1 00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:11,640 Hi I'm Buck, your personal tour-guide to the Federal Reserve. 2 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:17,413 I'm here to introduce you to one of the most complex, but effective institutions in the United States. 3 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,160 But don't worry, I'll explain it all in plain English. 4 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:24,450 Just beside me is a road map of where we're going. 5 00:00:24,450 --> 00:00:27,580 Together we'll walk through the Federal Reserve System. 6 00:00:27,580 --> 00:00:28,470 Literally. 7 00:00:28,470 --> 00:00:31,700 And along the way, I'll show you just what goes on around here, 8 00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:33,320 and why it's important. 9 00:00:33,330 --> 00:00:39,210 By the end of this tour you too will be able to explain the Federal Reserve in plain English. 10 00:00:39,260 --> 00:01:05,000 There is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. 11 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:09,060 That would effectively be a takeover of monetary policy by the congress. 12 00:01:09,060 --> 00:01:13,330 A repudiation of the independence of the Federal Reserve, which would be highly disruptive 13 00:01:13,330 --> 00:01:19,600 to the stability of the financial system, the dollar and our national economic situation. 14 00:01:19,610 --> 00:01:22,800 We don't, the Federal Reserve does not own any gold at all. 15 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:26,426 We have not owned gold since 1934. 16 00:01:27,060 --> 00:01:38,920 [crowd cheering: "End the FED"] 17 00:02:00,860 --> 00:02:05,640 All our lives we've been told that economics is boring. It's dull. 18 00:02:05,650 --> 00:02:08,960 It’s not worth the time it takes to understand it. 19 00:02:08,980 --> 00:02:11,920 And all our lives, we have been lied to. 20 00:02:12,140 --> 00:02:22,220 [alarm bells] 21 00:02:22,740 --> 00:02:25,730 War. Poverty. Revolution. 22 00:02:25,730 --> 00:02:31,320 They all hinge on economics. And economics all rests on one key concept: 23 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:33,560 Money. 24 00:02:33,850 --> 00:02:37,950 Money.It is the economic water in which we live our lives. 25 00:02:37,950 --> 00:02:44,000 We even call it ‘currency’; it flows around us, carries us in its wake. 26 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,830 Drowns those who are not careful. 27 00:02:46,830 --> 00:02:51,030 We use it every day in nearly every transaction we conduct. 28 00:02:51,030 --> 00:02:53,940 We spend our lives working for it, worrying about it, 29 00:02:53,940 --> 00:02:56,860 saving it, spending it, pinching it. 30 00:02:56,860 --> 00:03:01,090 It defines our social status. It compromises our morals. 31 00:03:01,100 --> 00:03:05,060 People are willing to fight, die and kill for it. 32 00:03:05,060 --> 00:03:08,290 But what is it. Where does it come from? 33 00:03:08,300 --> 00:03:11,660 How is it created? Who controls it? 34 00:03:11,660 --> 00:03:15,340 It is a remarkable fact that, given its central importance in our lives, 35 00:03:15,340 --> 00:03:20,750 not one person in a hundred could answer such basic questions about money as these. 36 00:03:20,750 --> 00:03:24,630 Interviewer: So if you were planning a family, you'd want to know where babies come from. 37 00:03:24,630 --> 00:03:28,770 And this is a lot about banking. So let me ask you: 38 00:03:28,770 --> 00:03:30,190 Where does money come from? 39 00:03:30,190 --> 00:03:31,980 Interviewee 1: Where does the money come from? 40 00:03:31,980 --> 00:03:35,510 The government prints it. It's printed off. 41 00:03:35,510 --> 00:03:37,040 Where does money come from? 42 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:41,910 Interviewer: How is new money created? Interviewee 2: By labor. 43 00:03:41,910 --> 00:03:49,780 People work and produce wealth, and the money is supposed to match that wealth. 44 00:03:49,780 --> 00:03:52,330 Interviewer: Where does money come from? 45 00:03:52,340 --> 00:03:54,340 Interviewee 3: Well I have a pretty different outlook on money. 46 00:03:54,340 --> 00:03:57,450 It actually comes from, like, trees, right? 47 00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:00,320 But why is this? 48 00:04:00,330 --> 00:04:03,930 How could we be so ignorant about a topic of such importance? 49 00:04:03,930 --> 00:04:08,030 “Where does money come from?” is a basic, childlike question. 50 00:04:08,030 --> 00:04:12,010 So why is our only response the childlike answer, meant as a joke: 51 00:04:12,010 --> 00:04:14,230 “It grows on trees”? 52 00:04:14,230 --> 00:04:18,170 Such a profound state of ignorance could not come about naturally. 53 00:04:18,170 --> 00:04:21,348 From the time we are children, we are curious about the world 54 00:04:21,348 --> 00:04:23,830 and eager to learn about the way it works. 55 00:04:23,830 --> 00:04:26,940 And what could lead to a better understanding of the way the world works 56 00:04:26,948 --> 00:04:30,560 than a knowledge of money, its creation and destruction. 57 00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:36,910 Yet discussion of this topic is fastidiously avoided in our school years and ignored in our daily life. 58 00:04:36,910 --> 00:04:41,790 Our monetary ignorance is artificial, a smokescreen that has been erected on purpose 59 00:04:41,794 --> 00:04:47,270 and perpetrated with the help of complicated systems and insufferable economic jargon. 60 00:04:47,270 --> 00:04:51,190 But it doesn’t take an economist to understand the importance of money. 61 00:04:51,190 --> 00:04:55,790 Deep down we all know that the wars, the poverty, the violence we see around us 62 00:04:55,790 --> 00:04:58,240 hinges on this question of money. 63 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:04,040 It seems like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle just waiting to be solved. And it is. 64 00:05:04,045 --> 00:05:08,220 The puzzle pieces, taken together,create an image of the Federal Reserve, 65 00:05:08,220 --> 00:05:12,170 America’s central bank and the heart of the country’s banking system. 66 00:05:12,171 --> 00:05:16,440 Despite its central importance to the economy, relatively few have heard of it, 67 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:21,634 and fewer still know what it is, despite the bank's attempts at self-description: 68 00:05:22,790 --> 00:05:27,730 Our economy runs on a complex system of exchange of goods and services 69 00:05:27,730 --> 00:05:32,860 in which money plays a key part. Coin, currency, savings, and checking accounts; 70 00:05:32,860 --> 00:05:37,440 the overall supply of money is managed by the Federal Reserve. 71 00:05:40,550 --> 00:05:44,100 Money is the medium through which economic exchanges take place, 72 00:05:44,100 --> 00:05:51,040 and money as a standard of value helps us to set prices for goods and services. 73 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:57,110 The job of managing money 'monetary policy' is to preserve the purchasing power of the dollar 74 00:05:57,110 --> 00:06:02,200 while ensuring that a sufficient amount of money is available to promote economic growth. 75 00:06:02,205 --> 00:06:05,630 The Federal Reserve also promotes the safety and soundness 76 00:06:05,634 --> 00:06:08,770 of the institutions where we do our banking. 77 00:06:08,777 --> 00:06:13,650 It ensures that the mechanisms by which we make payments,whether by cash, cheque, 78 00:06:13,650 --> 00:06:18,620 or electronic means, operates smoothly and efficiently. 79 00:06:18,930 --> 00:06:23,760 And in its fiscal role acts as the banker for the United States government. 80 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:28,582 Now these duties comprise the major responsibilities of our central bank. 81 00:06:30,300 --> 00:06:36,250 But in order to really understand the Federal Reserve, we must first understand its origins and context. 82 00:06:36,250 --> 00:06:39,130 We must deconstruct the puzzle. 83 00:06:39,131 --> 00:06:42,800 The first piece of that puzzle lies here, in the White House. 84 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:46,320 This is where the Federal Reserve Act, then known as the Currency Bill, 85 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:51,090 was signed into law after passing the House and Senate in late December, 1913. 86 00:06:51,090 --> 00:06:56,560 The New York Times of Christmas Eve, 1913, described the festive scene: 87 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:00,950 The Christmas spirit pervaded the gathering. While the ceremony was a little less impressive 88 00:07:00,950 --> 00:07:05,051 than that of the signing of the Tarriff act on Oct. 3 last in the same room, 89 00:07:05,050 --> 00:07:11,291 the spectators were much more enthusiastic and seized every occasion to applaud. 90 00:07:11,291 --> 00:07:13,920 There in the White House that fateful December evening, 91 00:07:13,930 --> 00:07:19,260 President Wilson signed away the last veneer of control over the American money supply to a cartel; 92 00:07:19,268 --> 00:07:24,350 a well-organized gang of crooks so successful, so cunning, so well-hidden 93 00:07:24,350 --> 00:07:28,290 that even now, a century later, few know of its existence, 94 00:07:28,290 --> 00:07:31,000 let alone the details of its operations. 95 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,800 But those details have been openly admitted for decades. 96 00:07:34,810 --> 00:07:38,680 Of course, just as we have been taught to find economics boring, 97 00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:41,520 we have been taught that this story is boring. 98 00:07:41,530 --> 00:07:45,760 This is the way the Federal Reserve itself tells it: 99 00:07:45,771 --> 00:07:50,080 The United States was facing severe financial problems. 100 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:57,250 At the turn of the century, most banks were issuing their own currency called “bank notes.” 101 00:07:57,250 --> 00:08:04,480 The trouble was, currency that was good in one state was sometimes worthless in another. 102 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,610 People began to lose confidence in their money, 103 00:08:07,610 --> 00:08:11,750 since it was only as sound as the bank that issued it. 104 00:08:11,750 --> 00:08:19,670 Fearful that their bank might go out of business, they rushed to exchange their bank notes for gold or silver. 105 00:08:19,670 --> 00:08:26,000 By attempting to do so, they created the panic of 1907. 106 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:30,730 During the panic, people streamed to the banks and demanded their deposits. 107 00:08:30,730 --> 00:08:32,780 The banks could not meet the demand. 108 00:08:32,780 --> 00:08:36,840 They simply did not have enough gold and silver coin available. 109 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:40,940 Many banks went under. People lost millions of dollars, 110 00:08:40,940 --> 00:08:47,270 businesses suffered, unemployment rose,and the stability of our economic system was again threatened. 111 00:08:47,270 --> 00:08:52,390 Well, this couldn't go on. If the country was going to grow and prosper 112 00:08:52,390 --> 00:08:57,620 some means would have to be found to achieve financial and economic stability. 113 00:08:57,620 --> 00:09:01,160 To prevent financial panics like the one in 1907, 114 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:08,960 President Woodrow Wilson signed The Federal Reserve Act into law in 1913. 115 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:11,780 But this is history as told by the victors: 116 00:09:11,780 --> 00:09:16,640 a revisionist vision in which the creation of a central bank to control the nation’s money supply 117 00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:21,440 is merely a boring historical footnote, about as important as the invention of the zipper 118 00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,820 or an early 20th century hoola-hoop craze. 119 00:09:24,820 --> 00:09:29,940 The truth is that the story of the secret banking conclave that gave birth to that Federal Reserve Act 120 00:09:29,940 --> 00:09:34,660 is as exciting and dramatic as any Hollywood screenplay or detective novel yarn, 121 00:09:34,660 --> 00:09:39,250 and all the more remarkable, for the fact that it is all true. 122 00:09:39,250 --> 00:09:43,390 We pick up the story, appropriately enough, under cover of darkness. 123 00:09:43,390 --> 00:09:48,670 It was the night of November 22, 1910, and a group of the richest and most powerful men in America 124 00:09:48,670 --> 00:09:53,680 were boarding a private rail car at an unassuming railroad station n Hoboken, New Jersey. 125 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:57,750 The car, waiting with shades drawn to keep onlookers from seeing inside, 126 00:09:57,750 --> 00:10:03,080 belonged to Senator Nelson Aldrich, the father-in-law of billionaire heir to the Rockefeller dynasty, 127 00:10:03,080 --> 00:10:05,470 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 128 00:10:05,470 --> 00:10:10,940 A central figure on the influential Senate Finance Committee where he oversaw the nation's monetary policy, 129 00:10:10,940 --> 00:10:15,300 Aldrich was referred to in the press as the “General Manager of the Nation.” 130 00:10:15,300 --> 00:10:18,250 Joining him that evening was his private secretary Shelton, 131 00:10:18,250 --> 00:10:21,860 and a who's who of the nation's banking and financial elite. 132 00:10:21,860 --> 00:10:25,310 A. Piatt Andrew, the Assistant Treasury Secretary; 133 00:10:25,310 --> 00:10:29,000 Frank Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank of New York; 134 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:32,980 Henry P. Davison, a senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company; 135 00:10:32,980 --> 00:10:37,980 Benjamin Strong, Jr., an associate of J.P. Morgan and President of Bankers Trust Co. 136 00:10:37,980 --> 00:10:42,610 and Paul Warburg, heir of the Warburg banking family and son-in-law of Solomon Loeb 137 00:10:42,610 --> 00:10:46,660 of the famed New York investment firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Company. 138 00:10:46,660 --> 00:10:52,210 The men had been told to arrive one by one after sunset to attract as little attention as possible. 139 00:10:52,210 --> 00:10:54,990 Indeed, secrecy was so important to their mission 140 00:10:54,990 --> 00:10:58,560 that the group did not use anything but their first names throughout the journey 141 00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:03,480 so as to keep their true identities secret even from their own servants and wait staff. 142 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,800 The movements of any one of them would have been reason enough to attract the attention 143 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:08,840 of New York’s voracious press, 144 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:14,880 especially in an era where banking and monetary reform was seen as a key issue for the future of the nation; 145 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:19,760 a meeting of all of them, now that would surely have been the story of the century. 146 00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:23,260 And it was. Their destination? 