Is Gold Money? Alan Greenspan Gives SHOCKING Interview at CFR

For some reason, the Council of Foreign Relations, where ex-Fed-Chief Alan Greenspan spoke last week, decided the following discussion should be left out of the official transcript. We can perhaps understand why... as Gillian Tett concludes, "comments like that will be turning you into a rock star amongst the gold bug community."



TETT: Do you think that gold is currently a good investment?
GREENSPAN: Yes... Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency. No fiat currency, including the dollar, can macth it.

Which is missing from the official CFR transcript...

GREENSPAN: ...remember, we had that first tapering discussion, we got a very strong market response. And then we reassured everybody to have no -- remember, tapering is still (audio gap) of an agreement that the central banks have made -- European central banks, I believe -- about allocating their gold sales which occurred when gold prices were falling down (audio gap) has been renewed this year with a statement that gold serves a very important place in monetary reserves.

And the question is, why do central banks put money into an asset which has no rate of return, but cost of storage and insurance and everything else like that, why are they doing that? If you look at the data with a very few exceptions, all of the developed countries have gold reserves. Why?

TETT: I imagine right now, it's because of a question mark hanging over the value of fiat currency, the credibility going forward.

GREENSPAN: Well, that's what I'm getting at. Every time you get some really serious questions, the 50 percent of the gold price determination begins to move.

TETT: Right.

GREENSPAN: And I think it is fascinating and -- I don't know, is Benn Steil in the audience?

TETT: Yes.

GREENSPAN: There he is, OK. Before you read my book, go read Benn's book. The reason is, you'll find it fascinating on exactly this issue, because here you have the ultimate test at the Mount Washington Hotel in 1944 of the real intellectual debate between the -- those who wanted to an international fiat currency which was embodied in John Maynard Keynes' construct of a banker, and he was there in 1944, holding forth with all of his prestige, but couldn't counter the fact that the United States dollar was convertible into gold and that was the major draw. Everyone wanted America's gold. And I think that Benn really described that in extraordinarily useful terms, as far as I can see. Anyway, thank you.

TETT: Right. Well, I'm sure with comments like that, that will be turning you into a rock star amongst the gold bug community.

*  *  *
As a reminder, here is Ben Bernanke putting people straight on Gold...


As we noted at the time,

Ron Paul asks the Bernanke if he thought gold was money. Bernanke almost swallows his tongue, stares blankly for a few seconds and then says, “no.”

Paul then asks why banks hold gold on their balance sheet?  Why not diamonds?  Bernanke says, “tradition, I suppose.” 

So let me get this straight, banks hold billions of dollars of an asset that pays no interest or dividends on their balance sheet for reasons of "tradition".  nothing to do with anything else, just tradition.  uh, yea.  That must be it.

Financial Capitalism, Bretton Woods II, and George Soros

Sunday, June 22, 2014: Valentin Katasonov, The 4th Media

“The goal is world power”

The expression «Bretton Woods II» is becoming more popular, and everyone has their own understanding of this vague formula. Some are nostalgic for the gold standard, while others would like to return to John Keynes’ idea of creating and introducing a supranational currency like the ‘bancor’, or using the special drawing rights issued in small amounts by the IMF in 1970 for the same purpose.

There are also those who believe that Bretton Woods II will be fundamentally different from the American and British projects discussed in 1944, and that the world should consist of several regional currency zones.

The expert community introduced the idea of a Bretton Woods II at the end of the 20th century. The Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, headed by a certain Marc Uzan, was set up in 1994 on the back of the conference’s 50 year anniversary.

At an official level, the idea of a Bretton Woods II was first expressed by the Italian Senator Oskar Peterlini. At the height of the 2009 financial crisis, Peterlini officially presented a «Motion for the reorganisation of the international currency system: the new Bretton Woods» to the Italian Senate. The document was approved by a large number of deputies in the upper house.

Although the document mentioned nothing about a return to gold, it pointed out the need to control the issue of money, and the need to link it to real assets and commodities rather than financial assets. Attention was also focused on the fact that the world needs a financial system with fixed (constant) exchange rates and restrictions on the free cross-border movement of venture capital.

At the G20 meetings in Washington in November 2008 and London in April 2009, where ways out of the global financial crisis were discussed, the expression «Bretton Woods II» was also heard more than once.

In the midst of the financial crisis, radical proposals were put forward at G20, G8, G7 and other similar forums on the restructuring of the global monetary and financial system.

There was also talk of the need to convene a global «New Bretton Woods» conference at the UN, where it was expected that a number of important international agreements would be entered into, including: 1) a Global Economic Charter based on the proposals of German Chancellor Angela Merkel; 2) a Global Energy Charter put forward by the leaders of net energy-exporting countries; and 3) major amendments to the UN Charter, including the establishment of a Financial Security Council.

As soon as the threat of the global financial crisis had passed, however, political leaders immediately forgot about the «New Bretton Woods» projects.

At the end of the 20th century, the illusion emerged that the world might become unipolar and be controlled by Washington, and Pax Americana was built under the guise of globalisation. Today, however, Washington is losing its influence in the world, and chances are there will be no repetition of Bretton Woods.

George Soros’ New Bretton Woods

At the same time, it is possible to talk about a new Bretton Woods as the resuscitation of the project put forward by John Keynes 70 years ago that gained little support from those present. The most well-known and open supporter of this Bretton Woods alternative is financial speculator George Soros.

