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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-04/better-cash-alliance-has-orwellian-plan The "Better Than Cash Alliance" Has An Orwellian Plan 06/04/2015 15:24 -0400 Federal Reserve Federal Tax Reality inShare1 Submitted by Seth Mason The "Better Than Cash Alliance" Has An Orwellian Plan In the fall of 1910, under the pretense of a duck hunting trip, a group of powerful bankers, political figures, and businessmen met at Jekyll Island, GA to plan the creation of a central bank for the United States. The “game” that this elite group of “hunters” brought back to their ivory towers of Lower Manhattan and Capitol Hill was the blueprint for one of the most destructive financial institutions in modern history, the Federal Reserve. One-hundred years later, another group of powerful bankers, political figures, and businessmen have converged to promote a cashless society, an economic system that would compel every man, woman, and child to utilize proprietary, government-monitored electronic systems to make purchases of any kind. This group, which calls itself the Better Than Cash Alliance, is as dangerous as the group of “outdoor enthusiasts” that met at Jekyll Island that fateful early-20th Century November. And, just like the Jekyll Island group sold their grand plans based on a lie (they claimed that the Fed would guarantee liquidity in times of financial panics), the Better Than Cash Alliance is selling the idea of a cashless society based on the farce that eliminating cash would stimulate entrepreneurship among the poor. In reality, the elimination of cash would reduce a great many opportunities for entrepreneurship for people of few means. Gone would be the informal businesses the working poor often operate: roadside produce stands, street performances, handicraft tables, and day labor. Contrary to the assertions of the BTCA, a cash-free society would limit entrepreneurship to those with the means to incorporate a business, afford the proprietary system required to accept payments, and understand the local, state, and federal tax burden the payment system would create. Although they won’t admit it, the 12 central governments that currently support the BTCA (the U.S. is one of them) do so because a cashless society would enable them to track and tax every purchase made with sovereign currency within their borders. In addition to producing new government revenue streams, the payment systems would increase governments’ social engineering capabilities: They would compel consumers to purchase goods and services from tax-paying, licensed organizations. Freelance service providers such as barbers, music teachers, and tutors would be forced to either jump through the hoops of incorporation or seek work with licensed businesses (which would inevitably take a cut of their earnings and subject the remainder to payroll taxes). The black market would also be squeezed, escalating the War on Drugs, and subjecting every “sin” and self-defense purchase to government scrutiny. Under the guise of “national security”, of course. A number of financial institutions, including, but not limited to, Citi, Visa, and MasterCard, support the BTCA, for obvious reasons. In a cash-free world, these institutions would not only make profits on the front end by selling electronic payment devices and charging a fee for every transaction, but they would also make money on the back end by compelling everyone to deposit all of their earnings and cash holdings into their coffers. The BTCA claims that a cashless society would enable the poor to “participate in the financial system”. In reality, it would compel everyone to patronize banks. And, while a cashless society would be a windfall for the banking industry, it would place a heavy burden on the elderly, who often hold large amounts of cash and are hesitant (and, in some cases, incapable) of making electronic financial transactions. Among the numerous social problems the BTCA’s plan for cashless society would create, incidences of elder abuse would certainly increase. Inevitably, some people would find a way to circumvent a government-mandated electronic payment system, at least for some purchases. Some would find ways to barter or use non-government-issued crypto or de facto currencies. (Interestingly, some black market circles use liquid Tide laundry detergent as a currency.) For some, the elimination of cash would have little material effect on their lives. But, for most, the BTCA’s agenda is a tremendous threat to their individual and economic liberties. Like the Jekyll Island duck hunters, the Better Than Cash Alliance is a cabal of powerful people who are pushing a dangerous agenda that would harm average Americans while increasing the elite group’s power over them. Like Georgia mallards, the BTCA’s plans must be shot down. Average:

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/04/the-bankster-war-on-cash-jpmorganchase.html Tuesday, April 21, 2015 The Bankster War on Cash; JPMorganChase Begins to Prohibit the Storage of Cash in Its Safety Deposit Boxes Letters are apparently going out to some JPMoragnChase customers announcing that cash will be prohibited from being stored in the bank's safety deposit boxes. At the Collectors Universe message board, a commenter reports: My mother has a SDB at a Chase branch with one of my siblings as co-signers. Last week they got a letter outlining a number of changes to the lease agreement, including this: "Contents of the box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value." Another change is that signatures will no longer be accepted to access the box. The next time they go in they have to bring two forms of ID and they will be issued a four-digit pin number that will be used to access the box then and in the future. Professor Joseph Salerno of the Mises Institute writes: As of March, Chase began restricting the use of cash in selected markets, including Greater Cleveland. The new policy restricts borrowers from using cash to make payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines, and auto loans. Chase even goes as far as to prohibit the storage of cash in its safe deposit boxes . In a letter to its customers dated April 1, 2015 pertaining to its “Updated Safe Deposit Box Lease Agreement,” one of the highlighted items reads: “You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value.” Just last week, Citigroup's top economist, Willem Buiter, wrote a report calling for the abolishment of cash as a sound policy. Hide your wallets, the banksters are on the move. MORE: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-16/another-shill-statism-central-planning-demands-cash-ban Citigroup's Gold "Expert" Demands A Cash Ban inShare26 Late last year, Grexit "expert" Willem Buiter decided that he was a greater expert on the topic of monetary metals than on geopolitics by stating that "Gold Is A 6,000 Year Old Bubble." Now, he has decided that after gold, it is best to just do away with any physical currency altogether and the time to ban cash has arrived. Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man blog, Citigroup’s Chief Economist Joins the Cash Ban BandwagonWe have discussed the views of Citigroup’s chief economist Willem Buiter previously in these pages (see “A Dose of Buiternomics” for details), on occasion of his coming out as a supporter of assorted monetary cranks, such as Silvio Gesell, to name one. Not to put too fine a point to it, Buiter is a monetary crank too. Buiter is always shilling for more central bank intervention, and it seems no plan can ever be too silly or too extreme for him. In fact, he seems to have made the propagation of utterly crazy ideas his trademark. Buiter has now joined one of his famous colleagues, Kenneth Rogoff, another intellectual enamored with central planning, in clamoring for a cash ban (for our discussion of Rogoff, see “Meet Kenneth Rogoff, Unreconstructed Statist”). Both Buiter and Rogoff want to make it impossible for citizens to escape the latest depredations of central bankers, such as the imposition of negative interest rates. This is to be done by forcing them to keep their money in accounts at fractionally reserved banks. If Buiter gets his way, there won’t be a WSOP final table with piles of cash anymore. Photo credit: David Becker / Las Vegas Review-Journal As Bloomberg reports: “The world’s central banks have a problem. When economic conditions worsen, they react by reducing interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. But, as has happened across the world in recent years, there comes a point where those central banks run out of room to cut — they can bring interest rates to zero, but reducing them further below that is fraught with problems, the biggest of which is cash in the economy. In a new piece, Citi’s Willem Buiter looks at this problem, which is known as the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. Fundamentally, the ELB problem comes down to cash. According to Buiter, the ELB only exists at all due to the existence of cash, which is a bearer instrument that pays zero nominal rates. Why have your money on deposit at a negative rate that reduces your wealth when you can have it in cash and suffer no reduction? Cash therefore gives people an easy and effective way of avoiding negative nominal rates. Buiter’s note suggests three ways to address this problem: Abolish currency. Tax currency. Remove the fixed exchange rate between currency and central bank reserves/deposits. Yes, Buiter’s solution to cash’s ability to allow people to avoid negative deposit rates is to abolish cash altogether. (Note that he’s far from being the first to float this idea. Ken Rogoff has given his endorsement to the idea as well, as have others.) Before looking at the practicalities of abolishing currency, we should first look at whether it could ever be necessary. Due to the costs of holding large amounts of cash, Buiter puts the actual nominal rate at which the move to cash makes sense as closer to -100bp. So, in order for a cash abolition to become necessary, central banks would need to be in a position where they wished to set nominal rates much lower than that. Buiter does not have to go far to find an example of where a central bank may have wanted to set interest rates much lower to -100bp. He uses (a fairly aggressive) Taylor Rule to show that Federal Reserve rates should have been as low as -6 percent during the financial crisis.” (emphasis added) As mentioned above, no meddling by a central bank is ever too extreme or too crazy for Mr. Buiter. Here is his ridiculous “Taylor rule” chart (the conclusions of which by the way would be vehemently disputed by none other than Mr. Taylor himself). Buiter’s ridiculous chart asserting that a “negative interest rate of 6% would have been needed” in 2008-2010, via Citigroup, Bloomberg. This nice gentlemen who wants to either “abolish cash” or “tax currency” for the good of us all, is a typical example of the modern-day viciously statist intellectual (h/t, Hans-Hermann Hoppe), who constantly pines for the authorities to implement social engineering on a grand scale. As long as they implement his plan, everything will be great. Not Bothered by ConcernsBloomberg tells us that “Buiter is aware that his idea may a bit controversial”. What a relief. He even lists the disadvantages of abolishing cash, only to dismiss them out of hand. With the exception of one crucial point, he is mainly erecting straw men. “Buiter is aware that his idea may be somewhat controversial, so he goes to the effort of listing the disadvantages of abolishing cash. Abolishing currency will constitute a noticeable change in many people’s lives and change often tends to be resisted. Currency use remains high among the poor and some older people. (Buiter suggests that keeping low-denomination cash in circulation — nothing larger than $5 — might solve this.) Central banks and governments would lose seigniorage revenue. Abolishing currency would inevitably be associated with a loss of privacy and create risks of excessive intrusion by the government. Switching exclusively to electronic payments may create new security and operational risks. Buiter dismisses each of these concerns in turn, finishing with: In summary, we therefore conclude that the arguments against abolishing currency seem rather weak. Whatever the strength of the arguments, the chances of an administration taking the decision to abolish cash seem vanishingly small. We are surprised by the optimism expressed by Bloomberg that “the chances