147 00:11:23,260 --> 00:11:28,280 The secluded Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia, home to the prestigious Jekyll Island Club 148 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:34,570 whose members included the Morgans, Rockefellers, Warburgs and Rothschilds. Their purpose? 149 00:11:34,570 --> 00:11:37,940 Davison told intrepid local newspaper reporters who had caught wind of the meeting 150 00:11:37,940 --> 00:11:40,120 that they were going duck hunting. 151 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:44,870 But in reality, they were going to draft a reform of the nation’s banking industry in complete secrecy. 152 00:11:47,750 --> 00:11:51,590 G. Edward Griffin, the author of the bestselling The Creature from Jekyll Island 153 00:11:51,590 --> 00:11:55,900 and a long-time Federal Reserve researcher, explains: 154 00:11:55,900 --> 00:12:00,800 What happened is the banks decided that since there was going to be legislation anyway 155 00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:06,490 to control their industry, that they wouldn't just sit back and wait and see what happened 156 00:12:06,490 --> 00:12:09,120 and cross their fingers that it would be OK. 157 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:16,600 They decided to do what so many cartels do today: they decided to take the lead. 158 00:12:16,610 --> 00:12:20,920 And they would be the ones calling for regulations and reform. 159 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:26,530 They like the word “reform.” The American people are suckers for the word “reform.” 160 00:12:26,530 --> 00:12:30,530 You just put that into any corrupt piece of legislation, call it “reform” 161 00:12:30,530 --> 00:12:33,210 and people say “Oh, I’m all for ‘reform’,” 162 00:12:33,210 --> 00:12:36,240 and so they vote for it or accept it. So that’s what they were doing. 163 00:12:36,240 --> 00:12:39,880 They decided, “We will ‘reform’ our own industry.” 164 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:47,320 In other words, “We will create a cartel and we will give the cartel the power of government. 165 00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:52,180 We'll take our cartel agreement so we can self-regulate to our advantage 166 00:12:52,180 --> 00:12:55,040 and we'll call it ‘The Federal Reserve Act.’ 167 00:12:55,040 --> 00:13:03,260 And then we’ll take this cartel agreement to Washington and convince those idiots there to pass it into law.” 168 00:13:03,260 --> 00:13:07,000 And that basically was the strategy. It was a brilliant strategy. 169 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:11,420 Of course we see it happening all the time, certainly in our own day today 170 00:13:11,420 --> 00:13:15,260 we see the same thing happened in other cartelized industries. 171 00:13:15,260 --> 00:13:18,490 Right now we're watching it unfold in the field of health care, 172 00:13:18,490 --> 00:13:21,000 but at that time it was banking, alright? 173 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:26,120 And so the banking cartel wrote their own rules and regulations, 174 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:30,120 called it “The Federal Reserve Act,” got it passed into law, 175 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:32,860 and it was very much to their liking because they wrote it. 176 00:13:32,860 --> 00:13:39,780 And in essence what they had created was a set of rules which made it possible for themselves 177 00:13:39,780 --> 00:13:44,270 to regulate their industry, but they went even beyond that. 178 00:13:44,270 --> 00:13:51,960 In fact, it's clear to me when I was reading their letters and their conversation at the time, and the debates, 179 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:57,800 that they never dreamed that Congress would go along and also give them the right 180 00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:00,890 to issue the nation’s money supply. 181 00:14:00,900 --> 00:14:07,290 Not only were they now going to regulate their own industry, which is what they started out as wanting to do, 182 00:14:07,290 --> 00:14:13,520 but they got this incredible gift that they didn't dream would be given to them 183 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:15,930 although they were negotiating for it, 184 00:14:15,930 --> 00:14:23,080 and that was that Congress gave them the authority to issue the nation’s money. 185 00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:29,420 Congress gave away the sovereign right to issue the nation’s money to the private banks. 186 00:14:29,420 --> 00:14:33,050 And so all of this was in The Federal Reserve Act, 187 00:14:33,050 --> 00:14:37,960 and the American people were joyous because they were told, and they were convinced, 188 00:14:37,970 --> 00:14:44,120 that this was finally a means of controlling this big creature from Jekyll Island. 189 00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:46,780 Amazingly enough, they were successful, 190 00:14:46,780 --> 00:14:51,540 not just in conspiring to write the legislation that would eventually become the Federal Reserve Act, 191 00:14:51,540 --> 00:14:55,690 but in keeping that conspiracy a secret from the public for decades. 192 00:14:55,690 --> 00:15:02,880 It was first reported on in 1916 by Bertie Charles Forbes, the financial writer who would later go on to found Forbes magazine, 193 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:07,150 but it was never fully admitted until a full quarter century later, when Frank Vanderlip wrote 194 00:15:07,150 --> 00:15:13,740 a casual admission of the meeting in the February 9, 1935 edition of The Saturday Evening Post: 195 00:15:13,740 --> 00:15:18,210 “I was as secretive -indeed, as furtive- as any conspirator. 196 00:15:18,210 --> 00:15:22,570 I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island 197 00:15:22,570 --> 00:15:28,740 as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.” 198 00:15:28,740 --> 00:15:32,450 Over the course of their nine days of deliberation at the Jekyll Island club, 199 00:15:32,450 --> 00:15:35,830 they devised a plan so overarching, so ambitious, 200 00:15:35,830 --> 00:15:42,090 that even they could scarcely imagine that it would ever be passed by congress. As Vanderlip put it, 201 00:15:42,090 --> 00:15:48,060 “Discovery [of our plan], we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted. 202 00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:53,050 If it were to be exposed publicly that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, 203 00:15:53,050 --> 00:15:57,480 that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.” 204 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:02,840 So what, precisely, did this conclave of conspirators devise at their Jekyll Island meeting? 205 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:07,280 A plan for a central banking system to be owned by the banks themselves, 206 00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:10,810 a system which would organize the nation’s banks into a private cartel 207 00:16:10,810 --> 00:16:14,700 that would have sole control over the money supply itself. 208 00:16:14,700 --> 00:16:19,730 At the end of their nine day meeting, the bankers and financiers went back to their respective offices 209 00:16:19,730 --> 00:16:21,900 content in what they had accomplished. 210 00:16:21,900 --> 00:16:28,060 The details of the plan changed between its 1910 drafting and the eventual passage of the Federal Reserve Act, 211 00:16:28,060 --> 00:16:31,100 but the essential ideas were there. 212 00:16:31,100 --> 00:16:36,450 But ultimately, this scene on Jekyll Island, too, is just one piece of a larger puzzle. 213 00:16:36,450 --> 00:16:40,400 And like any other puzzle piece, it has to be seen in its wider context 214 00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:43,000 for the bigger picture to become visible. 215 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:48,010 To understand the other pieces of the puzzle and their importance in the creation of the Federal Reserve, 216 00:16:48,010 --> 00:16:51,500 we have to travel backward in time. 217 00:16:51,500 --> 00:16:54,830 The story begins in late 17th century Europe. 218 00:16:54,830 --> 00:16:59,620 The Nine Years’ War is raging across the continent as Louis XIV of France finds himself pitted 219 00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:04,420 pitted against much of the rest of the continent over his territorial and dynastic claims. 220 00:17:04,420 --> 00:17:11,060 King William III of England, devastated by a stunning naval defeat, commits his court to rebuilding the English navy. 221 00:17:11,060 --> 00:17:14,130 There's only one problem: money. 222 00:17:14,130 --> 00:17:17,340 The government’s coffers have been exhausted by the waging of the war 223 00:17:17,340 --> 00:17:20,050 and Williams credit is drying up. 224 00:17:20,050 --> 00:17:24,340 A Scottish banker, William Paterson, has a banker’s solution: 225 00:17:24,340 --> 00:17:29,210 a proposal “to form a company to lend a million pounds to the Government at six percent 226 00:17:29,210 --> 00:17:33,720 (plus 5,000 “management fee”) with the right of note issue.” 227 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:39,860 By 1694 the idea has been slightly revised (a 1.2 million pound loan at 8 percent 228 00:17:39,860 --> 00:17:43,740 plus 4000 for management expenses), but it goes ahead. 229 00:17:43,740 --> 00:17:47,760 the magnanimously titled Bank of England is created. 230 00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:53,000 The name is a carefully constructed lie, designed to make the bank appear to be a government entity. 231 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:54,300 But it is not. 232 00:17:54,300 --> 00:17:59,920 It is a private bank owned by private shareholders for their private profit with a charter from the king 233 00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:05,430 that allows them to print the public's money out of thin air and lend it to the crown. 234 00:18:05,430 --> 00:18:09,310 What happens here at the birth of the Bank of England in 1694 235 00:18:09,310 --> 00:18:14,430 is the creation of a template that will be repeated in country after country around the world: 236 00:18:14,430 --> 00:18:19,140 a privately controlled central bank lending money to the government at interest, 237 00:18:19,140 --> 00:18:21,780 money that it prints out of nothing. 238 00:18:21,780 --> 00:18:25,650 And the jewel in the crown for the international bankers that creates this system 239 00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:31,090 is the future economic powerhouse of the world, the United States. 240 00:18:31,090 --> 00:18:34,150 In many important respects, the history of the United States 241 00:18:34,150 --> 00:18:39,760 is the history of the struggle of the American people against the bankers that wish to control their money. 242 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:44,140 By the 1780's, with colonies still fighting for independence from the crown, 243 00:18:44,140 --> 00:18:46,620 the bankers will get their wish. 244 00:18:46,620 --> 00:18:50,540 In 1781 the United States is in financial turmoil. 245 00:18:50,540 --> 00:18:55,140 The Continental, the paper currency issued by the Continental Congress to pay for the war, 246 00:18:55,140 --> 00:18:58,480 has collapsed from overissue and British counterfeiting. 247 00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:03,330 Desperate to find a way to finance the end stages of the war, Congress turns to Robert Morris, 248 00:19:03,330 --> 00:19:08,640 a wealthy shipping merchant who was investigated for war profiteering just two years earlier. 249 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:14,440 Now as “Superintendent of Finance” of the United States from 1781 to 1784 250 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:19,660 he is regarded as the most powerful man in America next to General Washington. 251 00:19:19,660 --> 00:19:25,700 In his capacity as Superintendent of Finance, Morris argues for the creation of a privately-owned central bank 252 00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:30,890 deliberately modeled on the Bank of England that the colonies were supposedly fighting against. 253 00:19:30,890 --> 00:19:35,150 Congress, backed into a corner by war obligations and forced to do business with the bankers 254 00:19:35,150 --> 00:19:37,680 just like King William in the 1690s, 255 00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:42,850 acquiesces and charters the Bank of North America as the nation’s first central bank. 256 00:19:42,850 --> 00:19:48,360 And exactly as the Bank of England came into existence loaning the British crown 1.2 million pounds, 257 00:19:48,360 --> 00:19:53,320 the B.N.A. started business by loaning $1.2 million to Congress. 258 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,290 By the end of the war, Morris has fallen out of political favor 259 00:19:56,290 --> 00:20:00,500 and the Bank of North America's currency has failed to win over a skeptical public. 260 00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:03,370 The B.N.A. is downgraded from a national central bank 261 00:20:03,370 --> 00:20:07,450 to a private commercial bank chartered by the State of Pennsylvania. 262 00:20:07,450 --> 00:20:09,760 But the bankers have not given up yet. 263 00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:12,400 Before the ink is even dry on the constitution, 264 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:17,330 a group led by Alexander Hamilton is already working on the next privately-owned central bank 265 00:20:17,330 --> 00:20:20,310 for the newly formed United States of America. 266 00:20:20,310 --> 00:20:25,320 So brazen is Hamilton in the forwarding of this agenda that he makes no attempt to hide his aims 267 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:28,500 or those of the banking interests he serves: 268 00:20:28,500 --> 00:20:32,650 “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing,” 269 00:20:32,650 --> 00:20:35,980 he wrote in a letter to James Duane in 1781. 270 00:20:35,980 --> 00:20:38,460 “It will be a powerful cement of our Union. 271 00:20:38,460 --> 00:20:43,820 It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which, without being oppressive, 272 00:20:43,820 --> 00:20:46,730 will be a spur to industry.” 273 00:20:46,730 --> 00:20:52,230 Opposition to Hamilton and his debt-based system for establishing the finances of the US is fierce. 274 00:20:52,230 --> 00:20:55,930 Led by Jefferson and Madison, the bankers and their system of debt-enslavement 275 00:20:55,930 --> 00:20:58,620 is called out for the force of destruction that it is. 276 00:20:58,620 --> 00:21:00,560 With Thomas Jefferson writing: 277 00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:05,400 “The spirit of war and indictment, […] since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, 278 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:11,540 has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating.” 279 00:21:11,540 --> 00:21:18,050 Still, Hamilton proves victorious. The First Bank of the United States is chartered in 1791 280 00:21:18,050 --> 00:21:23,250 and follows the pattern of the Bank of England and the Bank of North America almost exactly; 281 00:21:23,250 --> 00:21:25,060 a privately-owned central bank 282 00:21:25,060 --> 00:21:29,280 with the authority to loan money, that it creates out of nothing, to the government. 