The Road to Hell is Paved by Central Bankers

The government began keeping official track of inflation in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created. The CPI on January 1, 1914 was 10.0. The CPI on January 1, 2011 was 220.2. This means that an item that cost $20 in 1913 would cost $504.15 today, a 2,420% increase in 105 years. This is a 98.6% loss in purchasing power of the dollar. The average American does not understand the insidious nature of central bank created inflation. It makes you think you are wealthier while you are driven into abject poverty. The Federal Reserve and politicians have pulled the wool over your eyes. The CPI was 30.9 in 1964. In 2011 it was 223.5. This means prices had risen 723% since 1964. The only problem is your wages have not risen at the same rate, even using the government manipulated CPI. Using a true CPI figure, average weekly earnings are 64% below what they were in 1964. This explains why a family of five could live well with one parent working in 1964, but even with both parents working and accumulating debt in prodigious amounts, the average family cannot live as well today.

It is not a coincidence that the percentage of the working age population employed bottomed in 1964 at 59%. The participation rate rose steadily for the next thirty six years, topping out in 2000 at 67.1%. The employment to population ratio also bottomed at 55% in 1964. It rose to 64.4% by 2000. It seems that future historians will mark the year 2000 as the peak of the American Empire. Apologists for the Federal Reserve and politicians who have steered this country since 1964 would argue the increase in the percentage of the population working was a positive development. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The American middle class was forced to send both parents into the workforce just to keep up with the ever declining real weekly earnings. The Federal Reserve created inflation has methodically destroyed the American dream for the middle class. As both parents had to go into the workforce, American children were left to fend for themselves or be raised by strangers in daycare centers. The pressure of trying to keep up with inflation strained families to the breaking point. The number of divorces per thousand marriages was 10 in the early 1960s. It more than doubled to 22.6 by 1980 and still resides at 17 today. There are many factors for the disintegration of the traditional family unit, but the financial strain on families to maintain a consistent standard of living due to relentless inflation has been a key factor.

From the founding of our country there had been constant conflict between corrupt bankers trying to control the currency of the nation to further their own enrichment at the expense of the people and a few courageous leaders willing to fight them. The bankers won the century old battle in 1913.

Den of Vipers & Thieves: ”I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and 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 are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, I will rout you out.”

President Jackson believed that only Congress should be responsible for the issuance and control of the currency. Delegating that duty to powerful New York bankers was distasteful to him: “If Congress has the right to issue paper money, it was given to them to be used… and not to be delegated to individuals or corporations”

President Jackson vetoed the extension of their bank charter in 1832. He redirected government tax revenue to other state banks.  The Second Bank of the United States was left with little money and, in 1836, its charter expired and it turned into an ordinary bank. Five years later, the former Second Bank of the United States went bankrupt. Those who believe that a central bank is essential to economic progress need to examine the “free banking” period from 1837 to 1861. In the last five years of the Second Bank’s existence prices rose by 28%. Over the next 25 years, prices in the U.S. fell by 11%. We experienced the dreaded deflation. Did deflation destroy America? Not quite. GDP grew from $1.5 billion in 1836 to $4.6 billion in 1861. Deflation is only fatal to debtors. Inflation is the friend of lenders and the moneyed classes.

The American Civil War brought about the National Banking Act of 1863, which created a network of national banks. Politicians always need bankers to fight their wars and Abraham Lincoln was no different. By 1870 there were 1,638 national banks. This did not eliminate the booms and busts that punctuate human history, but the booms and busts were not scientifically created by a small cabal of bankers. With thousands of banks, those who made bad lending decisions failed. The economy withstood the periodic panics and continued to grow. The GDP of the U.S. grew from $7.6 billion in 1863 to $39 billion by 1913, with virtually no inflation. The Federal government ran surpluses or very small deficits during this entire time period. These facts refute the argument that a strong central bank was necessary to keep our economic system operating smoothly. It seems the Big Lie was not invented by the Nazis.

Creature from Jekyll Island – Control the Money, Control the Country: “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” – President Woodrow Wilson

Any impartial assessment of inflation throughout the history of the United States confirms that from the beginning of our nation through the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Industrial Revolution, the country experienced virtually no inflation as bankers were kept from controlling the U.S. currency and our legal tender was backed by gold. The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the closing of the gold window by Richard Nixon in 1971 unleashed a tsunami of inflation that continues to inundate our country today, killing the once prosperous middle class.

The Rothschilds of London understood that a fiat currency system would benefit the few (bankers & politicians) who understood it and the masses would be too ignorant to understand they were being screwed: “Those few who can understand the system (check book money and credit) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on it favors, that there will be little opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear it burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”

The House of Rothschild had been the dominant banking family in Europe for two centuries. They were known for making fortunes during Panics and War. Some claimed they would cause Panics in order to take advantage of those who panicked. American bankers learned the lesson well. The Panic of 1907 was the used as the reason for creating the Federal Reserve. A small cabal of powerful U.S. banking interests understood that if they could control the currency of the U.S., they could control the country, its politicians, and its people.