Back in November 2009, at the peak of the global financial crisis, the billionaire announced the preparation of a «New Bretton Woods» conference, and in April 2011, Soros made sure the conference took place. Details about it are few and far between.

Soros paid $50 million to assemble around 200 academics, businessmen and state leaders in New Hampshire under the aegis of his Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET).

The meeting included such well-known figures as the former chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Paul Volcker, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Nobel Laureate and a former vice president of the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz, and renowned economist and director of The Earth InstituteJeffrey Sachs.

Soros’ event at Bretton Woods was as secret as the meeting of the Bilderberg Group. It is known, however, that the event took place under the catchword of Keynesian economics.

The particular role of China as a pole of the world economy and global politics was discussed, along with the need to move to a supranational currency, establish a global emission centre (global central bank), and restructure the global financial system.

George Soros as a mouthpiece of the Rothschild clan

It is well known that George Soros is a protégé of the Rothschilds, their mouthpiece. Through the public statements and actions of this financial speculator, renowned for his scandalous behaviour, it is possible to put together some idea of his bosses.

The Rothschilds are absolute cosmopolitans, they do not hold on to any kind of national identity, unlike the Rockefellers whom America needs, because the printing press and military-industrial complex it is called upon to protect are located in America.

In terms of Soros’ understanding of a global currency, therefore, then it is more likely a combination of a supranational currency and gold.

Soros has repeatedly declared that he sees China as the model for a new global financial order in place of the US. Soros has referred to the US as a burden on the global economy because of the falling dollar, noting the need for a new global currency in the form of the IMF’s special drawing rights.

Soros is sometimes regarded as an advocate of John Keynes’ ideas, but this misguided thinking arises from the fact that Soros is a critic of the market, believing it cannot be a self-regulating mechanism. In truth, Soros is against the state and state regulation.

He is an advocate of regulating the economy by means of major corporations and banks. Such regulation may be supplemented by regulation from supranational bodies. The institutes of the European Union, which Soros also had a hand in creating, may serve as examples of such bodies.

Soros does not like the European Central Bank, the European Commission and other bodies of European integration because they provide some kind of economic efficiency and improve people’s lives; he likes them because they are bringing the death of nation states closer, thus clearing a space for monopolies and banks.

George Soros makes no secret of the fact that he does not like America. Not because it wages destructive wars around the world, or because of the country’s huge social polarisation, or because its prisons contin more than two million people, with a further four or five millions American who were sentenced to imprisonment currently at large because the country does not have enough prisons, or because the US organised an all-out surveillance of every telephone conversation in America.

Soros does not like America because it still retains far too many attributes of a state. This is why Soros was one of Obama’s main sponsors during the pre-election presidential campaign. This also explains what initially seem to be certain illogical decisions and acts of the White House’s current occupant that are troubling the real patriots of America…

Properly speaking, Soros is an advocate of financial capitalism. Exactly the same capitalism that Austrian socialist Rudolf Hilferding, who took financial capitalism to mean bankocracy, or the dictatorship of banks, wrote about a century ago. This model of society is extremely reminiscent of a concentration camp.

While on the subject of Soros, one more Rothschild figure comes to mind – former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Like Soros, he also dislikes America and the American dollar, and is working on reducing the role of the green paper.

Among other things, it is well known that just before military action began against Libya in 2011, Strauss-Kahn met with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and gave his support to the idea of introducing a regional currency – the gold dinar.

This naturally displeased those in charge of the Federal Reserve System’s printing presses and served as the reason for the scandalous resignation of Strauss-Kahn and, slightly later, NATO aggression against Libya.

The new world financial order «in a broad cultural context»

The Rothchilds do not like national currencies, which they see as an anachronism of the 20th century; they interfere with the creation of a world government.

In order to get rid of national currencies more quickly, the nation state needs to be destroyed, and to accomplish this, every cultural and moral foundation of society must be undermined as much as possible.

Observing Soros is evidence that the billionaire is promoting the cultural degeneration of mankind. Soros supports the rights of the «oppressed minorities» to abortion, atheism, the legalisation of drugs, sexual enlightenment, euthanasia, feminism, single-sex marriages and so on.

He is in favour of globalisation in all its manifestations, mass immigration, and birth control. He promotes these ideas around the world through his Open Society Institute, which has branches in 60 countries (total expenditure on the institute’s activities is nearly $600 million a year).

There are many other political, financial and media veterans who help Soros with his propaganda work, including the former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD),Jacques Attali. The striking similarity between the philosophies of Soros and Attali is astonishing.

Both are cosmopolitans to the core, both put their trust in the organisational role of banks, both fiercely attack what there is left of culture and religion, both talk about the need for a global central bank, a global armed forces and so forth. It feels as if they have a common boss and client.

I do not know whether the conversations that took place at the Mount Washington hotel in April 2011 went beyond the usual agenda of global financial forums, but there is no doubt that the ‘broad-minded’ Soros focussed on destroying the foundations of traditional society.

In his opinion piece published six months before the New Bretton Woods conference, Soros wrote: «Reorganising the world order will need to extend beyond the financial system.»

The billionaire is expressing the world view of his bosses for whom money, finance, exchange rates, gold fixing, securities, loans, derivatives, exchanges and other attributes of the modern financial system are just the means, not the goal.

The goal is world power

Money and Banking in America: The Great Debate Continues

Overview

Conventional wisdom suggests that the United States is a free and independent constitutional republic that controls its government through fair elections and controls its monetary policy in the interest of the people. Neither of these is true and there is extraordinary evidence to support this extraordinary claim. For the purposes of this discussion, we will not go down the rabbit hole about free and fair elections. We will however, flush out a few of the leading belief camps or monetary philosophies that exist in the United States today.

