Adam Skinner's List: The fractional reserve system caused the banking crisis of 2008

• "We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it". -- Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932 (Rep. Pa)
• "The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. 
  There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the 
  International bankers -- Congressman Louis T. McFadden (Rep. Pa)
• "Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are the United States government's institutions. 
  They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people 
  of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign swindlers" -- Congressional 
  Record 12595-12603 -- Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and 
  Currency (12 years) June 10, 1932
• "When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in out account to cover the check, 
  but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. 
  When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." -- Putting it simply, Boston Federal 
  Reserve Bank
• "The regional Federal Reserve banks are not government agencies. ...but are independent, 
  privately owned and locally controlled corporations." -- Lewis vs. United States, 680 F. 2d 1239 
  9th Circuit 1982
• "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and 
  commerce." -- James A. Garfield, President of the United States
• "A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated 
  in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely 
  controlled and dominated governments in the world--no longer a government of free opinion, no 
  longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and 
  duress of small groups of dominant men." --President Woodrow Wilson
• "To expose a 15 Trillion dollar ripoff of the American people by the stockholders of the 1000 
  largest corporations over the last 100 years will be a tall order of business." -- Buckminster Fuller
• "Every Congressman, every Senator knows precisely what causes inflation...but can't, [won't] 
  support the drastic reforms to stop it [repeal of the Federal Reserve Act] because it could cost him 
  his job." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe
•     "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from 
       them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough 
       deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will 
       disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you 
       wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create 
       deposits".- SIR JOSIAH STAMP,(President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain):
• "People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) 
       nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People 
       who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the 
       point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond 
       good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money 
       broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an addi- tional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest 
       sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to 
       say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the 
       usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds 
       would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, 
       must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value 
       of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan". - THOMAS A. EDISON
• "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, 
  and not one man in a million will detect the theft."--John Maynard Keynes (the father of 'Keynesian Economics' which our nation now endures) in his book "THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES 
  OF THE PEACE" (1920).

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• One   day a thoughtful man went to see Fabian. "This interest charge is   wrong", he said. "For every $100 you issue, you are asking   $105 in return. The extra $5 can never be paid since it doesn't exist.

   

  Farmers   produce food, industry manufacturers goods, and so on, but only you produce   money. Suppose there are only two businessmen in the whole country and   we employ everyone else. We borrow $100 each, we pay $90 out in wages   and expenses and allow $10 profit (our wage). That means the total purchasing   power is $90 + $10 twice, i.e. $200. Yet to pay you we must sell   all our produce for $210. If one of us succeeds and sells   all his produce for $105, the other man can only hope to get $95. Also,   part of his goods cannot be sold, as there is no money left to buy them.

   

  He   will still owe you $10 and can only repay this by borrowing more. The   system is impossible."

                           

  The   man continued, "Surely you should issue 105, i.e. 100 to me and   5 to you to spend. This way there would be 105 in circulation, and the   debt can be repaid."

• Most   people opposing the systems could be silenced by financial pressure, or   suffer public ridicule. To do this Fabian and his friends purchased   most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected   people to operate them. Many of these people had a sincere desire to improve   the world, but they never realised how they were being used. Their   solutions always dealt with the effects of the problem, never the cause.

                             

  There   were several different newspapers - one for the right wing, one for the   left wing, one for the workers, one for the bosses, and so on. It didn't   matter much which one you believed in, so long as you didn't think about   the real problem.

• "Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.  

   "This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government.
• "The Federal Reserve Bank destroyed our old and characteristic way of doing business. It discriminated against our 1-name commercial paper, the finest in the world, and it set up the antiquated 2-name paper, which is the present curse of this Country and which wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened down upon the Country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution sought to save us.
• Senator Root denounced the Fed as an outrage on our liberties. He predicted: 'Long before we wake up from our dream of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold- which alone could have kept us from catastrophe- will have vanished and no rate of interest will tempt it to return.'
• "Mr. Chairman, why should the currency of these United States be issued on the strength of German Beer? Why should it be issued on the crop of unplanted beans to be grown in Chili for Japanese consumption? Why should these United States be compelled to issue many billions of dollars every year to pay the debts of one foreigner to another foreigner?

