Federal Reserve

If you truly want any economic reform, you must repeal the Federal Reserve Act and strike it from the Constitution. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation that acts as the money printing machine without any oversight. It loans its fiat money to the U.S. Treasury and charges interest which we pay back through our federal income tax, which is also unconstitutional. It bails out banks, foreign and domestic, it promotes inflationary spending, and it is the prime cause of the current depression and all the problems that go with it. If we do not address this, then there will be no balanced budget, no jobs, no affordable health care, no end to us paying for the insanity they've created. Without the FED, there would have been no derivatives and no bubbles. The giant banking cartel, headed by the Federal Reserve Banks is the prime culprit for all our ills.

The Fed is responsible for every boom and bust cycle, colluding with the investment banks and Wall Street to place bets on both sides, short or long doesn't matter to them, they always make money because they designed the game. Everyone who lost out in the recent housing bubble was used as a tool to help create the bubble in the first place, and then when it popped the wealth was extracted from those at the bottom to feed those at the top. The Fed is the top of the top as the money originates from there.

The Constitution makes it quite clear who is to be in charge of the creation of money, the U.S. Treasury alone. We have been warned by our forefather's of the dangers of allowing the banks to usurp this privilege as it has been tried before. Consider the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

* Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802) and later published in The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill (1809)

This of all the issues put forth by our declaration, should be at the forefront. It is not any more difficult than repealing an act that is a usurpation of the Constitution and not legally enacted. Please read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin and watch the following videos for further understanding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IH-XKQpOI&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVwPKxttBE&feature=player_embedded

Please add this crucial demand to the list so that we do not again end up being used by those in power.

Thank you for listening,
Suzen

...it requires a repeal of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which was never legally ratified anyway, it was pushed through Congress without a quorum.

It is clear that most people do not understand the history of the Fed and how it came into being. It is an unnecessary and debilitating element that operates like a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions, all based on debt that can never be repaid. If people realized that federal income tax is really extortion, blood money paid by the U.S. Treasury to the Fed so we can use their phone baloney debt notes, they would rise up and throw them out in a heartbeat. U.S. Treasuries are the next bubble to pop if we aren't careful.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Okay you say.. what's so bad about that? Ahh the plot thickens. Merril's derivative unit is loaded to the gills with tens of billions worth of exposure to European nightmares. If European banks were to start failing and defaulting, Merrill's people would be on the hook for an amount that couldn't possibly be covered. So, Bank of America has quietly moved these holdings to it's depositary arm of the bank.. yes folks, the arm that is COVERED BY FDIC INSURANCE. Yes you read that right. Not only that, apparently JP Morgan is doing the same exact thing with somewhere north of 79 TRILLION worth of derivatives. Are you getting these numbers? Trillions folks.

Now the FDIC who would be on the hook for all this, and who is already broke beyond repair is saying "this isn't right you can't take speculative junk and put it in the deposit arm of the bank that is insured". Well guess who's fighting them? The Federal Reserve! Yes check this, also from Bloomberg...

The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people.

So what's the take away here? The bottom line is that Wall Street and our Federal Reserve have abandoned any and all things you could consider rational, and decided that they should be absolved of their risk taking by placing the mess right on YOU. This is so outrageous, I cannot believe it is not on every single talking head channel on TV. Yet, not a peep. Not a word. Nothing. It's like it's not happening.

There are somewhere around 700 TRILLION worth of derivatives floating around out there. No one knows their true worth and no one knows all the parties that are connected to them. The idiots that drafted Dodd Frank didn't think it necessary to create a clearing house to monitor who and were all these time bombs reside. Well I'll tell you where they're going to end up! Right in the General fund! And we're seeing them do it right now under our noses.. and no one mentions a word of this on main stream media. No one on CNBC. Not a word of this from the Politicians.

