Financial Smoke & Mirrors
by David Griffin
by David Griffin
Published on examiner.com 26 Feb, 2011
Updated: 29 Nov, 2011, 07 Oct, 2012, 11 Nov, 2012
[Note: this web page contains additional data not included in the original article published on examiner.com]
A series 1963 United States Note, issued by JFK shortly before he was assassinated
"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks...”
“The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government.”
Congressman Louis T. McFadden
Chairman of the House Banking Committee, 1932
Yesterday I scanned through several hundred recent headlines trying to find an article which contained the basic financial data needed to explain, in simple terms, the overall financial situation of the U.S. Not surprisingly, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Almost every one of the articles I scanned was nothing but emotionalism and propaganda, conspicuously lacking the hard data I was looking for.
The current political-speak is “reducing the deficit”, and making “budget cuts”, though the cuts always seem to have long-term negative effects on the people of the country, but not on the size or reach of the government as a corporate entity.
First, let’s first clear up a couple of basic terms. There are two distinctly different things at issue here:
Debt
Deficit
Let’s say you owe $60,000 on a mortgage – that is a debt. Let’s say you owe $5,000 on a credit card – that is also a debt. Both of those debts have interest attached which compounds at regular intervals thus adding to the debt and making it even larger.
Anyone who makes a payment on a credit card each month knows exactly how that works. You make a payment of $75.00 and you get charged $30.00 in interest, dragging the debt out month after month after month. If your finances get really tight, you can make the “Minimum Payment” amount which is, for the most part, merely “servicing” the debt – meeting the accruing interest charges, while doing practically nothing to reduce the principal loan amount.
For a lender, this would be an ideal situation – they get steady income each month for doing next to nothing, and you get strung along month after month after month like a fish on a hook, never able to get the hook out of your mouth.
Now let’s say that things get really bad financially, and you aren’t able to keep up with all of your weekly or monthly expenses. Let’s say you make $800 per week, but your expenses – what you are actually spending is $1,000 per week. Every week you do that, you are short $200. That is a deficit, a shortfall.
In this example you would be running a deficit of $200 per week, but that is quite in addition to your existing debts which, due to compounding interest, are growing larger by the day. When someone starts running a deficit, they are in very serious financial trouble, and obviously operating on an unsustainable basis. Not only do they have their existing debts with accruing interest, but now they are getting themselves even deeper in the hole to the tune of $200 per week (the deficit).
If you or I found ourselves in that situation, we don’t need an economics degree to know what to do, it is quite simple. You can increase your income, reduce your spending, or ideally, a combination of the two; but the main thing is to spend less than what you take in. Any other course is financial irresponsibility.
As long as you are spending more than what you take in, you run a deficit.
So when you hear a politician or propagandist touting that they are “reducing the deficit” and patting themselves on the back for doing so, they are relying on the fact that most people have been hoodwinked and don’t understand what is really going on.
The fact is, there shouldn’t even BE a deficit. That there is and has been for decades and decades, just shows how financially irresponsible and unaccountable those in Washington have become, when they can simply pass the bill over to us to pay.
Naturally, when one continues to operate in this fashion there is only one way to keep on spending – to borrow even more money and get yourself even deeper into the hole, thus the need to raise the debt limit once again.
One of the propaganda lines I saw being repeated over and over was “reducing” or “trimming” the deficit by $1.1 trillion over ten years. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? But what does that really mean?
Reducing it by $110 Billion each year over ten years would equal a reduction of $1.1 trillion.
The only problem is that according to Obama’s budget projections the corporate entity known as the U.S. Federal Government will run a deficit of $1.645 trillion this year, which is interestingly, more than the total national debt was in 1984. At this level, reducing it by $110 billion is not even putting a dent in the problem. That would mean that instead of a $1.645 trillion deficit, they would only be -$1.535 trillion. That’s a reduction of less than 6.7%.
Returning to our example above, that would be the same as reducing your deficit of $200 per week by $13.37 to only -$186.63 per week. As you can see, this is just paying lip-service to the problem, and doing nothing to truly handle it.
But let us not forget about those accruing interest charges on our existing debt, and the increase in interest as we borrow even more money, in order to continue perpetuating the existing condition.
Congress is currently being pressed to raise the debt-limit once again so that the federal government can borrow even more and get themselves in even deeper. See my previous article: Public Relations and the Art of Deception published 07 Feb. 2011.