• "Mr. Chairman, when you hold a $10.00 Fed Note in your hand, you are holding a piece of paper which sooner or later is going to cost the United States Government $10.00 in gold (unless the Government is obliged to go off the gold standard). It is based on limburger cheese (reported to be in foreign warehouses) or in cans purported to contain peas (but may contain salt water instead), or horse meat, illicit drugs, bootleggers fancies, rags and bones from Soviet Russia (of which these United States imported over a million dollars worth last year), on wines, whiskey, natural gas, goat and dog fur, garlic on the string, and Bombay ducks.  

   "If you like to have paper money- which is secured by such commodities- you have it in Fed notes. If you desire to obtain the thing of value upon which this paper currency is based, that is, the limburger cheese, the whiskey, the illicit drugs, or any of the other staples- you will have a very hard time finding them.  

   "Many of these worshipful commodities are in foreign Countries. Are you going to Germany to inspect her warehouses to see if the specified things of value are there? I think more, I do not think that you would find them there if you did go.
• "They are putting the United States Government in debt to the extent of $100,000,000 a week, and with the money they are buying our Government securities for themselves and their foreign principals. Our people are disgusted with the experiences of the Fed. The Fed is not producing a loaf of bread, a yard of cloth, a bushel of corn, or a pile of cordwood by its check-kiting operations in the money market.
• "In 1930 while the speculating banks were getting out of the stock market at the expense of the general public, the Fed advanced them $13,022,782,000. This shows that when the banks were gambling on the public credit of these United States as represented by the Fed currency they were subsidized to any amount they required by the Fed. When the swindle began to fall, the bankers knew it in advance and withdrew from the market. They got out with whole skins - and left the people of these United States to pay the piper.
• What King ever robbed his subject to such an extent as the Fed has robbed us?
• "They have been peddling the credit of this Government and the [signature of this] Government to the swindlers and speculators of all nations. That is what happens when a Country forsakes its Constitution and gives its sovereignty over the public currency to private interests. Give them the flag and they will sell it.

• "A few days ago, the President of the United States with a white face and shaking hands, went before the Senate of behalf of the moneyed interests and asked the Senate to levy a tax on the people so that foreigners might know that these United States would pay its debt to them.  

   "Most Americans thought it was the other way around. What does these United States owe foreigners? When and by whom was the debt incurred? It was incurred by the Fed, when they peddled the signature of the Government to foreigners- for a Price. It is what the United States Government has to pay to redeem the obligations of the Fed.

  • Wow
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• Mr. Mills of the Treasury has spoken here of his horror of the printing presses and his horror of dishonest money. He has no horror of dishonest money. If he had, he would be no party to the present gambling of the Fed in the nefarious open discount market of New York, a market in which the sellers are represented by 10 discount corporations owned and organized by the very banks which own and control the Fed.  

   "Fiat money, indeed!  

   "What Mr. Mills is fighting for is the preservation, whole and entire, of the banker's monopoly of all the currency of the United States Government

  • What he's talking about here, I gather, is counterfeiting money. It's illegal . . . except for the Fed! That's exactly what "fiat currency", or fractional reserve banking, is. Printing money out of nothing, causing the devaluation of the currency (aka inflation).
    
    Mills wanted to secure a conterfeiting monopoly =p
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• This is a Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Consequently, nothing should be concealed from the people. The man who deceives the people is a traitor to these United States.
• "The man who knows or suspects that a crime has been committed and who conceals and covers up that crime is an accessory to it. Mr. Speaker, it is a monstrous thing for this great nation of people to have its destinies presided over by a traitorous government board acting in secret concert with international usurers.
• "Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers- but the truth is- the Fed has usurped the Government. It controls everything here and it controls all of our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.

  • A very strong statement
• "Mr. Chairman, when the Fed was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here which would make the savings of the American school teacher available to a narcotic-drug vendor in Acapulco. They did not perceive that these United States was to be lowered to the position of a coolie country which has nothing but raw material and heart, that Russia was destined to supply the man power and that this country was to supply the financial power to an "international superstate". A superstate controlled by international bankers, and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure?

