There is a lot of movement going on regarding money and banking. Now, normally I don’t touch these subjects at all. As they are not of my interests. But, you know, just because I am not interested in it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take an interest in me. And it has.
Here we talk about the linkage between monetary systems and sentience. It's not your usual supper-time discussion subject.
The banking system has strip-mined the American middle class.
And now, most of the former American middle class are destitute debit slaves of a magnitude many times greater than anything historically present in the past.
That’s a pretty bold statement. I know.
But listen up.
While Egyptian slaves couldn’t own cars and cell phones, they need not ever worry about food, clothing, shelter or enjoying themselves. Same with the Roman slaves, the Persian slaves, the Irish slaves and the Moroccan slaves.
Now, don’t you all get your hackles up. Sure, there were many injustices that took place. But that’s really a different subject for a different time.
Right now, I am saying as clearly as I can that…
[1] The American middle class is functionally destroyed. [2] What remains of the middle class are debt serfs that are tied to a system of life-time servitude and jail / prison for trying to leave that system. It’s service-for-self ruling over a mixture of other sentience’s. [3] And most importantly, do not look at the shininess of your handcuffs as an indicator of “freedom”. It isn’t. Being able to own a gun, drive a car, and eat in a fast food restaurant doesn’t make you any better than an Egyptian slave. The big difference is in “the fight”. Americans are constantly fighting to “tread water” to keep solvent. Egyptian and Roman slaves never had that struggle. They performed their work, and then enjoyed life. Americans perform their work, and then continue to fight for their right to live.Radical statements, eh?
Yes. I get it. It’s not comparing apples to apples.
My argument is that the entire collapse of the American middle class is the result of failed monetary and banking policies. And why they collapsed is complicated and worthy of consideration. Thus this post.
We start off with this pretty great summary…
This is a reprint of an article titled “Usury & Fractional Reserve Banking is an Enslavement of Mankind” by Lisa Yuen and published on July 27, 2020. Of course it was edited to fit this venue, and all credit to the author.
Usury & Fractional Reserve Banking is an Enslavement of Mankind
(Please download this video free of charge onto your phone by clicking on the downward arrow. This allows you to watch or listen to this video at your own leisure. Please go back to watch or listen to the video a few times if necessary so you understand who really owns the world’s wealth and power).
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This excellent 3.5 hour documentary produced by investigative journalist, Bill Still, educates the public about how central banks around the world were created by private bankers who loan money to governments by way of usury and fractional reserve banking.
Banks are given the power to loan money out multiples times than what they have in reserve. Generally, 10% is the reserve requirement in the world. This means that that the BANKS CAN CREATE MONEY THEY DOES NOT HAVE !!!
This video explains it:
https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7482062405219123820
It explains why most people who own homes take a lifetime to pay off their mortgages because of the payments made on interests, not on principal. This also explains why most people can never become debt free & why we cannot eliminate hunger and poverty.
It also explains why we have inflation, deflation, recession, cycles of boom and bust because the goods & services generated in the real economy are simply NOT ENOUGH to be distributed for the vast quantity of money created!
Almost all government central banks are owned by private bankers who loan money by way of usury and fractional reserve lending, where THEY CREATE MONEY OUT OF LITTLE OR NO RESERVE, loans them to governments and charge interests on these loans! While the shareholders of these private central banks become richer and more powerful, governments around the world become heavily indebted to these private money interest groups.
Fractional reserve banking is rooted in fraud, results in massive poverty & reduces everyone’s value in money.
The Federal Reserve Cartel consists of less than a dozen families who own shares in every central bank in the world, as well as private banks. This cartel also owns World Bank, IMF, ECB and Bank of International Settlement. They are more powerful than kings & queens and our politicians serve their interests!
In addition to owning central banks, this cartel also owns large shares of the oil industry in the Middle East and around the world.
Their private banks serve as havens for MASSIVE tax evasion, money laundering, narcotics trafficking & weapons trade.
Professor Carroll Quigley, one of 20th century’s most highly respected historians, whose greatest contribution to our understanding of modern history was presented in his books, The “Anglo-American Establishment” and “Tragedy and Hope”. The latter was written in 1949 but only released after his death in 1981. His disclosures placed him in such potential danger from an Establishment backlash that it was never published in his lifetime. Quigley’s evidence is considered highly credible. He moved in exalted circles, lectured at the top universities in the United States, including Harvard, Princeton and Georgetown, and was a trusted advisor to the Establishment as a consultant to the US Department of Defense.
As per Professor Quigley:
"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 to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private. "
The key to their success, said Quigley, was that the international bankers would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government.
OUR CURRENT OFFSHORE BANKING SYSTEM
https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7211601280711687059
[1:17 hour award-winning investigative documentary — Please download this video free of charge onto your phone by clicking on the downward arrow. This allows you to watch or listen to this video at your own timing.]At the twilight of British Empire, the City of London set up a spider web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions, captured & funneled wealth from around the globe to City of London. With silent backing of USA, Britain’s offshore haven grew rapidly.
Today, it is the world’s dominant financial market. HALF of global offshore wealth is hidden in British secrecy jurisdictions. City of London is run by City of London Corporation, a PRIVATE company private mayor, private police force, private laws and a private Court.
While the sum of debts owed by ALL GOVERNMENTS around the world is approx. $70+ trillion, a staggering of $50+ trillion is hidden in British offshore secrecy jurisdictions!!!
https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7298077594011745804
Offshore trusts commit these illicit acts:
• Insider trading;
• Market rigging;
• Avoidance of market interest disclosure;
• Illicit weapons trading;
• Illicit narcotics trading;
• Illicit donation of political donations;
• Contract kickbacks;
• Bribery;
• Fraudulent invoicing;
• Trade mis-pricing;
• Illicit tax evasion.
Usury, privately owned central banking, fractional reserve banking and offshore banking deprive world citizens opportunities to healthcare, education, security, justice & better lives. It is essentially a form of oppression through illegal extraction of wealth & resources which rightfully belong to the people. We all need to unite together to fight against & to abolish this banking system. The ability to create money belong to our governments, not private individuals!
If financial corruption and parasitism are not abolished, the world’s citizens cannot truly be free!
Sources are listed below this Article
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The Bank of England was the first central bank created in 1694 by money lenders to loan money to the English Crown which used usury and fractional reserve banking.
The US Federal Reserve, the world’s most powerful central bank, was created in 1913 using the Bank of England as a model. As a matter of fact, all other central banks in the world have been created based on the Bank of England model, by private bankers using fractional reserve banking.
Who are these money changers?
[At 11:00 of video] In the Bible, Jesus called the money changers “a den of thieves” and drove them out of the temple. Historically, when Jews came to Jerusalem to pay for their temple tax, they could only use a special coin, the half Shekel of the Sanctuary. This coin contained half ounce of silver without the image of a Pagan emperor. For the Jews, it was the only coin acceptable to God.The money changers made enormous profits on these coins because they held a monopoly over these coins which enabled them to charge exorbitant rates.
Since the 10th century, Europe was under the domain of Christianity. Christians in Europe were forbidden to practice usury because the Bible forbids this practice. This lucrative business was mostly taken up by non-Christian Jews who scattered throughout Europe because they were stateless.
Because of their astute money sense, the kings of Europe would often hire these money changers as Court Jews to look after their finances.
In 1,000 AD, the money changers who loan out and manipulate the quantity of money were active in Medieval England. By acting together, they were able to manipulate the entire English economy. These money changers were not bankers per se, but generally were the goldsmiths. They were the first bankers because they kept other people’s gold for safekeeping in their vaults.
The first paper money were merely receipts for gold left with the goldsmiths. Eventually, goldsmiths noticed that only a small fraction of depositors ever came in to demand their gold at any one time.