of an administration taking the decision to abolish cash seem vanishingly small”. We believe that governments all over the so-called “free world” are working feverishly to make a ban of cash currency a reality. Naturally, we couldn’t care less about the “seignorage” revenue of the State. In our opinion central banks shouldn’t even exist, and “seignorage” is nothing but a euphemism for outright theft. It’s a nice touch that Buiter also doesn’t want to “throw seniors under the bus” and gives a brief thought to the poor as well. Why would any of them ever need anything more than a $5 note? That someone like Buiter doesn’t find it difficult to dismiss the concern that “abolishing currency would inevitably be associated with a loss of privacy and create risks of excessive intrusion by the government” is no surprise, but it is indeed a legitimate concern. Under the cover of the “war on drugs” and lately the even bigger government-sponsored racket known as the “war on terror”, financial privacy has been all but eradicated already. Willem Buiter, shill for statism and central planning, here seen at the Council for Foreign Relations. Did we mention that we believe he’s an atrocious economist? Photo credit: Bloomberg Needless to say, we dispute the idea that central banks should ever impose negative interest rates. This policy is revolting economic nonsense that greatly harms the economy. As we have previously pointed out, given that the natural rate of interest can never be zero or negative, it is an inescapable conclusion that any imposition of negative market rates will end up destroying scarce capital and leave society poorer. Lastly, Buiter fails to list one counterargument that we believe is extremely important. Since he works for a charter member of the world’s most powerful banking cartel, this is no big surprise either. We will make up for his oversight. The 2008 crisis has not shown that anyone needs “negative interest rates” as Buiter erroneously claims. It has mainly shown how rickety and de facto insolvent the fractionally reserved banking system really is. If not for the introduction of an accounting trick (under immense political pressure, the FASB allowed the banks to dispense with mark-to-market accounting, which suddenly made them “whole” again), a huge taxpayer bailout and money printing by the central bank on an unprecedented scale (in the post WW2 era), several of the biggest banks would have gone the way of Lehman. It was a good reminder that although fiduciary media – deposit money that is not backed by standard money – are part of the money supply in the broader sense, their main characteristic is that they exist only in the form of accounting entries. Hence, fractionally reserved banks are at all times insolvent, since they cannot possibly pay all demand deposits on demand. This obvious violation of what once used to be a bailment contract has been sanctioned by the courts in the 19th century under the influence of banking interests. If one considers how deposit money is multiplied under this system, it should be obvious that the scheme is fundamentally fraudulent. It goes against the grain of legal traditions that have been well-established in Western culture since antiquity. If cash were to be banned, people could no longer opt out from this system. Bank runs would no longer be possible at all. While a bank run these days only gives one government scrip that is itself an irredeemable liability of a central bank, it is at least slightly more “real” than the accounting entry known as deposit money. Most importantly, cash can insure one against a bank going under, or the breakdown of the entire banking system, which is always a potential danger. Banks would obviously love a cash ban – quite possibly they are the only ones who would love it even more than governments. ConclusionWe keep being bombarded by moves to restrict the use of cash and demands to ban it altogether. These demands seem to mainly revolve around two arguments: one is that “only criminals need cash”, which is on a par with the absurd assertion that we should all be fine with Stasi-like ubiquitous government surveillance “if we have nothing to hide”. The other one is that a cash ban would make life easier for the central planners who are actively undermining the economy with their policy of debasement. We would argue that central banking and fiat money have done more than enough harm already and that the eradication of financial privacy has gone way too far. Money and banking should be freed from the clutches of government-directed monopolization and cartelization and should be returned to the free market. Addendum:One of our readers has sent us a few links concerning recent examples of the war on cash waged by governments the world over, which we reproduce below. Indeed, there is little cause for optimism on this score. Given this increase in attempts to restrict the use of cash, the danger that possession of gold will one day be declared illegal again can no longer be so easily dismissed either.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-10/why-us-treasury-quietly-ordering-surival-kits-us-bankers CLICK ON THE LINK TO SEE MORE, COULDN'T BRING IT ALL OVER Why Is The US Treasury Quietly Ordering "Surival Kits" For US Bankers? 12/10/2014 15:32 -0500 The Department of Treasury is spending $200,000 on survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. As FreeBeacon reports, survival kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United States and includes a solar blanket, food bar, water-purification tablets, and dust mask (among other things). The question, obviously, is just what do they know that the rest of us don't? As Free Beacon reports, The Department of Treasury is seeking to order survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. The emergency supplies would be for every employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducts on-site reviews of banks throughout the country. The survival kit includes everything from water purification tablets to solar blankets. The government is willing to spend up to $200,000 on the kits, according to the solicitation released on Dec. 4. The survival kits must come in a fanny-pack or backpack that can fit all of the items, including a 33-piece personal