There are several key differences between each of the camps below. They are a) fractional vs. 100% reserve banking, b) private vs. public central banks, c) fiat vs. commodity backed, such as the gold standard.

Mainstream Establishment Economics 

The mainstream establishment perpetuates the myth that the Federal Reserve is a quasi government, independent agency who board is fairly selected and appointed by the President. They perpetuate the myth that they are working on behalf of the American people to support a free and politically independent free market banking sector to provide financing for government, institutional, and individual capitalist activities. They perpetuate the myth that the Federal Reserve actually regulates the banking sector to minimize risk and ensure stability. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will not lay out all the gory details from hundreds of books, papers, documentaries, congressional hearings, etc. I will let you do your own research with a few points of guidance.

A) The Federal Reserve is not a government entity - it is not Federal and there are no reserves. It is owned and controlled by the charter member banks it is supposed to regulate. Read the Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Web of Debt, or the Creature from Jeckll Island to get a better understanding of how it was setup and who was involved.

B) The Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air when it buys assets from the U.S. Treasury or from its charter member banks.

C) The Federal Reserve does not directly control the U.S. government gold holdings at Fort Knox or elsewhere in the world. It does, however, thwart any effort to audit said gold holdings.

D) The Federal Reserve is not the epitome of capitalism. Quite the contrary, it is an instrument of a collectivist cabal with no loyalties to the United States. It is a privately held central bank that adheres to a central planning modis operandi synonymous to that described by Karl Marx in Das Capital.

E) The United States Treasury does not issue the US currency, the US dollar. The Federal Reserve lends all US dollars into existence. Therefore, under the current system, the national debt can never be paid off because additional debt is required to produce money to pay off the debt.

F) The Federal Reserve is not the first instance of a privately held central bank. The founding fathers fought this battle over 200 years ago when British royal and banking interests attacked our use of Colonial Scripts. The Bank of North America and the Bank of the United States were foreign collectivist ploys to control the economies and people of the new colonies.

Austrian Economics and Libertarians

The Mises Institute which Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and most Libertarians adhere to articulates an ideal marketplace where the market determines interest rates and the money supply is constrained by the price and volume of gold. They support 100% reserve banking and believe the Federal Reserve, if it shall exist, be subordinate to Congress. They also believe that Congress should have the power to coin and print money, according to the Constitution.

The Ron Paul camp of Austrians believe in sound money through gold and/or silver legalization as money, and as a constraint on government spending.  They support the belief that Andrew Jackson was a great president because he killed the predecessor to the Federal Reserve and paid off the national debt for the first and only time in history.

This is certainly an excellent ideology in theory. Getting there would require a miracle. They are, however, extremely helpful in educating the populace on monetary policy and economics.

Lyndon LaRouche and Modern Hamiltonians 

Lyndon LaRouche supports a credit based economy where a privately held bank, similar to the one Alexander Hamilton supported, and similar to the Federal Reserve, should be available to lend money to governments and institutions for infrastructure projects. LaRouche is very critical of warmongering and takes a centralized federalist approach to solving the problem.   The central banking and monetary policy of LaRouche greatly differs from Austrian economics and the Ron Paul camp.

Public Banking Enthusiasts 

The Public Banking Institute espouses a series of publicly owned wholesale banks that would provide credit and depository functions to the government entities that own them. All profits generated from the low interest loans would go towards reducing the debt burden of that entity. Take for example the existing model of public banking in North Dakota. After paying expenses, the profits from lending are returned to the State of North Dakota to offset its costs of operations. The tax revenues are held in the public bank, rather than in a private Wall Street bank.

Public banking advocates support fiat currency and fractional reserves but at a decentralized scale, unlike the Federal Reserve. In fact, the supporters of the Public Banking Institute support nationalizing the Federal Reserve so it is no longer a privately held concern.

The Great Debate - A Coalition of Camps

One would be hard pressed to find someone in America that thinks the current system works well, but for every 100 people you ask about solutions, you get 100 variations of responses.  those that control and benefit from the current Federal Reserve system yield an enormous amount of power, influence, and money to misdirect and miseducate the majority of the population.

If the opposition camps described above and represented somewhat in the Green, Occupy, and TeaParty movements could find common ground in the public banking model, we may be able to make headway on the issue.

Was the Cyprus Bailout a Cover for a Gold Heist?

Like the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks were in part a cover for a massive gold heist, maybe one of the purposes of the Cyprus bailout was to hoard the gold.  Hitler shanghai'd the gold from Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, etc via the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) under the direction of Hjalmar Schacht (read Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler)

Cyprus To Sell €400 Million In Gold, About 75% Of Its Total Holdings, To Finance Part Of Its Bailout

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/10/2013 10:38 -0400

• Central Banks
 
• Eurozone
 
• International Monetary Fund
 
• Reuters

Curious why every bank and their grandmother, and most recently Goldman today, has been lining up to push the price of gold as low as possible? Here's why:

• CYPRUS TO SELL 400 MLN EUROS WORTH OF GOLD RESERVES TO FINANCE PART OF ITS BAILOUT - TROIKA DOCUMENTS - RTRS

Or about 10 tons of gold. But... the bailout was prefunded and there was no need to provide any additional cash? What happened: was the deposit outflow discovered to have been even greater than the worst case scenario and thus Cyprus needed even more cash? As for the buyers? We will venture a guess: central banks buying at the lows.