The goldsmiths started CHEATING on the system. They discovered that they can print more money than they had gold. Usually, no one would notice. They would loan out this extra money and collect interest on it. This was the birth of fractional reserve banking: loaning out money many times than what you have on deposits. If they had $1,000 on deposits, then they can loan out 10 times that amount ($10,000) in paper money, draw interest on it, and no one would notice the deception. By using these methods, goldsmiths gradually accumulated more & more wealth and they would use this wealth to accumulate more & more gold.
In the Middle Ages, Canon Law forbade the charging of interest because the purpose of money was to serve members of society to facilitate the exchange of goods needed to lead a virtuous life. Interest hindered this purpose by putting unnecessary burden on the use of money. Europe forbade charging interest on loans and made it a CRIME called “USURY”.
As commerce grew & opportunity for investments grew in the late Middle Ages, it came to be recognized that to loan money had a cost to the lender, both in risk and in loss of opportunities, so some charges were allowed, but not interest. All teachings condemned USURY AS FRAUD, injustice, oppression of the poor and it is clearly immoral. Fractional reserve banking is rooted in fraud, results in MASSIVE POVERTY and reduces everyone’s value in money.
The ancient goldsmiths discovered that extra profits could be made by switching from easy loans to tight loans. When they made the money easier to borrow, the money in circulation expanded, money was plentiful. People took out more loans to expanded their businesses, but in prescribed time, the money changers would tighten the money supply which made loans more difficult to get. People who could not get loans to pay off their debts were forced to sell their assets to the goldsmiths for pennies on the dollar, enabling the goldsmiths to reap enormous profits by buying up cheap assets. Today, it is still happening; we call this the business cycle or cycle of boom and bust.
[At 23:00 of video] By the end of 1600’s, England had gone through 50 years of continuously wars with France & the Netherlands and was in financial ruins. Frantic politicians met with the money changers to beg for the money necessary to pursue their political purposes. The price was high: a government sanctioned a privately owned bank which could issue money created out of nothing. It was to be the world’s first privately owned central bank: The Bank of England.The legalization of the Bank of England amounted to nothing less than legal counterfeiting of a national currency for private gains.
Benjamin D’Israeli, former Prime Minister of Great Britain wrote:
"If the history of England is written by one who has the knowledge and courage, one would be astonished."
Unfortunately, nearly every nation now has a privately controlled central bank, using the Bank of England as the basic model. Such is the power of these central banks that they take total control over a nation’s economy. It soon amounts to nothing but a plutocracy, ruled by the rich. It is like putting the Mafia in charge of the army.
Yes, we need central banks, but not in private hands !
The central bank scam is a hidden tax. The nation sells bonds to the central bank it does not have the political will to raise taxes to pay for, but the bonds are purchased with money the central bank creates out of nothing. More money in circulation, means more inflation, which makes our money worth less. The government gets as much as it needs and the people pay for it in inflation.
THE IRONY IS, THAT NOT ONE PERSON IN 1,000 CAN FIGURE THIS OUT AND REALIZE HOW FRAUDULENT THIS SYSTEM IS, BECAUSE IT IS MOSTLY HIDDEN BEHIND COMPLEX ECONOMIC GIBBERISH.
With the formation of the Bank of England in 1694 by private bankers, the nation would soon be awash with money, prices throughout the country doubled, massive loans were granted for just about any wild scheme. Four years later, by 1698, government spending grew from 1.25 million pounds to 16 million pounds. Taxes increased again and again. With the British money supply firmly in their grip, the British economy went from a series of wild roller coaster of booms & busts, exactly what the central bank claims to prevent.
By the mid 1700’s, the British Empire was nearing its height of power around the world. Britain had fought 4 costly wars in Europe since the creation of their privately owned central bank. The cost had been high. To finance these wars, the British parliament had borrowed heavily from their central bank.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild is quoted as saying in 1791: “Allow me to issue and control a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws. I care not what puppet is placed on the throne England to rule the Empire where the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply.”
With the creation of the world’s most powerful central bank, the US Federal Reserve in 1913, in the hands of the money changers, power was centralized to a tremendous extent, the money changers were ready for their First World War.
Wars proved to be the most profitable of all because of the enormous sums borrowed by governments and interests that ensued from wars. Nothing creates debt like warfare.
England was the best example. During the 119 year period between the founding of the Bank of England and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the country had been at war for 56 years and much of the remaining time, she had been preparing for war.
In World War I, the German Rothschilds loaned money to the Germans, the British Rothschilds loaned money to the British, the French Rothschilds loaned money to the French.
In America, JP Morgan was the sales agent for war materials for both the British and the French. In fact, 6 months into the war, Morgan became the largest consumer on earth, spending $10 million a day. Other bankers like the Rockefellers also made enormous profit as well.
[At 2:13:00] Profit was not the only motive but also revenge. The money changers never forgave the Czar for helping Lincoln during the Civil War. Also, Russia was the last European nation to refuse to give into the money changers’ attempt to create a privately controlled central bank. Three years after World War 1, the Russian Revolution toppled the Czar and instilled communism. Jacob Schiff of Loeb & Company bragged from his death bed that he had spent $20 millions toppling the Czar.Why would some of the richest men in the world financially back communism, the system that was openly vowing to destroy the system that made them wealthy, namely, capitalism?
The short answer is that the money changers had always supported many sides of conflicts to keep different nations divided. The London Wall Street axis decided to take the risk by attempting to control revolutionary communist groups by feeding them massive quantities of money when they obeyed; and contracted the money, or even financed opposition groups when they get out of control. Lenin began to understand that although he was the absolute dictator of Soviet Union, he was not pulling the financial strings. Someone else was silently in control. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, at the behest of the international bankers who control them were, were creating communism through debt. In case you think that the money changers created communism, got it going and then lost control, in 1992, the Times reported that incoming Russian president Boris Yeltsin was upset that the incoming aid into Russia was siphoned off straight back into the coffers of Western banks as debt service!!!
[2:18:10] It is not a wild conspiracy theory that the money changers had a short range self-serving motive for profit as well as a long range political motive of advancing TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS with the MONEY CHANGERS MAINTAINING THE FINANCIAL CLOUT to control whatever politician might emerge as the leader. [2:18:30 to ] What is the money changers’ ultimate political goal for the world?After World War I, the overall political agenda for the money changers began to be clear. Now that they control national economies individually, the next step was the ultimate form of consolidation: A WORLD GOVERNMENT.
[2:19:50] After WWI, the American public had grown tired of the international policies of Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Warren Harding won a landslide with 60% of the vote. His presidency led to an unprecedented era of prosperity known as the “Roaring Twenties”. Despite the fact that the war had brought America debts ten times larger the civil war debt, still the American surged. Gold had poured into the US and continued to do so afterwards.In the early 1920s, the governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Benjamin Strong, met secretively and frequently with the Bank of England governor Montague Norman. Norman was determined to replace the gold England had lost to the US during World War I and return the Bank of England to its former position of dominance in world finance. On top of that, rich with gold, the American economy might get out of control again, just like what happened after the Civil War. During the next 8 years, under the presidency of Harding and Coolidge, the huge debt built up during World War I was cut by 38%, the greatest percentage drop in US history.
After his inauguration, Harding quickly moved to cut domestic taxes and raised tariffs to records heights. This was an economic policy which most of the founding fathers would certainly have approved. His second year in office, he took ill in a train trip in the West and suddenly died of food poisoning. When Coolidge took over, he continued Harding’s domestic policy of high tariffs on imports while cutting income taxes. As a result, the economy grew at such a rate that net revenue still increased. That had to be stopped. Just like what they had done before, the money lenders decided that it was time to crash the American economy. The Federal Reserve began flooding the country with money and increased the money supply by 62% during these years.
Before his death in 1920, former president Teddy Roosevelt warned the American people (as reported in the New York Times) what was going on:
“These international bankers and Rockefeller Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers to club into submission or drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.”