Look, we're going to see another 2008 style disaster folks and it's going to be worse than 2008. If they get away with smuggling their CDS exposure, onto the FDIC insured arms of their banks, YOU and ME are ultimately going to have to bail out those arms when the CDS's implode and the insured want their money. That is exactly why Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner is traveling all over Europe begging them to come up with trillions to bail out their banks. He knows the exposure our banks have to the area could be a hundred times what the Main Stream thinks it is. If Europe goes, so goes these leveraged insurance CDS's, and the banks behind them. Unless of course they pull off their scam of redirecting them to units of the bank that are insured.... by us.

We have the Treasury and this is where all money should originate from.

The Fed is a billionaire boy's club, where they all get to hang and help each other out. The treasury prints paper and sells it to the fed for pennies on the dolllar. That's BS. I know I'm simplifying this, but that's exactly the point. There is nothing more to it than that. Anyone who tells you different is trying to scam you. It's all our money, every penny of it. Nothing more, nothing less. Every bank should pay US for the right to hold and use our money.

My deposits in banks have cost me tremendously while those same banks have profited ridiculously.

They take my hard earned money and profit on it for doing nothing but holding it, spending it, and losing it. The same goes for you.

I want my money back.

THE FED: DISHONEST, IMMORAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL

There is no greater threat to the security and prosperity of the United States today than the out-of-control, secretive Federal Reserve.

Imagine that parents, overwhelmed by debt and months behind on their bills, sent their spendthrift teenagers out each weekend for a night on the town with credit cards and blank checks. Would anyone be surprised if this family never got their finances under control?

Yet that is how a government which is almost 15 trillion dollars in the red behaves by entrusting taxpayers’ financial futures to the Federal Reserve, which pumps money into the economy whenever it chooses and makes secret deals with Wall Street executives, foreign central banks, and other politically-connected insiders without any significant oversight from Congress.

Snuck through Congress on Christmas Eve in 1913, the Federal Reserve Act established the Fed as America’s central bank. The Fed essentially creates money out of thin air, manipulates interest rates, and interferes with the free market. By doing so, the Fed fuels our economy’s boom-bust cycle and has helped devalue our dollar by over 95%.

According to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve branch’s own website, what you could buy with $1.00 in 1913 would now cost you $22.55.

Although Congress and the Treasury helped bring about the housing bubble and financial collapse with legislation, regulations, and keeping the funds flowing to reckless institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Fed was the main cause of the crisis. Its interference in setting interest rates distorted the market, and its status as the “lender of last resort” ensured banks could hook individuals and businesses for loans on projects that weren’t in as high demand as forecasters believed.

When the crash occurred, common sense dictated a change in policy. But the Federal Reserve only increased its lending and intervention to historic highs.

While selling Americans a bill of goods that the economy would never recover without unprecedented bailouts, we now know that at the peak of its “emergency lending,” the Fed was providing nearly 90% of its discount window loans to foreign banks! This included making over 70 loans to a bank partially owned by the Bank of Libya.

The Fed was able to get away with these actions because Congress lacks the authority to thoroughly and completely audit it. In fact, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress early in the crisis and was able to refuse a direct request to disclose which institutions were receiving trillions of taxpayer dollars from the Fed.
IN THE SHADOWS

It was only thanks to overwhelming grassroots support for Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation that we have been granted limited insight into the Fed’s operations. If it hadn’t been for last minute efforts to water down his bill, we would have learned even more about the Fed’s actions before and during the crisis.
TIME FOR SOUND MONEY

As President, Ron Paul will work for passage of comprehensive audit legislation, and he will also fight to legalize sound money so Americans will have alternatives to the Fed’s inflated paper money.

Ultimately, he will lead the charge to end the dishonest, immoral, and unconstitutional Federal Reserve System, enabling America to take a giant step toward economic security, financial responsibility, and lasting prosperity.