Finally: congratulations Cypriots. You are now handing over your gold for the one time, unbeatable opportunity to remain a vassal state to the Eurozone. But at least you have your €.

The good news: Cyprus will have at least another 4 or so tons after selling the 10 demanded now, before the Troika kindly requests that Cypriot citizens sell a kidney or two to pay for the ongoing deposit outflow from its insolvent banks, and indirectly, the endless bailout of the Euro.

Full story from Reuters:

Cyprus has agreed to sell excess gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros and help finance its part of its bailout, an assessment of Cypriot financing needs prepared by the European Commission showed.

The draft assessment, obtained by Reuters, also said that Cyprus would raise 10.6 billion euros from the winding down of Laiki Bank and the losses imposed on junior bondholders and the deposit-for-equity swap for uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus.

Nicosia would get a further 600 million euros over 3 years from raising the corporate income tax rate and the capital gains tax rate.

Out of the total Cypriot financing needs of 23 billion euros between the second quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2016, the euro zone bailout fund will provide 9 billion euros, the International Monetary Fund 1 billion and Cyprus itself will generate 13 billion, the assessment said.

History Of Money - Part 1

THE HISTORY OF MONEY PART 1 from Xat.org

Let's Go FORWARD
Tell someone you are going to a convention of accountants and you might get a few yawns, yet money and how it works is probably one of the most interesting things on earth.

It is fascinating and almost magical how money appeared on our planet. Unlike most developments we enjoy, which can be traced back to a source, civilisation or inventor, money appeared in places then unconnected all over the world in a remarkably simular way.

Consider the American Indians using Wampum, West Africans trading in decorative metallic objects called Manillas and the Fijians economy based on whales teeth, some of which are still legal tender; add to that shells, amber, ivory, decorative feathers, cattle including oxen & pigs, a large number of stones including jade and quartz which have all been used for trade across the world, and we get a taste of the variety of accepted currency.

There is something charming and childlike imagining primitive societies, our ancestors, using all these colourful forms of money. As long as everyone concerned can agree on a value, this is a sensible thing for a community to do.

After all, the person who has what you need might not need what you have to trade. Money solves that problem neatly. Real value with each exchange, and everyone gaining from the convenience. The idea is really inspired which might explain why so many diverse minds came up with it.


BUT ALL IS NOT WELL


"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."
President James Madison

Money, money, money, it's always just been there, right? Wrong.

Obviously it's issued by the government to make it easy for us to exchange things. Wrong again!

Truth is most people don't realise that the issuing of money is essentially a private business, and that the privilege of issuing money has been a major bone of contention throughout history.

Wars have been fought and depressions have been caused in the battle over who issues the money; however the majority of us are not aware of this, and this is largely due to the fact that the winning side became and increasingly continues to be a vital and respected member of our global society, having an influence over large aspects of our lives including our education, our media and our governments.

While we might feel powerless in trying to stop the manipulation of money for private profit at our expense, it is easy to forget that we collectively give money its value. We have been taught to believe printed pieces of paper have special value, and because we know others believe this too, we are willing to work all our lives to get what we are convinced others will want.

An honest look at history will show us how our innocent trust has been misused.

Let's start our exploration of money with:


JESUS FLIPS (many coins) 33 A.D.


Jesus was so upset by the sight of the money changers in the temple, he waded in and started to tip over the tables and drive them out with a whip, this being the one and only time we ever hear of him using force during his entire ministry.

So what caused the ultimate pacifist to become so aggressive?

For a long time the Jews had been called upon to pay their temple tax with a special coin called the half shekelshekel. It was a measured half ounce of pure silver with no image of a pagan emperor on it.

It was to them the only coin acceptable to God.

But because there was only a limited number of these coins in circulation, the money changers were in a buyers market and like with anything else in short supply, they were able to raise the price to what the market would bear.

They made huge profits with their monopoly on these coins and turned this time of devotion into a mockery for profit. Jesus saw this as stealing from the people and proclaimed the whole setup to be. "A den of thieves". ¹

Once money is accepted as a form of exchange, those who produce, loan out and manipulate the quantity of money are obviously in a very strong position. They are the "Money Changers".


1. King James NT, Mt 21:13, Mr 11:17, Lu 19:46


MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (1000 - 1100 A.D.)


Here we find goldsmith's offering to keep other people's gold and silver safe in their vaults, and in return people walking away with a receipt for what they have left there.

These paper receipts soon became popular for trade as they were less heavy to carry around than gold and silver coins.

After a while, the goldsmith's must have noticed that only a small percentage of their depositor's ever came in to demand their gold at any one time. So cleverly the goldsmith's made out some receipts for gold which didn't even exist, and then they loaned it out to earn interest.

A nod and a wink amongst themselves, they incorporated this practice into the banking system. They even gave it a name to make it seem more acceptable, christening the practice 'Fractional Reserve Banking' which translates to mean, lending out many times more money than you have assets on deposit.

Today banks are allowed to loan out at least ten times the amount they actually are holding, so while you wonder how they get rich charging you 11% interest, it's not 11% a year they make on that amount but actually 110%.


THE TALLY STICKS (1100 - 1854)


King Henry the First produced sticks of polished wood, with notches cut along one edge to signify the denominations. The stick was then split full length so each piece still had a record of the notches.

The King kept one half for proof against counterfeiting, and then spent the other half into the market place where it would continue to circulate as money.

