The Federal Reserve: Stupid Bank Robbers or Robber “Hood” Barons: A Psychohistory Analysis

By: Katherine_Smith

The Federal Reserve (or “Fed”) is a “hot topic” on the Internet. However, it is my belief that I am the only one, who writes: “The Federal Reserve isn’t evil because they print our money and make us (the U.S. Taxpayers) pay interest on it. They are evil because, until October 2008, the Fed gave us a no-limit credit card that we used to buy houses, cars, RVs, TVs and DVDs—the “stuff” which, according to the GEO4, a massive United Nations Report, put the planet at the unknown points of no return.” [1]

G. Edward Griffin, author of, The Creature from Jekyll Island, a work considered by Ron Paul to be “a superb analysis of the Federal Reserve,” has this to say about the Fed: “(The Fed) Is nothing more or less than a cartel. It’s no different than an oil cartel, a banana cartel or a sugar cartel. It happens to be a banking cartel and, like all cartels, it’s made up of the big players in that industry who get together and set rules to reduce or eliminate competition among themselves and regulate their own industry. And they regulate not in the best interests of the people, of course. Because it is a cartel, they regulate to their own advantage, but then they always go to great lengths to convince the people that they are regulating in such a way that it is in the best interest of the people.”  Is The Fed Dead? Let’s Ask G. Edward Griffin For His Expert View, http://radio.rumormillnews.com/podcast/2010/09/28/gedwardgriffin/
The Fed is a cartel financed by the biggest player in the world, the House of Rothschild. [2]

In recent years, the power of the cartel has been consolidated into the hands of Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests, the Global Financial Elite (TGFE, an non-conspiracy term). [3]

Griffin along with just about everyone else in the world are sure they know How Wall Street Shafted Main Street and that corporate greed and political corruption are undermining America, Pigs at the Trough, Arianna Huffington. [Appendix A]

We are conditioned to believe everything is about money, power, greed and corruption. Therefore we are not aware of the great lengths to which the six companies that control 96% of the media go to sell a Corporatocracy (another non-conspiracy term) driven agenda. [4]

The really inconvenient truth is that TGFE regulate in the “best” interests of the people. [5]

Altruism at the Federal Reserve

Pretend for a moment it is the beginning of the 20th century and you are one of the founding members of the Fed, Lazard Freres (Eugene Meyer), Warburg, Strong, Vanderlip or J.P. Morgan.

You and your friends, along with the richest man in history, John D. Rockefeller, own or control one-sixth of the entire world’s wealth—the world’s real wealth: raw materials, commodities, iron ore, bauxite, petroleum, copper, lead, silver and gold. [Appendix B]

Would you trade your real wealth for the money you created out of thin air? [Appendix C]

Would you give up your real wealth to provide the middle class with 75 years of unprecedented prosperity in the houses, second houses, RVs, all that “stuff” manufactured from the raw materials you owned or controlled in 1910?

Or would you give up your raw materials to employ the middle class in building airplanes, ships, cars, RVs, SUVs, office buildings, freeways and shopping malls from the raw materials you owned or controlled in 1910?

Let’s say you own a bar of gold and a Monopoly money printing press. Would you trade that bar of gold for the Monopoly money you printed?

The monopoly money you loaned (gave) to the middle class (profane) was used to consume, as in used up, the iron ore, bauxite, petroleum, copper, lead, aluminum, plastics, glass and rubber that you had in 1910.

Even a child can understand you don’t get rich exchanging real wealth for about $500 trillion of the Monopoly money you created over the last 75 years.

Now that the U.S. National Debt is mathematically impossible to pay off, we are left with only two alternatives: 1) issue our own currency and pay off the debt or 2) repudiate (default) on the debt. [6]

You don’t need a degree from an Austrian school of economics to realize who is the biggest loser in this upside down Ponzi scheme: When I owe you $120,000 dollars, I am in trouble; when I owe you $12 trillion dollars, you are in trouble.

Anyone who tells you that the American taxpayer, at any point over the past 75 years, “suffered/paid for/was inconvenienced” by our National debt needs to have their foot put back in their mouth.

Since 1980, when Vice President H.W. Bush (not Reagan) doubled the debt during the Reagan administration, the tax rate has gone down. [7]

The Federal Reserve in Action (“ruining the country”)

When the American economy headed into a recession at the end of the dot-com bubble, the Federal Reserve began slashing short-term interest rates until they reached a historically low one percent. The move re-inflated the economy by allowing homeowners to extract $750 billion in equity from their homes—up from $106 billion in 1996—and apply the dollars toward a multitude of consumer items and other credit card debt.