A few links about Tea Party and OWS needing to work together, we need to focus on preventing calamity. The Banks and the Government got us into complete monetary chaos. They will not get us out of it.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/19/harvard-professor-tea-party-99-percent-must-unify-against-wall-st-abuses/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/rogue-government-traders

The root of the problem is the financial system. It is based on fantasy and as far as anyone lets on, nothing to see here. This is what I see: The situation with the Federal Reserve is a threat to our union. The FR charges the government interest on money it lends to us. That needs to go or they need to rename their private bank. The Board of Governors has so many members. The way they keep power is to leave some of the positions vacant. I think there are two now. It gives the sitting members more power. They have special privileges that hold them harmless from risk. They have a monopoly that promotes corruption, concentration of power and inequality.
The value of the dollar is about 4 cents. I am not kidding. We should use the silver dollar which has a value of $58.95 as a means of revaluing our currency. This has been hidden from us for generations and could crush us if this isn't handled discreetly, and with tact and judgement. It is very hard to wrap your head around it, but just do a little demonstration with a silver coin and a stack of dollars and it will all start to make sense.

Johanna wrote:From my perspective, the topic of this particular forum should be at, or near, the heart of the working group's discussion. Otherwise, we should change the name of the Declaration from the "99% Declaration" to the "Declaration on behalf of the 99%." Working within this framework will involve a lot of knowledge of economics/finance (which I'll admit I don't have), a checking of personal political agendas at the door and a pragmatic approach to consensus building, both inside and outside the group.
I believe that there are other people and other groups out there who have been working on issues such as Campaign Finance Reform and Lobbying for a long time. It would be wise for us to reach out to them so we're not reinventing the wheel.
As for the wider platform of the Declaration, I certainly don't see why we can't work on both prongs simultaneously. We have some of our members culling through the "Laundry List" to shake it down into a stronger, more cohesive form that will be easily digested by the electorate while others work on the issues discussed in this forum - the devils in the details, as they are.
What I would like to do is draw more people to this topic. Suggestions?

Indeed this is the central issue. I posted here to get a discussion started, many many more people need to be educated on this topic. This is the kind of thing that needs to be brought up during a General Assembly, with a url that is easily remembered which has a page that can explain this to anyone interested.

Banker compensation, bailouts and the hijacking of the US Economy:

http://ampedstatus.org/time-to-clawback-2-2-trillion-in-corrupt-banker-compensation-nassim-taleb-on-occupywallstreet/

Thank you for this well written and eloquent post. Fellow 99%'ers, this here is the core issue - all others follow from this one. Our movement is not moving into uncharted ground, our forefathers fought these same battles before America seceded from England in the 1700's! We were a great nation until the bankers from England once again conquered America in the early 1900's. After a century of indebted servitude to international bankers, its time that Americans once again lead the world with our example of how to break free from the oppressive and corrupt powers that currently dominate our peoples.

[quote="Johanna"] We need to focus like a laser on finding a single sentence or phrase which states a goal the 99% can get behind. It has to be something to do with separating the power of wealth and politics. Yes, it needs to be boiled down to a sound byte.

OWS is successful because we are attacking the source of the problem - Wall Street. That means banks, investment banks, and central banks.

The "one issue" is exactly our money - the fact that it derives its value ONLY from the "Full faith and credit of the people of the United States of America". Get it? That's us, the 99%! We are the rightful owners of our money, not the international cartel of banks that currently creates our money and THEN LOANS IT BACK TO US at interest! The interest is the national debt, which has only existed since the bankers conquered America in the early 1900's through the creation of our fiat dollar currency and enforcement of the Federal Reserve Act.

The reason why our movement is successful, is because we are hitting the right people. The laundry list of things here are distractions from the core issue, which is our money. Why do 1% of the people have it all? Simple, its the banks and how we've let them usurp our National, Collective, American RIGHT to create and spend our own money. Up until Lincoln was killed, every moral politician in America fought against the criminal band of banks (mostly from England) that constantly tried to subvert the people of the United States with their criminal banking system (which has run England, and most of the globe for centuries). This is not a new fight in our history, its just new today because collectively we live in a very ignorant, uneducated country.

