The basis of the current mortgage problem destroying the value of our homes, economy, businesses, and currency, is that the Federal Reserve and Congress worked together to provide easy credit at artificially low rates. This made everything economic look great in the short run, and thus made them look good--and got many of them re-elected and praised (consider the acclaim for Alan Greenspan). But when adjustable rates were brought into compliance with inflation (a result of the devaluation of the currency), the aggressive borrowers could no longer make their payments. When they tried to sell their homes and business to pay back the loans, they couldn't do that either because the market was flooded with sellers. In addition, the Fed tightened up on credit, making new loans difficult to acquire. This drove down values even further, and it meant that the equity protection for the bundled real estate bought and traded by Wall Street investment bankers and insurance companies evaporated, turning billions in supposed assets into worthless paper.
Then to make matters worse, the financial scheme under which the private and secretive Federal Reserve operates encourages banks to make loans at ten times greater than their cash deposits. So when their is a problem an increase in the money supply won't fix (a process that simply devalues the currency and makes central bankers rich), the banks fail. There not only isn't any cash available to return depositor's funds, the banker's debts exceed deposits by ten to one.
I could itemize all of the things America would have to do to recover from the mess an ignorant Congress and Administration have got us into, but the list is very long, very complicated, and very unpopular. We aren't prepared to do any of the hundred things we'd have to do to save our nation.
The following article was posted this morning by Chuck Baldwin. While he is wrong saying that "fiat money is printed out of thin air" (it is based upon debt, which is far worse) he is right in assessing the scope of problem. His solution isn't particularly insightful because the Constitution says very little about money, assuming that the nation would base its currency on either gold or silver. But that's not a pertinent issue either in that the solution is beyond our national understanding.
I strongly recommend reading The Unseen Hand and The Creature from Jekyll Island. The first will provide a general overview and the second will explain the nature and motives of the Federal Reserve. While they won't help you help others solve the problem (because we are too far gone to recover), they will help you understand it. In the meantime, if you are a supporter of a political party, withdraw your support.
Chuck's column:
No Amnesty For Wall Street
By Chuck Baldwin
September 26, 2008
This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinl.../cbarchive_20080926.htmlAt the time of this writing, the U.S. House and Senate are poised to pass a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street. At the behest of President George W. Bush, the U.S. taxpayers are going to be on the hook for what can only be referred to as the biggest fraud in U.S. history.
Virtually our entire financial system is based on an illusion. We spend more than we earn, we consume more than we produce, we borrow more than we save, and we cling to the fantasy that this can go on forever. The glue that holds this crumbling scheme together is a fiat currency known as the Federal Reserve Note, which was created out of thin air by an international banking cartel called the Federal Reserve.
According to Congressman Ron Paul, in the last three years, the Federal Reserve has created over $4 trillion in new money. The result of all this "money-out-of-thin-air" fraud is never-ending inflation. And the more prices rise, the more the dollar collapses. Folks, this is not sustainable.
Already, Bear Stearns was awarded a $29 billion bailout, followed quickly by the bailout of Freddie and Fannie that will cost the taxpayers up to $200 billion. Then the Fed announced the bailout of AIG to the tune of $85 billion. Mind you, AIG is an enormous global entity with assets totaling more than $1.1 trillion. Moreover, the Feds agreed to pump $180 billion into global money markets. And the Treasury Department promised $50 billion to insure the holdings of money market mutual funds for a year. Now, taxpayers are being asked to provide $700 billion to Wall Street. (I hope readers are aware that, not only will American banks be bailed out, but foreign banks will also be bailed out. Then again, at least half of the Federal Reserve is comprised of foreign banks, anyway.) In other words, the Federal Reserve is preparing to spend upwards of $1 trillion or more. Remember again, this is fiat money, meaning it is money printed out of thin air.
All of this began when the U.S. Congress abrogated its responsibility to maintain sound money principles on behalf of the American people (as required by the Constitution) and created the Federal Reserve. This took place in 1913. The President was Woodrow Wilson. (I strongly encourage readers to buy G. Edward Griffin's book, The Creature from Jekyll Island.) Since then, the U.S. economy has suffered through one Great Depression and several recessions--all of which have been orchestrated by this international banking cartel. Now, we are facing total economic collapse.
But don't worry: the international bankers will lose nothing--not even their bonuses. They will maintain their mansions, yachts, private jets, and Swiss bank accounts. No matter how bad it gets on Main Street, the banksters on Wall Street will still have the best of it--President Bush and the Congress will make sure of that. This is one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on.
America's founders were rightfully skeptical of granting too much power to bankers. Thomas Jefferson said, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Jefferson also believed that "banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Daniel Webster warned, "Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money."