first aid kit with “decongestant tablets,” a variety of bandages, and medicines. The kits must also include a “reusable solar blanket” 52 by 84 inches long, a 2,400-calorie food bar, “50 water purification tablets,” a “dust mask,” “one-size fits all poncho with hood,” a rechargeable lantern with built-in radio, and an “Air-Aid emergency mask” for protection against airborne viruses. Survival kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United States including Bank of America, American Express Bank, BMO Financial Corp., Capitol One Financial Corporation, Citigroup, Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Company, and Wells Fargo. ... The agency has roughly 3,814 employees, each of which would receive a survival kit. The staff includes “bank examiners” who provide “sustained supervision” of major banks in the United States. ... It is not clear why the Treasury Department is ordering the kits. * * * One can only imagine what the Treasury department is thinking will happen in the near-future... while it is indeed good to be prepared, the timing as domestic social unrest ramps up, the driver of the recovery is crashing, and the Fed has stepped away is 'odd' to say the least. * * * Full OCC RFP below: http://www.scribd.com/doc/249781337/Survival-Kits-RFP

www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-20/worst-recovery-ever-except-bankers "Worst. Recovery. Ever." Except For Bankers 08/20/2014 10:44 -0400 Goldman Sachs goldman sachs Morgan Stanley New York Post recovery inShare33 For most (practically all) Americans, this is officially the worst recovery ever. As we pointed out previously, wage growth has never been slower in a post World War II recovery. However, not everyone is hurting... *GOLDMAN SACHS SAID TO RAISE JUNIOR STAFF'S SALARIES ABOUT 20%This comes just weeks after Morgan Stanley announced it would raise junior banker salaries by 25%. Things are troubling... But not for the bankers... (as Bloomberg reports) Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will increase 2015 salaries for junior employees in the U.S. by about 20 percent, according to a person briefed on the decision. The raises will apply to employees with the title of analyst across all divisions, said the person, who asked not to be identified speaking on personnel matters. Analysts are typically recent college graduates. Morgan Stanley is raising salaries for junior bankers worldwide by about 25 percent, a person briefed on the matter said last month. That change only applied to associates and vice presidents in the investment banking and underwriting units. The New York Post reported on Goldman Sachs’s pay increases earlier today. * * * It appears President Obama's hopes for 'fair, livable' minimum wage is being heeded by the banking community - good patriots, they are.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-06-03/holder-laid-groundwork-%E2%80%9Ctoo-big-jail%E2%80%9D-1999 CLICK ON LINK TO SEE RELATED LINKS EMBEDDED IN ORIGINAL ARTICLE Holder Laid the Groundwork for “Too Big to Jail” In 1999 Submitted by George Washington on 06/03/2013 17:34 -0400 Everyone knows that Eric Holder – the head of the Department of Not-Much Justice – has said that the big banks are too big to jail. And many people know that – prior to becoming the Attorney General – Holder was a partner at a big firm which did some despicable things to represent the big banks and MERS. But Holder’s see-no-evil act actually started more than a decade ago. Specifically, in 1999, as Deputy Attorney General, Holder wrote a memo arguing against prosecuting large financial service companies: Prosecutors may consider the collateral consequences of a corporate criminal conviction in determining whether to charge the corporation with a criminal offense. *** One of the factors in determining whether to charge a natural person or a corporation is whether the likely punishment is appropriate given the nature and seriousness of the crime. In the corporate context, prosecutors may take into account the possibly substantial consequences to a corporation’s officers, directors, employees, and shareholders, many of whom may, depending on the size and nature (e.g., publicly vs. closely held) of the corporation and their role in its operations, have played no role in the criminal conduct, have been completely unaware of it, or have been wholly unable to prevent it. Further, prosecutors should also be aware of non-penal sanctions that may accompany a criminal charges, such as potential suspension or debarment from eligibility for government contracts or federal funded programs such as health care. Whether or not such non-penal sanctions are appropriate or required in a particular case is the responsibility of the relevant agency, a decision that will be made based on the applicable statutes, regulations, and policies. Virtually every conviction of a corporation, like virtually every conviction of an individual, will have an impact on innocent third parties …. Matt Taibbi points out that – when the Department of Justice subsequently prosecuted accounting giant Arthur Andersen for covering up Enron’s fraudulent schemes – Anderson ran with Holder’s argument, and threatened the DOJ “using their employees as human shields”. Specifically, Andersen said that – unless the DOJ dropped the prosecution – innocent Andersen employees would lose their jobs. Andersen was prosecuted and convicted, and some innocent employees – as well as the big time fraudsters – lost their jobs. Since then, the Justice Department has gotten so gun-shy that we basically haven’t had any criminal indictments against a large financial services company since then. In the wake of the recent revelations that the big banks manipulate virtually every market in the world, and that HSBC blatantly laundered drug cartel money, Holder has said that we can’t indict big companies because that might harm the U.S. or world economy. And Matt Taibbi notes that – for the first time - Holder is now saying that not only can’t we indict the companies, but we can’t even indict any of the individual criminals at the companies. In other words, Holder is implementing a permanent shield for employees and executives at large institutions. The Big Banks and Commodities Future Trading Commission Conspired to Hide