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This Financial Mess - Causes and Cures

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Mayer Bauer (Rothschild) and family shared a house with another banking family in Frankfurt, their close friends, the Schiffs.  The Schiffs had three sons and they too all entered the banking field.  Two brothers stayed in Germany and one, Jacob Schiff came to the U.S. to seek fame and fortune.  A full explanation of the Rothschilds would require another 50 pages and will have to wait for another day.  Jacob Schiff will pop up a little later in this story.

The charter for a new central bank, The Second Bank of the United States, was passed in 1816, five years after the first bank expired.  Although an avowed enemy of central banking, President Madison needed a way to stabilize the currency.  Unfortunately, some very bad bankers looted the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank. The branch went into receivership and the whole central banking system was close to bankruptcy. The Second Bank was forced to reduce the number of notes and loans issued to save it from collapse. The monetary contraction was referred to as “The Panic of 1819” and the resultant depression lasted five years.

In 1832, Andrew Jackson, running for a second term, took his campaign on the road talking directly to the American people about the central bank scam. "It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our government. More than 8 Million (shares of) the stock of this bank are held by foreigners... Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bond it to our country? Controlling our currencies, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence ... would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy. If government would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does it's rains, shower it's favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles." – President Andrew Jackson.  The foreign banker controlling the Second Bank of the United States was Baron James de Rothschild of Paris. 

Old Hickory’s campaign slogan was short and to the point: "JACKSON and NO BANK!"  In 1832, Jackson ordered the withdrawal of government deposits from the Second Bank and vetoed its early re-chartering.  Banker Henry Clews, in his book, Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street (1888), wrote that not only did President Jackson withdraw government funds from the Second Bank of the United States, but he deposited these funds, about $10 million, into state banks. The result was that the country began to enjoy great prosperity. This sudden flow of cash caused an immediate expansion of the national economy, and the government paid off the entire national debt.  Jackson told the central bankers: “Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out!”  Does this remind you of our current financial situation – except, of course, for the words and deeds of our president?
The president of the Second Bank, Nicholas Biddle, was quite candid about the power and intention of the bank when he openly threatened to cause a depression if the bank was not re-chartered.  "This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned judges, he is to have his way with the bank. He is mistaken." -  "Nothing but widespread suffering will produce any effect on Congress... Our only safety is in pursuing a steady course of firm restriction - and I have no doubt that such a course will ultimately lead to restoration of the currency and the re-charter of the bank." - Nicholas Biddle 1836.  That’s right.  By calling in existing loans and refusing to issue new loans a monetary collapse ensued and then a massive depression with bankruptcies, foreclosures, and rampant unemployment.  Of course, Biddle blamed everything on Jackson.  Congress, in what was called the “Panic” session, officially “censured” Jackson.  However, Biddle, boasting in public about creating the depression, had been overheard by reporters.  Soon the tide of public opinion turned.  Jackson was reelected and, in 1836 when its charter ran out, the Second Bank ceased to function. 

 Henry Clews wrote in Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street, "The Panic of 1837 was aggravated by the Bank of England when it in one day threw out all the paper connected with the United States.”  The Bank of England is of course, Nathan Mayer Rothschild. Why did he "throw out" all paper connected with the United States, that is, refuse to accept any securities, bonds or other financial paper based in the United States?   Acting in concert with his American agent, Biddle, he wanted to create a contraction of credit to depress the U.S. economy and force the continuation of “his family’s” Second Bank of the United States.  The House of Representatives tried to investigate the cause of the depression and subpoenaed Nicholas Biddle. Biddle stonewalled them, denied them information concerning bribe money given to congressmen prior to the re-charter vote, and refused to testify before the committee.  Biddle died shortly thereafter, taking his secrets to the grave. On January 8, 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only president to do so.

"If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system - there would be a revolution before morning..." Andrew Jackson.  When asked what he felt was the greatest achievement of his career Jackson replied, "I killed the bank!"  If Jackson were alive today and knew his face was prominently displayed on our current central bank’s $20 Federal Reserve Note, he would no doubt say, “Hey, I’m alive!  Let me out of this box!” (Sorry)   

The Civil War

According to one conspiracy theorist, "The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world." - Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany – 1876.  “Propaganda pushed the issue of slavery to the fore but the actual purpose behind the war...was to drive both sides to accept the same money system Rothschild had fastened on England and the bleed the vast productivity of the whole American People.” -  William G. Simpson, “Which Way Western Man.”  

At the onset of the Civil War, Lincoln, realizing he needed money to finance the war, went with his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, to New York City.  There, the patriotic bankers offered loans at 24% to 36% interest per year. Lincoln politely declined their generous offer and decided instead to have the treasury create its own money (as authorized by the Constitution.)  The U.S. Treasury printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back (hence, “greenbacks.”)  "The government should create issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power." - Abraham Lincoln.  This solution worked so well Lincoln was seriously considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy.  This would have been great for everyone except the international bankers. They wasted no time in expressing their view in the London Times.  "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." - Hazard Circular - London Times 1865.  Hey, that doesn’t sound too bad to me.  Could it be that these international bankers have a slightly different agenda than you and me?   