Webster also said, "We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people."
Our first and greatest President George Washington said, "Paper money has had the effect in your State [Rhode Island] that it ever will have, to ruin commerce--oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice."
If George W. Bush, John McCain, or Barack Obama had any honesty and integrity, they would approach the current banking malady in much the same way that President Andrew Jackson did. In discussing the Bank Renewal bill with a delegation of bankers in 1832, Jackson said, "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 intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."
What President Andrew Jackson said to the bankers in 1832 is exactly what an American President should say to these criminal international bankers today. But what George Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama want to do is provide amnesty for the international bankers, just as they want to provide amnesty for illegal aliens. I say, No amnesty for Wall Street, and no amnesty for illegal aliens, either. Instead of sending these banksters on extended vacations to the Bahamas with millions of taxpayer dollars in their pockets, we should be sending them straight to jail!
The only way to fix this economic mess that the international bankers have created is to return America to sound money principles, as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. This means dismantling the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service, overturning the 16th Amendment and the personal income tax, and returning the American monetary system to hard assets: gold and silver. Anything short of this will only delay and worsen the inevitable collapse that has already begun.
I wrote the following to Yada this morning...
You asked my opinion on the current bailout bill. Here are some of my thoughts...
I read twenty or so articles this morning trying to figure out where the R's, D's, M's, and O's were on the gazillion dollar bailout bill. This one (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08268/914520-28.stm) and another by the Washington Post (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/24/mccain_denies_reids_claim_he_b.html ), were the most informative of the bunch. For the most part, all the stories were fairly consistent.
Neither McCain nor Obama are personally contributing to the process. They are both in favor of a bailout, but they don't want to be seen as united with George Bush. Their objections to the GWB version are identical, right down to the details. There appears to be only modest differences between the vast majority of Democrats and our Republican president, telling us that when it comes to big government, out of control spending, fiscal and personal irresponsibility, and economic malfeasance, they are more alike than anyone wants to admit. The Christian Right has been played for fools.
The problem is that far too few people have invested the time to understand the primary reason for the problem. (I encourage everyone to read The Unseen Hand and The Creature from Jekyll Island.) Our lawmakers don't understand business, the nature of free enterprise, central or regional banking, fiat money, the nature and motives of the Fed, or the Fed's role in the destruction of our economy, value of the dollar, wealth redistribution, or unjustified foreign entanglements. Most Americans don't either, so it's all about political positioning. No one wants to be associated with GWB and no one wants to be seen as a hindrance to the "rescue." And they haven't a clue as to whether they should be for or against the Federal Reserve (which is neither federal or a reserve). But apart from a presidential administration, there is no other entity in Washington with the where with all to create and sell a bailout plan of such monstrous magnitude.
The Republican Congressmen are right, but they are on their own. They rightly know that this 700 billion on top of the 820 billion already committed, is exactly the wrong thing to do, but they don't know what the right thing is. (Diminish the size of government by 75%, disallow fiat money (based upon debt) return to the gold standard, stop the Mandrake Mechanism of leveraged lending, eliminate the Fed, eliminate corporate taxation, eliminate capital gain taxation, cut personal taxation in half, diminish government regulations on business, repeal the Most Favored Nation trade agreements, release all restrictions on alternative energy sources, break up OPEC, and stop squandering money in Iraq--for starters) However, even if Congressional Republicans understood the need for these things, they would have no way of selling such a plan to enough people to earn political support. Further, the Republican Congressmen were the primary sponsors of the legislation which led to this mess.
So, everyone is positioning to survive the train wreck and to have the best vantage point from which to point the finger of blame at the other party. Frankly, there isn't a dime's difference between any of these folks. They are all self-serving and egotistical.
The bottom line is that the Fed has implemented a similar plan before--several times--each leading to a depression and the enrichment of their sponsors at the expense of working Americans. They make money too easily available and too cheap, only to diminish availability and raise rates. This process causes the slide we have seen in the value of property and businesses as ordinary people are forced to sell or liquidate. Their assets are then purchased for a dime on a dollar by those whose interests the Fed serves--Scripturally speaking "the merchants of Babylon." This process not only works like a charm, it destroys the value of the dollar, and ultimately causes inflation, further impoverishing average working Americans. It's all part of a scheme which will lead to the destruction of the American economy over they next 20 years, and the subsequent establishment of a fascist regime.
It is not what God wants, but it is what He predicted.