As interest rates plummeted and alleged home equity artificially soared, buyers were able to afford first and second homes, and they did it by taking out risky mortgages with “teaser rates” similar to those offered by the credit card industry. Even as interest rates adjusted upward, the sponsoring banks used complicated financial derivatives to resell the risky mortgages as “asset-backed paper.”

As housing prices edged downward and mortgage rates inched upward, the recession was put on hold with the help of an astonishing 10 to 12 credit card offers per month being delivered to some consumer mailboxes. The credit card companies issued 1.5 billion cards to 158 million cardholders and promised an improbable zero percent interest—some deals for up to 18 months. (Similar to mortgage debt, the credit card debt is put into pools, also known as derivatives, that are then resold to investment houses, other banks and institutional investors.)

Direct and Indirect Money Creation

Not only is virtually the entire money supply created directly by the Fed, but a mere handful of very big banks indirectly create hundreds of trillions of dollars using a massive innovative “risky” investment scheme known as “derivatives.” [Appendix A]

According to the Comptroller of the Currency, the books of U.S. banks now carry over $180 trillion in the form of derivatives.

The derivatives represent the money created world-wide since 1910—out of thin air. About 40 percent of the $10.5 trillion U.S. national debt is owed to the Fed. But the loss to TPTB, if the U.S. defaults on that debt, won’t be $4.2 trillion or even $180 trillion, but about $500 trillion–money created out of thin air over the past 100 years to pay for our consumer society.

To make absolutely sure we don’t ask any questions about where this massive amount of monopoly money is coming from and who benefited, the banking system has been contrived so that these big banks always [appear] to get bailed out by the taxpayers when in actual fact TPTB directly and indirectly is picking up the tab. [8]

The Federal Reserve is guilty of manipulating the short-term interest rates and the money supply until October 2008, but the beneficiary of this almost unlimited liquidity crime was the American consumer. Was the 2008 Financial Collapse An Inside Job? [Appendix A]

The Experts Know Something Is Wrong

On September 28, 2010, Rumor Mill News Radio host Rayelan Allen interviewed noted author G. Edward Griffin. Griffin tells Rayelan that the Fed is just a “gigantic legalized plunder machine”:

“It’s a machine that was put into place by the Federal Reserve Act in which the banks, in this case the cartel, are able to able to legally plunder the American People.”

Later in the interview, Griffin contradicts himself when asked “how can a bank fail when it creates money out of nothing and collects interest on it?”

“It seems like it would be impossible, but there is a downside to this little trick. When the banks create money out of nothing and it goes into circulation on their books they have to do a double entry; it’s an asset and a liability at the same time.

It’s an asset because it produces income for them and it’s supposed to be paid back, but it’s a liability because if it’s not paid back, they (The Fed) have to pay it back.

That money has to be withdrawn from circulation and just as it is created out of nothing it has to go back into nothing. It involves a bookkeeping entry. It’s just a bookkeeping entry but it could be devastating to the solvency of a company.

So…let’s not make this too long and complicated. Let’s say Mr. Smith borrows 3,000 dollars to buy one of those BIGGG wide screen TVs and the bank creates the money out of nothing and gives it to him. Mr. Smith then gives the 3,000 dollars to the store that sold the TV and they give some of the money to the company that manufactured the TV, and so on. That money is now in circulation and is backed by debt.

The way the contract is supposed to work is that Mr. Smith pays the money back gradually, a little bit every month, plus interest and at the end of the process, the money has gone back out of existence back into the vaults, or back into the inkwell.

So money is always going into existence and out of existence at the same time, but it has to be paid back in order to go out of existence in an acceptable manner.

If Mr. Smith suddenly decides he cannot or will not pay back his loan, then that loan must be written off of the bank’s account and their assets reduced by that 3,000 dollars. That means the value to the stockholders is reduced by 3,000 dollars.

And, lo and behold, even though the money was created out of nothing in the first place, somebody’s got that money and the bank has to pay it back or the bank stockholders will have to pay it back.

So it’s really a devastating event. [Yes Ed, I agree it’s a devastating event, but not for Mr. Smith, who is watching his $3,000 TV set]

When you keep loaning more than you should, if you are a bank, and you start making unwise loans, and you loan far more money than the borrowers can realistically pay…you loan hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to large corporations that are going down, down, down and you know they aren’t going to recover, but you loan them money anyway, or you loan billions and billions to countries, third world countries you know aren’t going to be able to repay, because their economies are getting worse every year, but you loan them anyway…so why would a bank do that?” [End of interview]

Ed, we agree with you, why would a bank do that?

