Monday, November 23, 2009

The Great Banking Swindle part 1





In 1881, during his first year in office, American President James Garfield released a statement containing the following paragraph: "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." He was assassinated shortly after. Such, it appears, is the fate of any American president who goes against the interests of the international banking cartels.

The primary function of money is to enable the easy exchange of goods and services in an economy. If an economy has a plentiful supply of it then it can flourish and thrive. If not then the opposite can happen, the economy falters and contracts; usually resulting in a recession or even a depression. During a recession there are always plenty of people who want jobs and there are an equal number of people who require goods and services. The only thing stopping the necessary economic activity is money, which is why control of a nation’s money supply is so important.

For many years the control of Britain’s money supply was in the hands of the Bank of England, which was sanctioned by King William of Orange in 1694 as the world’s first privately owned central bank. In 1884 the Bank Charter Act established it’s monetary and banking monopoly over the United Kingdom. It utilised a way of lending called the fractional reserve system. American political figure Lyndon LaRouche refers to it as the ‘Venetian monetary system’. How it works is perhaps best summed up in the Bank of England's own charter, written by it's founder Sir William Paterson, which said: “The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.” In other words for every pound sterling that the bank ‘creates out of nothing’ it takes a commission in the form of interest. A completely unnecessary state of affairs that would cost the British people much, in both direct taxation and that other form of hidden taxation called inflation. It would also ensure the nation would be in perpetual, ever increasing, debt. From that moment on, just as James Garfield predicted, the entire system has been easily controlled, one way or the other, by a few powerful men (or women) at the top.

These few shareholders of the BoE, now granted a monopoly on creating money out of thin air, not only gained an increasing control over the nation’s economy they also became incredibly wealthy in the process, amassing huge fortunes. But there was an even greater concern for some which was the influence they now had over the nation's political life as well. A claim perhaps borne out by the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Mayer Amschel Bauer, when he said: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws." Former Chancellor of Exchequer, Reginald McKenna also hinted at the power of the bankers when he said:  " I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who create and issue money and credit, direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."



 The Bank of England was seemingly nationalized in 1946 though it should be pointed out the government had no money to actually pay for it. Treasury stocks were issued to the shareholders on which interest had to be paid. There was another twist in April 1976 when the Bank of England formed a privately owned subsidiary called the Bank of England Nominees. A move which Robert Owen, the director of the Struggle Against Financial Exploitation (SAFE) suggests essentially 'privatised' the Bank of England by creating a closed loop which gave the secret share holders of the BOEN effective control of the BOE.

Attempting to find out anything about either The Bank of England or its subsidiary is almost impossible. It has Royal Charter Status and is protected under the Official Secrets Act. This alone indicates who at least one of the secret shareholders is likely to be. It’s even immune from questions being asked about it in the House of Commons. But why is there such secrecy? Shouldn’t the public have the right to know who owns and controls a company that has such an important effect on the nation’s finances and which profits so greatly at their expense?

The Bank of England does very little money creation these days. That is now mostly done by the merchant banks, which means that control of our money supply, which is such a crucial element of our economy, is once again almost entirely in private hands. In addition, in 1998, just after New Labour came to power, they passed the Bank of England Act which gave the Bank’s Court of Directors complete independence with regard to monetary policy. The Court of Directors is selected from the world of commercial banking and insurance, conventional economics and big business. It’s shareholders who appoint directors, so looking at who makes up the ‘Court’ the only conclusion that can be reached is that the Bank of England is owned covertly, if not by the banks, then by a higher banking entity which has the interests of the banks at heart. 


The BoE’s role is now supposed to be monetary and financial stability, including being the 'the lender of last resort'. It’s meant to support any bank that gets into difficulties and suffers a run on its liquid assets. If such a thing did happen it isn’t required to disclose details of any measures it takes. This is said to be done so as to avoid a crisis in confidence. Confidence being something on which the fractional reserve banking system is absolutely reliant.

In 1948 about 50% of the total money supply in Britain consisted of notes and coins. Today it's somewhere around 3% with the remaining 97% in the form of numbers on a computer screen, supplied by privately owned commercial banks and financial institutions as debt creating, interest-bearing loans, mortgages, overdrafts and credit-purchases. This debt creation is done without any consideration given to the massive effect this has on our economy, particularly in regards to the inflation of the money supply. 

What it also means is that our economy is almost entirely reliant on people, businesses and the government getting into debt in order for there to be enough money in it to function in any way at all, let alone in a way that is beneficial to everyone.

The 3% of the money supply that is government created notes and coins is supplied debt free. The Bank of England prints and mints the new currency then sells it to private banks for their face value. This new money is then added to taxation revenue, which invariably gets spent into the economy without any associated debt and with no interest to pay. This is quite different to the ‘quantitive easing’ that the Bank of England recently engaged in, which appears to be little more than another way of directing even more money to commercial banks in return for poor value bonds, or as one writer put it, their gambling debts. It seems that the casino style gambling of the international banking cartels is all profits for them (at the expense of the greater mass of humanity) when things go well but bailouts from the taxpayer when things don’t work out (they lose). The idea behind quantitive easing is that this will get them lending again. This only goes to emphasise the ludicrous situation where our economy depends on a sufficient amount of debt being created in order to keep the rest of us in money and for it to operate as close as possible to its optimum best. 

If people either stop borrowing, and try to repay their loans or the banks themselves stop lending then less money will be created than is constantly being withdrawn from circulation. This can only lead to a recession. Dr. Frederick Soddy also wrote: "Fatal to democracy has been its failure to provide any proper authority and mechanism for the making and issue of money, as and when it is required, to keep pace with the growth of its wealth". "There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth.” The current system where the more our economy grows the greater is the level of its debt is both absurd and unsustainable.


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