But even uneducated people can sense and feel the wrong that is being done by the bankers, and now we have the chance to come together to right this wrong, whether or not everyone understands monetary policy or global economics completely. To do so, OWS needs to keep a razor sharp focus on Wall Street and the greed and corruption it embodies. We can take back our country and improve the lot of every American (and probably the rest of the world, too). Just stick to the one issue: Money.

Several posters on here have referenced some great links for learning. Here's another one: www.webofdebt.com This author writes about the history of our battle against our current banking system. Spoiler alert: We, the people of the United States lost the battle, and the evil banks own our country now as a result. There is only one solution: The banks, as we know them today, must cease to exist. Nationalization is the option I prefer, but there are other solutions....

suzencr wrote:Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Okay you say.. what's so bad about that? Ahh the plot thickens. Merril's derivative unit is loaded to the gills with tens of billions worth of exposure to European nightmares. If European banks were to start failing and defaulting, Merrill's people would be on the hook for an amount that couldn't possibly be covered. So, Bank of America has quietly moved these holdings to it's depositary arm of the bank.. yes folks, the arm that is COVERED BY FDIC INSURANCE. Yes you read that right. Not only that, apparently JP Morgan is doing the same exact thing with somewhere north of 79 TRILLION worth of derivatives. Are you getting these numbers? Trillions folks.

Now the FDIC who would be on the hook for all this, and who is already broke beyond repair is saying "this isn't right you can't take speculative junk and put it in the deposit arm of the bank that is insured". Well guess who's fighting them? The Federal Reserve! Yes check this, also from Bloomberg...

The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people.

So what's the take away here? The bottom line is that Wall Street and our Federal Reserve have abandoned any and all things you could consider rational, and decided that they should be absolved of their risk taking by placing the mess right on YOU. This is so outrageous, I cannot believe it is not on every single talking head channel on TV. Yet, not a peep. Not a word. Nothing. It's like it's not happening.

There are somewhere around 700 TRILLION worth of derivatives floating around out there. No one knows their true worth and no one knows all the parties that are connected to them. The idiots that drafted Dodd Frank didn't think it necessary to create a clearing house to monitor who and were all these time bombs reside. Well I'll tell you where they're going to end up! Right in the General fund! And we're seeing them do it right now under our noses.. and no one mentions a word of this on main stream media. No one on CNBC. Not a word of this from the Politicians.

Look, we're going to see another 2008 style disaster folks and it's going to be worse than 2008. If they get away with smuggling their CDS exposure, onto the FDIC insured arms of their banks, YOU and ME are ultimately going to have to bail out those arms when the CDS's implode and the insured want their money. That is exactly why Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner is traveling all over Europe begging them to come up with trillions to bail out their banks. He knows the exposure our banks have to the area could be a hundred times what the Main Stream thinks it is. If Europe goes, so goes these leveraged insurance CDS's, and the banks behind them. Unless of course they pull off their scam of redirecting them to units of the bank that are insured.... by us.

the problem with derivative's and banks is that it's kinda like taking heroine away from a heroine addict. "fast cash" is king. You can't be a successful drug dealer when you consume or become addicted to the product.
In this case it's "Greed" and they are servicing lots of customers in Washington at the expense of the people.
Taking huge risks with everyone's money. The system will break down because it has to. Or people can turn it toward a better direction.....not an easy venture because now the Fed is working to get everyone on the same page...in effect when the shit hits the fans (doesn't look like it will take long) it will be a global event.

