Mr. Charlie

Money, along with love, governs and dictates our lives. From an early age we're sent to school in order to turn us into money grubbers (ie good little tax payers) but what is money? Where does it come from? Why, when money is something man made, are there still those without enough and those with too much? Why do the richest 85 people have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people? Why do the richest 10% have more than the poorest 90%? Why? Because the system is rigged.

In the old days money was backed by gold and thus had genuine value - after all gold is quite rare and difficult to mine out of the ground, but today money is backed by nothing more than peoples confidence in it. Take your dollar bill to a bank and ask to exchange it for gold and they'll laugh at you.

It's logical to believe that money is created by government, but that's not true. Governments buy money + interest (using bonds) from banks and that puts governments into debt which puts us into debt. It's also logical to believe that the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and similar so-called 'central' banks are governmental organisations, but this also isn't true. They are private banks.

We live in a world where the people supposedly running the show (government) have to buy money + interest from a select few (bankers) who, quite literally, create it out of nothing.

It gets worse too, take out a loan from a bank, and it's logical to believe you're borrowing the banks money, that the bank is giving you money from it's own reserve on the promise you repay it back at a later date. This too is untrue. When you take out a loan, the bank creates that money out of nothing (the reserve in the bank does not change). 95% of all money is created this way.

Finally, all money is created out of debt. Every penny only comes into existence when it is borrrowed and all borrowing is subject to interest. The consequence of this is that there is never enough money to pay back all the debt owed. (To put it another way imagine being the only person who makes glass beads, now imagine you loan 10 glass beads to 100 individuals (so 1000 glass beads total) on the condition each borrower must give you back 11 glass beads at a later date, it's clearly impossible. There are only 1000 beads out there, yet 1100 beads are owed back to you). What that means in the real world is that more and more money must be created in order to cover the interest (debt) owed, and that naturally leads to inflation which is nowt but a hidden tax. Tax a person 20% more or reduce the value of their currency by 20% - makes no difference. You're being f*cked either way. F*cked every step of the way.

So there we have it, that's the absurd system that runs our lives. That's why no matter who we vote for not much really changes, that's why governments serve bankers and corporations, not the people. That's why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, it's built into the system. It's designed to f*ck everyone over except those who created and maintain the system.

Here are some quotes from those who understood the system better than most:

"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -Henry Ford

"We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it." - Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932 (Rep. Pa)

"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States" — Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." — Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President.

"A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world--no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." — President Woodrow Wilson

"If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." -Andrew Jackson

“Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing.” - Ralph M Hawtry, former Secretary to the Treasury.

“I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people.” - Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924.

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." - Sir Josiah Stamp (1880-1941) President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain

John Wilkes Booth

question... have you been watching the zeitgeist series?

as for the 'money from nothing' criticism, i don't necessarily disagree that the current monetary system is dysfunctional (i don't know enough to make an informed statement) but i think that the gold standard is just another example of an arbitrary and man-made standard. yes gold is a real commodity but ultimately its value depends on the whims of the consumer.... the simple fact that it is rare doesn't make it valuable. it's rare + there is a demand for it, which is why it maintains some relatively constant value that you can base money off. but say people collectively decided they didn't want/care about gold jewelry anymore. its value would decrease despite its rarity. it of course has other uses but it wouldn't be as valuable as a commodity anymore.

so with this in mind it isn't so bizarre to base currency off confidence... ultimately what you want out of a currency is something that you can be confident that others will accept in exchange for other goods and services.

so why the wealth inequality? simple... capitalism is by its nature a hierarchical system with winners and losers. any one individual can rise through the ranks and become rich... but there will always be more people on the bottom than on top, for the same reason companies will almost always have more workers than bosses.

what's more the workers and the bosses will inevitably compete against one another for control over the same pool of money. the workers want higher wages and the bosses/owners want higher profits. both these allocations of money have to come from the same stream of revenue, and generally the rich will win this battle as 1) they have the inherent leverage in that they can replace workers with others who are desperate enough to agree to their terms 2) they have the money to purchase political clout.

Mr. Charlie

I have, yeah. I watched the original Zeitgeist movie 5 or 6 years ago and it first introducted me to how the monetary system really works, although to be honest what was being said was so incredulous that I didn't believe it and put it down as a conspiracy theory (with a capital T). But then some years later another programme alluded to the practise of banks making money out of nothing so I looked deeper into it and the more I researched it the more I realised that intelligent and respectable people like ex-presidents and MPs/senators and economists were confirming it by saying the same thing.

Regarding gold, it's valuable because it's useful, it doesn't corrode and is relatively conductive and so has various uses besides jewelry. But you're right to question it as a monetary system, the gold market can and has been cornered by bankers in the past and that, as you might expect, wrecked havoc. But it's more reliable than the current system because at least with gold-based currency you can only create more money if you had more gold, today bankers create money on nothing more than a whim.

The issue I take with the inequality we see is the disparity between rich and poor. There will always be those with more than others, but what we see today are those with nothing and those with trillions and it's not merely down to capitalism, it's inherent in the system. It's designed to happen. There isn't enough money in the system to pay back all the debt owed and a biproduct of that is there has to be those with none. But the introduction of debt-free money would help alleviate that.

John F Kennedy actually signed an exective order to issue a new form of debt-free currency based on the nations silver reserves in an attempt to wrestle control from the Federal Reserve back into the hands of government, but 5 months later he got a bullet in the head. Some believe the bankers were behind his assassination, I don't know about that, but he did sign the order and $4 billion of his new currency was produced - that much is well documented.

At the end of the day I find it insane that a government would hand over control of money creation to bankers, insane that we could live in a world where government creates the money it needs to run the country and thus kill all debt and all taxes. The argument against that scenario is inflation, but there would actually be less infaltion than there is now. But, yeah, the system we're under now, it beggars belief.

JFK and Executive Order 1110: