) is one of the most deadly hostility against the principles of our Constitution…suppose a series of untoward events should occur…an institution like this…in a critical moment might upset (overthrow) the government.” – Thomas Jefferson, December 1803 letter to Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin. http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/gallatin.html
“The treasury, lacking confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers pretender to be money-holders, whom it could have crushed at any moment. Even the last half-bold, half-timid threat of the treasury, showed at once that these jugglers were at the feet of government. For it never was, and is not, any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the lack of all other medium (money), which induced…people to take their paper…We are now without any common measure of value of property, and private fortunes are up or down at the will of the worst of our citizens. Yet there is no hope of relief from the legislators who have immediate control over this subject. As little seems to be known of the principles of political economy as if nothing had ever been written or practiced on the subject, or as was known in old times, when the (bankers) had their rulers under the hammer. It is an evil, therefore, which we must make up our minds to meet and to endure as those of hurricanes, earthquakes and other casualties: let us turn over therefore another leaf.” – Thomas Jefferson, October 16, 1815 letter to Gallatin. Letters and Addresses, edit. William Parker, (New York: 1905). http://www.archive.org/stream/lettersandaddres00jeffuoft/lettersandaddres00jeffuoft_djvu.txt
 
“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.” – President Andrew Jackson in his veto message for the renewal of the privately-owned Bank of the United States, which would have continued their private monopoly of creating US money. July 10, 1832. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp
“I have no hesitation to say if they can re-charter the bank (2nd Bank of the US – a privately-owned central bank) with this hydra of corruption they will rule the nation and its charter will be perpetual and its corrupting influence destroy the liberty of our country. When I came into this administration…I had a majority of 75. Since then it is now believed it (the bank) has bought over by loans, discounts, etc until…there were 2/3 for re-chartering it.” – President Andrew Jackson, April 7, 1833 letter to R. H. M. Cryer. Ralph Catterall, The 2nd Bank of the U.S., (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1902.
After President Jackson vetoed Congress’ re-charter the 2nd Bank of the US and paid-off the national debt, President Van Buren (elected 1836) was confident the goal of defending the US from a privately-owned central bank was won: “The practice of funding the public debt…has long been discontinued…A National Bank has become a completely ‘obsolete idea’ among us, as thoroughly condemned in public opinion as a national debt.” – Catterall, p. 431.
“Why then should we go into Wall Street, State Street, Chestnut Street, or any other street, begging for money? Their money (private bank’s) is not as secure as Government money…I am unwilling that this government should be left in the hands of any class of men, bankers or moneylenders, however respectable or patriotic they may be. The Government is much stronger than any of them.” – Congressman E. G. Spaulding, 1862 speech to Congress in favor of issuing Greenbacks to pay for the Civil War rather than government borrowing. E. G. Spaulding, A Resource of War, (repr. CN: Greenwood, 1971), p. 37.
Peter Cooper (1791-1883) was one of America’s leading inventors and businessmen. He designed and built the first US locomotive in 1830, the “Tom Thumb.” Cooper was the first to introduce anthracite coal into iron production in 1845, resulting in the US’ first wrought iron beams for construction. In 1854, Cooper was a founder in the telegraph company that created the first trans-Atlantic cable. He patented Jell-O. In 1859, he founded The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a university in New York City that grants full scholarships to the nation’s brightest students with express admittance to all regardless of race, religion or sex. Cooper learned about monetary policy from Albert Gallatin, US Secretary of the Treasury from 1801-1814. The following 14 paragraphs are the summation of his life-long experience of the benefits of monetary reform that he witnessed from Andrew Jackson ending the privately-owned 2nd Bank of the United States and promptly paying-off the national debt, the US government directly issuing Greenbacks to pay for the Civil War rather than borrow the money, and then the economic depression when that policy was rescinded in favor of the federal government again borrowing money, as we do today.
ADDRESS AT THE CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL PARTY, CONVENED IN BOSTON, 4TH OF JUNE, 1879. http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/cooper/cooper_index.html .
“I think, that the neglect of our several administrations to make laws, that shall properly regulate the currency, both in volume and value, has been a greater cause of demoralization, want and misery among the mass of the people, than all other causes combined.