283 00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:35,270 In fact, it is the very same people behind the new bank as were behind the old Bank of North America. 284 00:21:35,270 --> 00:21:38,730 It was Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris’ former aide, 285 00:21:38,730 --> 00:21:42,210 who first proposed Morris for the position of Financial Superintendent, 286 00:21:42,210 --> 00:21:45,490 and the director of the old Bank of North America, Thomas Willing, 287 00:21:45,490 --> 00:21:50,050 is brought in to serve as the first director of the First Bank of the United States. 288 00:21:50,050 --> 00:21:54,320 Meet the new banking bosses, same as the old banking bosses. 289 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,710 In the first five years of the banks’ existence, 290 00:21:56,710 --> 00:22:03,480 the US government borrows 8.2 million dollars from the bank and prices rise 72%. 291 00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:06,570 By 1795, when Hamilton leaves office, 292 00:22:06,570 --> 00:22:10,640 the incoming Treasury Secretary announces that the government needs even more money 293 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:16,810 and sells off the government’s meager 20% share in the bank, making it a fully private corporation. 294 00:22:16,810 --> 00:22:21,520 Once again, the US economy is plundered while the private banking cartel laughs 295 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,890 all the way to the bank that they created. 296 00:22:24,890 --> 00:22:28,160 By the time the bank’s charter comes due for renewal in 1811, 297 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,520 the tide has changed for the money interests behind the bank. 298 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:35,490 Hamilton is dead, shot to death in a duel with Aaron Burr. 299 00:22:35,490 --> 00:22:38,420 The bank-supporting Federalist party is out of power. 300 00:22:38,420 --> 00:22:42,210 The public are wary of foreign ownership of the central bank, and what’s more 301 00:22:42,210 --> 00:22:45,440 don’t see the point of a central bank in time of peace. 302 00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:51,020 Accordingly, the charter renewal is voted down in the Senate and the bank is closed in 1811. 303 00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:56,460 Less than a year later, the US is once again at war with England. 304 00:22:56,460 --> 00:23:00,160 After 2 years of bitter struggle the public debt of the US has nearly tripled 305 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:05,260 from $45.2 million to $119.2 million. 306 00:23:05,260 --> 00:23:10,570 With trade at a standstill, prices soaring, inflation rising and debt mounting, 307 00:23:10,570 --> 00:23:14,240 President Madison signs the charter for the creation of another central bank, 308 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,120 the Second Bank of the United States, in 1816. 309 00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:22,060 Just like the two central banks before it, it is majority privately-owned 310 00:23:22,060 --> 00:23:27,100 and is granted the power to loan money, that it creates out of thin air, to the government. 311 00:23:27,100 --> 00:23:32,570 The 20 year bank charter is due to expire in 1836, but still in his first term 312 00:23:32,570 --> 00:23:36,880 President Jackson has already vowed to let it die prior to renewal. 313 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,300 Believing that Jackson won’t risk his chance for reelection in 1832 on the issue, 314 00:23:41,300 --> 00:23:47,020 the bankers forward a bill to renew the bank’s charter in July of that year, 4 years ahead of schedule. 315 00:23:47,020 --> 00:23:53,720 Remarkably, Jackson vetoes the renewal charter and stakes his reelection on the people’s support of his move. 316 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:59,940 In his veto message, Jackson writes in no uncertain terms about his opposition to the bank: 317 00:23:59,940 --> 00:24:04,920 “Whatever interest or influence, whether public or private, has given birth to this act, 318 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:09,160 it can not be found either in the wishes or necessities of the executive department, 319 00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,810 by which present action is deemed premature, 320 00:24:11,810 --> 00:24:18,250 and the powers conferred upon its agent not only unnecessary, but dangerous to the Government and country. 321 00:24:18,250 --> 00:24:24,520 It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. 322 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:29,200 If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, 323 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,310 make our Government what it ought to be, 324 00:24:31,310 --> 00:24:35,980 we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, 325 00:24:35,980 --> 00:24:39,620 against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few 326 00:24:39,620 --> 00:24:43,680 at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform 327 00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:48,110 in our code of laws and systems of political economy.” 328 00:24:48,110 --> 00:24:51,780 The people side with Jackson and he’s reelected on the back of his slogan, 329 00:24:51,780 --> 00:24:56,170 “Jackson and No Bank!”The President makes good on his pledge. 330 00:24:56,170 --> 00:25:01,680 In 1833 he announces that the government will stop using the bank and will pay off its debt. 331 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:07,660 The bankers retaliate in 1834 by staging a financial crisis and attempting to pin the blame on Jackson, 332 00:25:07,660 --> 00:25:09,360 but it’s no use. 333 00:25:09,370 --> 00:25:14,080 On January 8, 1835, President Jackson succeeds in paying off the debt, 334 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:19,600 and for the first and only time in its history the United States is free from the debt chain of the bankers. 335 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:28,250 In 1836 the Second Bank of the United States’ charter expires and the bank loses its status as America’s central bank. 336 00:25:28,250 --> 00:25:32,690 It is 77 years before the bankers can regain the jewel in their crown. 337 00:25:32,690 --> 00:25:34,840 But it is not for lack of trying. 338 00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:40,150 Immediately upon the death of the bank, the banking oligarchs in England react by contracting trade, 339 00:25:40,150 --> 00:25:47,040 removing capital from the U.S., demanding payment in hard currency for all exports, and tightening credit. 340 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,720 This results in a financial crisis known as the Panic of 1837, 341 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:55,640 and once again Jackson’s campaign to kill the bank is blamed for the crisis. 342 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:59,490 Throughout the late 19th century the United States is rocked by banking panics 343 00:25:59,490 --> 00:26:04,070 brought about by wild banking speculation and sharp contractions in credit. 344 00:26:04,070 --> 00:26:07,980 By the dawn of the 20th century, the bulk of the money in the American economy 345 00:26:07,980 --> 00:26:11,730 has been centralized in the hands of a small clique of industrial magnates, 346 00:26:11,730 --> 00:26:15,320 each with a near monopoly on a sector of the economy. 347 00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:20,240 There are the Astors in real estate, the Carnegies and the Schwabs in steel, 348 00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:26,440 the Harrimans, Stanfords and Vanderbilts in railroads, the Mellons and the Rockefellers in oil. 349 00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:32,420 As all of these families start to consolidate their fortunes, they gravitate naturally to the banking sector. 350 00:26:32,420 --> 00:26:39,020 And in this capacity, they form a network of financial interests and institutions that centered largely around one man, 351 00:26:39,020 --> 00:26:44,650 banking scion and increasingly America’s informal central banker in the absence of a central bank, 352 00:26:44,650 --> 00:26:47,290 John Pierpont Morgan. 353 00:26:47,290 --> 00:26:50,640 John Pierpont Morgan, or “Pierpont” as he prefers to be called, 354 00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:57,140 is born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1837 to Junius Spencer Morgan, a successful banker and financier. 355 00:26:57,140 --> 00:27:02,860 Morgan rides his father’s coattails into the banking business and by 1871 is partnered in his own firm, 356 00:27:02,860 --> 00:27:06,880 the firm that was eventually to become J.P. Morgan and Company. 357 00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:11,370 It is Morgan who finances Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad. 358 00:27:11,370 --> 00:27:15,640 It is Morgan that finances the launch of nearly every major corporation of the period, 359 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:20,500 from AT&T to General Electric to General Motors to Dupont. 360 00:27:20,500 --> 00:27:24,680 It is Morgan who buys out Carnegie and creates the United States Steel Corporation, 361 00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,390 America’s first billion dollar company. 362 00:27:27,390 --> 00:27:31,990 It is Morgan who brokers a deal with President Grover Cleveland to “save” the nation’s gold reserves 363 00:27:31,990 --> 00:27:37,370 by selling 62 million dollars worth of gold to the Treasury in return for government bonds. 364 00:27:37,370 --> 00:27:44,740 And it is Morgan, who, in 1907, sets in motion the crisis that leads to the creation of the Federal Reserve. 365 00:27:44,740 --> 00:27:50,320 That year, Morgan begins spreading rumors about the precarious finances of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, 366 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:55,720 a Morgan competitor and one of the largest financial institutions in the United States at the time. 367 00:27:55,720 --> 00:28:02,270 The resulting crisis, dubbed the Panic of 1907, shakes the U.S. financial system to its core. 368 00:28:02,270 --> 00:28:07,250 Morgan puts himself forward as a hero, boldly offering to help underwrite some of the faltering banks 369 00:28:07,250 --> 00:28:10,300 and brokerage houses to keep them from going under. 370 00:28:10,300 --> 00:28:14,590 After a bout of hand-wringing over the nation’s finances, a Congressional Committee is assembled 371 00:28:14,590 --> 00:28:16,570 to investigate the “money trust,” 372 00:28:16,570 --> 00:28:20,220 the bankers and financiers who brought the nation so close to financial ruin 373 00:28:20,220 --> 00:28:23,610 and that wield such power over the nation’s finances. 374 00:28:23,610 --> 00:28:27,560 The public follows the issue closely, and in the end a handful of bankers are identified 375 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,060 as key players in the money trust’s operations, 376 00:28:30,060 --> 00:28:34,530 including Paul Warburg, Benjamin Strong, Jr., and J.P. Morgan. 377 00:28:34,530 --> 00:28:39,250 Andrew Gavin Marshall, editor of The People’s Book Project, explains: 378 00:28:39,250 --> 00:28:45,620 At the beginning of the 20th century there was an investigation following the greatest of these financial panics, 379 00:28:45,620 --> 00:28:50,240 which was in 1907, and this investigation was on “the money trust.” 380 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:59,250 Which found that three banking interests: J.P. Morgan, National City Bank, and the City Bank of New York 381 00:28:59,250 --> 00:29:04,330 basically controlled the entire financial system. Three banks. 382 00:29:04,330 --> 00:29:10,880 The public hatred toward these institutions was unprecedented. 383 00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:17,130 There was an overwhelming consensus in the country for establishing a central bank, 384 00:29:17,130 --> 00:29:20,510 but there were many different interests in pushing this 385 00:29:20,510 --> 00:29:26,620 and everyone had their own purpose behind advocating for a central bank. 386 00:29:26,620 --> 00:29:35,610 So to represent most people, you had farmer interests, populists, progressives, 387 00:29:35,610 --> 00:29:39,200 who were advocating a central bank because they couldn’t take the recurring panics, 388 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,240 but they wanted government control of the central bank. 389 00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:49,270 They wanted it to be exclusively under the public control because they despised and feared the New York banks 390 00:29:49,270 --> 00:29:51,540 as wielding too much influence, 391 00:29:51,540 --> 00:29:58,990 so for them a central bank would be a way to curb the power of these private financial interests. 392 00:29:58,990 --> 00:30:03,560 On the other hand, those same financial interests were advocating for a central bank 393 00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:10,090 to serve as a source of stability for their control of the system, 394 00:30:10,090 --> 00:30:13,970 and also to act as a lender of last resort to them 395 00:30:13,970 --> 00:30:18,300 and so they would never have to face collapse. 396 00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:23,700 But also, in order to exert more control through a central bank, 397 00:30:23,700 --> 00:30:30,020 the private New York banking community wanted a central bank under the exclusive control of them. 398 00:30:30,020 --> 00:30:35,310 There’s a shocker. So you had all these various interests which converged. 399 00:30:35,310 --> 00:30:39,880 Of course, the most influential happened to be the New York financial houses 400 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:47,780 which were more aligned with the European financial houses than they were with any other element in American society. 401 00:30:47,780 --> 00:30:52,800 The main individual behind the founding of the Federal Reserve was Paul Warburg, 402 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:58,730 who was a partner with Kuhn, Loeb and Company, a European banking house. 403 00:30:58,730 --> 00:31:05,020 His brothers were prominent bankers in Germany at that time, and he had of course close connections 404 00:31:05,020 --> 00:31:15,620 with every major financial and industrial firm in the United States and most of those existing in Europe. 405 00:31:15,620 --> 00:31:23,050 And he was discussing all of these ideas with his fellow compatriots in advocating for a central bank. 406 00:31:23,050 --> 00:31:33,260 In 1910, Warburg got the support of a Senator named Nelson Aldrich, 407 00:31:33,260 --> 00:31:42,290 whose family later married into the Rockefeller family. Again I'm sure it's just a coincidence. 408 00:31:42,290 --> 00:31:51,740 Aldrich invited Warburg and a number of other bankers to a private, secret meeting on Jekyll Island 409 00:31:51,740 --> 00:31:57,020 just off the coast of Georgia, where they met in 1910 410 00:31:57,020 --> 00:32:02,810 to discuss the construction of a central bank in the United States, but 411 00:32:02,810 --> 00:32:09,120 one which would of course be owned by and serve the interests of the private bankers. 