How we got here is actually quite easy to understand, once you have the correct data:
The Federal Government has been borrowing money from international bankers, with interest attached, for a very long time now.
Funny thing is, the Founding Fathers gave Congress the authority to coin and issue its OWN currency – UNITED STATES DOLLARS with NO INTEREST ATTACHED, and the U.S. government should never have been borrowing funny money in the first place.
Repealing the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and recognizing the illegality of that entire scam would solve the budget crisis overnight.
So why haven’t they done it, and why won’t they talk about this?
"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks.
The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over.
This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.”
- Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, 1932
On May 23, 1933, Congressman Louis T. McFadden who had served as Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee for more than 10 years, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, and TREASON:
The petition for Articles of Impeachment referred to the Judiciary Committee has never, to this day, been acted upon.
Added: 07 Oct, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6JDooqBcjg
Uploaded by SaveOurSovereignty3 on Apr 12, 2011
Added: 11 November, 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jAxgUswUwU
Published on Nov 10, 2012 by Upward Vector
Later that year (1933), in a private letter to Colonel Mandell House dated November 21, 1933, Roosevelt said the following:
"Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are US government institutions. They are not... they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the U.S. for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders.
The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will."
Louis T. McFadden
Chairman, House Banking Committee, 1931
On October 3rd, 1936, while on a trip to New York, Louis T. McFadden suddenly and mysteriously died, the cause of death listed on the death certificate was "heart-failure sudden death".
"I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the past 49 years, they would move on Washington: they would not wait for an election...It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States."
Sen. George W. Malone of Nevada, 1957
Well, I guess that needs to be updated to 103 years now, and I would say that they’ve just about succeeded.
Added 29 Nov, 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX41SkKN0tQ
Uploaded by revgen11 on Nov 24, 2011
On June 4 1963, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 which amended E.O. No. 10289, and authorized the United States Treasury to bypass the Federal Reserve, and issue 4.2 Billion dollars in debt-free, un-borrowed United States Notes, and United States Silver Certificates based upon “any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury”. But curiously, there is no mention of any gold or gold bullion...
On Nov. 12, 1963, just ten days before his brutal assassination, President John F. Kennedy, in a speech at Columbia University, said the following:
Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, home to one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, on November 22 (11+22=33), the same date as the secret assembly in 1910, or, more accurately, the date of the birth of the Federal Reserve system.
Almost immediately after Kennedy’s assassination, one of the first things Lyndon B. Johnson (Freemason) as the new President, did, was to order that the Silver Certificates and United States Notes which had been printed up, be collected and destroyed.
A 1934 United States Silver Certificate. Wording as follows:
SILVER CERTIFICATE
THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE IS ON DEPOSIT IN THE TREASURY OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIVE DOLLARS
IN SILVER PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND
A Kennedy 1963 United States Note.
They look similar to Federal Reserve Notes, except one says “FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE” at the top while the other says “UNITED STATES NOTE”. Also, the Federal Reserve Note has a green U.S. Treasury seal and serial number while the United States Note has a red seal and serial number. Neither of the two notes shown above have the Federal Reserve seal to the left of Lincoln’s portrait.
Coming next: National Debt Update - recent budget projections and the planned reduction by the federal government of "mandatory spending"...
Copyleft 2011, David Griffin
Anyone is free to use the information on this page for non-commercial, educational purposes.
Updated: 29 Nov, 2011, 07 Oct, 2012, 11 Nov, 2012
 |
A series 1963 United States Note, issued by JFK shortly before he was assassinated
"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks...”
“The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government.”
Congressman Louis T. McFadden
Chairman of the House Banking Committee, 1932
Yesterday I scanned through several hundred recent headlines trying to find an article which contained the basic financial data needed to explain, in simple terms, the overall financial situation of the U.S. Not surprisingly, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Almost every one of the articles I scanned was nothing but emotionalism and propaganda, conspicuously lacking the hard data I was looking for.
The current political-speak is “reducing the deficit”, and making “budget cuts”, though the cuts always seem to have long-term negative effects on the people of the country, but not on the size or reach of the government as a corporate entity.
First, let’s first clear up a couple of basic terms. There are two distinctly different things at issue here:
Debt
Deficit
Let’s say you owe $60,000 on a mortgage – that is a debt. Let’s say you owe $5,000 on a credit card – that is also a debt. Both of those debts have interest attached which compounds at regular intervals thus adding to the debt and making it even larger.