The American people have a right to demand of their Government a substantial reason for having taken from them their money, used by them for years as the currency of the country without cost to the Government. Our present Secretary of the Treasury declared in the Senate that “every citizen of the United States had conformed his business to the clause of the law regulating the currency of the country.”
I believe it will be impossible for our Government to show a good reason for having taken from the people their circulating notes, possessing (as the late Secretary McCulloch stated at the banquet, given by the New York Chamber of Commerce) “all the legal attributes of money.” The Secretary at the same time said, that, “In the very year, in which the war was closed, the reduction of the debt was commenced, and the reduction has been steadily continued, to the amazement of foreign nations.”
This debt, so called, was also “the credit of a great nation, cut up into small pieces and circulated as money;” as was well said by Secretary Chase. What shall we think of the administration of a Government, expressly designed, “by the people and for the people,” that should turn their circulating credit and their real money, into a debt which stops that circulation, vital as it is to the trade and prosperity of this people, and makes it a burden of bonds and taxes on their industry?
It will be equally impossible to show a good reason for having taken from the people their fractional currency, which was costing the Government nothing, and supplying its place with a more inconvenient currency, at the cost of thirty-two millions of dollars, added to the National debt.
The amount, already paid by the people as interest on the National debt, apart from any payments on account of the principal, is already one thousand, two hundred and twenty-four millions of dollars.
I have long been compelled to believe, that all that is now or ever has been required to secure permanently, is a safe deposit for all the unoccupied moneys of the country, and an ever strengthening bond of National union, as well as the best currency, that our country or the world ever saw, will be for the Government to do now, what should have been done at the close of the civil war,—and at the close of the war of Revolution against England—namely, to make the people’s money, found in circulation at the close of the war the sole money of the country, and the unflactuating measure of all values, receivable for all forms of taxes, duties and debts, and interconvertible with the interest-bearing bonds of the Government, which should bear an equitable but low rate of interest.
…How can we, as a Republican and a free people, control the Financial Institutions and the policy of this Government in the interest and prosperity of the whole people?
It is evident, that some fatal errors have been committed, some where, by which want, ruin and distress have been introduced, where before was prosperity, abundance and full employment for the enterprise and industry of this nation.
Individuals may suffer from extravagance, over-trading or over-production; but how can a whole nation have its joy and prosperity turned into mourning, but by the fatal errors of its ruling classes, which make the laws, and can thus mete out injustice and dry up the resources of a nation by rapacity and greed of gain, instead of diffusing happiness, education and freedom among the people.
Misgovernment and the faults of the ruling class have always proved in history the trouble and sorrow of nations. All the responsibility of a nation’s happiness, which may depend on a people’s laws and administration, must rest upon those, who are, for the time, the law making and administrative class.
Though the influences, that are now working against the rights of labor and the true interests of a Republican Government, are insidious and concealed under plausible reasons, yet the danger to our free institutions, now, is no less than in the inception of the rebellion, that shook our Republic to its centre. It is only another oligarchy, another enslaving power, that is asserting itself against the interest of the whole people. There is fast forming in this country an aristocracy of wealth—the worst form of aristocracy, that can curse the prosperity of any country. For such an aristocracy has no country—“absenteeism,” living abroad, while they draw their income from the country, is one of its common characteristics. Such an aristocracy is without soul and without patriotism. Let us save our country from this, its most potent, and, as I hope, its last enemy. I beseech you, fellow-citizens, to consider well what the crisis of the country demands of you, not losing sight of the fact, that there are great wrongs which must be righted in the administration of the finances of this country for the last twelve years. Old issues of North and South are, in a great measure, passing away, but there is no section of our common country, that needs so much the reviving influence of an abundant and a sound currency, as the South. The Southern people have the finest natural resources, that our country affords; every facility for manufacture—the material, labor and water-power indefinite. They need only money, wisely distributed among its working and enterprising population, for their work and their enterprise, which may draw out the money, and put it to the best use. It was well said, lately, by one of the Southern statesmen, that the “Government had impoverished, discomfited, and crushed the South more by its financial policy, since peace was declared, than by its arms during the whole war of Rebellion!