412 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:16,260 Aldrich then presented this in 1911 as the “Aldrich Plan” in the U.S. Congress 413 00:32:16,260 --> 00:32:19,780 and it was actually voted out. 414 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:24,080 The public, suspicious of Senator Aldrich’s banking connections, 415 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,710 ultimately reject the Jekyll Island cabal’s “Aldrich Plan.” 416 00:32:27,710 --> 00:32:31,930 The cabal does not give up, however. They simply revise and rename their plan, 417 00:32:31,930 --> 00:32:37,930 giving it a new public face, that of Senator Robert Owen and Representative Carter Glass. 418 00:32:37,930 --> 00:32:41,660 In the end, the money trust that was behind the Panic of 1907 419 00:32:41,660 --> 00:32:48,380 uses the public’s own outrage against them to complete their consolidation of control over the banking system. 420 00:32:48,380 --> 00:32:53,450 The newly-retitled Federal Reserve Act is signed into law on December 23, 1913 421 00:32:53,450 --> 00:32:56,530 and the Fed begins operations the next year. 422 00:33:03,860 --> 00:33:09,200 “The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used 423 00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:14,310 to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” -John Kenneth Galbraith 424 00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:22,730 So how does the Federal Reserve system work? What does it do? Who owns and controls it? 425 00:33:22,730 --> 00:33:27,970 These are the basic questions that would get to the heart of the fundamental question: ‘what is money?’ 426 00:33:27,970 --> 00:33:34,320 And that is why the answer to these questions have been shrouded in impenetrable economic jargon. 427 00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,390 Even the Federal Reserve’s own educational propaganda, 428 00:33:37,390 --> 00:33:42,120 which has an unusual tendency toward cutesy animation and talking down to its audience, 429 00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:48,030 has a difficult time summarizing the Fed’s mission and responsibilities. According to the Fed: 430 00:33:49,110 --> 00:33:55,450 To achieve these goals,the Fed, then and now, combines centralized national authority 431 00:33:55,450 --> 00:34:03,310 through the Board of Governors with a healthy dose of regional independence through the reserve banks. 432 00:34:03,310 --> 00:34:12,020 A third entity, the Federal Open Market Committee, brings together the first two in setting the nation’s monetary policy. 433 00:34:13,350 --> 00:34:18,910 Precisely what imaginary gaggle of schoolchildren is this economic gibberish aimed at? 434 00:34:18,910 --> 00:34:23,960 The simple truth, hidden behind the sleight of hand of economic jargon and magisterial titles, 435 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:29,570 is that a banking cartel has monopolized the most important item in our entire economy: 436 00:34:29,570 --> 00:34:31,570 money itself. 437 00:34:31,570 --> 00:34:35,890 We are taught to think of money as the pieces of paper printed in government printing presses 438 00:34:35,890 --> 00:34:38,650 or coins minted by government mints. 439 00:34:38,650 --> 00:34:44,300 While this is partially true, in this day and age the actual notes and coins circulating in the economy 440 00:34:44,300 --> 00:34:48,110 represent only a tiny fraction of the money in existence. 441 00:34:48,110 --> 00:34:56,680 Over 90% of the money supply is in fact created by private banks as loans that are payable back to the banks at interest. 442 00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:01,040 lthough this simple fact is obscured by\ the wizards of Wall Street and gods of money 443 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:06,910 who want to make the money creation process into some special art of alchemy carefully overseen by the government, 444 00:35:06,910 --> 00:35:09,770 the truth is not hidden from the public. 445 00:35:09,770 --> 00:35:14,760 In December 1977, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published another of its dumbed-down 446 00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,860 cartoon-ridden information pamphlets for the general public 447 00:35:17,860 --> 00:35:21,450 attempting to explain the functions of the Federal Reserve System. 448 00:35:21,450 --> 00:35:26,160 There in black and white they carefully explain the money creation process: 449 00:35:26,580 --> 00:35:29,930 “Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, 450 00:35:29,930 --> 00:35:36,200 simply by adding new deposit dollars to accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower’s IOU. 451 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:41,440 Banks create money by ‘monetizing’ the private debts of businesses and individuals. 452 00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:46,120 That is, they create amounts of money against the value of those IOUs.” 453 00:35:47,310 --> 00:35:51,900 There it is, in plain English: the vast majority of money in the economy, 454 00:35:51,900 --> 00:35:57,260 the “checkbook” money in our accounts at the bank and that we use in our electronic transfers and digital payments, 455 00:35:57,260 --> 00:36:01,890 is created not by a government printing press, but by the bank itself. 456 00:36:01,890 --> 00:36:08,140 It is created out of thin air as debt, owed back to the bank that created it at interest. 457 00:36:08,140 --> 00:36:12,170 This means that bank loans are not money taken from other bank depositors, 458 00:36:12,170 --> 00:36:17,350 but new money simply conjured into existence and placed into your account. 459 00:36:17,350 --> 00:36:23,160 And the bank is able to create much more money than it has cash to back up those deposits. 460 00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:27,440 The Fed claims to be the entity overseeing and backing up the banking industry. 461 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,980 It was established, according to its own propaganda to stabilize the system 462 00:36:31,980 --> 00:36:36,730 and prevent bank runs like the Panic of 1907 from happening again. 463 00:36:36,730 --> 00:36:42,610 Throughout much of the 1800s, almost any organization that wanted could print its own money. 464 00:36:42,610 --> 00:36:47,450 As a result, many states, banks, and even one New York druggist, did just that. 465 00:36:47,450 --> 00:36:52,930 In fact at one time there were over 30,000 different varieties of currency in circulation. 466 00:36:52,930 --> 00:36:57,410 Imagine the confusion. Not only were there multitudes of currencies, 467 00:36:57,410 --> 00:37:04,720 some were redeemable in gold and silver, others were backed by bonds issued by regional governments. 468 00:37:04,720 --> 00:37:12,210 It was not unusual for people to lose faith both in the value of their currency and in the entire financial system. 469 00:37:12,460 --> 00:37:15,840 With many people trying to withdraw their deposits at once, 470 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:20,680 sometimes the banks didn't have enough money on hand to pay their depositors. 471 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:26,940 Then when the funds ran out the banks suspended payment temporarily and some even closed. 472 00:37:26,940 --> 00:37:32,320 People lost their entire savings. Sometimes regional economies suffered. 473 00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:37,340 Obviously something had to be done. And in 1913, something was. 474 00:37:37,340 --> 00:37:42,010 In that year, President Woodrow Wilson signed into effect the Federal Reserve Act. 475 00:37:42,010 --> 00:37:49,180 This act created the Federal Reserve system to provide a safer and more stable monetary and banking system. 476 00:37:50,210 --> 00:37:53,280 If that was indeed its aim, it signally failed to do so 477 00:37:53,290 --> 00:38:00,550 in running up one of the greatest bubbles in American history to that point in the 1920s, just a decade after its creation. 478 00:38:00,550 --> 00:38:04,450 The popping of that bubble, of course, led directly into the Great Depression 479 00:38:04,450 --> 00:38:08,780 and one of the greatest periods of mass poverty in American history. 480 00:38:08,900 --> 00:38:12,740 Economists have long argued that the Fed itself was the cause of the depression 481 00:38:12,740 --> 00:38:16,010 by its complete mismanagement of the money supply. 482 00:38:16,010 --> 00:38:22,460 As former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted in a speech commemorating Fed critic Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday: 483 00:38:22,460 --> 00:38:27,460 “Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. 484 00:38:27,460 --> 00:38:30,760 But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.” 485 00:38:30,870 --> 00:38:35,210 “Price stability” is another cited tenet of the Federal Reserve’s mandate. 486 00:38:35,210 --> 00:38:40,320 But here, too, the Fed has completely failed to live up to its own standards. 487 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:46,910 Aside from the banking system, the Federal Reserve has another responsibility that’s probably even more important. 488 00:38:46,910 --> 00:38:50,410 It’s in charge of something called “monetary policy.” 489 00:38:50,410 --> 00:38:55,280 Basically, it means trying to keep prices stable to avoid inflation. 490 00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,420 Say you buy a CD today for $14. 491 00:38:58,420 --> 00:39:03,220 But what if next year the price of the CD jumped to $20 or $50, 492 00:39:03,220 --> 00:39:08,220 not because of a change in supply or demand, but because all prices were going up. 493 00:39:08,220 --> 00:39:12,980 That’s inflation. There are a lot of different causes of inflation, 494 00:39:12,980 --> 00:39:16,770 but one of the most important is too much money. 495 00:39:16,770 --> 00:39:21,400 The Fed can adjust the money supply by injecting money into the system electronically, 496 00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,360 or by withdrawing money from the economy. 497 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:30,410 Think of it: the Federal Reserve has the ability to create money, or make it disappear. 498 00:39:30,410 --> 00:39:33,600 What’s most important is what happens as a result. 499 00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:39,360 Any time the supply of money is altered, the effects are felt throughout the economy. 500 00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:44,760 The Fed’s methods have changed over time to take advantage of the latest computers and electronics, 501 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:53,930 but its mission remains the same: to aim for stable prices, full employment and a growing economy. 502 00:39:54,820 --> 00:40:00,000 100 years ago, in 1913, the Fed was created, and we’ve marked it with a vertical line there. 503 00:40:00,010 --> 00:40:06,290 Consumer prices now are about 30 times higher than they were when the Fed was created in 1913. 504 00:40:06,710 --> 00:40:10,690 Paper money, too, is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. 505 00:40:10,690 --> 00:40:15,260 Hence the dollars in circulation are not Treasury notes, not bills of credit, 506 00:40:15,260 --> 00:40:21,530 but Federal Reserve Notes, debt-based notes backed up ultimately by the government’s own promise to pay, 507 00:40:21,530 --> 00:40:25,800 its “sovereign bonds” secured by the taxpayers themselves. 508 00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,130 At one time, the Federal Reserve Banks were legally required to keep 509 00:40:29,130 --> 00:40:32,800 large stockpiles of gold in reserve to back up these notes, 510 00:40:32,810 --> 00:40:38,670 but that requirement was abandoned and today the notes are backed up mostly by government securities. 511 00:40:38,670 --> 00:40:41,940 The Fed no longer keeps any actual gold on its books, 512 00:40:41,940 --> 00:40:48,610 but gold “certificates” issued by the treasury and valued not at the spot price of $1300 per troy ounce, 513 00:40:48,610 --> 00:40:54,990 but an arbitrarily fixed “statutory price” of $42 2/9 per ounce. 514 00:40:54,990 --> 00:40:59,440 Ron Paul: But I do have one question: During the crisis or at any time that you're aware of, 515 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:05,640 has the Federal Reserve or the Treasury participated in any gold swap arrangements? 516 00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,340 Scott Alvarez: The Federal Reserve does not own any gold at all. 517 00:41:09,340 --> 00:41:16,420 We have not owned gold since 1934 so we have not engaged in any gold swaps. 518 00:41:16,420 --> 00:41:18,710 Ron Paul: But it appears on your balance sheet that you hold gold. 519 00:41:18,710 --> 00:41:21,570 Scott Alvarez: What appears on our balance sheet is gold certificates. 520 00:41:21,570 --> 00:41:27,960 When we turned in…before 1934, we did the Federal Reserve did own gold. 521 00:41:27,970 --> 00:41:35,700 We turned that over by law to the Treasury and received in return for that gold certificates. 522 00:41:35,700 --> 00:41:39,300 Ron Paul: If the Treasury entered into… because under the Exchange Stabilization Fund 523 00:41:39,300 --> 00:41:44,780 I would assume they probably have the legal authority to do it…they wouldn’t be able to do it then 524 00:41:44,780 --> 00:41:48,660 because you have the securities for essentially all the gold? 525 00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:53,720 Scott Alvarez: No, we have no interest in the gold that is owned by the Treasury. 526 00:41:53,720 --> 00:41:59,420 We have simply an accounting document that is called “gold certificates” 527 00:41:59,420 --> 00:42:05,080 that represents the value at a statutory rate that we gave to the Treasury in 1934. 528 00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:10,000 Ron Paul: And still measured at $42 an ounce which makes no sense whatsoever. 529 00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:14,500 Clearly, there is a discrepancy between what we are led to believe is motivating the Fed 530 00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:16,930 and what it actually does. 531 00:42:16,930 --> 00:42:19,810 To understand what the Fed is actually intended to do 532 00:42:19,810 --> 00:42:25,710 it’s first important to understand that the Federal Reserve is not a bank, per se but a system. 533 00:42:25,710 --> 00:42:33,900 This system codifies, institutionalizes, oversees and undergirds a form of banking called fractional reserve banking, 534 00:42:33,900 --> 00:42:39,240 in which banks are allowed to lend out more money than they actually have in their vaults. 535 00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:48,930 The process of decay and corruption starts with something called “fractional reserve banking.” 536 00:42:48,930 --> 00:42:52,860 That’s the technical name for it. And what that really means is that 537 00:42:52,860 --> 00:43:01,130 as the banking institution developed over several centuries, starting of course in Europe, 538 00:43:01,130 --> 00:43:09,680 it developed a practice of legalizing a certain dishonest accounting procedure. 539 00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,830 In other words, in the very, very beginning, if you want to go all the way back, 540 00:43:12,830 --> 00:43:17,220 people would bring their gold or silver to the banks for safe keeping. 