In 1906, Frank Vanderlip, Vice President of the Rockefeller owned National City Bank, convinced many of New York’s banking establishment they needed a banker-controlled central bank that could serve the nation’s financial system. Up to that time, the House of Morgan had filled that role. JP Morgan had initiated previous panics in order to initiate stronger control over the banking system. Morgan initiated the Panic of 1907 by circulating rumors the Knickerbocker Bank and Trust Co. of America was going broke. There was a run on the banks creating a financial crisis which began to solidify support for a central banking system. During this panic Paul Warburg, a Rothschild associate, wrote an essay called “A Plan for a Modified Central Bank” which called for a Central Bank in which 50% would be owned by the government and 50% by the nation’s banks.

In November 1910 a secret conference took place on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. Those in attendance were: JP Morgan, Paul Warburg, John D. Rockefeller, Bernard Baruch, Senator Nelson Aldrich, Colonel House, Frank Vanderlip, Benjamin Strong, Charles Norton, Jacob Schiff, and Henry Davison. From this meeting of the most powerful bankers and politicians in the country came the plan for a Central Bank. This conference was unknown until 1933. In 1935, Frank Vanderlip wrote in the Saturday Evening Post: “I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.”

Behind the scenes these powerful men were formulating the plan for a Federal Reserve System. There was no outcry from the public to implement this plan. The public knew nothing of this. The Aldrich Plan was renamed the Federal Reserve Act and pushed forward by Paul Warburg and Colonel House. Warburg essentially wrote the Act and pressured Congressmen to see his way or lose the next election. Colonel House, who had socialist leanings, was the top advisor to President Wilson.

The Glass Bill (the House version of the final Federal Reserve Act) had passed the House on September 18, 1913 by 287 to 85. On December 19, 1913, the Senate passed their version by a vote of 54-34. More than forty important differences in the House and Senate versions remained to be settled, and the opponents of the bill in both houses of Congress were led to believe that many weeks would elapse before the Conference bill would be taken up. The Congressmen prepared to leave Washington for the annual Christmas recess, assured that the Conference bill would not be brought up until the following year. The creators of the bill then pulled the ultimate swindle on the American public. In a single day, they ironed out all forty of the disputed passages in the bill and quickly brought it to a vote. On Monday, December 22, 1913, the bill was passed by the House 282-60 and the Senate 43-23. This meant that the single most important piece of legislation ever passed by the Senate was missing the votes of 26 Senators because it was passed during the Christmas recess. President Wilson, at the urging of Bernard Baruch, signed the bill on December 23, 1913.

The Road to Hell is Paved by Central Bankers: The results speak for themselves. The Federal Reserve has been in existence for 105 years and over that time the U.S. Dollar has lost 98.6% of its purchasing power. In other terms, the bankers who have controlled our currency since 1913 have generated 2,420% of inflation in 105 years. In the prior one hundred years, when the country was growing by leaps and bounds, there was virtually no inflation. I’m not sure the average person fully understands this concept. To put it in layman’s terms, something that cost $4.40 in 1913 will cost you $110 today. A pair of boys’ school shoes cost 98 cents in 1913. You could purchase three loaves of bread for 10 cents. You could purchase six rolls of toilet paper for 26 cents. The truly frightening impact on the American middle class has happened since Richard Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 and allowed the Federal Reserve to print money unfettered by consequences and slimy politicians to make irresponsible unfulfilled promises as bribes for votes.

Even with the proliferation of two worker households since 1971, household income has not come close to keeping up with the costs of daily living. The average American’s standard of living has declined dramatically over the last forty years and they don’t even know it. Americans have become the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of their own slavery through inflation and debt. It is not a coincidence that consumer debt, which was virtually non-existent prior to the 1960s, began to take off in the 1970s and went nearly parabolic from the early 1990s until the 2008 financial collapse. As the Federal Reserve and political class created inflation, which reduced your standard of living, the bankers who own the Federal Reserve and control the politicians used their slick marketing machine to convince you that acquiring goods using vast quantities of debt was just as good as buying things with cash you saved. Who benefits from inflation and the issuance of trillions in debt to average Americans? Based upon the decades of gargantuan Wall Street profits, mammoth bonuses paid to bank executives, and fact that Washington politicians absconded with trillions from American taxpayers to save their Wall Street masters, it appears that bankers and politicians are the beneficiaries. A gutted, indebted, jobless, demoralized middle class were the recipients of the downside of inflation and debt. Without a Central Bank issuing a fiat currency, with no constraints, none of this could have happened. 

The American working middle class (Good) have been deceived by the Federal Reserve, the banks that control them (Bad) and the Washington DC political class (Ugly) into believing that a fiat currency, un-backed by gold, supported by systematic inflation is beneficial to their wealth. This has been the Big Lie for the last century and has positioned the country for an epic collapse. Former Congressman Ron Paul has been the lone voice of sanity in Washington DC for the last two decades and his assessment of the Federal Reserve while questioning Ben Bernanke in 2009 needs to be understood by every American:

“The Federal Reserve in collaboration with the giant banks has created the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen. The foolish notion that unlimited amounts of money and credit created out of thin air can provide sustainable economic growth has delivered this crisis to us. Instead of economic growth and stable prices, (The Fed) has given us a system of government and finance that now threatens the world financial and political institutions. Pursuing the same policy of excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation can only compound the problems that prevent the required corrections. Doubling the money supply didn’t work, quadrupling it won’t work either. Buying up the bad debt of privileged institutions and dumping worthless assets on the American people is morally wrong and economically futile.”