• "The wealth of these United States and the working capital have been taken away from them and has either been locked in the vaults of certain banks and the great corporations or exported to foreign countries for the benefit of the foreign customers of these banks and corporations. So far as the people of the United States are concerned, the cupboard is bare.  

   "It is true that the warehouses and coal yards and grain elevators are full, but these are padlocked, and the great banks and corporations hold the keys.  

   "The sack of these United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history.
• Through the Fed the people are losing the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Their property has been taken from them without due process of law.

• "Asset currency, the devise of the swindler, should be done away with. The Fed should be abolished and the State boundaries should be respected. Bank reserves should be kept within the boundaries of the States whose people own them, and this reserve money of the people should be protected so that the International Bankers and acceptance bankers and discount dealers cannot draw it away from them.  

   "The Fed should be repealed, and the Fed Banks, having violated their charters, should be liquidated immediately. Faithless Government officials who have violated their oaths of office should be impeached and brought to trial.  

   "Unless this is done by us, I predict, that the American people, outraged, pillaged, insulted and betrayed as they are in their own land, will rise in their wrath, and will sweep the money changers out of the temple.

• "Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Chairman, or permit yourself to be deceived by others into the belief that Roosevelt's dictatorship is in any way intended to benefit the people of the United States: he is preparing to sign on the dotted line! "He is preparing to cancel the war debts by fraud!  

   "He is preparing to internationalize this Country and to destroy our Constitution itself in order to keep the Fed intact as a money institution for foreigners.
• "It is the money of slaves, not of free men. If the people of the United States permit it to be imposed upon them at the will of their credit masters, the next step in their downward progress will be their acceptance of orders on company stores for what they eat and wear.
• "Mr. Chairman, the gold in the banks of this country belongs to the American people who have paper money contracts for it in the form of national currency. If the Fed cannot keep their contracts with United States citizens to redeem their paper money in gold, or lawful money, then the Fed must be taken over by the United States Government and their officers must be put on trial.

• "Mr. Chairman, a gold certificate is a warehouse receipt for gold in the Treasury, and the man who has a gold certificate is the actual owner of a corresponding amount of gold stacked in the Treasury subject to his order.  

   "Now comes Roosevelt who seeks to render the money of the United States worthless by unlawfully declaring  that it may No Longer be converted into gold at the will of the holder
• "The claims of foreign creditors of the Fed have no validity in law. The foreign creditors were the receivers- and the willing receivers- of stolen goods! They have received through their banking fences immense amounts of currency, and that currency was unlawfully taken from the United States Treasury by the Fed.
• "..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." - Samuel Adams

22 more annotations...

• 1895 18.93
• 1932 20.69
• no one in this nation has been able to lawfully pay a debt or lawfully own anything

  • This is only true if "discharged" is taken to mean "transferred". It seems to me that this statement rather means that you can pay your debts in any legal tender you like, rather than in some specified currency.
    
    Given, however, that we do not have the complete text or any other reference on this page, it will obviously require more research to determine exactly what this means.
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• 1 933 >  26.33 >
• 1934 34.69
• 1979 306.68
• 1980 612.56
• 1972 58.16
• 1973 97.32
• 1974 159.26
• 1982 375.67
• 1920 20.68
• 1863 18.93
• 1833 18.93
• Is there something wrong with the picture below? Could the discussion above have anything to do with it? Is there something different from 1833 to 1920? What happened in 1921? What happened since 1933?
•  To make it simple, as long as this nation's lawful currency is notes of private corporate debt, (bills of credit . . . money backed by no substance) it will remain impossible to ever repay a debt, thereby keeping us and our posterity in debt into perpetuity.
•  Early Federal Reserve Notes were redeemable, but over the years, the wording on these notes regarding the promise and obligation has been gradually changed untill 1968. Since that time our "monetized debt" money offers NO OBLIGATION AND THEY PROMISE NOTHING!
•  Through misguided trust, our duly elected sworn public officials took our lawful currency and changed it to unconstitutional bills of credit (irredeemable Federal Reserve Notes), which continues to circulate only because of the public's continuing, misplaced confidence in these notes.
• Congress repudiated its obligation to redeem silver certificates in silver coin or bullion

•  Yet, On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, the Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of the United States Treasury for criminal acts.  