If the people can look for no relief from the present Congress and Administration—if those, who now sway the financial interests of the country cannot see their great opportunity—then new men must be chosen by the people, whom they can trust to make laws, and execute measures, that “shall secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity.”
I will close my remarks by a quotation from a speech of Daniel Webster. He declared that “The producing cause of all prosperity is labor, labor, labor. The Government was made to protect this industry, and to give it both encouragement and security. To this very end, with this precise object in view, power was given to Congress over the currency and over the money of the country.”
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“The bankers will favor a course of special legislation to increase their power…They will never cease to ask for more, …so long as there is more that can be wrung from the toiling masses of the American People…The struggle with this money power has been going on from the beginning of the history of this country.” – Peter Cooper, famous American inventor in his letter to President Hayes, June 1, 1877. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9806E1D7123FE63BBC4153DFB066838C669FDE
“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes…Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out of the governing business… When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other reform will be possible, but until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished."
– William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold Speech, 1896. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_Speech .
The following 16 paragraphs are the observations of Charles Lindbergh Sr., member of the House of Representatives from 1907-1917 (R-MN), concerning how the financial elite formed their privately-owned Federal Reserve banking system. Lindbergh called the owners of the Fed as among “The Money Trust.” This is from his 1917 book Why is Your Country at War?, that alleges the Money Trust’s interest to encourage war for their higher profits. http://books.google.com/books?id=qzAWAAAAYAAJ, page 156 (all italics from the original text)
“…I shall now quote the main important parts of my speech of July 5, 1916—in the Congressional Record of that date:
"No matter what individual professions and party claims may be to the contrary, it is apparent to anyone who has been a Member of Congress, and to anyone else who examines, that the will of the people in regard to legislation is seldom consulted. The price of leadership here is exactly the opposite of carrying out, in good faith, the will of those we are elected to serve.
Wholesale deception of the voters has been, and is now, the means used most successfully to secure office and remain in public life.
…Every one here knows that these things are true. But the public gets no information from the press about it, but anyone who dares to uncover the system and expose the schemes for deceiving the public finds that a certain part of the press will attack him and call him a radical and obstructionist, and excoriate him in every way possible. If to tell the truth about things makes one a radical, then radicals ought to be at a premium. But they have not been so far politically.
…There is a sinister influence at work in our country, which, if it is not checked, intends to completely undermine the original purpose of the formation of our Government—change it from the purposes of a democracy, and instead make it of a monarchical and plutocratic system, and to bring all the world into one control and one system, which for purposes of deception of the plain people, they would call a "world’s democracy," but which in fact it is their plan to make the rule of the wealth grabbers, maintained by simple organization of themselves and disorganization of the masses pitting the masses against each other. It would be the privilege of a few to rule in splendor, and the fate of the many to spend their lives in unrequited toil and that hopeless condition of servitude which millions came here to escape from. The few now desire to cut off every possible avenue of escape from industrial slavery for the masses.
…The plain truth is that neither of these great parties, as at present led and manipulated by an 'invisible government' is fit to manage the destinies of a great people. Their rules of regulation must be changed before they will be, and it is doubtful if their rules will be materially changed. If they shall be, it will be because the voters themselves force it.
…Early in my service here I observed that there was some power outside the Government itself which was insidiously, but none the less effectively dictating the course of legislation in reference to finance, currency and the creation and control of credit throughout the country; that it was in a position to dictate and did dictate to an extent almost unlimited, to whom credit should be extended and from whom it should be withheld, and that it largely controlled the political action and influence of most of the banking and other corporations of the country. I saw that such a power of control existed here in Congress.
I introduced a resolution setting forth the facts, naming this insidious and well nigh invincible power, the Money Trust, source of all the trusts and calling for an investigation of its activities. The "big business" press, ridiculed the resolution and especially the idea that the Money Trust had an existence. (The facts about this appears elsewhere in this volume. See Index: Money Trust.) In this case the Committee reported out my resolution under a different name, and in order to prevent me from serving on the committee to be appointed, the resolution was referred to the Banking and Currency Committee which was composed almost entirely of bankers and lawyers for some of the banks. By keeping me off the committee I could not cross examine the witnesses.