Just one day before the New York Times on March 26, 1922 the mayor of New York, John Hylan quoted Roosevelt and blasted those he saw as taking control of America its political machinery and its press:
“The warning of T. Roosevelt has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state, and nation… It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive offices, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers and every agency created for the public protection… let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interest and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the US government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use leading men of private organizations… These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspaper and magazines in this country.”
There was a dark side to this prosperity. Business expanded based on credit. Speculation in the stock market became rampant. Although everything looked rosy, it was a castle made of sand. When everything was ready, in April 1929, the father of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Warburg, sent out a secret advisory warning his friends that a collapse and nationwide depression was certain.
In August 1929, the Fed began to tighten money. It is not a coincidence that the biography of all Wall Street giants of that era, John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Bernard Baruch etc. all marveled that they got out of the stock market just before the crash and put all of their assets in cash or gold.
On October 24, 1929, the big New York bankers called in their 24 hour broker call loans. This meant that both the stock brokers and customers had to dump their stocks on the market to cover their loans no matter what price they had to sell them for. As a result, the market tumbled. That day was known as Black Thursday. Congressman Louis McFadden, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee from 1920 to 1931 knew who to blame. He accused the Federal Reserve and the international bankers of orchestrating the crash:
“It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived event… The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so they might emerge as rulers of us all…”
McFadden went further. He accused them of orchestrating the crash in order to steal America’s gold. In February 1931, in the midst of the depression, he put it this way:
“I think it can hardly be disputed that the statesmen and financiers of Europe are ready to take almost any means to reacquire rapidly the gold stock which Europe lost to America as the result of World War I.”
Curtis Dall, son-in-law of Franklin D. Roosevelt stated:
“Actually, it was calculated ‘shearing’ of the public by the World-Money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York Money Market”
Although the American public have never heard that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the cause of The Great Depression, it was well known among top economists. Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize economist said in a public radio interview in 1996:
“The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by 1/3 from 1929 to 1933.”
The money lost by American during the Great Depression did not just vanish, it was simply redistributed into fewer and fewer hands (Rockefellers, JP Morgan etc.) of those who had just gotten out before the crash to purchase gold.
[2:36:50] Now the stage was set for a really big war (World War II). One which would pile up debt far beyond that of World War I. For example, in 1944, the US GDP was only $144 billion, yet $103 billion was spent on the war! This was 30 times the spending rate of World War I! Equally important, every nation involved in World War II greatly multiplied their debts during WWII! Between 1940 to 1950, Japanese debt swelled by 1,348%!!! French debt grew by 583% and Canadian debt soared 417%!!!After WWII, the world was divided into two economic camps: Communist central planning economies on one hand versus monopoly capitalist on the other set to fight it out in one perpetual and highly profitable arms race. It was finally time for the central bankers to embark on their 3-step plan to centralize the economic system of the entire world and finally bring about their global government or new world order. The phases of this plan were:
1. Central bank domination of national economies worldwide;
2. Centralized regional economies: European Monetary Union, NAFTA;
3. Centralize the world economy through a World Central Bank, ending national independence through abolition of all tariffs by treaty such as WTO.
The largest holder of gold among central banks is the IMF. It and central banks control 2/3 of the world’s gold supply giving them the power to manipulate the gold market. Before we start to look at the solution to our economic problems, let us take a look at all that gold in Fort Knox. If we do not understand that all the gold has been stolen, we will allow ourselves to be stampeded into the wrong solution: a gold backed currency.
[2:39:30] Most Americans still believe that the gold is still here at Fort Knox. At the end of WWII, Fort Knox contained over 700,000,000 ounces of gold, an incredible 70% of all the gold in the world. How much remains? No one knows. Despite that Federal laws require an annual physical audit of Fort Knox gold; the Treasury has consistently refused to conduct one. The truth is, a reliable audit of whatever remains here has not been conducted since President Eisenhower ordered one in 1953!!!Where did America’s gold in Fort Knox go?
Over the years, it had been sold off to European bankers at $35 per ounce at during the time which was illegal for any Americans to buy their own gold at Fort Knox. There was an infamous case where the Firestone family set up a string of dummy corporations to purchase gold at Fort Knox and kept it in Switzerland despite never landing on US shores.
[2:40:47] Finally, by 1971, all the pure gold in Fort Knox had been secretly removed from Fort Knox, drained back to London. Once the gold was gone from Fort Knox, President Nixon closed the gold window by repealing Roosevelt’s Gold Reserve Act of 1934, finally making it legal for Americans to buy gold. Naturally, gold prices began immediately to soar, 9 years later in 1980, gold sold for $880 an ounce!One would think that someone in the government would blow the whistle: The largest fortune in world history stolen! It had been 40 years in the making!
[2:42:15] Just how did the story of Fort Knox gold robbery get out? It all started with an article in a New York periodical in 1974. The article charged that the Rockefeller family was manipulating the Federal Reserve to sell off the gold at bargain basement prices an anonymous European speculator. Three days later, the anonymous source of the story, Louise Auchincloss Boyer mysterious fell to her death from the window of her 10-storey apartment in New York. How did Mrs. Boyer know about the Rockefeller connection to the Fort Knox gold heist? She was the long-time secretary of Nelson Rockefeller…When president Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, his conservative friends urged him to study the feasibility of returning to a gold standard to curb government spending. President Reagan then appointed the Gold Commission to study the situation and report back to him and Congress.
The Gold Commission reported the shocking revelation to Congress in 1982: The US Treasury owned no gold at all. All the gold that was left at Fort Knox is now owned by the Federal Reserve, a group of private bankers, as collateral against the national debt. The truth is, never before in history has so much money been stolen from the hands of the public and put into the hands of a small group of investors, the money changers (bankers).
[2:45:50] What is the nature of the World Bank and the IMF? Are they about to create a worldwide depression? After WWI and WWII, people around the world are tired of wars. So, under the guise of peacemaking, the international bankers devised a plan to consolidate power even further. Claiming that only an international government can stem the tide of world wars, the bankers pushed forward a proposal for a world government which stands on three legs: A world central bank to be called the Bank of International Settlements, A world judiciary called International Court of Justice to be located at the Hague, Netherlands, and a world executive legislature called the United Nations. [2:47:00] As President Clinton’s mentor, Georgetown historian Carroll Quigley who has insider knowledge of the international banking cartel, wrote in his 1966 book “Tragedy and Hope”:“The power of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, 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 feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at frequent meeting and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.Each central bank… South to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulative foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country.
The money lenders create a banking cartel composed of the world’s central banks which gradually assumed the power to dictate credit policies to the banks of all nations. In 1944, at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund were formed. For example, just as the Federal Reserve Act authorizes the creation of a national fiat currency, the IMF has been given the authority to issue a world fiat currency, called “Special Drawing Rights (SDR)”. SDRs are partially backed by gold. With 2/3 of world gold in the hands of privately owned central banks, this means the money lenders can go about structuring the economic future in whichever way they deem most profitable.
[2:36:50] Now the world was set for a new war: World War II.———–
[At 27:40 ] Let’s take a look at the role of the ROTHSCHILDS in central banking.
The Rothschilds are Jewish descendants who lived in the ghettos of Frankfurt, Germany since 1450’s.
The patriarch of this family was Mayer Rothschild, a goldsmith who took up the family business of money lending & coin exchange in 1763. He had 5 sons who were stationed throughout Europe in Paris, London, Frankfurt, Vienna & Naples. They all became very successful in banking & finance.
By the mid 1800’s, the Rothschilds dominated all European banking and were the wealthiest family in the world. They financed Cecil Rhodes, making it possible for him to dominate the diamond and gold fields of South Africa. In America, they financed the Harrimans in railway; the Vanderbilts in railways & press; the Carnegie in the steel industry, among many others.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THEIR PREDOMINANCE IN EUROPEAN OR WORLD FINANCE HAS CHANGED
Along with Theodore Herschel, father of Zionism, the Rothschilds founded the State of Israel in 1948, shortly after World War II based on Britain’s Balfour Declaration which promised to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Today, the Rothschilds, along with other banking families such as Rockefellers, Goldman Sachs, Morgans, Warburgs, Lazards, Kuhn & Loebs, Lehmans, Schiffs and Israel Moses Seifs own & control the Federal Reserve, World Bank, IMF, ECB & Bank of International Settlement.