   The petition for Articles of Impeachment was, thereafter, referred to the Judiciary Committee, and has yet to be acted upon.
•  The Judiciary branch of government has the power to correct this fraud upon the people
• This substance was replaced with a "PUBLIC NATIONAL CREDIT SYSTEM" where debt is "LEGAL TENDER" money.

•  From 1913, until 1933, under the authority of the U.S. Congress, a private corporation held control of this nation's GOLD. The U.S. paid interest on the use of their own gold, with more and more of its gold, ultimately ending in bankruptcy. 

   Inevitably, the bankers foreclosed.  

   On March 9, 1933, the U.S. declared bankruptcy, as expressed in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111, and 6260.   

   President Roosevelt declared a National Emergency that made it unlawful for any citizen of the United States to own gold. Our bankrupt nation went into receivership and reorganized in favor of it's creditor and new owners, a private corporation of international bankers. (Since 1933, what is called the "United States Government" is a privately owned corporation of the Federal Reserve/IMF.)

21 more annotations...

• Buying gold   and holding it is somewhat analogous to converting one’s savings   into one hundred dollar bills and hiding them under the mattress   – yet not exactly the same. Both gold and dollars are considered   money, and holding money does not qualify as an investment. There’s   a big difference between the two however, since by holding paper   money one loses purchasing power. The purchasing power of commodity   money, e.g., gold, however, goes up if the government devalues the   circulating fiat currency.
• The purchasing power of gold goes up not   because it’s a so-called good investment; it goes up in value   only because the paper currency goes down in value.
• Even if it were recognized   that a gold standard without monetary inflation would be advantageous,   few in Washington would accept the political disadvantages of   living with the discipline of gold – since it serves as a   check on government size and power.
• The best analogy to our affinity for government   spending, borrowing, and inflating is that of a drug addict who   knows if he doesn’t quit he’ll die; yet he can’t   quit because of the heavy price required to overcome the dependency.
• Foreign policy   plays a significant role in the economy and the value of the dollar.   A foreign policy of militarism and empire building cannot be supported   through direct taxation. The American people would never tolerate   the taxes required to pay immediately for overseas wars, under   the discipline of a gold standard. Borrowing and creating new   money is much more politically palatable. It hides and delays   the real costs of war, and the people are lulled into complacency   – especially since the wars we fight are couched in terms   of patriotism, spreading the ideas of freedom, and stamping out   terrorism. Unnecessary wars and fiat currencies go hand-in-hand,   while a gold standard encourages a sensible foreign policy.
• But the real crisis hits when the world realizes the   king has no clothes, in that the dollar has no backing, and we   face a military setback even greater than we already are experiencing   in Iraq.
• Welfare for the poor is inefficient and wasteful. The beneficiaries   are rarely the poor themselves, but instead the politicians, bureaucrats,   or the wealthy. The same is true of all foreign aid – it’s   nothing more than a program that steals from the poor in a rich   country and gives to the rich leaders of a poor country.

  • Zing!
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• The market is the only way to determine the best   price for any commodity. The law of supply and demand cannot be   repealed. The real problems arise when government planners give   subsidies to energy companies and favor one form of energy over   another.
• no one cried for   the oil companies that went bankrupt

  • Could the war be simple a method of raising oil cartel profits? Who benefits?
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• Saving   and thrift are encouraged by a gold standard; and discouraged   by paper money.
• Interest   rate manipulation by central bank helps the rich, the banks,   the government, and the politicians.
• Inflation,   as exposed by high gold prices, transfers wealth from the middle   class to the rich, as real wages decline while the salaries of   CEOs, movie stars, and athletes skyrocket – along with the   profits of the military industrial complex, the oil industry,   and other special interests.

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