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In Parts
1 and 2,
I reviewed how the Federal Reserve System and its member banks
work in managing the economy's money supply and how
banks create money out of nothing which they lend out at
interest. For
example, banks create money out of nothing when they enter
into mortgage agreements with property owners.
Property owners make monthly payments to the banks
which include both principal and interest.
The banks earn a profit from the interest after paying
expenses. If those
property owners default on those mortgages the banks end up
owning the homes or other collateral which was offered to
secure the loan. Since
the money it lends is not the bank’s money, it takes very
limited risk when it enters into those transactions, but
almost always receives substantial rewards.
I also
pointed out that the Federal Reserve is not a federal
institution. It is
a private institution that is "owned"1 by its member banks which
are in turn are owned by wealthy individuals many of whom are
not American citizens. The
owners of the largest banks have demonstrated that their
loyalty is not to the people of any nation, but rather to the
goal of maximizing the wealth and accumulated political power
of its owners. This
power and wealth can drive the political agenda of this nation
and others as well.
In an article
by Jake Towne, he points out that:
"As
of March 2004, of the nation's approximately 7,700 commercial
banks approximately 2,900 were members of the Federal Reserve
System - approximately 2,000 national banks and 900 state
banks….” And
“…that the top 4 banks: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase,
Citigroup, and Wachovia [now Wells Fargo], would control
roughly 50% of the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the
top 10 banks, including Wells Fargo, HSBC, and the Bank of New
York, would control over 68% of the stock…”
In
a staff report published by the Committee on Banking, Currency
and Housing, House of Representatives, 94th
Congress, 2nd Session, August 1976 entitled
“Federal Reserve Directors:
Study of Corporate and Banking Influence” we see
that the people who own, control, and manage the banks are
among the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world,
including the Rothschild,
Rockefeller,
and Morgan
families; and with
interlocking directorates the list also includes many of the
most powerful corporations in the world.
This chart was published in 1976. I would guess that
corporations that make up the military industrial complex
probably play a greater role today than they did in 1976.
If you
understand who owns and controls the banks and how these banks
control the money supply, you can connect the dots and begin
to understand what forces are at work manipulating the
political processes in the United States and in other
nations… and also why our country seems to be engaged in
perpetual war. It’s
my contention that almost all of the military aggression the
United States has engaged in in recent memory are with nations
that own or control resources wealthy bankers and their
interlocking corporate directorates covet, or with countries
whose leaders attempt to free themselves from the control of
the money cartel that requires that the dollar remain the
world’s one and only reserve currency.
In all cases, the banks and their corporate owners
profit from war no matter who wins or loses those wars.
Great wealth
can be employed to manipulate the currencies of foreign
governments and those governments can find themselves in need
of outside capital. Governments
are often forced to borrow from the banking cartel up to the
point they are overburdened with debt.
When that happens, those governments become puppet
regimes. When the
power of banks fail in their ability to manipulate and extort
other governments into bowing to the banking cartel’s
wishes, the military power of the United States is brought to
bear to bring these governments into line.
The banking cartel requires that no country be allowed
to replace the dollar as the one and only reserve currency,
which means that all puppet regimes must stay deeply indebted
to the World Bank, the Bank of International Settlements,
and/or the International Monetary Fund (all also controlled by
these same, or similar, people mentioned before) so that
control can be maintained.
The lip
service that the United States uses to justify the wars it
engages in are just a smokescreen to keep the people of this
country, and other countries, in the dark as to what the true
forces at work are that keeps them impoverished and/or
dependent. The
fact that millions of lives and families have been destroyed,
uprooted and impoverished in countries all over the world is
of no consequence to the people who own and control the
world’s supply of money.
In a recent
article by Ellen Hodgson Brown, she points out, for
example, that:
“Another provocative bit of data circulating
on the Net is a 2007 “Democracy Now” interview of U.S.
General Wesley Clark (Ret.). In it he says that about 10 days
after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the
decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was
surprised and asked why. “I don’t know!” was the
response. “I guess they don’t know what else to do!”
Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven
countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan, and Iran.
What do these seven countries have in
common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that
none of them is listed among the 56
member banks of the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long
regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in
Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya
and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked…”
In another
article Ellen Brown points out that:
“Today the Treasury is paying a very low .25% on
securities of 9 months or less, and interest on the whole debt
is about 3% (a total of $414
billion on a debt of $14 trillion in 2010).
Greece is paying 4.5%
on its debt, and Venezuela is paying 18% -- six times
the 3% we’re paying on ours.
Interest at 18% would add $2 trillion to our tax bill.
That would mean paying three times what we’re paying
now in personal income taxes (projected to be a total of $956
billion in 2011), just to cover the interest.”
I might
mention that Venezuela, a country considered by Washington as
an "axis
of evil", has actively campaigned among members of
OPEC to find ways of trading oil in currencies other than the
dollar.
If you are a
worker who notices your rights are diminishing; if you have
lost your home in this most recent bank sponsored credit
debacle; if you have no health care insurance or inadequate
health care coverage; if you have a family member that’s
been killed or injured in one of our wars; if you don’t
understand what I’m talking about; if you haven’t enough
money to retire with dignity; if you or your family member
can’t afford proper nursing care; if the water you drink or
your food you eat is too expensive or unsafe; if you are
ignored by your elected representatives; if you can’t afford
to attend college or pay off your education loan; if you
can’t afford to feed your family a healthy diet… you have
been in all likelihood, like all Americans have been, cheated by
your government who refuses to put an end to the corporate
banking system that controls our government and propagates the
fraud and corruption that day by day steals the freedom and
the wealth from everyone but a select elite few.
Listen
to Economist Michael
Hudson to get a little perspective.
Ultimately I
believe every citizen has some responsibility for his or her
own life experience. If
you don’t like the way your government has played its role,
it is both your right and your duty to change it. But I will
also say this: that
there will be no useful change if you do not participate with
the greatest amount of honesty, integrity and courage
consistent with your ability to understand the meaning of
those words. I
suggest you read other
commentaries I’ve written as food for thought, while you
keep an open mind and try to maintain the courage to think
about some things you might have in the past been taught to
disrespect. I’m
not suggesting that you do anything.
I am suggesting that it would be wise for you continue
to learn, think about, and consider what you learn with as
much courage and honor as you can before you act.
http://www.gpln.com
1 http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/who_owns_the_federal_reserve_bank.html
While the Fed claims that no one actually owns the Fed, the
stockholders of the Fed are the 12 regional privately owned
banks that make up the Federal Reserve System and those 12
banks are owned by big privately owned banks.
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