They own shares of all central banks around the world, as well as top 10 shares in Fortune 500 Companies, including private banks.
The headquarter of their banking empire is Bank of England, located in the City of London, an independent district from Greater London, with its own laws & own mayor.
The Rothschilds own media outlets such as Associated Press, Reuters & Economist.
The Rothschilds financed Britain’s Opium War against China and founded Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation to conduct their lucrative business dealings.
In addition to owning central banks, the Rothschilds also own private banks which control the oil industry in the Middle East. Their customers include some of the world’s major oil companies such as BP, (formerly Royal Dutch Shell), Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Texaco & Gulf Oil.
Their private banks, HSBC, BCCI, among many others, also serve as havens for massive evasion, money laundering, narcotics trafficking & weapons trade.
According to Professor Michel Chossudovsky in his book, “War and Globalization”:
[Note: Prof Chossudovsky has been conveniently labeled as a “Conspiracy Theorist” and pro-Russian because he exposed 911 as a pre-text for the invasion of Iraq. Prof Chossudovsky’s father was an intellectual Russian Jew who left the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and became a UN diplomat for his adopted country, Ireland. Prof Chossudovsky was raised in Switzerland, emigrated to Canada and became Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa. He has nothing to do with Russia."...the military planners in the State Department, Pentagon and CIA call the shots on foreign policy. They are in liaison with NATO, IMF, the World Bank, WTO & Council for Foreign Relations."
"In turn, the Washington-based international financial bureaucracy, responsible for imposing deadly 'economic medicine' in the 3rd world and in most countries, maintains a close working relationship with the Wall Street financial establishment."
"The powers behind this system are those of the global banks and financial institutions, the military industrial complex, the oil and energy giants, the biotech and pharmaceutical conglomerates and the powerful media and communication giants, which fabricate news and overtly influence the course of world events by blatantly distorting the facts."[TO BE CONTINUED]
Sources:
1. The Money Masters (money changers or bankers)
(Please download this video free of charge onto your phone by clicking on the downward arrow. This allows you to listen to or view this video at your own leisure).
2. Tragedy and Hope, A History of the World in Our Time
(Prof Carroll Quigley has insider knowledge of the bankers who are responsible for WWI & WWII. This book was written in 1949 but only released after his death in 1981. His disclosures placed him in such potential danger from an Establishment backlash that it was never published in his lifetime).
http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
3. Hidden History, the Secret Origins of the First World War
4. Prolonging the Agony: How the Anglo-American Establishment Deliberately Extended WWI by Three and a Half Years
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34735074-prolonging-the-agony
5. Killing the Planet, How a Financial Cartel Doomed Mankind
6. Gods of Money, Wall Street and the Death of the American Century
7. Big Oil and Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf – Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network
8. A Century of War, Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order
9. Pillaging the World – The History and Politics of the IMF
11. Collusion, How the Central Bankers Rig the World
12. Federal Reserve Cartel
13. The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
14. The Global Economic Crisis – The Great Depression of the 21st Century
Full Spectrum Dominance, Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order
Prolonging the Agony: How The Anglo-American Establishment Deliberately Extended WWI by Three-and-a-Half Years.
The fact that governments lie is generally accepted today, but World War I was the first global conflict in which millions of young men were sacrificed for hidden causes.
They did not die to save civilization; they were killed for profit and in the hopes of establishing a one-world government.
By 1917, America had been thrust into the war by a President who promised to stay out of the conflict. But the real power behind the war consisted of the bankers, the financiers, and the politicians, referred to, in this book, as The Secret Elite.
Scouring government papers on both sides of the Atlantic, memoirs that avoided the censor’s pen, speeches made in Congress and Parliament, major newspapers of the time, and other sources, Prolonging the Agony maintains that the war was deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged and that the gross lies ingrained in modern “histories” still circulate because governments refuse citizens the truth. Featured in this book are shocking accounts of the alleged Belgian “outrages,” the sinking of the Lusitania, the manipulation of votes for Herbert Hoover, Lord Kitchener’s death, and American and British Zionists in cahoots with Rothschild’s manipulated Balfour Declaration.
The proof is here in a fully documented exposed — a real history of the world at war.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34735074-prolonging-the-agony
Then we continue with this pretty decent article…
Are you overwhelmed yet? Yah. It’s a bit too much heaviness for a great fall day. But you all do need to have a grasp that all of human society is indentured to a handful of very wealthy elite that thinks that the status quo can continue on forever. And that they are setting in motion the beginnings of World War III so that China or Russia will not upset that monopoly.
But there is still time…
The following is a complete reprint of the article titled “How to Break the Kneecaps of Wall Street Sociopaths Before It’s too Late: Ferdinand Pecora Revisited” by Matthew Ehret for The Saker Blog. Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com Reprinted as found with minor editing to fit this venue. All credit to the author.
How to Break the Kneecaps of Wall Street Sociopaths Before It’s too Late: Ferdinand Pecora Revisited
By Matthew Ehret for The Saker Blog
It is more than a little depressing to consider the impending systemic meltdown that immanently presses upon our current world. Since the 1971 floating of the U.S. dollar, a once proud and productive western industrial economic system has been increasingly asset stripped…
… into a cult of post industrialism which has wrecked moral and economic havoc upon the world.
If America and the western order is to somehow find its moral fitness to survive and if a world war is to be avoided in the coming near-term future, then certain fundamental banking reforms will be needed.
Among the most important of these reforms will be a breaking up of banking activities into two categories under a renewal of the Glass-Steagall bank reform which was repealed by Bill Clinton in 1999.
These two categories would include:
1) speculative trash and illegitimate usury which must be “deleted” under a debt jubilee and
2) legitimate savings and other useful commercial banking activities tied to “real” values without which society couldn’t sustain itself.
Many readers might immediately scoff at my words, and assert that such a reform were impossible at this late stage of rot and corruption in western society but I would retort with the question: If this were so impossible, then how was it done already at a similar time of crisis only 87 years ago under similar circumstances of economic breakdown, fascism and world war? How have other national resistance movements blocked this sort of misanthropic agenda from succeeding in the past?
In this case, I speak of course of the forgotten Pecora Commission and an often-forgotten war on Wall Street which changed the course of human history.
What was the Pecora Commission?
Many are aware of the economic meltdown of October 24, 1929 that ushered in four years of depression onto America (and much of the western world).
However not many people are aware of the intense fight that was launched by patriots in both parties against the Wall Street/deep state parasite of that age…
… which prevented both a fascist coup against the newly elected Franklin Roosevelt…
… while also crippling Wall Street’s command of American life.
In spite of whitewashing revisionist history books that contaminated the past 70 years, America’s recovery from the depression never occurred without a life or death struggle and this struggle was made possible, in large measure by the courageous work of an Italian lawyer from New York. This man’s name was Ferdinand Pecora.
By 1932, when Senators Peter Norbeck (R-SD) and George Norris (R-NB) spearheaded the establishment of the U.S. Committee on Banking and Currency…
… the American economy was on life support and the people were so desperate that a fascist dictatorship in America would have been welcomed with open arms if only bread could be put on the table.
Unemployment had reached 25%, while over 40% of banks had gone bankrupt and 25% of the population had lost their savings.
Thousands of tent cities called ‘Hoovervilles’ were spread across the USA and over 50% of America’s industrial capacity had shut down.
Thousands of farms had been foreclosed and the engines of American industry had grinded to a screeching halt.
Across the ocean, the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy and Spain were growing more powerful by the day fed by injections of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital by London and Wall Street bankers.