541 00:43:17,220 --> 00:43:22,180 And they said, “give us a paper receipt, we don’t want to guard our silver and our gold because 542 00:43:22,180 --> 00:43:28,300 people could come in in the middle of the night and they could kill us or tie us up or threaten us 543 00:43:28,300 --> 00:43:31,850 and they’ll get our gold and silver so we can ‘t really guard it so we’ll take it to the bank 544 00:43:31,850 --> 00:43:34,900 and have them guard it and we just want a paper receipt, 545 00:43:34,900 --> 00:43:39,980 so that we can take our receipt back and get our gold anytime we want.” 546 00:43:39,980 --> 00:43:44,080 So in the beginning money was receipt money. 547 00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:49,610 Then, instead of changing or exchanging the gold coins, they could exchange the receipts, 548 00:43:49,610 --> 00:43:55,470 and people would accept the receipts just as well as the gold, knowing that they could get gold. 549 00:43:55,470 --> 00:44:02,060 And so these paper receipts being circulated were in essence the very first examples of paper money. 550 00:44:02,060 --> 00:44:08,130 Well the banks learned early on in that game that here they were sitting on this pile of gold 551 00:44:08,130 --> 00:44:12,510 and all these paper receipts out there. People weren’t bringing the receipts in anymore, 552 00:44:12,510 --> 00:44:16,700 very few of them, maybe five percent maybe seven percent of the people 553 00:44:16,700 --> 00:44:19,780 would bring in their paper receipts and ask for the gold. 554 00:44:19,780 --> 00:44:26,540 So they said, “Ah ha! Why don’t we just sort of give more receipts out then we have gold. 555 00:44:26,540 --> 00:44:32,670 They’ll never know because they only ask for, at the best, seven percent of it. 556 00:44:32,670 --> 00:44:37,570 So we can create more receipts for gold then we have. 557 00:44:37,570 --> 00:44:42,020 And we can collect interest on that, because we’ll loan that into the economy. 558 00:44:42,020 --> 00:44:45,980 We’ll charge interest on this money that we don’t really have. 559 00:44:45,980 --> 00:44:49,670 And it’s a pretty good gimmick don’t ya think?” And they go, “Well, yeah, of course.” 560 00:44:49,670 --> 00:44:52,500 And so that’s how fractional reserve banking started. 561 00:44:52,500 --> 00:44:56,570 And now it’s institutionalized and they teach it in school. 562 00:44:56,570 --> 00:45:00,250 No one ever questions the integrity of it or the ethics of it. 563 00:45:00,250 --> 00:45:03,920 They say, “Well, that’s the way banking works, and isn’t it wonderful that we now 564 00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,900 have this flexible currency and we have prosperity” and all these sorts of things. 565 00:45:07,900 --> 00:45:11,090 So it all starts with this concept of fractional reserve banking. 566 00:45:11,090 --> 00:45:14,410 The trouble with that is that it works most of the time. 567 00:45:14,410 --> 00:45:17,640 But every once and a while there are a few ripples that come along 568 00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:21,470 that are a little bit bigger than the other ripples. Maybe one of them is a wave. 569 00:45:21,470 --> 00:45:24,550 And more than seven percent will come in and ask for their gold. 570 00:45:24,550 --> 00:45:27,650 Maybe twenty percent or thirty percent. 571 00:45:27,650 --> 00:45:32,000 And well, now the banks are embarrassed because the fraud is exposed. 572 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,250 They say, “well we don’t have your gold” “What do you mean you don’t have my gold!! 573 00:45:36,250 --> 00:45:39,890 I gave it to you and put it on deposit and you said you’d safe guard it.” 574 00:45:39,890 --> 00:45:43,120 “Well we don’t have it, we loaned it out.” 575 00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:47,720 So then the word gets out and everyone and their uncle comes out and lines up for their gold. 576 00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:51,730 And of course they don’t have it, the banks are closed, and they have bank holidays. 577 00:45:51,730 --> 00:45:55,560 Banks are embarrassed, they go out of business, people lose their savings 578 00:45:55,560 --> 00:46:02,740 and you have these terrible banking crashes that were ricocheting all over the world prior to this time. 579 00:46:02,740 --> 00:46:08,740 And that is what caused the concern of the American people. 580 00:46:08,740 --> 00:46:13,070 They didn’t want that anymore. They wanted to put a stop to that. 581 00:46:13,070 --> 00:46:17,540 And that was the whole purpose, supposedly, of the Federal Reserve system. 582 00:46:17,540 --> 00:46:23,660 Was to put a stop to that. But since the people who designed the plan to put a stop to it 583 00:46:23,660 --> 00:46:29,930 were the very ones who were doing it in the first place, you can not be surprised that their solution 584 00:46:29,930 --> 00:46:33,930 was not a very good one so far as the American people were concerned. 585 00:46:33,930 --> 00:46:39,560 Their solution was to expand it. Not to control it, to expand it. 586 00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:46,150 See, prior to that time, this little game of fractional reserve banking was localized at the state level. 587 00:46:46,150 --> 00:46:50,930 Each state was doing its own little fractional reserve banking system. 588 00:46:50,930 --> 00:46:54,110 Each state, in essence, had its own Federal Reserve. 589 00:46:54,110 --> 00:46:58,270 Central banks were authorized by state law to do this sort of thing. 590 00:46:58,270 --> 00:47:02,340 And that was causing all this problem. So the Federal Reserve came along and said, 591 00:47:02,340 --> 00:47:07,010 “No no, we’re not going to do this at the state level anymore, because look at all the problem it’s causing. 592 00:47:07,010 --> 00:47:12,050 We’re going to consolidate it all together and we’re going to do it at the national level.” 593 00:47:13,150 --> 00:47:18,910 The key to the system, of course, is who controls this incredible power to “regulate” the economy 594 00:47:18,910 --> 00:47:22,800 by setting reserve requirements and targeting interest rates. 595 00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:27,420 The answer to this question, too, has been deliberately obscured. 596 00:47:27,420 --> 00:47:32,530 The Federal Reserve system is a deliberately confusing mish-mash of public and private interests, 597 00:47:32,530 --> 00:47:39,670 reserve banks, boards and committees, centralized in Washington and spread out across the United States. 598 00:47:41,110 --> 00:47:46,200 So you have the Federal Reserve Board in Washington appointed by the President. 599 00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:53,960 That’s the only part of this system that is directly dependent on the government for input 600 00:47:53,960 --> 00:48:01,650 that's the “federal” part: that the government ,the president specifically, gets to choose a few select governors. 601 00:48:01,650 --> 00:48:07,820 The twelve regional banks, the most influential of which is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 602 00:48:07,820 --> 00:48:13,450 which is essentially based in Wall Street to represent Wall Street, 603 00:48:13,450 --> 00:48:22,740 is a representative of the major Wall Street banks who own shares in the private, 604 00:48:22,740 --> 00:48:26,010 not federal, but private Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 605 00:48:26,010 --> 00:48:29,800 All of the other regional banks are also private banks. 606 00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:37,870 They vary according to how much influence they wield but the Kansas City fed is influential, 607 00:48:37,870 --> 00:48:47,520 the St. Louis fed, the Dallas fed, but the New York Fed is really the center of this system 608 00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:54,570 and precisely because it represents the Wall Street banks who appoint the leadership of the New York fed. 609 00:48:54,570 --> 00:49:01,160 So the New York fed has a lot of public power, but no public accountability or oversight. 610 00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:07,130 It does not answer to Congress the way that the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors does 611 00:49:07,130 --> 00:49:12,090 and even the chairman of the Federal Reserve board 612 00:49:12,090 --> 00:49:16,380 who is appointed by the President, does not answer to the President, does not answer to Congress. 613 00:49:16,380 --> 00:49:21,310 He goes to Congress to testify but the policy that they set is independent. 614 00:49:21,310 --> 00:49:24,040 So they have no input from the government. 615 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,600 The government can’t tell them what to do legally speaking, and of course they don’t. 616 00:49:29,350 --> 00:49:36,720 Rep. John Duncan: Do you think it would cause problems for the Fed or for the economy if that legislation was to pass? 617 00:49:36,720 --> 00:49:40,730 Ben Bernanke: My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO 618 00:49:40,730 --> 00:49:45,520 is auditing not only the operational aspects of our programs and the details of the programs, 619 00:49:45,530 --> 00:49:52,000 but is making judgements about our policy decisions, that would effectively be a takeover of monetary policy by the Congress, 620 00:49:52,010 --> 00:49:57,660 a repudiation of the independence of the Federal Reserve which would be highly destructive to the stability 621 00:49:57,660 --> 00:50:02,890 of the financial system, the dollar, and our national economic situation. 622 00:50:03,410 --> 00:50:08,770 The Federal Open Market Committee is responsible for setting interest rates. 623 00:50:08,770 --> 00:50:19,340 Now this committee, which is enormously powerful, has as its membership the Governor and Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, 624 00:50:19,340 --> 00:50:26,200 but on the Federal Open Market Committee most of the membership is the presidents of the regional Federal Reserve Banks 625 00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:33,660 representing private interests. So they have significant input into setting the interest rates. 626 00:50:33,660 --> 00:50:40,080 Interest rates are not set by a public body, they’re set by private financial and corporate interests. 627 00:50:40,090 --> 00:50:44,330 And that's whose interests they serve, of course. 628 00:50:44,330 --> 00:50:50,430 The reason that the Federal Reserve goes to such great lengths to make its organizational structure as confusing as possible 629 00:50:50,430 --> 00:50:54,930 is to cover up the massive conflicts of interest that are at the heart of that system. 630 00:50:54,930 --> 00:50:59,370 The fact is that the Federal Reserve system is comprised of a Board of Governors, 631 00:50:59,370 --> 00:51:03,850 12 regional banks, and an open market committee. 632 00:51:03,850 --> 00:51:09,520 The privately-owned member banks of each Federal Reserve Bank vote on the majority of the Reserve Bank’s directors, 633 00:51:09,530 --> 00:51:15,620 and the directors vote on members to serve on the Federal Open Market Committee which determines monetary policy. 634 00:51:15,620 --> 00:51:18,850 What’s more, Wall Street is given a prime seat at the table, 635 00:51:18,850 --> 00:51:22,900 with tradition holding that the President of the powerful New York Federal Reserve Bank 636 00:51:22,900 --> 00:51:28,320 be given the Vice Chairmanship of the FOMC and be made a permanent committee member. 637 00:51:28,330 --> 00:51:33,240 In effect, the private banks are the key determinants in the composition of the FOMC 638 00:51:33,240 --> 00:51:36,630 which regulates the entire economy. 639 00:51:36,630 --> 00:51:42,050 According to the Fed “its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President 640 00:51:42,050 --> 00:51:45,870 or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, 641 00:51:45,870 --> 00:51:48,890 it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, 642 00:51:48,890 --> 00:51:54,860 and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.” 643 00:51:54,860 --> 00:51:58,130 Or, in the words of Alan Greenspan: 644 00:51:58,130 --> 00:52:07,340 Interviewer: "What should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the FED and the president of United States?" 645 00:52:07,340 --> 00:52:13,390 “Well first of all, The Federal Reserve is an independent agency and that means that 646 00:52:13,390 --> 00:52:23,730 there is no other agency of government that can overrule actions that we take.” 647 00:52:23,730 --> 00:52:29,850 The Fed goes on in its self-mythologization to state that it is “not a private, profit-making institution.” 648 00:52:29,850 --> 00:52:35,130 This characterization is dishonest at best, and an outright lie at worst. 649 00:52:35,130 --> 00:52:41,640 The regional banks are themselves private corporations, as noted in a 1928 Supreme Court ruling: 650 00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:46,980 “Instrumentalities like the national banksor the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests 651 00:52:46,980 --> 00:52:49,000 are not departments of the government. 652 00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:53,500 They are private corporations in which the government has an interest.” 653 00:52:53,500 --> 00:52:57,230 This point is even admitted by the Federal Reserve’s own senior counsel. 654 00:52:57,230 --> 00:53:02,130 Yvonne Mizusawa: Our regulations do specify overall terms for the lending, 655 00:53:02,130 --> 00:53:07,160 but the day to day operation of the banking activities are conducted by the Federal Reserve Banks. 656 00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,780 They are banks, and indeed they do lend 657 00:53:09,780 --> 00:53:13,240 Peter W. Hall: So they’re their own agency, then, essentially, in that regard. 658 00:53:13,240 --> 00:53:16,550 Yvonne Mizusawa: They are not agencies, your honor, they are “persons” under FOIA. 659 00:53:16,550 --> 00:53:23,000 Each Federal Reserve Bank, the stock is owned by the member banks in the district, 100% privately held, 660 00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:28,280 they are private boards of directors. The majority of those boards are appointed by the independent banks, 661 00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:32,410 private banks in the district. They are not agencies. 662 00:53:32,410 --> 00:53:37,400 These private corporations issue shares that are held by the member banks that make up the system, 663 00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:41,480 making the banks the ultimate owners of the Federal Reserve Banks. 664 00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,720 Although the Fed’s profits are returned to the Treasury each year, 665 00:53:44,730 --> 00:53:48,800 the member banks’ shares of the Fed do earn them a 6% dividend. 666 00:53:48,810 --> 00:53:55,230 According to the Fed, the fixed nature of these returns mean that they are not being held for profit. 667 00:53:55,230 --> 00:53:59,600 Despite the dishonest nature of this description, however, it is important to understand 668 00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:04,890 that the bankers who own the Federal Reserve indeed do not make their money from the Fed directly. 669 00:54:04,890 --> 00:54:09,460 Instead, the benefits are much less obvious, and much more insidious. 