Because only Tally Sticks were accepted by Henry for payment of taxes, there was a built in demand for them, which gave people confidence to accept these as money.

He could have used anything really, so long as the people agreed it had value, and his willingness to accept these sticks as legal tender made it easy for the people to agree. Money is only as valuable as peoples faith in it, and without that faith even today's money is just paper.

The tally stick system worked really well for 726 years. It was the most successful form of currency in recent history and the British Empire was actually built under the Tally Stick system, but how is it that most of us are not aware of its existence?

Perhaps the fact that in 1694 the Bank of England at its formation attacked the Tally Stick System gives us a clue as to why most of us have never heard of them. They realised it was money outside the power of the money changers, (the very thing King Henry had intended).

What better way to eliminate the vital faith people had in this rival currency than to pretend it simply never existed and not discuss it. That seems to be what happened when the first shareholder's in the Bank of England bought their original shares with notched pieces of wood and retired the system. You heard correctly, they bought shares. The Bank of England was set up as a privately owned bank through investors buying shares. Even the Banks resent nationalisation is not what it at first may appear, as its independent resources unceasingly multiply and dividends continue to be produced for its shareholder's.

These investors, who's names were kept secret, were meant to invest one and a quarter million pounds, but only three quarters of a million was received when it was chartered in 1694.

It then began to lend out many times more than it had in reserve, collecting interest on the lot.

This is not something you could just impose on people without preparation. The money changers needed to created the climate to make the formation of this private concern seem acceptable.

Here's how they did it.

With King Henry VIII relaxing the Usury Laws in the 1500's, the money changers flooded the market with their gold and silver coins becoming richer by the minute.

The English Revolution of 1642 was financed by the money changers backing Oliver Cromwell's successful attempt to purge the parliament and kill King Charles. What followed was 50 years of costly wars. Costly to those fighting them and profitable to those financing them.

So profitable that it allowed the money changers to take over a square mile of property still known as the City of London, which remains one of the three main financial centres in the world today.

The 50 years of war left England in financial ruin. The government officials went begging for loans from guess who, and the deal proposed resulted in a government sanctioned, privately owned bank which could produce money from nothing, essentially legally counterfeiting a national currency for private gain.

Now the politicians had a source from which to borrow all the money they wanted to borrow, and the debt created was secured against public taxes.

You would think someone would have seen through this, and realised they could produce their own money and owe no interest, but instead the Bank of England has been used as a model and now nearly every nation has a Central Bank with fractional reserve banking at its core.

These central banks have the power to take over a nations economy and become that nations real governing force. What we have here is a scam of mammoth proportions covering what is actually a hidden tax, being collected by private concerns.

The country sells bonds to the bank in return for money it cannot raise in taxes. The bonds are paid for by money produced from thin air. The government pays interest on the money it borrowed by borrowing more money in the same way. There is no way this debt can ever be paid, it has and will continue to increase.

If the government did find a way to pay off the debt, the result would be that there would be no bonds to back the currency, so to pay the debt would be to kill the currency.

With its formation the Bank of England soon flooded Britain with money. With no quality control and no insistence on value for money, prices doubled with money being thrown in every direction.

One company was even offering to drain the Red Sea to find Egyptian gold lost when the sea closed in on their pursuit of Moses.

By1698 the national debt expanded from £1,250,000 to £16,000,000 and up went the taxes the debt was secured on.

As hard as it might be to believe, in times of economic upheaval, wealth is rarely destroyed and instead is often only transferred. And who benefits the most when money is scarce? You may have guessed. It's those controlling what everyone else wants, the money changer's.

When the majority of people are suffering through economic depression, you can be sure that a minority of people are continuing to get rich.

Even today the Bank of England expresses its determination to prevent the ups and downs of booms and depressions, yet there have been nothing but ups and downs since its formation with the British pound rarely being stable.

One thing however has been stable and that is the growing fortune of:


THE ROTHSCHILDS (1743)


A goldsmith named Amshall Moses Bower opened a counting house in Frankfurt Germany in 1743. He placed a Roman eagle on a red shield over the door prompting people to call his shop the Red Shield Firm pronounced in German as "Rothschild".

His son later changed his name to Rothschild when he inherited the business. Loaning money to individuals was all well and good but he soon found it much more profitable loaning money to governments and Kings. It always involved much bigger amounts, always secured from public taxes.

Once he got the hang of things he set his sights on the world by training his five sons in the art of money creation, before sending them out to the major financial centres of the world to create and dominate the central banking systems.

J.P. Morgan was thought by many to be the richest man in the world during the second world war, but upon his death it was discovered he was merely a lieutenant within the Rothschild empire owning only 19% of the J.P. Morgan Companies.

"There is but one power in Europe and that is Rothschild."
19th century French commentator ¹

We will explore a little more about the richest family a little later, after we've had a look at:


1. Niall Ferguson, THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD, Money's Prophets, 1798-1848


THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1764 - 1781)


By the mid 1700's Britain was at its height of power, but was also heavily in debt.

Since the creation of the Bank of England, they had suffered four costly wars and the total debt now stood at £140,000,000, (which in those days was a lot of money).

In order to make their interest payments to the bank, the British government set about a programme to try to raise revenues from their American colonies, largely through an extensive programme of taxation.

There was a shortage of material for minting coins in the colonies, so they began to print their own paper money, which they called Colonial Script. This provided a very successful means of exchange and also gave the colonies a sense of identity. Colonial Script was money provided to help the exchange of goods. It was debt free paper money not backed by gold or silver.