Speculation from Congress One of our favorite topics is the many ways that big banks manipulate prices. Last night, Rolling Stone financial writer Matt Taibbi gave some very interesting details about how the big banks have gamed commodities prices. For 60 to 70 years, the regulations preventing speculators from betting on commodities worked pretty well. Only commodity producers or buyers – you know, the people who are supposed set prices – could hedge their bets. But in the early 1990s, the big financial companies starting applying to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for “exemptions” … so that they could speculate on commodities. Specifically, they asked to be artificially treated as real commodity producers or consumers – even though they weren’t producing or buying commodities – so that they could “hedge” bets (in name only) on products they didn’t even possess. (Sound familiar?) In 1991, the CFTC issuing exemption letters. The first letter was written to J. Aron, a subsidiary of … Goldman Sachs. Pretty soon, every major bank in the U.S. was given an exemption. Congress didn’t know about the exemptions. Indeed, the House Agricultural Commission – which oversees the CFTC – didn’t even find out about the exemptions until 6 years later … in 1997. When a congressman on the Agricultural Commission asked the CFTC for a sample of one of the exemption letters, the CFTC official said he had to ask Goldman Sachs whether or not the CFTC could show a copy to Congress. In other words, the banks were already running D.C. by the 90s. Commodities speculation has exploded since the exemption letters were issues. For example, in 2003, there was only $29 billion in speculative activity in the commodities markets. By 2007-2008, there was over $300 billion in commodities speculation. Icelandic Parliament: Big Icelandic Banks Were Public Banks … Which Were Privatized FOR FREE Shortly Before They Tanked Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic parliament. She knows a good deal about the financial crisis. Indeed, before being elected to parliament, she made a documentary about the collapse of Iceland’s economy as an investigative journalist. Last night, Jonsdottir (pronounced “yont-Daughter”) disclosed a stunning fact in a speech I attended: All our banks were actually public. They were privatized a few years prior to the financial crisis. Jonsdottir explained that Iceland’s banks grew to 5-7 times the size of the country’s GDP during the county’s brief bubble after privatization. And the Icelandic parliament – in a fact-finding report – later found that the bankers never paid anything to “buy” the banks from the government or the people. In other words, sweetheart deals and corruption meant that a handful of people looted the banks without paying a penny. America is analogous. The prosperity which our ancestors worked so hard to build – and the very vision of prosperity of the Founding Fathers – has been looted. Jonsdottir says that it wasn’t just the bankers who were corrupt … it was also the Icelandic politicians, media, academia … all of the people in a position of power. She points out that - as bad as things are in America - they were as bad in Iceland. And yet they took the bulls by the horn and turned things around

www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-07/11-reasons-why-federal-reserve-should-be-abolished 11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Should Be Abolished Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people. The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years. The Fed creates our "booms" and our "busts", and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy. But why do we need a bunch of unelected private bankers to manage our economy and print our money for us in the first place? Wouldn't our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates? And according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures". So why is the Federal Reserve doing it? Sadly, this is the way it works all over the globe today. In fact, all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank. But the truth is that there are much better alternatives. We just need to get people educated. The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be abolished... #1 The Greatest Period Of Economic Growth In The History Of The United States Happened When There Was No Central Bank Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was between the Civil War and 1913? And guess what? That was a period when there was no central bank in the United States at all. The following is from Wikipedia... The Gilded Age saw the greatest period of economic growth in American history. After the short-lived panic of 1873, the economy recovered with the advent of hard money policies and industrialization. From 1869 to 1879, the US economy grew at a rate of 6.8% for real GDP and 4.5% for real GDP per capita, despite the panic of 1873. The economy repeated this period of growth in the 1880s, in which the wealth of the nation grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, while the GDP was also doubled. So if our greatest period of economic prosperity was during a time when there was no Federal Reserve, then why shouldn't we try such a system again? #2 The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying The Value Of The U.S. Dollar The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. If you do not believe this, just check out the inflation chart in this article. The Federal Reserve systematically penalizes those that try to save their money. Inflation is a tax, and the value of each one of our dollars goes down a little bit more every single day. But over time, it really adds up. In fact, the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by 83 percent since 1970. Anyone that goes to the grocery store on a regular basis knows how painful inflation can be. The following is a list that shows how prices for many of the things that we buy on a regular basis absolutely skyrocketed between 2002 and 2012... Eggs: 73% Coffee: 90% Peanut Butter: 40% Milk: 26% A Loaf Of White Bread: 39% Spaghetti And Macaroni: 44% Orange Juice: 46% Red Delicious Apples: 43% Beer: 25% Wine: 60% Electricity: 42% Margarine: 143% Tomatoes: 22% Turkey: 56% Ground Beef: 