Answer: they wouldn’t—unless this is a gigantic legalized plunder machine to legally plunder the real wealth (assets) of the men in front of, in between and behind the Federal Reserve, TGFE.

Ron “Sound Money” Paul understands a fiat currency plunder machine:

“Our current system gives us a free ride, our paper (fiat currency) buys cheap goods from overseas, and foreigners risk all by financing our extravagance.”

Ellen Brown, attorney and author of Web of Debt, adds her common cents:

“Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been “privatized,” or taken over by private money lenders. Thomas Jefferson called them “bold and bankrupt adventurers just pretending to have money.”  [True, before they did pretend in order to get control of 1/6th of the world’s wealth. After 1913, they didn’t have to pretend.]

On the one, hand she explains: “Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans.”

But then she admits: “To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply [actually creating even more debt, potentially] inflating prices — and robbing you of the value of your money.”

However true, her statement is misleading. Ellen’s concern is about hyperinflation, a real possibility in the future, but the “you” includes the scoundrels behind the Federal Reserve, who will be the biggest losers.

While our miniscule savings (the U.S. has the lowest saving rate in the world) will be wiped out by inflation, we’ll still have our $3,000 TV set.

What will TGFE be doing with their trillions? Trying to buy a loaf of bread.

Finally, Ellen notes that regardless of whether the interest is created or not created, the net effect is always:

“Interest-free loans that are never paid off are basically free money. In 2008, 85% of the interest collected by the Federal Reserve was returned to the Treasury. The average interest rate on Treasury securities today is only about 3%; 15% of 3% is less than ½% – such a negligible interest as to make the money nearly free.”

And on the cartel she has this to say:

“It is a cartel, designed to serve the banks.  But the banks themselves are the source of our credit, and we need credit.  It is strange that everyone is happy when credit is flowing and the good times are rolling; then we all blame the banks when credit collapses, and say it was their fault for letting credit flow so easily in a ‘bubble’.”

Ellen Brown, to her credit, focuses on a solution that would lead us to a sustainable economy. Click here to read about North Dakota, the only state in the union to own its own bank.

Psychohistory: “the science of historical motivation”

Why would economists, politicians and historians continue with a Corporatocracy rant they know to be false?

The answer can be found in the study of Psychohistory, “the science of historical motivation,” and the principle of methodological individualism. Broadbeck; Danto; Mandelbaum

Methodological individualism is the theory that “the ultimate constituents of the social world are individual people. Every complex situation, institution or event is the result of a particular configuration and the interactions of groups – nations, gangs or tribes of political parties, rational intelligent individuals, economists, and historians, have been conditioned from birth (imprinted) to believe that everything wrong in our society is about greed: the inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.” (Danto, 267).

The financial system wasn’t “a burden on the people,” that is, right after TGFE got control of the money supply:

“They began to buy government securities at the rate of ten million dollars a week for 10 weeks, and created one hundred million dollars in new (checkbook) currency, which alleviated the critical famine of money and credit, and the factories started hiring people again” Eustice Mullins. Note: Before 1913, money equaled wealth. After 1913, money was fiat currency, which did not equal wealth.

However, corporatocracy, greed, and the “follow the money” mentality continued to shape the “dispositions and beliefs” of the politicians, economists, and historians writing about the Federal Reserve because when the Robber Barons acted in the “interests of the people” (until October 2008) it resulted in Cognitive Dissonance (CD).

CD is the discomfort felt at the discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation that contradicts a strongly held belief system.

Without the framework of a conspiracy theory to explain the “new information” of altruistic behavior, Mullins, Griffin, Paul and Brown had no choice but to regress to a “greedy” explanation that for them was at least mentally comfortable.

All of The Media is Controlled [9]

To make matters worse, the media engages in a nonstop barrage of negativity and disinformation surrounding the “alleged” illegal and immoral acts committed by the Corporatocracy. [10]

We accept the media is controlled:

Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose, Joseph Paul Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

However, when we are exposed to information we believe to be true (the scoundrels steal our money), we don’t question the news item even if it is false (the scoundrels don’t steal our money).

Alternatively, when we are exposed to information we believe to be false (the scoundrels don’t steal our money), we don’t question the news item even if it is true (the scoundrels don’t steal our money).