The committee, nevertheless, had to report that there was a Money Trust and that its activities were as I had stated, and that its existence and the power it yielded were a menace to the institutions of the country, but took no action to deprive it of its power.
Woodrow Wilson, however, took notice of the proceedings and of the existence of the Money Trust.
This was before he became president. He promised to exercise his influence if elected, to curb its power and influence. But I have no hesitation in saying that this promise has not been kept, but on the contrary the principal result of financial legislation during this administration has been to legalize and more firmly entrench the Money Trust in its control of business, credit and politics of this vast country than ever before, and in order to conceal that fact the Money Trust has bought the services of many prominent financial writers for the purpose of running articles in the press praising the Federal Reserve system which in less than six years the people will rise in rebellion against because of its intolerable and unjust burden (Editor’s note: Lindbergh was off by seven years. It took 13 years from this speech for the Money Trust to simultaneously call-in loans in October 1929, crash the Stock Market, and begin the Great Depression).
Profiting from my observation of the Money Trust inquiry by a committee nearly all the members of which were interested in limiting its activities as much as possible, I introduced a resolution declaring it should be the policy of the House Membership that no banker or any one who was financially interested in a bank should be a member of the banking and currency committee.
I also introduced a resolution calling on Members to declare the extent of their affiliations with banks, if they had any.
Neither of these resolutions came out of the Committee on Rules to which they were referred, so we must take it for granted that a majority of the Rules Committee believe that it is right for bankers to frame legislation for Congress to pass for the bankers personal benefit, as all financial legislation shows has been done. Personally I do not believe that a banker should be on that Committee, any more than that if some one sued a judge that he, the sued judge, should sit as the presiding judge to decide his own lawsuit.
My Democratic friends, you have the vain hope that special privilege, having obtained enormous benefits at your hands, is going to be grateful for the past favors that you have showered upon it and assist you in retaining control of the Government. They will furnish you campaign funds, as they do to both the dominant parties, but it makes little difference to them which of you have the power as long as it remains with either under present conditions. You are to learn, having done all you could for it, that you are no longer necessary to its business, except that now that you have passed the most important laws that it wanted, you are forced to follow it up, and are stopped from complaining through your portion of the press and on the stump or from entering any protest whatever when the time comes that your eyes will be open to the oppression the plain people are surely destined to suffer because of your falsely so-called "beneficial legislation."
You have missed the opportunity of your lifetime; one not likely to ever come to you again. The time will come when no Democrat who boasts of the achievements of this administration will be considered worthy to hold any public office. You have gone "cross-roads" with some of the most vital principles laid down by the great Thomas Jefferson. You may boast of him as a great Democrat, but none of you who have been active in fastening some of the hardships of this administration upon the people can boast of yourselves.”
The following seven paragraphs is Thomas Edison discussing the views for monetary reform that Henry Ford and Edison share. He’s referencing how the US government should directly create the money to build a hydroelectric dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, as reported from the NY Times article, “Ford sees wealth in Muscle Shoals” of Dec. 6, 1921. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E0D7103EEE3ABC4E53DFB467838A639EDE :
"That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 -- that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.
But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way.
... if the Government issues currency, it provides itself with enough money to increase the national wealth at Muscles Shoals without disturbing the business of the rest of the country. And in doing this it increases its income without adding a penny to its debt.
It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.
Look at it another way. If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people's credit in interest-bearing bonds?
Certainly there is a complete set of misleading slogans kept on hand for just such outbreaks of common sense among the people. The people are so ignorant of what they think are the intricacies of the money system that they are easily impressed by big words. There would be new shrieks of ‘fiat money,’ and ‘paper money’ and ‘green-backism,’ and all the rest of it – the same old cries with which the people have been shouted down from the beginning.
But maybe we have passed beyond the time when the thoughtful 2 per cent – you know, I gather from my questionnaire that only 2 per cent of the people think,” and Mr. Edison smiled broadly. “Maybe they can’t shout down American thinkers any longer. The only dynamite that works in this country is the dynamite of a sound idea. I think we are getting a sound idea on the money question. The people have an instinct which tells them that something is wrong, and that the wrong somehow centers in money. They have an instinct, also, which tells them when a proposal is made in their interests or against them.”

LA County Nonpartisan Examiner
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