Anyone who makes a payment on a credit card each month knows exactly how that works. You make a payment of $75.00 and you get charged $30.00 in interest, dragging the debt out month after month after month. If your finances get really tight, you can make the “Minimum Payment” amount which is, for the most part, merely “servicing” the debt – meeting the accruing interest charges, while doing practically nothing to reduce the principal loan amount.
For a lender, this would be an ideal situation – they get steady income each month for doing next to nothing, and you get strung along month after month after month like a fish on a hook, never able to get the hook out of your mouth.
Now let’s say that things get really bad financially, and you aren’t able to keep up with all of your weekly or monthly expenses. Let’s say you make $800 per week, but your expenses – what you are actually spending is $1,000 per week. Every week you do that, you are short $200. That is a deficit, a shortfall.
In this example you would be running a deficit of $200 per week, but that is quite in addition to your existing debts which, due to compounding interest, are growing larger by the day. When someone starts running a deficit, they are in very serious financial trouble, and obviously operating on an unsustainable basis. Not only do they have their existing debts with accruing interest, but now they are getting themselves even deeper in the hole to the tune of $200 per week (the deficit).
If you or I found ourselves in that situation, we don’t need an economics degree to know what to do, it is quite simple. You can increase your income, reduce your spending, or ideally, a combination of the two; but the main thing is to spend less than what you take in. Any other course is financial irresponsibility.
As long as you are spending more than what you take in, you run a deficit.
So when you hear a politician or propagandist touting that they are “reducing the deficit” and patting themselves on the back for doing so, they are relying on the fact that most people have been hoodwinked and don’t understand what is really going on.
The fact is, there shouldn’t even BE a deficit. That there is and has been for decades and decades, just shows how financially irresponsible and unaccountable those in Washington have become, when they can simply pass the bill over to us to pay.
Naturally, when one continues to operate in this fashion there is only one way to keep on spending – to borrow even more money and get yourself even deeper into the hole, thus the need to raise the debt limit once again.
One of the propaganda lines I saw being repeated over and over was “reducing” or “trimming” the deficit by $1.1 trillion over ten years. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? But what does that really mean?
Reducing it by $110 Billion each year over ten years would equal a reduction of $1.1 trillion.
The only problem is that according to Obama’s budget projections the corporate entity known as the U.S. Federal Government will run a deficit of $1.645 trillion this year, which is interestingly, more than the total national debt was in 1984. At this level, reducing it by $110 billion is not even putting a dent in the problem. That would mean that instead of a $1.645 trillion deficit, they would only be -$1.535 trillion. That’s a reduction of less than 6.7%.
Returning to our example above, that would be the same as reducing your deficit of $200 per week by $13.37 to only -$186.63 per week. As you can see, this is just paying lip-service to the problem, and doing nothing to truly handle it.
But let us not forget about those accruing interest charges on our existing debt, and the increase in interest as we borrow even more money, in order to continue perpetuating the existing condition.
Congress is currently being pressed to raise the debt-limit once again so that the federal government can borrow even more and get themselves in even deeper. See my previous article: Public Relations and the Art of Deception published 07 Feb. 2011.
|
Federal deficit on track for a record this fiscal year Government debt to exceed U.S. economy http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/14/debt-now-equals-total-us-economy/ By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times 12:16 p.m., Monday, February 14, 2011 "...Obama‘s budget, released Monday, was conceived as a blueprint for future spending, but it also paints the bleakest picture yet of the current fiscal year, which is on track for a record federal deficit and will see the government’s overall debt surpass the size of the total U.S. economy." "...Obama‘s budget projects that 2011 will see the biggest one-year debt jump in history, or nearly $2 trillion, to reach $15.476 trillion by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. That would be 102.6 percent of GDP — the first time since World War II that dubious figure has been reached. And the budget projects the government will run a deficit of $1.645 trillion this year, topping 2009’s previous record by more than $230 billion." |
How we got here is actually quite easy to understand, once you have the correct data:
The Federal Government has been borrowing money from international bankers, with interest attached, for a very long time now.
Funny thing is, the Founding Fathers gave Congress the authority to coin and issue its OWN currency – UNITED STATES DOLLARS with NO INTEREST ATTACHED, and the U.S. government should never have been borrowing funny money in the first place.
Repealing the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and recognizing the illegality of that entire scam would solve the budget crisis overnight.
So why haven’t they done it, and why won’t they talk about this?
|
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible, to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance."