The reality is the scoundrels don’t steal our money. But when we are exposed to the mis and disinformation media campaign surrounding the Fed, we create negative energy and wallow in self-pity instead of creating positive energy, forming local sustainable communities like http://cityrepair.org.

Conclusion

Without the connection that the environmental damage and pollution were the goal and not the unintended consequences of the Industrial Revolution and our consumer society for Mullins, Griffin, Paul and Brown it was choice between two absurd theories:

The Evil Robber Barons are inept, clueless or just “stupid” because since 1913 they have exchanged their real wealth for $500 trillion of fiat currency (Monopoly money) they printed so the middle class could have houses, cars, RVs, TVs and DVDs—the “stuff” which put the planet, at the “unknown points of no return”.

Or

The Evil Robber Barons are benevolent and wanted the middle class to have the highest standard of living for the last 75 years and didn’t know the planet would be in “dire environmental straits because humanity’s footprint [its environmental demand] is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth’s biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person.”

Therefore, Mullins, Griffin, Paul and Brown chose to make the Evil Robber Barons “the villains” we love to hate, rather than confuse the world.

“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”– Don Marquis

Related Reading

Liberté, Enlightenté, Entitleté 

Footnotes:

[Click here to read the Appendices]

[1] February 21, 2009 Ellen Brown writes: “Funding the government’s budget shortfall has usually been left to private lenders; but those loans are drying up, and servicing them is proving expensive. Both this interest burden and the need to continually attract new lenders could be avoided by tapping into the government’s credit line at its own central bank.” Monetize This!: Resolving a Spiraling Public Debt Crisis

However, since October 2008, The Bank of the Fed is Closed…Forever.

The Robinhood Barons are now making generous interest payments to the banks for “parking” their TARP (The Troubled Asset Relief Program) and other taxpayer bailout money instead of making loans to struggling Americans living in their cars and in tent cities. The Federal Reserve is paying banks NOT to make loans to struggling Americans!, Dennis Kucinich    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkf8VG3HL_8

[2] Federal Reserve Directors: A Study Of Corporate And Banking Influence, Published in 1976 “Chart one reveals the linear connection between the Rothschilds and the Bank of England, and the London banking houses which ultimately control the Federal Reserve Banks through their stockholdings of bank stock and their subsidiary firms in New York.

The two principal Rothschild representatives in New York, J. P. Morgan Co., and Kuhn, Loeb & Co. were the firms which set up the Jekyll Island Conference at which the Federal Reserve Act was drafted, who directed the subsequent successful campaign to have the plan enacted into law by Congress, and who purchased the controlling amounts of stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914.

These firms had their principal officers appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Advisory Council in 1914. In 1914 a few families (blood or business related) owning controlling stock in existing banks (such as in New York City) caused those banks to purchase controlling shares in the Federal Reserve regional banks.” The London Connection, Eustace Mullins.

The World Pivoted On The Battle Of Waterloo

The vast accumulation of financial and natural resources of the House of Rothschild Global Financial Empire is legendary.

“And there was no news more precious than the (predetermined) outcome at Waterloo…”

Considered the turning point in history, exploiting the Battle of Waterloo gave the Rothschild family complete financial control of Europe, and soon after, the world.

According to one source, at the conclusion of the revolutions in the late 1800s and when the planet was still in ecological balance, “it was estimated the House of Rothschild controlled almost half the wealth of the world.”  National Cyclopaedia d American Biography by Antony Sutton. The World Order by Eustice Mullins, Staunton, VA: Ezra Pound Institute of Civilization, 1985, p.92.

[3] The Global Financial Elite (TGFE, a variation of TPTB, a non-conspiracy term coined by G. William Domhoff, a Research Professor at the University of California [11]) are the Rothschilds of Europe, Lazard Freres (Eugene Meyer), Kuhn Loeb Company, Warburg Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests. These interests have merged and consolidated in recent years, so that the control is much more concentrated. National Bank of Commerce is now Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. Lehman Brothers has merged with Kuhn, Loeb Company, First National Bank has merged with the National City Bank, and in the other eleven Federal Reserve Districts, these same shareholders indirectly own or control shares in those banks, with the other shares owned by the leading families in those areas who own or control the principal industries in these regions. The “local” families set up regional councils, on orders from New York, of such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and other instruments of control devised by their masters. They finance and control political developments in their area, name candidates, and are seldom successfully opposed in their plans.  Secrets of the Federal Reserve, The London Connection, Eustace Mullins

[4] Six Companies Own 96% of the World’s Media, National Vanguard Books, Who Rules America? Who Controls The U.S. Media? G. William Domhoff, a research professor at the University of California.