670 00:54:09,460 --> 00:54:13,340 The simplest way that this can be understood is that, as a century of history 671 00:54:13,340 --> 00:54:16,940 and the specific example of the last financial crisis shows, 672 00:54:16,940 --> 00:54:21,560 the Fed was used as a vehicle to bail out the very bankers who own the Fed banks 673 00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:26,180 in the most obvious example of fascistic collusion imaginable. 674 00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:35,620 A handful of financial institutions have enriched themselves as a result of institutional speculation 675 00:54:35,620 --> 00:54:40,410 on a large scale, as well as manipulation of the market. 676 00:54:40,410 --> 00:54:47,780 And secondly what they have done is that they have then gone to their governments and said, 677 00:54:47,780 --> 00:54:52,410 “Well, we are now in a very difficult situation and you need to lend us… 678 00:54:52,410 --> 00:55:00,790 you need to give us money so that we can retain the stability of the financial system.” 679 00:55:00,790 --> 00:55:08,780 And who actually lends the money, or brokers the public debt. 680 00:55:08,780 --> 00:55:14,460 The same financial institutions which are the recipients of the bailout. 681 00:55:14,460 --> 00:55:20,330 And so what you have is a circular process. It’s a diabolical process. 682 00:55:20,330 --> 00:55:27,620 You’re lending money…no, you’re not lending money, you’re handing money to the large financial instutions, 683 00:55:27,620 --> 00:55:36,850 and then this is leading up to mounting public debt in the trillions. 684 00:55:36,850 --> 00:55:40,940 And then you say to the financial institutions 685 00:55:40,940 --> 00:55:50,920 “We need to establish a new set of treasury bills and government bonds, etc.” 686 00:55:50,930 --> 00:55:57,120 which of course are sold to the public, but they are always brokered through the financial institutions 687 00:55:57,130 --> 00:56:01,020 which establish their viability and so on and so forth. 688 00:56:01,020 --> 00:56:07,360 And the financial institutions will probably buy part of this public debt 689 00:56:07,380 --> 00:56:13,960 so that in effect what the government is doing is financing its own indebtedness through the bailouts. 690 00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:22,860 It hands money to the banks, but to hand money to the banks, it becomes indebted to those same financial institutions, 691 00:56:22,860 --> 00:56:30,810 and then it says “We now have to emit large amounts of public debt. Please can you help us?” 692 00:56:30,810 --> 00:56:35,570 And then the banks will say: “Well, your books are not quite in order.” 693 00:56:35,570 --> 00:56:44,800 And then the government will say: “Obviously they’re not in order, because we’ve just handed you 1.4 trillion dollars of bailout money 694 00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:47,380 and we’re now in a very difficult situation. 695 00:56:47,380 --> 00:56:53,340 So we need to borrow money from the people who are in fact the recipients of the bailout.” 696 00:56:53,340 --> 00:57:00,000 So this is really what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a circular process. 697 00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:07,340 The 2008 crisis and subsequent bailouts are merely the latest and most brazen examples of the fundamental conflicts of interest 698 00:57:07,340 --> 00:57:11,280 at the heart of America’s privately-owned central banking system. 699 00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:14,700 Beginning with the collapse of Lehman Bros. in September of that year, 700 00:57:14,700 --> 00:57:20,850 the Federal Reserve embarked on an unprecedented program of bailouts and special zero interest lending facilities 701 00:57:20,850 --> 00:57:25,090 for the very banks that had caused the subprime meltdown in the first place. 702 00:57:25,090 --> 00:57:30,090 By the cartelization of the Federal Reserve structure, and thus not by accident, 703 00:57:30,090 --> 00:57:34,540 it was the very bank presidents who had overseen their banks’ lending practices 704 00:57:34,540 --> 00:57:42,260 that ended up in the director positions of the Federal Reserve Banks that voted on where to direct the trillions of dollars in bailout money. 705 00:57:42,260 --> 00:57:46,860 And unsurprisingly,they directed it toward their own banks. 706 00:57:46,860 --> 00:57:52,840 A stunning 2011 Government Accountability Office report examined $16 trillion of bailout facilities 707 00:57:52,850 --> 00:58:00,200 extended by the Fed in the wake of the crisis and exposed numerous examples of blatant conflicts of interest. 708 00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,410 Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric 709 00:58:03,410 --> 00:58:06,920 served as a director on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 710 00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:13,020 at the same time the Fed provided $16 billion in financing to General Electric. 711 00:58:13,020 --> 00:58:18,920 JP Morgan Chase chief executive, Jamie Dimon, meanwhile, was also a member of the board of the New York Fed 712 00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:25,610 during the period that saw $391 billion in Fed emergency lending directed to his own bank. 713 00:58:25,610 --> 00:58:31,760 In all, Federal Reserve board members were tied to $4 trillion in loans to their own banks. 714 00:58:31,770 --> 00:58:34,980 These funds were not simply used to keep these banks afloat, 715 00:58:34,980 --> 00:58:39,420 but actually to return these Fed-connected banks to a period of record profits 716 00:58:39,420 --> 00:58:44,440 in the same period that the average worker saw their real wages actually decrease 717 00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:48,820 and the economy on main street slow to a standstill. 718 00:58:48,820 --> 00:58:52,780 Ben Bernanke, at that time the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, 719 00:58:52,780 --> 00:59:00,760 was confronted about these conflicts of interest by Senator Bernie Sanders upon the release of the GAO report in June 2012. 720 00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:05,930 Ben Bernanke: Senator, you raised an important point, which is that this is not something the Federal Reserve created. 721 00:59:05,930 --> 00:59:12,140 This is in the statute. Congress in the Federal Reserve Act said “This is the governance of the Federal Reserve.” 722 00:59:12,140 --> 00:59:15,130 And more specifically that bankers would be on the board. 723 00:59:15,130 --> 00:59:16,880 Bernie Sanders: 6 out of 9. Ben Bernanke: Sorry? 724 00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:20,540 Bernie Sanders: 6 out of 9 in the regional banks are from the banking industry. 725 00:59:20,540 --> 00:59:22,190 Ben Bernanke: That’s correct. And that is in the law. 726 00:59:22,190 --> 00:59:27,830 I’ll answer your question, though. The answer to your question is that Congress set this up, 727 00:59:27,830 --> 00:59:31,060 I think we’ve made it into something useful and valuable. 728 00:59:31,060 --> 00:59:34,330 We do get information from it. But if Congress wants to change it, 729 00:59:34,330 --> 00:59:39,180 of course we will work with you to find alternatives. 730 00:59:40,010 --> 00:59:46,150 Bernanke is completely right. These conflicts are in fact a part of the institution itself. 731 00:59:46,150 --> 00:59:50,780 A structural feature of the Federal Reserve that was baked into the Federal Reserve Act itself 732 00:59:50,780 --> 00:59:56,570 over 100 years ago by the bankers who conspired to cartelize the nation’s money supply. 733 00:59:56,570 --> 01:00:00,850 You could not ask for a more succinct reason why the Federal Reserve itself, 734 01:00:00,850 --> 01:00:05,580 this admitted cartel of banking interests, needs to be abolished. 735 01:00:05,580 --> 01:00:07,570 but you could get one. 736 01:00:09,970 --> 01:00:13,810 Part Three: End the Fed 737 01:00:14,900 --> 01:00:19,770 “They who control the credit of a nation, direct the policy of Governments and hold 738 01:00:19,770 --> 01:00:24,610 in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” 739 01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:33,100 We now know that for centuries the people of the United States have been at war with the international banking oligarchs. 740 01:00:33,100 --> 01:00:39,460 That war was lost, seemingly for good, in 1913, with the creation of the Federal Reserve. 741 01:00:39,460 --> 01:00:41,630 With the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, 742 01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:46,860 President Woodrow Wilson consigned the American population to a century in which the money supply itself 743 01:00:46,860 --> 01:00:49,860 has depended on the whims of the banking cabal. 744 01:00:49,860 --> 01:00:53,330 A century of booms and busts, bubbles and depressions, 745 01:00:53,330 --> 01:00:58,960 has led to a wholesale redistribution of wealth toward those at the very top of the system. 746 01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:02,170 At the bottom, the masses toil in relative poverty, 747 01:01:02,170 --> 01:01:06,240 single-income households becoming double-income households out of necessity, 748 01:01:06,240 --> 01:01:11,220 their quality of life being slowly eroded as the Federal Reserve Notes that pass for dollars 749 01:01:11,220 --> 01:01:13,580 are themselves devalued. 750 01:01:13,610 --> 01:01:21,220 Worse yet, the fraud itself perpetuates Alexander Hamilton’s persistent myththat a national debt is necessary at all. 751 01:01:21,220 --> 01:01:27,440 The US is now locked into a system whereby the government issues bonds to generate the funds for their operations, 752 01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:32,160 bonds that are backed up by the taxation of the public’s own labor. 753 01:01:32,170 --> 01:01:35,890 The perpetrators of this fraud, meanwhile, remain in the shadows, 754 01:01:35,890 --> 01:01:42,150 largely ignored by a general public that could instantly recognise the latest Hollywood heartthrob or pop idol, 755 01:01:42,150 --> 01:01:48,110 but have no clue what the head of Goldman Sachs or the New York Fed does, let alone who they are. 756 01:01:48,110 --> 01:01:54,120 This cabal bear allegiance to no nationality, no philosophy or creed, no code of ethics. 757 01:01:54,120 --> 01:01:58,040 They are not even motivated by greed, but power. 758 01:01:58,050 --> 01:02:03,490 The power that the control of the money supply inevitably brings with it. 759 01:02:04,030 --> 01:02:09,800 After a person has all the money in the world that you could possibly use to buy anything you want 760 01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:15,870 What's left to capture your imagination? And the answer of course is power. 761 01:02:15,870 --> 01:02:22,360 Power over people. Now money is power over people, but there's another power over people as well. 762 01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:25,940 And that is the political power, the social power. 763 01:02:25,940 --> 01:02:31,090 And I think this has now become the dominant driving force of these people. 764 01:02:31,090 --> 01:02:37,100 They've already got the money, they got it locked down. Now they're striving for this New World Order, 765 01:02:37,100 --> 01:02:45,000 That's their name for it. They want all the world into one political unit, which they dominate. 766 01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:49,960 Not only with money, but with military and psychological means. 767 01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:57,250 And education and media ad propaganda. They want total control of every human on the planet. 768 01:02:57,250 --> 01:03:01,840 And by Golly, they're moving pretty rapidly in that direction. 769 01:03:02,890 --> 01:03:06,560 It did not take long for this lust for power to rear its head. 770 01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:10,620 In 1921, just 7 years after the Fed began operations, 771 01:03:10,620 --> 01:03:14,570 the same J.P. Morgan-connected banking elite that founded the Federal Reserve 772 01:03:14,570 --> 01:03:18,340 incorporated an organization called The Council on Foreign Relations 773 01:03:18,340 --> 01:03:24,160 with the goal of taking over the foreign policy apparatus of the United States, including the State Department. 774 01:03:24,170 --> 01:03:27,940 In this quest, it was remarkably successful. 775 01:03:27,940 --> 01:03:31,610 Although there are only about 4000 members in the organization today, 776 01:03:31,610 --> 01:03:38,640 its membership has included 21 Secretaries of Defense, 18 Treasury Secretaries, 18 Secretaries of State, 777 01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:49,010 16 CIA directors and many other high-ranking government officials, military officers, business elite, and, of course, bankers. 778 01:03:49,010 --> 01:03:52,260 The first Director of the CFR was John W. Davis, 779 01:03:52,260 --> 01:03:56,930 J.P. Morgan’s personal lawyer and a millionaire in his own right. 780 01:03:56,930 --> 01:04:01,000 Together with its sister organizations in Britain and elsewhere around the world, 781 01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,320 these groups would work together toward what they called a “New World Order” 782 01:04:04,330 --> 01:04:09,220 of total financial and political control directed by the bankers themselves. 783 01:04:09,220 --> 01:04:15,300 As Carroll Quigley, noted Georgetown historian and mentor of Bill Clinton, wrote in his 1966 work, 784 01:04:15,300 --> 01:04:19,260 Tragedy and Hope, A History of The World In Our Time: 785 01:04:19,260 --> 01:04:22,680 “The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, 786 01:04:22,690 --> 01:04:26,960 nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands 787 01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:32,730 able to dominate the political system of each country gand the economy of the world as a whole. 788 01:04:32,730 --> 01:04:38,010 This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, 789 01:04:38,010 --> 01:04:42,510 by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. 790 01:04:42,510 --> 01:04:47,410 The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, 791 01:04:47,410 --> 01:04:55,220 a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.” 792 01:04:55,220 --> 01:05:01,280 This is why the bankers and their partners in government and business conspired to bring about the 2008 crisis. 793 01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:04,490 Not for the pursuit of money, but power. 794 01:05:04,490 --> 01:05:10,080 In the same way the bankers used the Panic of 1907 to consolidate their control over the money supply, 795 01:05:10,090 --> 01:05:15,500 they hope to use the 2008 crisis and subsequent panics, which they themselves have created, 796 01:05:15,500 --> 01:05:18,440 to consolidate their political control. 797 01:05:19,250 --> 01:05:26,440 The international summit for the global financial crisis has been expended from June 7th to June 20th. 798 01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:30,480 Because the leading seven developed countries can not solve the crisis alone. 799 01:05:30,480 --> 01:05:36,130 This expanded meeting raises the question whether a new global financial system will be created. 