During a visit to Britain in 1763, The Bank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklin replied.

"That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.

In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."
Benjamin Franklin ¹

America had learned that the people's confidence in the currency was all they needed, and they could be free of borrowing debts. That would mean being free of the Bank of England.

In Response the world's most powerful independent bank used its influence on the British parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764.

This act made it illegal for the colonies to print their own money, and forced them to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold.

Here is what Franklin said after that.

"In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed."
Benjamin Franklin

"The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War."
Benjamin Franklin's autobiography

By the time the war began on 19th April 1775 much of the gold and silver had been taken by British taxation. They were left with no other choice but to print money to finance the war.

What is interesting here is that Colonial Script was actually working so well, it became a threat to the established economic system of the time.

The idea of issuing money as Franklin put it "in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry" and not charging any interest, was not causing any problems or inflation. This unfortunately was alien to the Bank of England which only issued money for the sake of making a profit for its shareholder's.


1. Congressman Charles G. Binderup of Nebraska, Unrobing the Ghosts of Wall Street


THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA (1781-1785) 


If you can't beat them, join them, might well have been his argument when arms dealer, Robert Morris suggested he be allowed to set up a Bank of England style central bank in the USA in 1781.

Desperate for money, the $400,000 he proposed to deposit, to allow him to loan out many times that through fractional reserve banking, must have looked really attractive to the impoverished American Government.

Already spending the money they would be loaned, no one made a fuss when Robert Morris couldn't raise the deposit, and instead suggested he might use some gold, which had been loaned to America from France.

Once in, he simply used fractional reserve banking, and with the banks growing fortune he loaned to himself, and his friends the money to buy up all the remaining shares. The bank then began to loan out money multiplied by this new amount to eager politicians, who were probably too drunk with the new 'power cash' to notice or care how it was done.

The scam lasted five years until in 1785, with the value of American money dropping like a lead balloon. The banks charter didn't get renewed.

The shareholder's walking off with the interest did not go unnoticed by the governor.

"The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will... They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by (the power of) government, keep them in their proper spheres."
Governor Morris ¹


1. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787, 7/2


FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES (1791-1811)


It worked once, it will work again. It's been six years. There are a lot of new hungry politicians. Let's give it a try. And so there it was, in 1791, the First Bank of the United States (BUS). Not only deceptively named to sound official, but also to take attention away from the real first bank which had been shut down.

Its initials however gave a clear indication that Americans were once again being taken for a ride. And true to its British model, the name of the investors was never revealed.

Having gotten away with it a second time, some of them probably wished Amshall Rothschild had picked a different time to make his pronouncement from his private central bank in Frankfurt.

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

Not to worry, no one was listening, the American government borrowed 8.2 million dollars from the bank in the first 5 years and prices rose by 72%. This time round the money changer's had learned their lesson, they had guaranteed a twenty year charter.

The president, who could see an ever increasing debt, with no chance of ever paying back, had this to say.

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."
Thomas Jefferson, 1798

While the independent press, who had not been bought off yet, called the scam "a great swindle, a vulture, a viper, and a cobra."

As with the real first bank, the government had been the only depositor to put up any real money, with the remainder being raised from loans the investors made to each other, using the magic of fractional reserve banking. When time came for renewal of the charter, the bankers were warning of bad times ahead if they didn't get what they wanted. The charter was not renewed.

Five month later Britain had attacked America and started the war of 1812.

Meanwhile a short time earlier, an independent Rothschild business, the Bank of France, was being looked upon with suspicion by none other than:


NAPOLEON (1803 - 1825)


He didn't trust the bank saying:

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

For both sides of a war to be loaned money from the same privately owned Central Bank is not unusual. Nothing generates debt like war. A Nation will borrow any amount to win. So naturally if the loser is kept going to the last straw in a vain hope of winning, then the more resources will be used up by the winning side before their victory is obtained more resources used, more loans taken out, more money made by the bankers; and even more amazing, the loans are usually given on condition that the victor pays the debts left by the loser.

In 1803, instead of borrowing from the bank, Napoleon sold territory west of the Mississippi to the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson for 3 million dollars in gold; a deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.

Three million dollars richer, Napoleon quickly gathered together an army and set about conquering much of Europe.

Each place he went to, Napoleon found his opposition being financed by the Bank of England, making huge profits as Prussia, Austria and finally Russia all went heavily into debt trying to stop him.

Four years later, with the main French army in Russia, Nathan Rothschild took charge of a bold plan to smuggle a shipment of gold through France to finance an attack from Spain by the Duke of Wellington.

Wellington's attack from the south and other defeats eventually forced Napoleon into exile. However in 1815 he escaped from his banishment in Elba, an Island off the coast of Italy, and returned to Paris.

By March of that year Napoleon had equipped an army with the help of borrowed money from the Eubard Banking House of Paris.

With 74,000 French troops led by Napoleon, sizing up to meet 67,000 British and other European Troops 200 miles NE of Paris on June 18th 1815, it was a difficult one to call. Back in London, the real potential winner, Nathan Rothschild, was poised to strike in a bold plan to take control of the British stock market, the bond market, and possibly even the Bank of England.

Nathan, knowing that information is power, stationed his trusted agent named Rothworth near the battle field.

As soon as the battle was over Rothworth quickly returned to London, delivering the news to Rothschild 24 hours ahead of Wellington's courier.

A victory by Napoleon would have devastated Britain's financial system. Nathan stationed himself in his usual place next to an ancient pillar in the stock market.