Yada
PS I thought you might like to see how the $820,000,000,000 already squandered and the $700,000,000,000 now proposed (totaling $1,520,000,000,000) stacks up against the federal budget as a whole. This line item alone is bigger than the entire federal budget during the Clinton Administration. As you consider the rapid rise of these numbers, understand that in 2007, the financial boondoggle we call the U.S. Government, squandered your money in the following ways:
Military: $540 Billion (40 times greater per capita than China)
Social Security: $581 Billion (wealth redistribution)
Medicare: $561 Billion (wealth redistribution)
Other Entitlement Programs: $309 Billion (wealth redistribution)
Interest on Debt: $237 Billion
Discretionary Spending: $493 Billion (mostly wealth redistribution)
2009: $3,100 Billion (as submitted by Bush)
Year Federal Spending Change Deficit Nat. Debt
2008: $2,900 Billion (Bush) $161 Billion $5,035 Billion
2007: $2,729 Billion (Bush) 0.6% $248 $4,829
2006: $2,655 Billion (Bush) 3.9% $318 $4,592
2005: $2,472 Billion (Bush) 4.0% $412 $4,295
2004: $2,293 Billion (Bush) 3.2% $378 $3,913
2003: $2,160 Billion (Bush) 4.6% $157 $3,203
2002: $2,011 Billion (Bush) 6.0% $128+ $3,540
2001: $1,863 Billion (from Clinton) 1.8% $236+ $3,320
2000: $1,789 Billion (Clinton) 2.5% $125+ $3,410
1999: $1,702 Billion (Clinton) 1.5% $69+ $3,624
1998: $1,653 Billion (Clinton) 2.2% $21 $3,721
1997: $1,601 Billion (Clinton) 0.7% $107 $3,772
1996: $1,561 Billion (Clinton) 0.7% $164 $3,734
1995: $1,516 Billion (Clinton) 1.2% $203 $3,604
1994: $1,462 Billion (Clinton) 1.7% $255 $3,433
1993: $1,409 Billion (from GHWB) -0.5% $290 $3,248
1992: $1,382 Billion (GHWB) 0.9% $269 $3,000
1991: $1,324 Billion (GHWB) 1.3% $221 $2,689
1990: $1,253 Billion (GHWB) 6.1% $153 $2,412
1989: $1,144 Billion (from Reagan) 3.6% $155 $2,191
1988: $1,065 Billion (Reagan) 2.9% $150 $2,052
1987: $1,004 Billion (Reagan) -1.4% $221 $1,889
1986: $990 Billion (Reagan) 2.1% $212 $1,740
1985: $946 Billion (Reagan) 7.4% $185 $1,507
1984: $852 Billion (Reagan) 0.4% $208 $1,307
1983: $808 Billion (Reagan) 3.4% $128 $1,137
1982: $746 Billion (Reagan) 2.6% $79 $925
1981: $678 Billion (from Carter) 3.8% $74 $789
1980: $591 Billion (Carter) 6.1% $41 $712
1979: $504 Billion (Carter) 1.3% $59 $640
1978: $459 Billion (Carter) 5.1% $54 $607
1977: $409 Billion (from Ford) % $74 $549
1976: $371 Billion (Ford) % $53 $477
1975: $332 Billion (Ford) % $6 $395
1974: $269 Billion (Nixon) % $15 $344
1973: $246 Billion (Nixon) % $23 $341
1972: $231 Billion (Nixon) % $3 $322
1971: $210 Billion (Nixon) % $3+ $303
1970: $196 Billion (Nixon) % $25 $283
1969: $184 Billion (from Johnson) % $ $278
1968: $178 Billion (Johnson) % $ $289
(Note: At the time the Federal Reserve was formed in 1913, there was no national debt.)
Here is a listing of national debt by president:
Year President Starting Debt %/GDP Ending Debt %/GDP Increase in Debt
1945-9 Roosevelt 117% 93% $50 Billion 12/Y
1949-53 Truman 93% 71% $10 Billion 2/Y
1953-61 Eisenhower 71% 55% $30 Billion 4/Y
1961-69 Kennedy/LBJ 55% 39% $80 Billion 20/Y
1969-77 Nixon/Ford 39% 36% $260 Billion 33/Y
1977-81 Carter 36% 33% $180 Billion 45/Y
1981-89 Reagan 33% 53% $1,690 Billion 211/Y
1989-93 GHW Bush 53% 66% $1,400 Billion 350/Y
1993-01 Clinton 66% 57% $1,540 Billion 193/Y
2001-09 GW Bush 57% 68% $1,150 Billion 288/Y*
*For the first term which was aided by two legacy years of the Clinton surplus of $364 Billion. The second term is incalculable in that 2008 and the legacy deficit of 2009 (which will include costs attributable to the $1.5 Trillion bailout).