61% Chocolate Chip Cookies: 39% Gasoline: 158% Even the price of water has absolutely soared in recent years. According to USA Today, water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country. So how can the Federal Reserve get away with claiming that we are in a "low inflation" environment? Well, what Ben Bernanke never tells you is that the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978. The truth is that the real rate of inflation is somewhere between five and ten percent right now, but you will never hear about this on the mainstream news. #3 The Federal Reserve Is A Perpetual Debt Mach The Federal Reserve system was designed to be a trap. The intent of the bankers was to trap the U.S. government in an endless debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape. But most Americans don't understand this. In fact, most Americans don't even understand where money comes from. If you don't believe this, just go out on the street and ask regular people where money comes from. The responses will be something like this... "Duh - I don't know. I've got to get home to watch American Idol." This is why it is so important to get people educated. I think that most Americans would be horrified to learn that the creation of more money in our system also involves the creation of more debt. The following is a summary of money creation that comes from one of my previous articles... When the U.S. government decides that it wants to spend another billion dollars that it does not have, it does not print up a billion dollars. Rather, the U.S. government creates a bunch of U.S. Treasury bonds (debt) and takes them over to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve creates a billion dollars out of thin air and exchanges them for the U.S. Treasury bonds. So what does the Federal Reserve do with those Treasury bonds? I went on to explain what happens... The U.S. Treasury bonds that the Federal Reserve receives in exchange for the money it has created out of nothing are auctioned off through the Federal Reserve system. But wait. There is a problem. Because the U.S. government must pay interest on the Treasury bonds, the amount of debt that has been created by this transaction is greater than the amount of money that has been created. So where will the U.S. government get the money to pay that debt? Well, the theory is that we can get money to circulate through the economy really, really fast and tax it at a high enough rate that the government will be able to collect enough taxes to pay the debt. But that never actually happens, does it? And the creators of the Federal Reserve understood this as well. They understood that the U.S. government would not have enough money to both run the government and service the national debt. They knew that the U.S. government would have to keep borrowing even more money in an attempt to keep up with the game. Men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford could not understand why we would adopt such a foolish system. For example, Thomas Edison was once quoted in the New York Times as saying the following... That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost. But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. Unfortunately, today most Americans don't even understand how the system works. They just assume that we have the best system in the entire world. Sadly, the reality is that the system is working just as the international bankers that designed it had hoped. The United States has the largest national debt in the history of the world, and we are stealing more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day in a desperate attempt to keep the debt spiral going. #4 The Federal Reserve Is A Centrally-Planned Financial System That Is The Antithesis Of What A Free Market System Should Be Why do we need someone to centrally-plan our financial system? Isn't that the kind of thing they do in communist China? Why do we need someone to tell us what interest rates are going to be? Why do we need someone to determine what "the target rate of inflation" should be? If we actually had a free market system, the free market would be the one "managing" our economy. But instead, we have become so accustomed to central planning that any alternatives seem to be absolutely unthinkable. For example, CNBC cannot possibly imagine a world where the Fed (or some similar institution) was not running things... But suppose the law were taken off the books? The Fed's job—in simple terms—is to manage the nation's money supply and achieve the sometimes-conflicting tasks of full employment, stable prices while fighting inflation or deflation. How would the U.S. economy then function? Something has to take its place, right? Global markets would also need some sort of economic direction from the U.S. The Fed manages the dollar — and as the world's leading currency, a void left by a Fed-less America could throw those markets into chaos with uncertainty about who's managing U.S. interest rates and the American economy. I've got an idea - let's let the free market "manage" U.S. interest rates and the American economy. I know, it's a crazy idea, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it just might work beautifully. #5 The Federal Reserve Creates Bubbles And Busts Do you remember the Dotcom bubble? Or what about the housing bubble? By dramatically distorting interest rates and financial behavior, the Federal Reserve creates economic bubbles and the corresponding economic busts. And guess what? Now it is happening again. When will the American people decide that they have had enough? If you can believe it, there have been 10 different economic recessions since 1950. And of course the Federal Reserve even admits that it helped create the Great Depression of the 1930s. Perhaps it is time to try something different. #6 The Federal Reserve Is Privately Owned It has been said that the Federal Reserve is about as "federal" as Federal Express is. Most Americans still believe that the Federal Reserve is a "federal agency", but that is simply not true. The following comes from factcheck.org... The stockholders in the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks are the privately owned banks that fall under the Federal Reserve System. These include all national banks (chartered by the federal government) and those state-chartered banks that wish to join and meet certain requirements. About 38 percent of the nation’s more than 8,000 banks are members of the system, and thus own the Fed banks. And even the Federal Reserve itself has argued that it is "not an agency" of the federal government in court. So why is there still so much confusion about this? We should not be allowing a private entity that is owned and dominated by the banks to make decisions that dramatically affect the daily lives of all the rest of us. #7 The Federal Reserve Greatly Favors The "Too Big To Fail" Banks Since the Federal Reserve is owned by the banks, should we be surprised that it serves the interests of the banks? In particular, the Fed has been extremely good to the "too big to fail" banks. Over the past several decades, those banks have grown tremendously in both size and power. Back in 1970, the five largest U.S. banks held 17 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. Today, the five largest U.S. banks hold 52 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. #8 The Federal Reserve Gives Secret Bailouts To Their Friends The Federal Reserve is the only institution in America that can print money out of thin air and loan it to their friends any time they want to. For example, did you know that the Federal Reserve made 16 trillion dollars in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis? The following list is taken directly from page 131 of a GAO audit report, and it shows which banks received secret loans from the Fed... Citigroup - $2.513 trillion Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion Bank of America - $1.344 trillion Barclays PLC - $868 billion Bear Sterns - $853 billion Goldman Sachs - $814 billion Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion Deutsche Bank - $354 billion UBS - $287 billion Credit Suisse - $262 billion Lehman Brothers - $183 billion Bank of Scotland - $181 billion BNP Paribas - $175 billion Wells Fargo - $159 billion Dexia - $159 billion Wachovia - $142 billion Dresdner Bank - $135 billion Societe Generale - $124 billion "All Other Borrowers" - $2.639 trillion If you will notice, a number of the banks listed above are foreign banks. Why is the Fed allowed to print money out of thin air and lend it to foreign banks? #9 The Federal Reserve Is Paying Banks Not To Lend Money Did you know that the Federal Reserve is actually paying U.S. banks not to lend money? That doesn't make sense. Our economy is based on credit, and small businesses desperately need loans in order to operate. But the Fed has decided to pay banks not to risk their money. Section 128 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 allows the Federal Reserve to pay interest on "excess reserves" that U.S. banks park at the Fed. So the big banks can just send their cash to the Fed and watch the money come rolling in risk-free. As the chart below demonstrates, the banks have taken great advantage of this tremendous deal... #10 The Federal Reserve Has An Astounding Track Record Of Failure Over the past ten years, the Federal Reserve has been an abysmal failure when it comes to running the economy. But despite a track record of failure that would make the Chicago Cubs look like a roaring success, Barack Obama actually decided to nominate Ben Bernanke for a second term as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What a mistake. Just check out some of the things that Bernanke said prior to the last financial crisis. The following is an extended excerpt from an article that I published previously... ***** In 2005, Bernanke said that we shouldn't worry because housing prices had never declined on a nationwide basis before and he said that he believed that the U.S. would continue to experience close to "full employment".... "We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though." In 2005, Bernanke also said that he believed that derivatives were perfectly safe and posed no danger to financial markets.... "With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly." In 2006, Bernanke said that housing prices would probably keep rising.... "Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise." In 2007, Bernanke insisted that there was not a problem with subprime mortgages.... "At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency." In 2008, Bernanke said that a recession was not coming.... "The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession." A few months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed, Bernanke insisted that they were totally secure.... "The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing." ***** There are many, many more examples that could be listed, but hopefully you get the point. And now it is happening again. Bernanke is telling the American people that everything is going to be just fine and that no major problems are ahead. Do you believe him this time? #11 The Federal Reserve Is Unaccountable To The American People What is the most important political issue to most Americans? Survey after survey has shown that the American people care about the economy more than anything else. So why do we allow an unelected, unaccountable entity that is privately-owned to make our economic decisions for us? The Federal Reserve has become so powerful that it has been called "the fourth branch of government". Every four years, presidential candidates argue about who will be best at managing the economy, but the truth is that it is the Fed that manages our economy. We are told that the "independence" of the Federal Reserve is absolutely critical, but don't the American people deserve to have a say in the running of the economy? Our system is broken. It is a system that will continue to create more bubbles and more debt until the entire thing finally collapses for good. Thomas Jefferson once stated that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all government borrowing.... I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing. But instead of banning government borrowing, we have allowed ourselves to become enslaved to a system where government borrowing actually creates our money. We do not need to have a central bank. There are much better alternatives. We just need to get people educated.