This powerful man was not without observers as he hung his head, and began openly to sell huge numbers of British Government Bonds.

Reading this to mean that Napoleon must have won, everyone started to sell their British Bonds as well.

The bottom fell out of the market until you couldn't hardly give them away. Meanwhile Rothschild began to secretly buy up all the hugely devalued bonds at a fraction of what they were worth a few hours before.

In this way Nathan Rothschild captured more in one afternoon than the combined forces of Napoleon and Wellington had captured in their entire lifetime.

The Truth Behind NATO's Intervention in Libya And Gaddafi's Assassination

Some investigative reporters have reported that Gaddafi my have been ousted in 2011 by NATO forces not because there was a local uprising against his tyrannical rule, but because he was making progress on his ideas for a gold backed dinar that would be used to trade Libyan oil.  It would also be the single currency of a United States of Africa that Gaddafi had proposed starting in 2000, and brought up again in 2007 and 2009 at regional conferences.  Here are some of the articles that suggest there is a lot more behind the USA and NATO involvement.

The United States of Africa 

The United States of Africa is a proposed name for the concept of a federation of some or all of the 55 sovereign states of Africa.  Former Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was the 2009 Chairperson of the African Union (AU), advanced the idea of a United States of Africa at two regional African summits: in June 2007 in Conakry, Guinea,[4] and again in February 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.[5] Gaddafi had previously pushed for the creation of the African Union at a summit in Lomé, Togo, in 2000.[6] Having described the AU as a failure on a number of occasions, Gaddafi asserted that only a true pan-African state can provide stability and wealth to Africa.

The Gold Dinar

Muammar Gadhafi's decision to pursue gold standard and reject dollars for oil payments may have sealed his fate (June 7, 2011)
Attacking Col. Gadhafi can be understood in the context of America and Europe fighting for their survival, which an independent Africa jeopardizes.  The war raging in Libya since February is getting progressively worse as NATO forces engage in regime change and worse, an objective to kill Muammar Gadhafi to eradicate his vision of a United Africa with a single currency backed by gold.  Observers say implementing that vision would change the world power equation and threaten Western hegemony. In response, the United States and its NATO partners have determined “Gadhafi must go,” and assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner.
“That man has invested in Africa more than any other leader in the recent history of Africa's coming into political independence,” he continued. The Muslim leader said America needs access to the mineral resources in Africa to be a viable power in the 21st century.

Pre-existing Condition

During the Libyan escalation, General Wesley Clark wrote an article for the Washington Post suggesting to the world that Libya did not meet the US criteria for intervention (which is quite unusual considering that we have invaded sovereign nations over 200 times since 1800).  However what is certainly more concerning is that in 2007 on an interview on DemocracyNow, General Wesley Clark revealed plans exposed to him in the Pentagon right after 911 that suggested the US was planning to invade Libya as far back as 1998.

There are extensive reports supporting these claims.  including this RT report on YouTube. The articles and video all made the following startling and disturbing claims:

1. Just prior to the air strikes, Gaddafi had planned to introduce a new currency, the “Gold Dinar”.
2. The currency was to be supported by Libya’s massive gold reserves of 144 tonnes.
3. The gold coin was to be accepted throughout Africa and the Middle East and would have been the only currency accepted for purchases of oil.
4. This strategy would likely crush both the Dollar and the Euro, making the Dinar the dominant international currency.
5. The NATO military action is the result of a US-led plan to crush Gaddafi’s currency plans and to protect Western financial interests. The military action is supported by US oil interests, who are seeking to obtain access to Libya’s massive oil reserves.

Grounds for Impeachment

President Obama argued that the War Powers Act did not apply to the Libyan intervention because the United Nations and NATO provided him with sufficient authority to be involved.  Understand that what Obama is saying is that the President of the United States, Chief of the US Military can direct US military intervention in another sovereign nation because the UN and NATO authorize such actions.  That is very likely unconstitutional and grounds for impeachment as many have suggested.  Unfortunately for those in favor of restricting the Presidential powers, the Democratic Party and Republican Party are too "motivated" to see money being spent on a US projection of power that distracts the public from the turmoil at home.

Bretton Woods II - China Leads the Way

Expect China to Shape the Next Bretton Woods Pact: Philip Coggan

Illustration by Josh Cochran

By Philip Coggan Feb 2, 2012 4:00 PM PT 14 Comments

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When the world economy heads into crisis, the international currency system often breaks down. This occurs either because debtors can’t meet their obligations, or because creditors fear they are not being repaid in sound money. The first condition exists today in the euro zone; the second is likely to emerge in the China-U.S. relationship.

So how might these conditions change the system? Much discussion concerns whether the U.S. dollar will be replaced as the global reserve currency by the Chinese yuan or whether it will simply be one of a number of reserve currencies that includes the euro, yuan and yen.

The global reserve currency is the one that forms the largest proportion of the holdings of central banks. More broadly, it is also the currency most likely to be accepted by merchants worldwide. In my view, the debate about whether the dollar will be replaced by the yuan is a bit of a red herring because such a shift will not occur quickly.

As of 2010, about 60 percent of all foreign-exchange reserves were denominated in dollars, giving the U.S. currency a critical mass. Investors are still comfortable with holding it; despite the country’s fiscal problems, in times of crisis, the dollar is regarded as a haven. It will take a long while for international investors to become confident that a Communist-led government will always respect their rights.