Notable among these pro-fascist financiers was none other than Bush family patriarch Prescott, who provided millions in loans to Hitler’s bankrupt Nazi party in 1932 (and continued doing business with the party through 1942- having only stopped after being found guilty for “trading with the enemy”).
The Committee on Banking and Currency was a relatively impotent body when it began in 1932, but when Senator Norbeck called in Ferdinand Pecora to lead it in April 1932, everything began to change.
A first generation Italian-American, Pecora was forced to quit high school after his father was injured in order to support his family.
Years later, the young man found work as a clerk in a law firm, and managed to work his way through law school, passing the bar in 1911.
His unimpeachable reputation earned him the animosity of powerful NY financiers who ensured that his successes in prosecuting brokers never resulted in attaining Attorney General…
… where he made a name for himself shutting down over 100 illegal brokerage houses that speculated on fraudulent securities during the depression.
Within days of accepting the Washington job as Chief Council of Norbeck’s committee (for the meager salary of $250/month), Pecora was granted broad subpoena powers to audit banks and drag the most powerful men in America to testify in the committee’s hearings.
In his first two weeks, Pecora made headlines by auditing the books of major Wall Street banks and pulled in pro-fascist National City President Charles Mitchell (then preparing to advise Benito Mussolini) to testify.
Within days, Mitchell’s team of expensive defense attorneys could do nothing but watch in despair as the powerful financier admitted to short selling his own bank’s stocks during the depression…
… scamming depositors with purchases of Cuban junk debt…
… and avoiding taxes for years.
Mitchell was forced to resign in shame followed days later by NY Stock Exchange Chair Dick Whitney- who left the court in handcuffs.
This crackdown on Wall Street’s abuses were highly publicized and put the spotlight on the criminal schemes used to gamble with savings and commercial bank deposits on securities and futures markets which led to the orchestrated collapse of the bubble economy in 1929 (ironically much of the bubble built up during the “easy-money days” of the “roaring 20s” was centered in the housing market).
Pecora’s crackdown also set the tone for the incoming Roosevelt administration.
Unlike the previous 1911 Pujo Commission, which also exposed Wall Street’s abuses of power, the Pecora Commission was supported by a President who actually cared about the Constitution and amplified Pecora’s powers even further.
When FDR was told that supporting Pecora’s exposures of financial crimes would hurt the economy, the President famously responded with “they should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now.” FDR followed up that warning by encouraging the attorney to take on John Pierpont Morgan Jr.
Rather than controlling an American institution as many believed 70 years ago and today, J.P. Morgan Jr. was actually running an operation that had earlier been created in the mid-19th century as part of a British infiltration of America. As historian John Hoefle pointed out in a 2009 EIR study:
“The House of Morgan was, in truth, a British operation from its inception. It began life as George Peabody & Co., a bank founded in London in 1851 by American George Peabody. A few years later, another American, Junius S. Morgan, joined the firm, and upon Peabody’s death the firm became J.S. Morgan & Co. Junius Morgan brought in his son, J. Pierpont Morgan, to head the New York office of J.S. Morgan, and the New York office became J.P. Morgan & Co. From its original role in helping the British gain control of American railroads, the Morgan bank became a leading force in the oligarchy’s war against the American System, using the deep pockets of its imperial masters to become a powerhouse in not only finance but steel, automobiles, railroads, electricity generation, and other industries.”
By 1933, the House of Morgan grew into a multi-headed hydra controlling utilities, holding companies, banks and countless other subsidiaries.
Senator George Norris showcasing a chart of Wall Street power
When J.P. Morgan jr. was called to testify, the banker carried a midget on his lap in mockery of the “circus of the commission”.
As the questions began however, the arrogant banker was caught off guard by Pecora’s proof of Morgan’s secret “preferred clients lists” of politicians whom the banker owned and who received stock offerings at discount rates.
Named among the thousands of traitors on this list, Pecora revealed former president Calvin Coolidge, Coolidge’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (a Schacht-Hitler supporter from the start), financier Bernard Baruch, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and Democratic Party controller John Jacob Raskob.
Raskob was not only a major speculator but was also the leader of the American Liberty League which tried repeatedly to overthrow FDR between 1933-1939 and worked to ally America with axis powers from 1939-1941.
Morgan’s god-like ego was brought down to the level of mortals when the flustered banker was only able to answer “I can’t remember” repeatedly when asked if he had paid taxes over the past 5 years.
As it turned out, by the end of the trial, it was revealed that NONE of the subsidiaries of the House of Morgan paid any taxes during the entire period of the depression, and were caught gambling with depositors assets from commercial accounts.
These revelations didn’t sit well with a population dying of starvation across the streets of America.
Similar displays of corruption were made of the heads of Kohn Loeb, Chase Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman and others.
Faced with these revelations, The Nation magazine famously reported
“If you steel $25, you’re a thief. If you steal $250 000, you’re an embezzler. If you steal $2.5 million, you’re a financier.”
Pecora’s ally Sen. Burton Wheeler said
“the best way to restore confidence in our banks is to take these crooked presidents out of the banks and treat them the same as we treated Al Capone.”
FDR Drains the Swamp
With the light cast firmly upon the dark shadows where vile creatures like J.P. Morgan and other financial gremlins reside, the population was finally able to start making sense of what injustices befell them during the years of post-1929 despair.
While not every banker went to prison as Wheeler or Pecora would have liked, examples were made of dozens who did and many more whose careers were shamefully ended.
Most importantly however, this exposure gave Franklin Roosevelt the support needed to drain the swamp and impose sweeping reforms upon the banks.
In the first hundred days, FDR was able to:
1) Impose Glass-Steagall banking separation (forcing Wall Street banks to break up their functions and preventing speculators from gambling with productive assets)
2) Create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that protected citizens’ savings from future crises
3) Create the Securities Exchange Commission to provide oversight to Wall Street’s activities and on whose body Pecora was appointed commissioner in 1934.
4) Unleash broad credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which acted as a national bank bypassing the private Federal Reserve, channeling $33 billion to the real economy by 1945 (more than all private commercial banks combined)
5) Impose protective tariffs on agriculture, metals and industrial goods to stop dumping of cheap products in America and rebuild America’s physical economy
6) Create vast public works, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Grand Coulee dams, Hoover dams, St Laurence development and countless other projects, hospitals, schools, bridges, roads and rail under the New Deal that acted in many ways then as China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in our modern age. Unfortunately, Roosevelt died before this new form of political economy could be internationalized abroad in the post-war years as an anti-colonial program.
A beautiful outline of FDR’s struggle is showcased in the 2008 film ‘1932: Speak not of Parties but of Universal Principles’.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=V–oozjFwo4%3Ffeature%3Doembed
Subverting a Fascist Coup Then and Now
Ferdinand Pecora’s Commission shaped the dynamics of America so intensely by its simple power of speaking the truth, that efforts to run a fascist coup against FDR using a general named Smedley Butler also came undone before it could succeed.
Butler played along with Wall Street’s plans for some months before deciding to publicly blow the whistle in congress.
Butler exposed the intension to use him as a “puppet dictator” leading thousands of American legionnaires in a storming of the White House displacing FDR.
It is often forgotten today, but in the early days of the 1920s-1930s, the Legion was modeled on Mussolini’s fascist squadristi and even its leader Alvin Owsley made explicit in 1921 saying:
“If need be the American Legion is ready to protect the institutions of this country and its ideals, in the same way as the Fascists have treated the destructive forces threatening Italy. Don’t forget that the Fascists are for today’s Italy what the American Legion is for the United States.”
Butler’s startling revelations amplified FDR’s popular support and inoculated much of the population from the fake news pouring out of Wall Street propaganda agencies spread across the media.
In 1939, Pecora wrote a book called ‘Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of our Modern Money Changers’ where the attorney prophetically said:
“Under the surface of the governmental regulation of the securities market, the same forces that produced the riotous speculative excesses of the ‘wild bull market’ of 1929 still give evidence of their existence and influence. Though repressed for the present, it cannot be doubted that, given a suitable opportunity, they would spring back to their pernicious activity.”
