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What You Need To Know To Save Your Ass - Part 3

Mark A. Goldman                                                                    Dated: 5/1/2011

 

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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