China’s Enormous Economy

By 2020, if current trends are realized, China will become the world’s largest economy. The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves already give it significant power as a creditor nation. But even if foreigners wanted to hold yuan instead of dollars, there would be constraints on their doing so. And removing the constraints would probably cause the yuan to soar, something that the Chinese are keen to avoid.

So it seems unlikely that the next 10 years will see a yuan standard replacing a dollar standard. But might the present crisis conditions lead to some other sort of change? Might countries, for example, be driven to enter a new arrangement comparable to the 1944 Bretton Woods pact, in which the world’s major industrial states agreed to adhere to a global gold standard to stabilize international currencies?

At this juncture, an agreement on this scale would be very difficult. Bretton Woods was made possible because of the limited number of participants and the urgency of wartime. Much ofEurope was under Nazi occupation and could not take part; the Soviet Union had little intellectual input; and the developing world was consulted on a fairly cursory basis. The Americans were in charge, but listened to John Maynard Keynes out of respect for his intellect.

A modern agreement would have to get consensus from the U.S., China, the European Union,India, Brazil, and so on. This would be tricky. But perhaps there could be an arrangement less formal than Bretton Woods. In November 2010, Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. Treasury official who runs the World Bank, wrote of a concept in which countries would agree on structural reforms to boost growth, forswear currency intervention and build a “co- operative monetary system.” This system, he continued, “should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values.”

Some saw this mild suggestion as a call for a return to the gold standard, which, barring desperate circumstances, is unlikely. But before we dismiss all ideas for reform, we should remember that the world operates under what some call a Bretton Woods II regime, with the Americans buying Chinese goods and the Chinese supplying the finance. The implications of this process are everlasting U.S. trade deficits and an ever-greater investment by the Chinese people in U.S. government debt.

Dollar Connection

The system may have suited the Chinese until now because they were eager to find manufacturing jobs for their rural population. At some point, however, the Chinese may feel the need to do something else with their trillions of dollars in reserves. Already they are looking to diversify by acquiring natural resources in the developing world. They have also criticized the U.S. for its economic policy, calling on the Americans to limit their budget deficit.

Despite the strength of this rhetoric, the Chinese will not abandon the dollar outright. They already own so much in the way of U.S. government debt that any indication of their intention to sell would cause a plunge in bond prices. The fates of creditor and debtor are locked together. So the answer might be some kind of managed deal, with the Chinese agreeing to let their currency strengthen and to limit their current account surplus while the Americans agree to tackle their budget deficit. The currencies would trade in a range while the deficit would have a target.

Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury secretary, hinted at such a solution in October 2010, suggesting a limit on current account surpluses of about 4 percent of gross domestic product. A Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers nodded mildly in the direction of this proposal. But nothing will happen overnight. Neither the Chinese nor the Americans will want to accept constraints on their behavior.

The Chinese will change tack if they believe such a shift is in their own interest. This might be because they face losses on their government-bond holdings, or because they wish to shift to a consumption-based, rather than an export-led, model to court domestic popularity.

To some, the idea that the U.S. would accept constraints on the independence of its economic policy might seem a fantasy. It is hard enough for a president to get his own plans through Congress, let alone get approval for a set of policies dictated from abroad. As a result, one would expect a new system to arise only as part of a further crisis.

Savers and Spenders

In a speech in October 2010, Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, called for a “grand bargain” among the major players in the world economy. “The risk,” he said, “is that, unless agreement on a common path of adjustment is reached, conflicting policies will result in an undesirably low level of world output, with all countries worse off as a result.”

The fundamental problem is the imbalance between the saving and the spending nations. In a sense, the situation resembles that of the late 1920s when the Americans and French owned a huge proportion of the world’s gold reserves; this time it is the Asian and OPEC countries that have too much squirreled away. What should naturally happen in such circumstances is for the exchange rates of the surplus nations to appreciate. But countries have been attempting to hold their currencies down, either by intervening in the markets or by imposing capital controls. All currencies, however, cannot fall; some must rise and risk deflation in the process.

Any target for exchange rates, or current-account surpluses, would have to be flexible. Fixed exchange rates require either subordination of monetary policy or capital controls to be effective. The Chinese, who already restrict investment, might favor capital controls, but it is hard to see the U.S., with its huge financial-services industry, agreeing to a worldwide restriction.

However, there is one factor that might persuade the U.S. government to change its mind: its debt burden. As has already been discussed, reducing debt via an austerity program is unpalatable, and outright default is almost unthinkable. But governments did manage to reduce their debt burdens after World War II, under the auspices of the Bretton Woods system.

Only with capital controls can government debt burdens be inflated away. Private savings can be more easily forced into public-sector debt.

How would a managed exchange-rate system work today? Even under Bretton Woods, after all, it eventually proved impossible to keep exchange rates pegged. But the system did work for a quarter of a century. And if an exchange-rate peg gives speculators a tempting target, the answer would be to curb the speculators. Again, if the Chinese set the rules, such a move would seem more likely. They regard Western governments as foolish for allowing their economic policies to be at the mercy of the markets.

If the U.K. set the terms of the gold standard, and the U.S. set those of Bretton Woods, then the terms of the next financial system are likely to be set by the world’s biggest creditor: China. And that system may look a lot different to the one we have become used to over the past 30 years.

(Philip Coggan is a columnist for the Economist. This is an excerpt from his book, “Paper Promises: Debt, Money and the New World Order,” to be published Feb. 7 by Perseus Books. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this article: Philip Coggan at philipcoggan@economist.com

To contact the editor responsible for this article: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.net