- James Madison "The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution... if the American people 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." - Thomas Jefferson "The bold efforts that the present bank has made to control the government and the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it... If the People only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning!" - Andrew Jackson "As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln |
"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks.
The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over.
This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.”
- Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, 1932
On May 23, 1933, Congressman Louis T. McFadden who had served as Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee for more than 10 years, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, and TREASON:
|
"I charge them, jointly and severally, with having unlawfully substituted Fed currency and other irredeemable paper currency for gold in the hands of the people...”
“I charge them jointly and severally with having brought about a repudiation of the national currency of the United States in order that the gold value of said currency might be given to private interests, foreign governments, foreign central banks of issues, and the Bank of International Settlements, and the people of the U.S. to be left without gold...” "I charge them...with having arbitrarily and unlawfully taken over $80,000,000,000 from the United States Government in the year 1928..." "I charge them...with having arbitrarily and unlawfully raised and lowered the rates on money...increased and diminished the volume of currency in circulation for the benefit of private interests..." "I charge them...with having brought about the decline of prices on the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges in October, 1929, by unlawful manipulation of money rates..." "I charge them...with having published false and misleading propaganda intended to deceive the American people and to cause the United States to lose its independence..." "I charge them...with the crime of having treasonably conspired and acted against the peace and security of the United States, and with having treasonably conspired to destroy the constitutional government of the United States." "I charge them... with having conspired to transfer to foreigners and international money lenders title to and control of the financial resources of the U.S..." |
The petition for Articles of Impeachment referred to the Judiciary Committee has never, to this day, been acted upon.
Added: 07 Oct, 2012
Mitt Romney comments on the Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6JDooqBcjg
Uploaded by SaveOurSovereignty3 on Apr 12, 2011
Added: 11 November, 2012:
Obama comments on the Federal Reserve - 25 Aug 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jAxgUswUwU
Published on Nov 10, 2012 by Upward Vector
Later that year (1933), in a private letter to Colonel Mandell House dated November 21, 1933, Roosevelt said the following:
|
"The real truth of the matter is, and you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
|
"Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are US government institutions. They are not... they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the U.S. for the benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders.
The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will."
Louis T. McFadden
Chairman, House Banking Committee, 1931
On October 3rd, 1936, while on a trip to New York, Louis T. McFadden suddenly and mysteriously died, the cause of death listed on the death certificate was "heart-failure sudden death".
"I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the past 49 years, they would move on Washington: they would not wait for an election...It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States."
Sen. George W. Malone of Nevada, 1957
Well, I guess that needs to be updated to 103 years now, and I would say that they’ve just about succeeded.
Added 29 Nov, 2011:
Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX41SkKN0tQ
Uploaded by revgen11 on Nov 24, 2011
On June 4 1963, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 which amended E.O. No. 10289, and authorized the United States Treasury to bypass the Federal Reserve, and issue 4.2 Billion dollars in debt-free, un-borrowed United States Notes, and United States Silver Certificates based upon “any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury”. But curiously, there is no mention of any gold or gold bullion...
On Nov. 12, 1963, just ten days before his brutal assassination, President John F. Kennedy, in a speech at Columbia University, said the following:
|
“The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American’s freedom and before I leave
office, I must inform the citizen of this plight.”
|
Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, home to one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, on November 22 (11+22=33), the same date as the secret assembly in 1910, or, more accurately, the date of the birth of the Federal Reserve system.
Almost immediately after Kennedy’s assassination, one of the first things Lyndon B. Johnson (Freemason) as the new President, did, was to order that the Silver Certificates and United States Notes which had been printed up, be collected and destroyed.
A 1934 United States Silver Certificate. Wording as follows:
SILVER CERTIFICATE
THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE IS ON DEPOSIT IN THE TREASURY OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIVE DOLLARS
IN SILVER PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND
A Kennedy 1963 United States Note.
They look similar to Federal Reserve Notes, except one says “FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE” at the top while the other says “UNITED STATES NOTE”. Also, the Federal Reserve Note has a green U.S. Treasury seal and serial number while the United States Note has a red seal and serial number. Neither of the two notes shown above have the Federal Reserve seal to the left of Lincoln’s portrait.
Coming next: National Debt Update - recent budget projections and the planned reduction by the federal government of "mandatory spending"...
 |
 |
 |
Anyone is free to use the information on this page for non-commercial, educational purposes.