800 01:05:36,380 --> 01:05:39,880 So, is this some sort of a New World Order, which Gordon Brown kind of eluded to? 801 01:05:40,980 --> 01:05:47,900 British prime minister Gordon Brown has described the "Guiding principle" will be addressed at the summit, 802 01:05:47,900 --> 01:05:58,400 they are: transparency, sound banking, responsibility, integrity, and get this, global governance. 803 01:05:59,160 --> 01:06:08,320 I think the New Order is emerging and with it the foundations of a new and progressive era of international cooperation. 804 01:06:08,330 --> 01:06:13,820 The inevitable conclusion, one that flows necessarily from the true understanding of this situation, 805 01:06:13,820 --> 01:06:18,800 is that the Federal Reserve system needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. 806 01:06:18,810 --> 01:06:26,290 After a century of enslavement, it is time for the American public to finally throw off the bankers’ debt chains. 807 01:06:27,130 --> 01:06:35,740 If there was ever a point in human history to start questioning alternatives, this would be it. 808 01:06:35,740 --> 01:06:40,920 And to think that where we are and to think that this is the best of our options, 809 01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:46,640 How many of the best options lead to self-destruction? Doesn't sound like the best option. 810 01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:53,210 I think that with a world with 7 billion people, we can probably come up with something better 811 01:06:53,210 --> 01:07:03,620 then a system in which a few thousand people benefit so much at the expense of everything else on this world. 812 01:07:03,620 --> 01:07:11,140 And at the expense of the potential for the future of mankind. They are leveraging our future. 813 01:07:11,140 --> 01:07:19,090 And so long as we accept this way of thinking, so long as we accept these institutions as [?] 814 01:07:19,090 --> 01:07:27,840 That's the direction we'll be going. So I think reform is a good way to try and stall and to push back 815 01:07:27,850 --> 01:07:34,940 directly against the expanding and evolving power structures 816 01:07:34,940 --> 01:07:39,580 but radical change is what's really needed and it has to be build from the bottom up. 817 01:07:39,580 --> 01:07:46,290 But I think that these two processes can and should go together in parallel. 818 01:07:48,290 --> 01:07:51,360 If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. 819 01:07:51,370 --> 01:07:54,600 You are now better informed on the economic history of the United States 820 01:07:54,610 --> 01:07:58,970 and the truth about the Federal Reserve than 99% of the population. 821 01:07:58,970 --> 01:08:06,340 If you do nothing else, then just working to get those around you educated on this information alone, will have a profound effect. 822 01:08:06,340 --> 01:08:13,020 Once they learn of the scam, many are motivated to do something about it, and they, in turn, inform others. 823 01:08:13,020 --> 01:08:17,760 This is the viral nature of suppressed truth, and it is the reason that more people are aware of 824 01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:23,490 and energized by the issue of the Federal Reserve and the nature of money than ever before. 825 01:08:23,490 --> 01:08:28,530 Perhaps even more amazingly, this movement is spreading to other parts of the globe. 826 01:08:28,530 --> 01:08:34,620 Recognizing the interlocking nature of the modern global economy, and the international nature of the banking oligarchy, 827 01:08:34,620 --> 01:08:37,730 movements to abolish the Federal Reserve have sprung up in Europe, 828 01:08:37,730 --> 01:08:42,610 where protests against the cartelized central banking system are taking place in over 100 cities 829 01:08:42,610 --> 01:08:46,300 attracting 20,000 people on a weekly basis. 830 01:08:46,900 --> 01:08:53,440 Lars Maehrholz: I started this movement because I realized that the Federal Reserve Act, in my opinion, 831 01:08:53,440 --> 01:08:57,820 is one of the worst laws in the whole world. 832 01:08:57,820 --> 01:09:05,720 So a private banking company is lending America the money, and in my opinion is not democratic anymore. 833 01:09:05,730 --> 01:09:10,570 The Federal Reserve tells the government what to do, and that’s the problem. 834 01:09:10,570 --> 01:09:13,370 Luke Rudkowski: It’s a very big problem especially in the U.S. 835 01:09:13,370 --> 01:09:16,860 Why is it a global issue, and why are people doing it here in Germany? 836 01:09:16,860 --> 01:09:21,940 Lars Maehrholz: Because when you realize that this finance system, it’s a global system, 837 01:09:21,940 --> 01:09:25,340 you have to go really to the beginning of the system. 838 01:09:25,340 --> 01:09:31,820 And in my opinion it’s also the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and stuff like this, 839 01:09:31,820 --> 01:09:35,610 but at the beginning of all this is a law from 1913. 840 01:09:35,610 --> 01:09:42,610 Woodrow Wilson signed it, and this is the beginning of all this hardcore capitalism we are now suffering from. 841 01:09:42,610 --> 01:09:46,810 And the only way to stop this is maybe to break this law. 842 01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:51,740 But what if the burgeoning movement to End The Fed is successful. 843 01:09:51,740 --> 01:09:55,240 What system do people propose as the answer. 844 01:09:55,240 --> 01:09:59,570 There have been several proposals along different lines by various researchers. 845 01:09:59,570 --> 01:10:05,320 Some argue for a return to America’s colonial roots of debt-free money issued by state run banks, 846 01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:11,610 pointing to the Bank of North Dakota as one already functioning, successful model of this approach. 847 01:10:11,610 --> 01:10:20,490 We’ve had two banking systems ever since the 1860’s with the state bank system and the federal bank system, 848 01:10:20,490 --> 01:10:26,800 and the federal bank system are the big Wall Street banks particularly. They dominate the federal system. 849 01:10:26,810 --> 01:10:34,050 So, they’re taking over right now. In California we don’t even have any local banks where I am. 850 01:10:34,050 --> 01:10:36,980 We had two and I had accounts in both of them 851 01:10:36,980 --> 01:10:40,420 and now one of them is Chase Bank and the other is U.S. Bank. 852 01:10:40,420 --> 01:10:43,240 So they’re both big Wall Street banks now that have been taken over. 853 01:10:43,250 --> 01:10:50,210 So it’s the local banks that have an interest in serving the local business. 854 01:10:50,210 --> 01:10:55,570 The big banks have no interest in making loans to local businesses; it’s too risky, why should they bother. 855 01:10:55,570 --> 01:11:00,000 They've got this virtually free money they can get from the Fed and from each other 856 01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:06,100 and it’s much more lucrative to them either to speculate in commodities or other thing abroad, 857 01:11:06,100 --> 01:11:12,810 or what works very well for them is to buy long-term government bonds at 3% 858 01:11:12,810 --> 01:11:15,050 because these have no capital requirement. 859 01:11:15,050 --> 01:11:20,400 The capital requirements for government bonds are zero. So they can buy all of those that they want. 860 01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:29,370 Whereas if they make loans for mortgages or they make loans to businesses 861 01:11:29,370 --> 01:11:35,060 then they have to worry about the capital requirement and as soon as they’ve used up all their capital, 862 01:11:35,060 --> 01:11:39,320 in other words eight dollars in capital will get you a hundred dollars of loans, 863 01:11:39,320 --> 01:11:43,880 then they can’t make any more loans they have to wait for thirty years for the loans to get paid off. 864 01:11:43,880 --> 01:11:50,130 So what they if they do if they do buy mortgages is sell them off too investors 865 01:11:50,130 --> 01:11:55,720 and so that’s the whole mortgage backed security scam that we’ve seen. 866 01:11:55,720 --> 01:12:01,690 They had no motivation to make sure that these borrowers were actually sound borrowers; 867 01:12:01,690 --> 01:12:06,330 they just wanted to make a sale. So they sold the stuff to the unwary investors 868 01:12:06,330 --> 01:12:14,290 who might be somebody in Iceland or Sweden or pension funds. 869 01:12:14,290 --> 01:12:16,820 So that didn’t work out so well. 870 01:12:16,820 --> 01:12:23,700 So a state bank partnering with the local banks can provide the capital. 871 01:12:23,700 --> 01:12:29,570 It can help them with capital. In North Dakota the state bank guarantees the loans of the local banks, 872 01:12:29,570 --> 01:12:33,620 allowing them to make much bigger loans than they could otherwise. 873 01:12:33,620 --> 01:12:38,180 The state bank provides liquidity to the small banks. 874 01:12:38,180 --> 01:12:45,200 That’s why the local banks aren’t making loans to small business right now, 875 01:12:45,200 --> 01:12:52,340 because they don’t know that they can get money from the other banks as needed. 876 01:12:52,340 --> 01:12:54,640 The way banking works is they make the loan first. 877 01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:58,460 I mean, if you have credit lines to many different businesses 878 01:12:58,460 --> 01:13:01,970 and if they all hit up their credit lines at once you are going to run out of money. 879 01:13:01,970 --> 01:13:08,440 So you don’t dare do that unless you know that you can get short-term loans from the other banks. 880 01:13:08,440 --> 01:13:13,690 And so what’s happening right now, even though there’s $1.6 trillion is excess reserves 881 01:13:13,690 --> 01:13:18,660 sitting on the books of the big banks, they’re not available to the little banks 882 01:13:18,660 --> 01:13:25,100 and the reason is because the Fed is paying 0.25% interest on those reserves. 883 01:13:25,100 --> 01:13:29,080 So the banks have no incentive to lend them to the little banks. 884 01:13:29,090 --> 01:13:34,280 Why let go of them when you can make just as much keeping them and then you still have your reserves 885 01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:40,210 and you can use them as collateral to buy bonds or something that’ll make you more money? 886 01:13:40,210 --> 01:13:46,200 So the whole system is messed up and in North Dakota, 887 01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:51,600 the bank of North Dakota provides liquidity for these local banks. 888 01:13:51,600 --> 01:13:55,660 Others advocate a decentralized system of alternative and competing currencies 889 01:13:55,660 --> 01:14:01,380 that greatly reduce or even eliminate altogether the need for a central bank. 890 01:14:02,340 --> 01:14:07,840 Paul Glover: Well, 22 years ago in Ithaca, New York, I noticed there were a lot of people, friends particularly, 891 01:14:07,850 --> 01:14:14,430 that had skills and time that were not being employed or respected by the prevailing economy. 892 01:14:14,430 --> 01:14:19,690 While we had much desire to create things and trade them with each other 893 01:14:19,690 --> 01:14:24,880 and many services we could provide to each other, we didn’t have the money. 894 01:14:24,890 --> 01:14:31,520 So since I have a background in graphic design, journalism and arrogance 895 01:14:31,530 --> 01:14:35,760 I went to my computer and designed paper money for Ithaca, New York. 896 01:14:35,770 --> 01:14:45,400 I designed pretty colourful money with pictures of children, waterfalls and trolley cars denominated in hours of labor. 897 01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:51,900 One-hour note, half-hour, quarter, eight-hour notes and two-hour notes. 898 01:14:51,900 --> 01:14:58,990 Then I began to issue to each of those pioneer traders who had agreed to being listed in the directory 899 01:14:58,990 --> 01:15:04,170 a specific starter amount, and the game began. 900 01:15:04,170 --> 01:15:10,760 An hour has been worth basically $10 U.S. dollars 901 01:15:10,770 --> 01:15:15,660 which at that time 20 years ago was double the minimum wage. 902 01:15:15,660 --> 01:15:24,730 People who usually expect more than $10 per hour of their service can charge multiple hours per hour 903 01:15:24,730 --> 01:15:32,000 but the denomination puts between us as residents of our community, 904 01:15:32,010 --> 01:15:41,440 that reminds us that we are fellow citizens, not merely winners or losers scrambling for dollars. 905 01:15:41,450 --> 01:15:51,770 It introduces us to each other on the basis of these skills and services that we have, 906 01:15:51,770 --> 01:15:57,840 that we are more proud to provide for each other than often is the case with a conventional job. 907 01:15:57,850 --> 01:16:03,660 Just the stuff we have to do to get the money to pay the bills. 908 01:16:03,660 --> 01:16:10,530 So through that trading process, that more intimate scale process within the community, 909 01:16:10,530 --> 01:16:15,460 we’re more easily able to become friends and lovers and political allies. 910 01:16:15,460 --> 01:16:23,480 James Corbett: It’s an inspiring story and tell people about how much money has circulated through this community. 911 01:16:23,490 --> 01:16:27,610 I mean, it’s important for people to understand just how successful this has been. 912 01:16:27,610 --> 01:16:35,700 Paul Glover: Because we are not a computer system we don’t have a specific volume of trading recorded 913 01:16:35,700 --> 01:16:42,690 but by the grapevine, by phone surveys and over the years watching the money move 914 01:16:42,690 --> 01:16:52,780 we were able to guess very reliably that several million dollars equivalent of this money has transacted over those years. 915 01:16:52,780 --> 01:16:59,410 Making loans without charging interest up to $30,000 value, 916 01:16:59,410 --> 01:17:03,210 which is the fundamental monetary revolution in our system. 917 01:17:03,210 --> 01:17:08,600 Then as well, making grants of the money to over a hundred community organizations. 918 01:17:09,080 --> 01:17:14,240 Some argue for currencies whose mathematical nature prevent them from being merely conjured into existence 919 01:17:14,240 --> 01:17:17,600 whenever a federal government wants to wage another war of aggression 920 01:17:17,610 --> 01:17:22,770 or forge another link in the seemingly endless train of governmental tyranny and abuse. 921 01:17:23,260 --> 01:17:27,620 Roger Ver: What people have to understand about Bitcoin is that it’s a completely decentralized network. 922 01:17:27,620 --> 01:17:31,630 There’s no central server, there’s no controlling company, there’s no office, 923 01:17:31,630 --> 01:17:36,340 it’s just free software that anyone can download and start running on their computer anywhere in the world. 924 01:17:36,340 --> 01:17:40,540 And that the Bitcoins themselves can be transferred to or from anyone, anywhere in the world 925 01:17:40,540 --> 01:17:46,260 and it’s impossible for any bank or government or entity to block you from sending or receiving those Bitcoins. 926 01:17:46,260 --> 01:17:51,380 There’s a limited supply of those Bitcoins, there will never ever be anymore than 21 million Bitcoins. 927 01:17:51,380 --> 01:17:56,180 So, like everything the price is set based on supply and demand. 928 01:17:56,180 --> 01:18:01,700 Because the supply of Bitcoins is limited and the demand is increasing as more and more people start to use them 929 01:18:01,700 --> 01:18:03,740 and more and more websites start to accept them, 930 01:18:03,740 --> 01:18:07,140 the price of Bitcoins in terms of dollars is going to have to increase, 931 01:18:07,140 --> 01:18:11,060 even a lot more than the $500 per Bitcoin that it is today. 