I came here because I was fed up with all the garbage on the other sites. I just want to know what is really going on in the international monetary world. What the banks are up to, etc. Thank You. Lupine49

Banking On The Status Quo – Perhaps it is time to rethink which banks you want to deal with, and while you are at it - consider what happened in Cyprus recently. As you know if you have watched the news, banks in Cyprus were closed to prevent a run on the banks. Why? Because the government, together with the banks came up with a plan to remove up to 9.9% of a depositor’s money to help the banks pay the EU for bailout money to cover bank mistakes . . . 13 billion in mistakes. While it was voted down due to public furor, it was a watershed moment in banking history. In reaction it caused numerous articles to be written about how this could happen anywhere and it caused the price of gold to go up. What is the price you might be asked to pay, for putting your money in a bank for safe keeping? These are capital controls and if it works for one central bank it will be become the solution for others. See link If you have been following the recent activities in the US Senate, you are likely to be incensed at the responses (or should I say lack of adequate response?) given by the government regulators. As Senator Jeff Merkley put it to the head of the regulatory commission “So in effect you are telling me that these banks are too big to fail and the minor fines you impose are just a cost of doing a highly profitable business, is that correct?” This is a paraphrase but accurate enough so you’ll know the videos are worth watching. See link Take Elisabeth Warren’s questions about when the last time the regulators took anyone to court or imposed a single jail sentence for money laundering drug cartel money or al Qaeda’s? Fidgety comments that were reduced to “not while I have been a regulator.” See link So HSBC for example, laundered illegal money for ten years, made billions paid a few million in fines and has never stopped a lucrative business. Meanwhile Warren pointed out that if you or I had an ounce of cocaine we would be serving time. But no one seems to care. See links What are your reactions to announcements that the Fed is printing money like crazy but huge amounts of it have been given to foreign banks operating in the US that are in financial trouble from buying Wall Street junk mortgages and derivatives. So does that mean first the taxpayers bailed out Wall Street, AIG, Fannie Mae and other private groups like the banks and now we are bailing out the foreign banks – thanks to the same generosity of the private banking institution called the Federal Reserve - which charges the US taxpayers for the right to print money for their banking friends? Isn’t that nice for their little banking system that so many of the taxpayers put money in their big banks, and work hard to pay off all that debt created by someone else as they foreclose on taxpayers homes. Lucky for the Federal Reserve, the government and especially the biggest US banks, that the taxpayers in this country are not as smart as the people of Iceland. Icelandic taxpayers threw the politicians out of office and voted to make the banks responsible for their poor judgment and greed. Caused no end of trouble for the players at the top. They were appalled at the nerve of the people trying to hold the responsible officials accountable. It was hushed up and not in the media much since no one wanted that idea to become popular. The real insults to the us taxpayer were the recent remarks made by the head of that private banking cartel Mr. Bernanke. For those of you that did not read his remarks or failed to understand what he was saying. I t was essentially that the money wasn’t real, it was electronic digits and the bonds and treasuries that were being sold could be taken back by them and vanish the way it had been created. So while it might create inflation, and the Fed would essentially get paid three times on this made up money, no one should worry since the whole thing was being made up by them. This was the gist of the ‘mysterious remarks’ made by Bernanke. See link The taxpayers and congress don’t get it and even if they do figure it out. . . what can they do about it – we own the system. Here is the link to that Bloomsberg article if you want to do some critical reading. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/bernanke-provokes-mystery-over-fed-stimulus-exit.html So when you run for WF and the other big banks that want to give you great deals to cash out and keep your money. . . think about what those banks were and are up to. They caused you and every US citizen the recent huge increases in national debt. Now about $40,000.apiece for every man woman and child in this country. Want to play their game? Use them, if they give you the best rate by a worthwhile amount, make sure they agree to promptly give you an official CCC statement upon receipt of your dinar. Get the private banker to agree to this BEFORE you finally hand your dinar to them. This allow you to access your money promptly, and prevents them from sitting on it for weeks while you wait for them to release your cash (digits) back to you so you can finally use it. They were using it when you couldn’t. Now comes the fun part. If you have done your homework in advance you will have researched which of your local private banks and credit unions are not only in good financial shape (they didn’t make a bunch of bad loans) but would love to work with you. These are the financial institutions that invest locally and if properly managed will not be adversely affected by the crazy policies and risks the Big Banks play with. Do not put everything with one bank if you have a substantial amount to invest/hold. Big or small this, as has been already counseled, is asking for trouble. Why risk having all your funds frozen, stolen, seized whatever the reason or circumstance. Flexibility comes from diversity. Diversity certainly does not mean having all your eggs in one basket. That does not mean following the international advice of the big US brokerage houses Like Schwab or Goldman Sachs. Instead try talking with the people at Q Wealth - they will tell you that having everything invested in one country, one currency, amounts to one basket. Now they are not the only ones to say that – that belief is echoed by numerous other good financial advisors that take a big picture or international perspective. The various Casey Reports offer loads of ways to diversify your holding and reduce your risks according to your mindset. The trick with both these advisory groups and others is taking the first steps. What we all have learned, if we have been following this investment for more than an hour… is that what we read, hear, and think is not always accurate. If we have hopefully learned anything from the dinar amusement ride, it is - prepare for the unexpected and do not count on politicians to have your best interests as their top priority. That said, we have, as humans, a major predisposition to believe and trust in things that we are familiar with. The unwillingness to leave your comfort zone could be the biggest threat to holding onto or growing your investment. This translates into the well-known story of placing the frog in cold water and gradually heating it to a boil. Lulled to sleep anyone can miss the approaching danger. Every link in this article proves that point. You have taken the initial step of investing in a foreign currency, now might be the time to research what your other options are besides handing your money to the paragons of virtue and sound management – Big Banks! Raise questions in your chat rooms and talk shows, discover what other options might be safer and a better fit. you tube of Merkley asking about too big to fail? price of doing business Warren on why no legal action despite ties to Al Qaeda who have the regulators taken to trialhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/17/us-eurozone-cyprus-risk-idUSBRE92G0BG20130317 confiscating depositors’ money to bail out the banks http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577118682763082876.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Bailout of European banks by Fed http://www.zerohedge.com/article/exclusive-feds-600-billion-stealth-bailout-foreign-banks-continues-expense-domestic-economy- submitted with permission from the blog by Chase Carlton