That doesn't mean I don't want to hold them to account, just seems to me that WE The People Are easily as much if not,MORE to blame...Corporations and greedy Individuals are gonna do what they do..Legislating "Morality" is not going to garner the neccessary support, for productive change..We Are Not VICTIMS...We Are Responsible...It's time to Start acting, and Sounding like it...We've been complacent, and lazy in OUR Civic Duties..this is WHY those that could,DID!!!...If were going to accomplish the more Tranformative Ideas, it's going to require as much Support as can possibly be achieved...From what I've seen(an obsene amount of poll watching/analysis), at best there's around a 70% ceiling on National support for anything,amongst active voters...Productive change,on much of these issues, will require momentum,and that requires success..Either through Representations(seats won), or passable legislation..I'll take either, or both...

Alstein wrote:I do think we should have a declaration though by the 2012 general election, and maybe start a formal process by February though in order to keep the movement energized, and that in itself will influence the 2012 elections.

Alstein, I agree.
The leadership of both political parties would love nothing more than a respite from the 99%, and an opportunity to seize momentum. We've decades of political theater, while our politicians were bought-off, our agencies and courts infiltrated with Corporate insiders and henchmen. Giving them a chance to divide and conquer prior to the 2012 election, or staving-off real change before the 2014 mid-term, and solidifying their positions prior to the 2016 election is a "win" of incalculable proportion for the banksters, corporate hacks, politicians and bureaucrats alike. It would be an abject loss for us.

The lower and state courts have upheld the gutting of the Fourth Amendment. Why would the First Amendment right to petition for redress be graced with greater protection?
The Department of Homeland Security (such a Communist Bloc sound to it) and TSA, supposedly tasked to fight 9-11 style terrorism are being used more in domestic situations, than any overt actions against foreign operatives.
Recently, it was reported that "DHS" ordered the closing of a street in NYC, with no documentation or explanation. It's like the "no such agency" (NSA) to ask of it, guarantees no answer.

When will we be seen as "threats to the domestic order and tranquility" and dealt with like the residents of New Orleans on the Danziger Bridge?
A scenario which is far more likely if we do nothing now, and give the powers that be time to circle the wagons... DHS wagons.

This is THE core issue at hand. Money makes the world go round, so whoever makes the money go round...

And make no mistake: It is precisely because of this very power of money that public awareness is lacking. It's by design. The 'owners' would rather not have us know the nature of their game, and they've been hard at work for quite some time now to foster monetary ignorance, through all means available, including not only politics and the mass media, but the education system as well. Therefore, to succeed, we need to overcome at least a century of concerted conditioning and disinformation. Thankfully, in times like these, people become very eager to learn and reconsider past convictions, so...let's do this!!!

I agree. The root cause of virtually the entire list is that the financiers who own the central banks and the Fed have used the power to create money to take over the government, military and intelligence services, media, and voting processes. The answer is to create a network of public banks, from municipalities, counties, states, and at the top. This means nationalizing the Fed and bring it under the control of the Congress, as the Constitution says: "Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof." This is how we regain control over our money and sovereignty. The U.S., or any nation, should not have to borrow money to finance its operations. As long as the money created equals the value created through labor (including machines and computers that labor created), there will not be inflation. The money supply is currently $3 Trillion less than in '08.

North Dakota (ND) is the only state that owns its own bank, the Bank of North Dakota (BND). ND has the lowest unemployment, biggest budget surplus, lowest bank failures (zero in last 10 years), and most community banks per capita in the U.S.

Go to www.publicbankinginstitute.org to learn more, or watch our latest video.

"You can hardly go a day without hearing about a new protest... hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people marching in the streets railing against various policies. They want answers. They demand change.

Let's be honest, the anger is understandable. But it's infuriating to so many of these protesters railing on YouTube against the free market, moaning how capitalism has pillaged the poor for the benefit of the rich.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There hasn't been a free market in money and banking for a century. The central bank / fractional reserve system is the biggest cartel in the history of economics. It's nothing but big government price-rigging.

How can anyone argue we have free markets when the price of money is set by decree? An unelected board of governors at the Federal Reserve simply decides the price of money, and that's that.

Nearly EVERYTHING in our credit economy is driven from this number-- mortgages, business purchases, trade finance, government spending... and it affects almost everyone on the planet. This is not a free market, it's an economic dictatorship.