Pecora went onto deliver one more warning which current generations should take seriously
“Had there been full disclosure of what has been done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the bankers’ stoutest allies.”
Today’s oncoming economic meltdown can only be prevented if the lessons of 1933 are taken seriously and patriots who actually care about their nations and people stop legitimizing the casino economy of fictitious capital, derivatives, debt slavery and anti-humanism that has become so commonplace across the governing strata of the technocratic and banking elite today trying to control the world.
This elite, just like the financiers of the 1920s, doesn’t care ultimately for money as an end but sees it merely as a means for imposing fascist forms of governance onto the world population.
In the same way that FDR’s Wall Street/London enemies sought a world government under Nazi enforcers then, today’s heirs to that anti-human legacy are driven by a religious-like commitment to “manage” a new collapse of world civilization under a Green New Deal and World Government.
So why accept that dystopic future when a brighter one is offered us by the Multipolar alliance today led by Russia and China?
We all have a choice
And that choice is simple.
We can continue on the path where all your labors are converted into physical paper. Where that paper is owned by a handful of people. And they rent that paper out to you, and utilize all sorts of systems that control how you use that paper, and how that paper works.
Or…
You can embrace a completely different system. One where there just isn’t any paper, and no one is in control of that paper. It’s a modern version of hard cold gold. You work, and you get a digital equivalent of gold.
Obviously the people who control that paper do not like the idea of others leaving their long-standing monopoly. And they are willing to institute a complete nuclear armageddon to make sure that they retain their role.
Interesting times are coming.
But I, for one remain hopeful.
And why am I hopeful?
Well, it’s a sense of community, worth and value. It’s a place and a situation where you are no longer controlled by individual forces sitting behind wood lined offices in remote skyscrapers in far away cities. Instead, where you live in a place where everyone has value and worth and contributes to the greater good.
And to get there…
…America needs two things…
[1] A civil war [2] A conflict that will defang the “arsenal of the money changers”.Which brings up where we are in all of this. When is this all going to happen? Is it just yet another promise [1] that “someday” things are going to change, or [2] prepare for the worst because the end of the world is coming
Which is what I have been saying all along.
People! You are all in the middle of this period of change. You are smack down right in the middle of it all. The globe is changing it’s monetary policy. One side does not like it, and are fighting tooth and nail to destroy everything around them. (Let’s not get side traced in all the roles of the various players in this), and the other side (mostly Asia) is plowing forward with the implementation of a new way of doing things.
So relax.
Change is happening.
Oh, and just in case you don’t believe me, there’s this…
Article is titled “Billionaire investor Ray Dalio on capitalism’s crisis: The world is going to change ‘in shocking ways’ in the next five years“. Reposted in full with minor editing to fit this venue. All credit to the authors.
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio on capitalism’s crisis: The world is going to change ‘in shocking ways’ in the next five years
Veteran hedge-fund manager says capitalists don’t divide the economic pie well, so the system isn’t working effectively for all
Ray Dalio certainly is no radical idealist, but in his frequent writings and media appearances the veteran investor consistently calls for Americans to rewrite their longstanding contract with capitalism so that it is fairer and more generous to more people.
Which is pretty much the entire point of this post. - Metallicman
Otherwise, he predicts, life in the U.S. could become more difficult: mountainous debt that stunts economic growth; fewer opportunities for ordinary citizens to get ahead financially; and a worldwide lack of trust in the U.S. dollar that diminishes Americans’ purchasing power and could lower their standard of living.
Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge-fund firm, which has made him a billionaire. So it’s not surprising that he champions capitalism as a proven way to expand economic growth and living standards.
“Capitalism and capitalists are good at increasing and producing productivity to increase the size of the economic pie,” he says.
Then Dalio stands this tenet on its head. Capitalists don’t divide the economic pie very well, he says, and so today the capitalist system, the foundation of the U.S. economy, is not working efficiently and effectively enough for all.
“Capitalism also produces large wealth gaps that produce opportunity gaps, which threaten the system,” Dalio says — a system that has been and still is key to the health and success of U.S. business, workers, government and investors alike.
Unless the U.S. takes steps to make systemic repairs designed to provide greater opportunity for more Americans to achieve personal growth and financial security, the consequences likely will be painful for the country, as Dalio explains in this recent telephone interview, which has been edited for length and clarity:
MarketWatch: You have written and spoken about three big domestic and international problems facing the U.S. over the next five to 10 years and how a failure to address these challenges could threaten America’s standing in the world. What are these three pressing problems?
Ray Dalio: I look at it mechanically, like a doctor looking at a disease. If asked what is the issue here, I would say that it is a certain type of disease that has certain patterns which are timeless and universal, and the United States is broadly following that progression.
There are three problems that are coming together, so it’s important to understand them individually and how they collectively make a bigger problem.
There is a money and credit cycle problem, a wealth and values gap problem, and an emerging great power challenging the existing dominant power problem. What’s going on is an economic downturn together with a large wealth gap and the rising power of China challenging the existing power of the United States.
It’s a fact that there has been a weakening of the competitive advantages of the United States over the last couple of decades. For example, the United States lost a lot of the education advantage relative to other countries, our share of world GDP is reduced, the wealth gap has increased which has contributed to our political and social polarization.
But we haven’t lost all of our competitive advantages. For example in innovation and technology, the United States is still the strongest, but China is coming on very strong and at existing rates will surpass the United States. Militarily, the U.S. is stronger but China also has come on very strong and is probably stronger in the waters close to China that include Taiwan and other disputed areas. Finances for both countries are challenging, but for the U.S. more so. The U.S. is in the late stages of a debt cycle and money cycle in which we’re producing a lot of debt and printing a lot of money. That’s a problem. As a reserve currency status, the U.S. dollar DXY, -0.17% is still dominant though its being threatened by its central bank printing of money and increasing the debt production problem.
‘The United States is a 75-year-old empire and it is exhibiting signs of decline.’
MarketWatch: Focusing on the money and credit problem, excessive debt can be a killer for businesses and families, but most people don’t seem to recognize that debt plays havoc with their country’s finances as well. Government runs the money printing press, which buys time, but eventually something’s got to give.
Dalio: If you look at the history — for example, the Dutch Empire, the British Empire — both experienced the creation of debt and the printing of money, less educational advantages, greater internal wealth conflict, greater challenges from rival countries. Every country has stress tests. If you look at British history, the development of rival countries led them to lose their competitive advantages. Their finances were bad because they had accumulated a lot of debt. So, after World War II those trends went against them. Then they had the Suez Canal incident and they were no longer a world power and the British pound is no longer a reserve currency. These diseases almost always play out the same way.
The United States’ relative position in the world, which was dominant in almost all these categories at the beginning of this world order in 1945, has declined and is exhibiting real signs that should raise worries. There’s a lot of baggage. The U.S. has a lot of debt, which is adding to the hurdles that typically drag an economy down, so in order to succeed, you have to do a pretty big debt restructuring. History shows what kind of a challenge that is.
I just want to present understanding and facts. There’s a life cycle. You’re born and you die. As you get older you can see certain things that are symptoms of being later on in life. To know the life cycle and to know that these symptoms are emerging is what I’m trying to convey. The United States is a 75-year-old empire and it is exhibiting signs of decline. If you want to extend your life, there are clear things you can do, but it means doing things that you don’t want to do.
‘Wealth cannot be created by creating debt and money.’
MarketWatch: Let’s put it bluntly: Is capitalism broken?
Dalio: I wouldn’t say broken as much as I’d say it has problems that have to be fixed. As I said, I’m not ideological, I’m mechanical. I look at everything operationally like a machine and what has been shown is that capitalism is a fabulous way of creating incentives and innovation and of allocating resources to create productivity. All successful countries have uses for it. For example, communist China has chosen capitalism, which has been essential to its growth.