932 01:18:11,060 --> 01:18:16,040 James Corbett: Are there any drawbacks at all to the idea of using a crypto-currency? 933 01:18:16,040 --> 01:18:21,220 Roger Ver: If you’re part of the current power elite that can just print money at will to spend on whatever you feel like 934 01:18:21,220 --> 01:18:25,340 then yeah, the world switching over to Bitcoin is probably not going to benefit you. 935 01:18:25,340 --> 01:18:29,320 But if your one of the normal people that aren’t working for the Federal Reserve 936 01:18:29,330 --> 01:18:33,560 or any central bank that’s printing money to pay to your friends and that sort of thing, 937 01:18:33,570 --> 01:18:37,050 then a Bitcoin world is a wonderful thing for you. 938 01:18:38,020 --> 01:18:41,380 Sound money. Cryptocurrencies. State banks. 939 01:18:41,380 --> 01:18:44,250 LETS programs. Self-issued credit. 940 01:18:44,250 --> 01:18:50,620 These and many other solutions have all been proposed and many of them are in use in different localities today. 941 01:18:50,620 --> 01:18:57,300 Information on all of these ideas and how they are being applied in various parts of the world are widely available online. 942 01:18:57,300 --> 01:19:01,290 The point is that the question of what money is and how it should be created 943 01:19:01,290 --> 01:19:05,460 is perhaps the single greatest question facing humanity as a whole, 944 01:19:05,460 --> 01:19:10,920 and yet it is one that has been almost completely eliminated from the national conversation. 945 01:19:10,920 --> 01:19:12,920 Until recently. 946 01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:19,700 [crowd cheering "End the FED"] 947 01:19:27,850 --> 01:19:31,530 Burning real paper. what the hell 948 01:19:31,530 --> 01:19:44,580 [crowd cheering "End the FED"] 949 01:19:44,580 --> 01:19:52,140 Ron Paul: I haven't even gotten to that part yet. Will you do it again when I get to that part? 950 01:19:56,760 --> 01:20:00,370 And so the rest of the story is now in our hands. 951 01:20:00,370 --> 01:20:03,020 Once we understand the scam that has taken place, 952 01:20:03,020 --> 01:20:07,800 the gradual consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of an elite few banking oligarchs 953 01:20:07,800 --> 01:20:10,080 and the growing impoverishment of the masses, 954 01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:14,930 all in the name of banking funny money created out of nothing and loaned to the public at interest, 955 01:20:15,650 --> 01:20:18,940 we can choose to get active or to do nothing at all. 956 01:20:18,940 --> 01:20:24,880 For those who choose to get active, there are some steps that you can take to help change the course of this system: 957 01:20:24,880 --> 01:20:31,940 1) Follow the links and resources from the transcript of this documentary at corbettreport.com/federalreserve 958 01:20:31,940 --> 01:20:37,820 to familiarize yourself with the history, the connections and the functions of the Federal Reserve system. 959 01:20:37,820 --> 01:20:43,460 If you can’t explain this material to yourself, then you will never be able to teach it to others. 960 01:20:43,460 --> 01:20:47,770 2) Begin reaching out to others to bring them up to speed on the issue. 961 01:20:47,770 --> 01:20:51,830 It can be as simple as broaching this conversation in the Monday morning water cooler talk 962 01:20:51,830 --> 01:20:57,320 or passing out a copy of this documentary or sending out links to this information to your email list. 963 01:20:57,320 --> 01:21:00,080 Insert this topic into your conversations. 964 01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:03,810 When people start talking about the national debt or the state of the economy 965 01:21:03,810 --> 01:21:08,290 or other political talking points, get them to question the roots of these issues, 966 01:21:08,290 --> 01:21:11,460 and why there is a national debt at all. 967 01:21:11,460 --> 01:21:17,600 3) When you are able to find or create a group of like-minded people in your area who are engaged with the issue, 968 01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:20,540 start a study group on the issue and its solutions. 969 01:21:20,540 --> 01:21:24,740 The study group can help source alternative or complementary currencies in the local area, 970 01:21:24,740 --> 01:21:30,300 or, if none exist already, the group can form the basis for a community of local businesses and customers 971 01:21:30,300 --> 01:21:35,770 who are willing to start experimenting with ways to wean themselves off of the Federal Reserve notes. 972 01:21:35,770 --> 01:21:41,290 4) Use the resources at corbettreport.com, including the Federal Reserve information flyer, 973 01:21:41,290 --> 01:21:48,620 or hold DVD screenings, to attract interest in your group and draw others into studying the true nature of the monetary system. 974 01:21:48,620 --> 01:21:54,170 The work of building up an alternative to the current system can seem daunting, even at times overwhelming. 975 01:21:54,170 --> 01:21:58,520 But it’s important to keep in mind that the Federal Reserve system that seems so monolithic today 976 01:21:58,520 --> 01:22:01,300 has only been around for one century. 977 01:22:01,300 --> 01:22:07,060 Central banks have been defeated in America before and they can be defeated again. 978 01:22:07,060 --> 01:22:11,210 The question of how we decide to change this system is not rhetorical; 979 01:22:11,210 --> 01:22:15,780 it will either be answered by an informed, engaged, active population 980 01:22:15,780 --> 01:22:20,740 working together to create viable alternatives and to dismantle the current system, or it 981 01:22:20,740 --> 01:22:25,530 will be answered by the same banking oligarchy that has been controlling the money supply, 982 01:22:25,530 --> 01:22:29,850 and indeed the lifeblood of the country, for generations. 983 01:22:29,850 --> 01:22:33,980 Now, one century after the creation of the Federal Reserve system, 984 01:22:34,720 --> 01:22:38,680 we have a choice to make: whether the next century, like the one before it, 985 01:22:38,690 --> 01:22:41,490 will be a century of enslavement, or, 986 01:22:41,490 --> 01:22:45,860 transformed by the actions and choices that we make in the light of this knowledge, 987 01:22:45,860 --> 01:22:48,810 a century of empowerment. 988 01:24:02,380 --> 01:24:07,500 Hello, this is James Corbett of corbettreport.com, the writer, producer, director, narrator, 989 01:24:07,500 --> 01:24:12,300 and just about everything you can imaging with regards to the documentary that you just finished watching. 990 01:24:12,300 --> 01:24:15,290 Century of Enslavement, the history of the Federal Reserve. 991 01:24:15,290 --> 01:24:18,560 As I mentioned at the end of that documentary, if you've made it this far, 992 01:24:18,560 --> 01:24:21,460 then you are now better informed about the Federal Reserve, 993 01:24:21,460 --> 01:24:25,490 it's origins, what it is, how it functions and why it must be opposed, 994 01:24:25,490 --> 01:24:28,210 then 99% of the general public. 995 01:24:28,210 --> 01:24:35,320 And if you've made it this far, then you're obviously one of the very few who is eager and motivated 996 01:24:35,320 --> 01:24:42,370 to join the rising tide of free humanity that is seeking to throw off the debt chains of the banksters 997 01:24:42,370 --> 01:24:44,280 in the United States and around the world. 998 01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:48,010 And if you are so motivated, then I have some treats for you. 999 01:24:48,010 --> 01:24:50,760 I have some resources that I'd like to direct you to. 1000 01:24:50,760 --> 01:24:55,860 As I mentioned again towards the end of that documentary; there are some resources up at corbettreport.com 1001 01:24:55,860 --> 01:24:59,730 that I hope will help you in your quest to better inform yourself, 1002 01:24:59,730 --> 01:25:02,740 and better inform other about the Federal Reserve System, 1003 01:25:02,740 --> 01:25:09,320 because once again; if you can't explain this to yourself, then how can you even hope to explain it to anyone else? 1004 01:25:09,320 --> 01:25:12,480 So I think the first quest that we must all engage in, 1005 01:25:12,480 --> 01:25:16,640 is to improve our own understanding of the Federal Reserve system and how it functions 1006 01:25:16,640 --> 01:25:20,030 and then to spread that information to others. And on that note, 1007 01:25:20,030 --> 01:25:24,460 once again, if you go to corbettreport.com you'll be able to find first and foremost 1008 01:25:24,460 --> 01:25:29,200 this documentary itself is, of course, 100% freely available online, 1009 01:25:29,200 --> 01:25:32,560 which you'd know, because you are watching this right now, so, of course 1010 01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:35,530 there will be links to the youtube version of this documentary, or 1011 01:25:35,530 --> 01:25:42,060 the downloadable mp4 version on my website, there's also audio mp3 files available for download. 1012 01:25:42,060 --> 01:25:49,880 All of those, again, freely open to the public and I do encourage you to send them out to others if you do find it to be a valuable resource yourself. 1013 01:25:49,880 --> 01:25:54,820 And once you're there at corbettreport.com, you'll not only find the documentary itself, 1014 01:25:54,820 --> 01:25:58,660 but also a transcript of the documentary, complete with hyperlinks, 1015 01:25:58,660 --> 01:26:05,820 to all of the source documents, videos, articles, all of the information that was used to compile this documentary. 1016 01:26:05,820 --> 01:26:09,060 So I hope that will be a valuable resource, again, 1017 01:26:09,060 --> 01:26:13,490 for people who are looking to put this information together in a way that makes sense in their own heads. 1018 01:26:13,490 --> 01:26:16,540 And so that they can see where all of this information is coming from. 1019 01:26:16,540 --> 01:26:19,300 Much of it sourcing from the Federal Reserve itself. 1020 01:26:19,300 --> 01:26:24,320 So I hope that the hyperlinked transcript will be valuable for people out there 1021 01:26:24,320 --> 01:26:27,100 who are seeking to broaden their understanding of these topics. 1022 01:26:27,100 --> 01:26:32,330 And you will also find there an information pamphlet 1023 01:26:32,330 --> 01:26:37,850 That I have put together with the help of Mike Krentz, of mikekrentz.com, a graphic designer, 1024 01:26:37,850 --> 01:26:44,240 who has helped me out a lot behind the scenes of the website, as you can tell from the graphics on this documentary. 1025 01:26:44,240 --> 01:26:48,370 I'm not a graphics designer myself, by trade or by training, so, 1026 01:26:48,370 --> 01:26:53,860 I certainly do appreciate Mikes help in putting this information pamphlet together, 1027 01:26:53,860 --> 01:27:02,330 And this is just a few point that have been addressed in this video, informational points about the Federal Reserve, what it is, 1028 01:27:02,330 --> 01:27:06,090 and some interesting little teasers to get people interested in this information. 1029 01:27:06,090 --> 01:27:11,320 You can download and print this off from corbettreport.com and use however you like. 1030 01:27:11,320 --> 01:27:17,780 Handing it out to people on the streets, using as a discussion point as you hold a DVD screening, 1031 01:27:17,780 --> 01:27:23,850 If you want to post it up in public area's, only where allowed by law of course, 1032 01:27:23,850 --> 01:27:27,090 Once again, this is freely available for download, and for you to print out, 1033 01:27:27,090 --> 01:27:30,920 and to use to help to spread information about the Federal Reserve system. 1034 01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:37,820 And it's available in color and black and white and should print nicely on standard 8,5 by 11 letter sized paper. 1035 01:27:37,820 --> 01:27:44,760 So, that will be up there on the website, along with, of course, an actual DVD version of this documentary. 1036 01:27:44,760 --> 01:27:49,640 Once again, if you do find this information useful, then I hope you will try to spread it to others. 1037 01:27:49,640 --> 01:27:55,200 There are a lot of people who prefer the online links, but there will be some people who you cannot reach online. 1038 01:27:55,200 --> 01:28:00,330 For those people, and for yourself if you so desired, here is a physical hard copy that you can order 1039 01:28:00,330 --> 01:28:05,940 from corbettreport.com, for 2000 Japanese yen, that's about 20 Federal Reserve notes. 1040 01:28:05,940 --> 01:28:10,920 Because unfortunately, we are trapped in this debt-based bankster-led system, 1041 01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:16,450 so we do all require these pieces of paper in order to put a roof over our head and food on the table. 1042 01:28:16,450 --> 01:28:20,010 Myself included, so your support is obviously greatly appreciated. 1043 01:28:20,010 --> 01:28:26,320 And for that 2000 Japanese yen, about 20 Federal Reserve notes, you'll receive this documentary 1044 01:28:26,330 --> 01:28:32,620 Disc 1 containing the documentary itself, disc 2 the full 1 hour interview with G. Edward Griifins. 1045 01:28:32,620 --> 01:28:39,440 So, I think, again a valuable resource for people who are looking for more information about the Federal Reserve. 1046 01:28:39,440 --> 01:28:44,380 So that's available on corbettreport.com, along with all of this that we talked about here, 1047 01:28:44,380 --> 01:28:49,570 the information pamphlet, the hyperlinked transcript, all of the various format's that's available. 1048 01:28:49,570 --> 01:28:55,760 Once again, I've tried to make this as straightforward as possible and also as detailed as possible 1049 01:28:55,760 --> 01:29:03,060 so that you can start to further your own exploration and understanding of this system that we're facing. 1050 01:29:03,060 --> 01:29:08,340 Once again, of course any way that you chose to get this information out to other is greatly appreciated, 1051 01:29:08,340 --> 01:29:14,650 but if you do want to send the corbettreport links around, the best one to use is corbettreport/federalreserve. 1052 01:29:14,650 --> 01:29:20,080 That will have the documentary in the youtube format, it will have the downloadable mp3 and mp4 formats, 1053 01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:25,660 it will have the transcript, it will have the downloadable information pamphlet, 1054 01:29:25,660 --> 01:29:31,810 and it will also have a link to buy the DVD. So all of that will be there at corbettreport/federalreserve. 1055 01:29:31,810 --> 01:29:35,060 Please send people there if you're going to send people anywhere. 1056 01:29:35,060 --> 01:29:41,100 So once gain, I really do sulate you for taking time out of your busy day, out of your schedule, 1057 01:29:41,100 --> 01:29:45,100 to devote yourself to watching and learning and understanding this material, 1058 01:29:45,100 --> 01:29:49,000 and to helping spread this information and awareness to others, 1059 01:29:49,000 --> 01:29:52,820 because it is only together that we'll be ever able to 1060 01:29:52,820 --> 01:29:57,040 form the movement that will ultimately turn the tide against the banksters 1061 01:29:57,040 --> 01:30:04,320 and the defeat the Federal Reserve and all of the similarly privately controlled central banks all around the world. 1062 01:30:04,320 --> 01:30:07,180 So once again, thank you for you time and attention. 1063 01:30:07,180 --> 01:30:09,880 I'm James Corbett of corbettreport.com.