Corporatocracy, in social theories that focus on conflicts and opposing interests within society, denotes a system of government that serves the interest of, and may be run by, corporations and involves ties between government and business. Where corporations, conglomerates, and/or government entities with private components control the direction and governance of a country, including carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the ‘free market’ label

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

[5] Essays on how TGFE are losing billions.

12 Dec 2008 – Silver, But No Silver Lining

20 Dec 2008 – The Future of Silver- TELEPATHIC interview with Adam Smith

19 Nov 2009 – Show Me the Money

05 Nov 2009 – The Great U.S. Housing Market Foreclosure Robbery Of The 21st Century

20 Nov 2009 – Farms, Hamburgers, and “Free” Enterprise

[6] It is now mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off the U.S. national debt. The truth is that the U.S. government now owes more dollars than actually exist directly and indirectly to the Federal Reserve. Even if the U.S. government were to go out and take every single piece of monopoly money from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they would still be massively in debt.

Former comptroller general of the GAO, David Walker, estimates it will require over 10% growth from now until the end of time; something that has never happened, will never happen and is little more than a pipe dream.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-now-mathematically-impossible-to-pay-off-the-u-s-national-debt

http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/either-pay-the-national-debt-with-monetary-reform-or-kiss-your-assets-goodbye

[7] Two weeks after taking office, Reagan addressed the nation on the economy as such:

“By 1960 our national debt stood at $284 billion. Today the debt is $934 billion. We can leave our children with an un-repayable massive debt and a shattered economy, or we can leave them liberty in a land where every individual has the opportunity to be whatever God intended us to be. Together we can forge a new beginning for America.”

In the same speech, Reagan displays his innocence of Federal Reserve politics, “Now, in all of this we will, of course, work closely with the Federal Reserve System toward the objective of a stable monetary policy.”

On March 26, 1981 Reagan signs Executive Order 12301 establishing the Presidential Council on Integrity & Efficiency to review federal programs for inefficiencies and corruption.

Predictably, four days later, the Federal Reserve and H.W. Bush “works with” John Hinckley Jr. to instruct Reagan on the first lesson of Federal Reserve politics. A president can be more popular than the vice president, but not always more powerful.

Although the Bush and Hinckley family had long, close ties overlooked by the press— the brother of the man who tried to kill the president was acquainted with the son of the man who would have become president if the attack had been successful—the family connection between Scott Hinckley and Neil Bush did not escape Alexander Haig, who, after the Reagan assassination attempt, temporarily prevented Vice President Bush from taking control of the White House.

Reagan learned the lesson: he was a figurehead relegated to witnessing the growth of America’s hyper-consumer society and national debt from the sidelines.

Click here to read the truth about the tax rate and why the Taxpayers are not paying for the Bailouts.

[8] The Fed has been a hotbed of radically experimental activity in the past year. Ben Gisin is a former banker who has long been tracking the Fed’s statistical releases. He says he has never seen anything like it. Assets have been magically appearing on the Fed’s balance sheet, and they are not coming from any traditional source.

What is extraordinary is that the money is being used to make commercial loans. Consider the radical moves the Fed has already been taking in the last year. Without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, the Fed just “monetized” $1.2 trillion in private debt, turning commercial loans into money.

If private banks and private corporations now have multi-billion dollar credit lines with the Federal Reserve, then Congress should have one too. In fact Congress, which gave the Fed its charter to create the national money supply, should have been the first in line. If the Fed Can “Monetize” Private Debt, It Can Monetize Public Debt, Ellen Brown

[9] Rockefeller’s own Standard Oil Co. The Ford Foundation was originally created from Henry Ford’s Auto Manufacturing fortune. But eventually, members of the “Order of Skull and Bones” infiltrated the foundation and used it’s financial power to influence the nature of public education. — Antony C. Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment Liberty House Press, 2027 Iris, Billings Montana 59102.

[10] Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, was still under the Robber Baron spell in the 1930s when he wrote:

“Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

[11] G. William Domhoff, a Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz first coined the non-conspiracy acronym TPTB. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Miami and has been teaching at the University of California, Santa Cruz, since 1965. Four of his books are among the top 50 best sellers in sociology for the years 1950 to 1995: Who Rules America? (1967); The Higher Circles (1970); Who Rules America Now? (1983); and the non-“conspiracy” critique and theory of the U.S. power structure, The Powers That Be (TPTB) in 1979.