But capitalism also produces large wealth gaps that produce opportunity gaps, which threaten the system in the ways we are seeing now. Wealth gaps give unfair advantages to the children of rich people because they get a better education, which undermines the equal opportunity notion. As the number of people who get equal opportunity diminishes, this reduces the possibility of finding talented people in that population, which isn’t fair and undermines productivity. Then the have-nots want to tear down the capitalist system at a time of bad economic conditions. That dynamic has always existed in history and it’s happening now.
The capitalist system is based on profit-seeking being the resource allocation system, which generally works well but doesn’t always. So, capitalism and capitalists are good at increasing and producing productivity to increase the size of the economic pie, but they’re not good at dividing the economic opportunity pie. Socialists are generally not good at increasing productivity and the size of the economic opportunity pie, but they are better at dividing the pie.
We now have too much emphasis on distributing wealth and getting it from producing debt and printing money, and not enough from increasing productivity. Wealth cannot be created by creating debt and money. We have to be productive together, so we have to look at the good investments that we can make together that make total sense, like in education, and create equal opportunity in order to be productive.
We have to be in this together. The system needs to be reengineered to do this. But if we don’t do this engineering well, we’re going to spend in an unlimited way and deal with that by creating debt that won’t ever be paid back, and we will risk losing the reserve currency status of the dollar. If we get into that position — and we’re very close — things will get much worse because we are living on borrowed money that’s financing our consumption.
‘Within the next five years you could see a situation in which foreigners who have been lending money to the United States won’t want to.’
MarketWatch: About the dollar being threatened as the world’s reserve currency — what does “close” mean, and what would the decline of this status mean for Americans?
Dalio: Within the next five years you could see a situation in which foreigners who have been lending money to the United States won’t want to, and the dollar would not be as readily accepted for making purchases in the world as it is now.
We have to realize that we’re spending more than we’re earning. Every individual, every company and every country has an income statement and a balance sheet. The income statement is how much is your earnings are relative to your expenses. If your earnings are greater than your expenses, great, you will increase your balance sheet. If your earnings are less than your expenses, then you have to draw on your balance sheet.
The United States doesn’t have a good income statement and balance sheet in dealing with the rest of the world. It is running a deficit to the rest of the world that is financed by borrowing money so that we are producing liabilities. Our living standards are based on our spending, not on our income statement or balance sheet. If the U.S. loses that ability and it doesn’t force itself to be more productive, one day it will lose that ability to borrow and then will have to cut spending, which is painful.
When that pain happens at a time when you have the population at each other’s throats over money, that’s a toxic combination. People can’t take a downturn and have less buying power. So, necessarily the poor will have to be getting money from the rich and the rich are going to want to prevent that, and then if it gets bad enough, that it messes up productivity.
Read: The Fed is ‘fighting the last battle,’ and here are the risks to its new strategy
Also read: This new ETF is made for “black-swan” moments like now
‘When the causes people are fighting for are more important to them than the system that binds them together, the system is in jeopardy.’
MarketWatch: What steps do politicians and business leaders need to take now to create and implement reforms that will fortify the U.S. balance sheet and the dollar’s status?
Dalio: In brief, productivity and equal opportunity are most needed. If we could at least agree that we must have these things, that would be great. What we have now is a situation in which we’re fighting each other, we are not providing equal opportunity, and we are losing our productivity gains.
One of the greatest problems is that everybody’s fighting for their cause. When the causes people are fighting for are more important to them than the system that binds them together, the system is in jeopardy. This seems to now be happening. Everybody has their cause and they’re almost losing sight of the overall picture. Democracy depends on compromise. It’s the notion of compromise and working together and being able to have a negotiation to get what the most people want rather than have one side beat the other.
You really have to take the relative parties and make them agree on what’s going to be best. The group has got to be bipartisan and they have to be knowledgeable. Bring together parties of opposing ideologies who are also knowledgeable, not just smart but who are on the ground, to come up with a plan together that all can support so that we’re productive, increasing the size of the pie and dividing it well. It would be great if whoever the president is could draw upon people from both parties and different perspectives.
MarketWatch: As Americans prepare for a presidential election in November, the three major problems you mentioned earlier would seem to be important factors for voters to consider.
Dalio: Yes. The world is going to change in the next five years in shocking ways in relation to the three big issues we have been talking about.
First, there’s a debt-money cycle — what is the value of money? What will happen to the debt? Will the dollar retain its value? The finances of this — who is going to pay for it? How? What will work? That’s number one.
Second, the wealth, opportunity and values gaps will have to be dealt with. Are we going to be at each other’s throats in a way that is harmful or are we going to be working together even if things get worse?
Third is the rising of a great power in China to challenge the existing power of the United States. Will this be well handled?
We will be dealing with these issues in the next presidential term, which will have a huge effect on our outcomes. The last time those three things existed as they do now was the 1930 to 1945 period. That’s the last time you had zero interest rates and money printing. That’s the last time you had the wealth and political gaps as large as they are today, and it was the last time you had rising powers challenging the existing world order. This and many analogous times before it help to give us perspective.
‘Worry as much about the value of your money as you worry about the value of your investments.’
MarketWatch: These and other domestic and international challenges will clearly affect Americans financially. What would be a smart, proactive strategy for investors to both protect a portfolio and take advantage of market opportunities?
Dalio: First, worry as much about the value of your money as you worry about the value of your investments. The printing of money and the debt should make you aware of that. That’s why financial asset prices have gone up — stocks, gold — because of the debt and money creation. You don’t want to own the thing you think is safest — cash.
Second, know how to diversify well. That includes diversification of countries, currencies and assets, because wealth is not so much destroyed as it shifts. When something goes down, something else is going up so you have to look at all things on a relative basis. Diversify well and worry about the value of cash.
Americans look at the value of everything in U.S. dollars, but they don’t look at the value of the dollar. You’re in an environment where you have to be cautious about that, because the easiest way out for government is to do what the U.S. just did, which is to borrow and print a lot of money. They don’t have to get it from anyone, because when they raise taxes they have to get it from somebody and that somebody squawks. The population doesn’t pay much attention to the debt and the printing of money. They all appreciate the giving of money. So you hear the population say, “I need more money,” and get angry if they don’t get it. So you’ve got to give them more money, and it’s easier not to take it away from someone else.
The following is a completed reprint from The Organic Prepper titled “Open letter to the stressed out preppers” by Daisy Luther. Reprinted as found and modified (minor editing) to fit this venue. All credit to the author.
A Personal Letter to Stressed Out Preppers Who Are TIRED of This Apocalypse
Dear Friends:
2020 has certainly been quite a year so far, and a defining one for the preparedness movement. No longer are our stockpiles of rice, beans, and hand sanitizer objects that make us strange. Our stashes of TP would make us the envy of the neighborhood if, of course, anybody knew we had it.
So many of the things and beliefs that made us figures of mockery in the past are now proving their value. We’re learning, with a mixture of relief and perhaps dismay, that we weren’t so crazy after all.
When the first lockdown began, we weren’t out there emptying the shelves in the frenzied throng (even though we’re the ones who got blamed for it.) We were watchful but for the most part, comfortable with our preparations. We understood before things went sideways that extended events can result in civil unrest, crime sprees, and chaos. We realized that we could be facing shortages.
And then time went on.
And on.
And on.
This has been a year in which so many things have occurred that proved preppers have things right that it’s positively exhausting. We’ve had a pandemic, civil unrest, food shortages, increases in crime, exorbitant unemployment, and we’re facing an economic collapse, or at the very least, an economic crisis.
And we’re tired.
Maybe everyone doesn’t feel this way. Maybe you’re perfectly fine and you live on your back 40 and have been completely untouched by any of the above-mentioned crises. Maybe your finances are just fine, you never got out much anyway, and you’ve still got 8 years’ worth of food socked away to supplement the things you grow. Maybe you’re reading this as you spin goat hair into yarn from which you’ll make this year’s mittens. Maybe you have no relatives, friends, or loved ones in the path of danger. Maybe your area isn’t prone to a single natural disaster.