Secondly, more than seventy percent of all mortgages in the US are either owned or guaranteed by the government! Today, between 90% and 95% of all new mortgages are guaranteed by the government. Not exactly a free market in housing.

Meanwhile, an endless array of government rules and regulations in the economy creates formidable barriers and distorts the playing field to such an extent that it's a wonder anyone is able to get a business off the ground in the developed world anymore.

THESE are the problems that are largely responsible for the mess and have given rise to brewing class warfare. The Occupy Wall Street movement is rooted in appropriate anger... but blaming the "free market" is comically ignorant.

What's more, the "solutions" many of them are demanding-- more government regulation, higher taxes, more handouts (to them, of course)-- will only make things worse.

Look, it's understandable for people to be seething right now. Since 2000, median US household income has shrunk by over 10% when adjusted for inflation. Official (and highly underreported) unemployment numbers show that nearly 1 in 10 Americans is currently out of work. In the 18-30 year age bracket, 1 in 4 is jobless.

So many people feel betrayed... that the government isn't keeping up its end of the Social Contract. Unfortunately, they've been brainwashed by government-run education, so the knee jerk reaction is to rail against capitalism."

~ Sovereign Man

I agree that there are no free markets. I would go further and say that to call our system capitalism is missing the mark. In political science, corporate control of the state is one of the definitions of fascism. That is what we have. The so-called government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporations controlled by the financiers who own the world's central banks and large banks that own the Federal Reserve. Political parties are a charade designed to distract from the real powers. The financiers gained their power by usurping sovereign currencies and credit. As long as they continue to sell us our money, they will remain in power. So, we must begin by taking back control of our money. How? Through a network of publicly owned banks--municipal, county, state, and national. North Dakota is the only state that owns its own bank. It has the lowest unemployment, biggest budget surplus, lowest rate of bank failures (zero in the last 10 years), and most independent banks per capita in the U.S. See www.publicbankinginstitute.org and our latest video.

In reply to suzencr,

Call Wall Street whatever you want; the OWS protesters are hitting the right mark. Trying to shift the blame to government shows a misunderstanding of the core problem.

You can pick out protesters railing against lots of issues. To say that OWS is "railing against the free market" is not accurate. The core issue is income inequality caused by our monetary policies, which have been hijacked by unaccountable, greedy corporations. These corporations have had a monopoly on our money creation for almost a hundred years, and during that time, there hasn't been anything even close to a free market, but instead corporate fascism.

Lets support OWS, not pick it apart or try to shift the focus. These brave people are in the right place at the right time, even if the message is not perfectly clear.

Respectfully,

Darin

Am I correct in saying that this thread is primarily about the Federal Reserve? If so, I'd like to merge this with the Federal Reserve thread, so that more people see that it's being discussed.

Molly Carmody wrote:Am I correct in saying that this thread is primarily about the Federal Reserve? If so, I'd like to merge this with the Federal Reserve thread, so that more people see that it's being discussed.

Please do

Done!

The Federal Reserve is owned by the 1%. It needs to go. If Kennedy can write the order, then it needs to be acted on.

As far as a declaration, I agree it needs to be in some shape (not necessarily finished) but in some type of shape so TPTB know we are serious about changes taking place in our country. You see what the Chicago 1% thinks about the OWS movement. To them, it is nothing more than gnat flying around a piece of manure. They threw fliers on the OWS marchers telling them they were the 1% and they basically owned them. As you can see, Wall Street has already put out an edict that change will not take place on their watch as they own all the political parties and have put them on notice that whoever sides with the OWS movement or any of their ideals will have their campaign funding taken away.

I have set up a Tumblr blog called "Money System" as a curated set of links, videos, quotes and snippets of Money Knowledge: http://is.gd/qDUyPd

If you have a short and concise image, video, snippet or quote, I would like to add it to the blog. I have lifted things from this thread as well.

Regards,

David