“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not reveal it.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, economist.  "The few who can understand the system will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." - John Sherman, from a letter sent in 1863 to New York Bankers, Morton, and Gould, in support of the then proposed National Banking Act.  John Sherman was right.  For the last one hundred and forty-five years, we’ve been so stupid that we couldn’t figure out that this system was set up against us to benefit a few wealthy bankers.  He’s literally laughing at us from the grave.  If I were this guy, I’d have that line on my tombstone so that everyone walking by would know I was smarter than them.  Remember, the monetary system he was writing about in 1863 is almost exactly the same as what we have right now. 

Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, later regretted his involvement in the National Banking Act: “My agency in promoting the passage of the National Banking Act was the greatest financial mistake in my life.  It has built up a monopoly which affects every interest in the country.”  It still does to this day.  "The Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." -Abraham Lincoln, - In a letter written to William Elkin just after the passage of the National Banking Act of 1863. Shortly before he was assassinated, Lincoln made the following statement: "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarch, more insolent than autocracy and more selfish than a bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at the rear is my greatest foe." – Abraham Lincoln.  “It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.” As it did in the 1860’s, so it does today. 

Lincoln had plans to reverse the National Bank Act after the election.  Unfortunately, on April 14th, 41 days after his reelection and five days after Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s theater.  Many people believe that John Wilkes Booth was an agent of Nathan Rothschild, who did not want the U.S. Treasury to print its own money.  Allegations that international bankers were responsible for President Lincoln's assassination have been rampant since that day.  In 1934, in the Canadian House of Commons, Member of Parliament, Gerald G. McGeer, stated he had obtained evidence deleted from the public record that showed John Wilkes Booth was a mercenary working for the international bankers.  From his speech as reported in the Vancouver Sun, May 2, 1934:  "Abraham Lincoln, the murdered emancipator of the slaves, was assassinated through the machinations of a group representative of the International Bankers, who feared the United States President's National Credit ambitions.  There was only one group in the world at that time who had any reason to desire the death of Lincoln. They were the men opposed to his national currency program and who had fought him throughout the whole Civil War on his policy of Greenback currency." 

Gerald G. McGeer also stated that Lincoln's assassination was not solely because the International Bankers wanted to re-establish a central bank in America, but also because they wanted to base America's currency on gold, which they controlled.  They wanted to put America’s currency on a Gold Standard and this was in direct opposition to President Lincoln's policy of issuing Greenbacks, based solely on the good faith and credit of the United States.  Gerald G. McGeer states, "They were the men interested in the establishment of the Gold Standard and the right of the bankers to manage the currency and credit of every nation in the world.  With Lincoln out of the way, they were able to proceed with that plan and did proceed with it in the United States.  Within 8 years after Lincoln's assassination, silver was demonetized and the Gold Standard system set up in the United States."  "Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution." - W. Cleon Skousen

On April 12, 1866, Congress passed the Contraction Act, making the treasury retire most of Lincoln's greenbacks. Using the Contraction Act to lower the amount of money in circulation, it went from $1.8 billion in circulation in 1866, to $1.3 billion in 1867, to $0.6 billion in 1876, to $0.4 billion only ten years later. Most people believe the economists when they tell us that recessions and depressions are part of the natural business cycle, but in truth, the money supply is controlled as it always has been, by a small group of anonymous bankers for their own benefit.  “I know of no severe depression, in any country or any time, that was not accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock of money, and equally of no sharp decline in the stock of money that was not accompanied by a severe depression.” – Milton Friedman, economist.  

By 1872 with the American public feeling the money squeeze, the Bank of England (Rothschild), sent Ernest Seyd to America with about $500,000 to bribe congressmen into demonetizing silver. Ernest drafted the legislation himself, which came into law with the passing of the Coinage Act, effectively stopping the minting of silver that year and, again contracting the money supply.  As Ernest Seyd said, “I went to America in the winter of 1872-73, authorized to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetizing silver.  It was in the interest of those I represented - the governors of the Bank of England - to have it done.  By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money."  In 1875 Lord Acton, Lord Chief Justice of England stated:  “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the People vs. the Banks.”  Within three years of the passage of the Coinage Act, 30% of the work force was unemployed and American people longed for the days of silver backed money and greenbacks.  This period was known as the “Money Famine.” 



This Financial Mess - Causes and Cures



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I really don't understand wy it hasn't att... by Robert Hoogenboom on Monday, Dec 29, 2008 at 3:16:12 AM
that would actually require people to READ and mak... by Tippy Canoe on Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008 at 8:25:29 AM
Insightful, Thoughtful, Meaningful...Thank you; we... by Jim Hocker on Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008 at 2:30:44 AM
This maybe the missing piece of the puzzle.See wha... by MARGARET BASET on Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008 at 6:09:35 AM
I really love the "conspiracy" theories,... by Mike Kirchubel on Wednesday, Dec 31, 2008 at 2:10:39 AM
Coincidence Theory has always fascinated me much m... by William Whitten on Sunday, Jan 4, 2009 at 3:21:38 AM
The fact that the main participants in the Jekyll ... by Mike Kirchubel on Monday, Jan 5, 2009 at 12:43:24 AM