If this is the case, I salute you. I really do. Good for you.
But for most of us, this is not the case. A lot of us are tired.
And I mean tired.
I’m sure there will be plenty of folks in the comments who say, “Daisy Luther is such a whiner” but whatever. I’m just going to come right out and tell you how I feel about this.
This year has been difficult.
My life changed completely. The lives of people I love changed completely. I lost some people I cared for deeply to the virus. I watched people in my family frolic around blithely ignoring the virus for which they’re in a peak risk group for death. I watched my country get torn asunder by everything from the pandemic response to racial injustice to perceived insults or losses of rights. I have a family member who lives in a riot zone but due to work and finances, can’t just relocate. (Although those folks on the internet always make it sound so damned easy to just quit your job then up and move to the boondocks to raise sheep.)
I have friends who have developed such extreme political views on either side that I don’t even know what to say to them anymore. I still love them. I still know they’re good people or we wouldn’t have been friends in the first place. But what the heck, y’all?
Then we’ve got hurricanes and the worst wildfires ever in history and floods and droughts and snow in September and murder hornets and the Olympics got canceled and there was some radiation leak in Russia and police brutality, which you will say is alleged or real, depending on your personal perspective. Oh yeah, and the US Postal Service has gone to heck, a lot of kids can’t go back to school so they’re surfing the net while they’re supposed to be “distance learning” online, and Netflix is playing a child porn movie to prove that kids are getting sexually exploited.
Our system is going downhill on a greasy slide.
Our presidential candidates are (in my humble opinion) like a choice between your favorite sexually transmitted infection, syphillis or gonhorrhea. And regardless of whether syphilis or gonorrhea wins, all hell’s going to break loose (or break looser because it’s already pretty freakin’ bad in a lot of places) before and after the election that may not even happen the regular way because of the pandemic.
And we preppers who were ready for an emergency are sitting here scratching our heads thinking, “Heck fire, I wasn’t actually prepared for ALL OF THE EMERGENCIES AT ONCE.”
And it’s going on and on and on.
And that’s the other thing.
This stuff is going on and on and on forever. Ad infinitum. We are still in the middle of a global viral outbreak that we don’t completely understand and lots of places are still under major restrictions. A lot of folks don’t have their jobs back and a lot never will. We have been dealing with this particular disaster since at least February and the mental toll of dealing with the restrictions, the loss of income, the isolation, and the loss of freedom has been harsh for many people. There are folks who are just plain mad that they didn’t get the apocalypse they signed up for and they haven’t gotten to shoot any marauders and quite frankly, lockdown is boring as heck.
Lots of us have family members and people in our inner circles who are chomping at the bit to get back to “normal” when things simply are not normal. We’ve got loved ones who want to head out to parties and who want to throw caution to the wind and who flat don’t give a hoot what they bring home to Grandma. We’ve got loved ones who are using this entire scenario to say how we’ve overreacted. We’ve got loved ones who still get aggravated when we bring home more toilet paper.
When we were prepping for all this stuff most of us never expected that our families who were also prepping for this stuff might not be on board with this specific scenario. We never thought we’d have to argue with children and spouses and friends and lovers about things like quarantines and masks and not eating all five years’ worth of the good snacks like Oreos in the first 6 months. We didn’t consider that we might not be able to replace our Bluetooth headsets or that we’d need them for work or that we’d have to have our offices in our homes or that our kids’ teachers (on Zoom) might see their BB guns in their bedrooms and send the SWAT teams after us.
We can’t go to church but we can go to riots.
We aren’t supposed to travel yet mysterious busloads full of “protesters” show up in other states and that’s just hunky-dory. The borders are closed except they’re not really and the restaurants can’t serve you except they can sort of and we can’t go to the beach but we can line up for a vaccine once the promised injection, untested for long-term side effects, is ready.
This is the worst apocalypse ever because it’s so dad-gum boring and it’s going on for-freaking-ever.
That’s the thing that nobody warned us about. This monotony just goes on and on and on. It would be one thing if we were out there fighting for resources but in reality, we’re all just standin’ in line at Wal-Mart with our masks on waiting for our turn to get zapped with a thermometer to see if we are allowed to go inside. If it weren’t for wifi we’d all be crazy by now. Or – let’s be real for a moment – maybe it’s because of wifi so many people are crazy right now.
Social media is a jungle – an outright vicious and bloody jungle – and may the most audacious mofo win because those of us who still retain our human decency are not going to be able to hang with the people out there flinging wild ungrounded insults like poop in the monkey cages at the zoo.
And folks – I hate to say it but we’re still on Round One.
We’re going to be dealing with this bizarre altered reality for quite some time. This virus ain’t over yet or if you don’t believe in the virus, then consider that this government response isn’t over yet.
We’re never “getting back to normal” and we’re going to have to adapt.
We’re going to have to hope our children who are going to school in personal bubbles aren’t going to have OCD and chronic anxiety for the rest of their lives. We’re going to have to learn to make do without all the imports that no longer seem to be populating stores.
We never really expected that a huge part of survival would just be waiting and adapting to the new world around us. Not this new world anyway. This isn’t one we can shoot our way out of or buy our way out of or wait our way out of. We have to adapt to the new economy, the new precautions, and the new suspicions. We have to adapt to a different type of supply chain. We have to move into survival mode as we watch civil unrest and riots break out in the most unlikely places, although it’s not really the survival mode we ever expected. We have to adjust to the nearly constant state of offense and unrest. We’re going to have to teach our children to be bold and fearless despite a system that wants them to be afraid. We’re going to have to forge a path through a labyrinth that is nothing like the one we expected when we began prepping for serious events because this event was so wildly unpredictable that nobody could have seen it happening the way it did.
But this is what we do.
We’re preppers. Preparing for the unexpected is our thing. Even when the unexpected is long-lasting, monotonous, boring, and stifling. Even when our family thinks we’re overreacting. Even when everything changes and things don’t get back to “normal.” Even when we’re just sitting there right on the edge of chaos wondering if today is the day that things will erupt in our neck of the woods.
Every.
Single.
Day.
For.
Months.
The way this unfolded isn’t the disaster any of us expected but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. How well we’re able to handle it will tell us a lot about how mentally prepared we actually are. How we manage our friends, families, and expectations will help us determine how things might go in a future, more Mad-Max variety of apocalypse.
Take this as the learning experience that it is. And don’t be lulled by the boredom into a false sense of security.
Because this is not over. Not by a long shot.
Hang in there, my friends. Whether we have to pull our loved ones along by their collars, whether we have to buy our supplies and stash them away on the sly, whether we have to prepare all on our own, we have to deal with the apocalypse we’ve been given, emotionally and physically.
It’s going to be a long haul, but we’ve got this. I don’t know if you’re feeling the same way that I am, but just in case you are, I wanted you to know – you’re not alone.
Daisy
Conclusion
I’m throwing a bunch of stuff out there at you all. But pay attention please.
- Human society is changing.
- It is a sentience sorting effort.
- Service-for-self people have established long-duration systems known as “banking” to segregate society into a kind of modern serfdom.
- Technology, and other societies (namely Asian) have created alternatives systems to the “banking system” and are going ahead with it’s implementation.
- The service-for-self people are fighting tooth and nail to maintain the status quo.
- They are causing internal dissension, and conflict in the United States.
- They want to start World War III internationally, and have unleashed a global pandemic to that end. (Which pretty much backfired.)
- You are all at the beginning phases of this change.
- It will get worse.
- People will die.
- But, after the dust clears in about ten years, it will be a softer, quieter world.
So be positive and hopeful. The damage will not be uniform, but will be in clusters. As long as you are part of a community that “carry your weight”, be helpful and a Rufus, you will be fine.
The future belongs to the people that make things and contribute to the good of society.
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