JakeRI
Well-Known Member
So I had to write a paper on an organization that has influenced our culture for my Communications class. I chose the Fed.
I pulled out all the nonsense Com Fluff, so hopefully it still makes sense.
I'm sure people will discredit the whole Jekyll Island thing, but instead of just dismissing it, just read the sources.
The history of the Federal Reserve is a very interesting one. There were three failed attempts at a National Bank prior to the creation of The Federal Reserve. Under the context of the need to back up local banks, the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913. Woodrow Wilson signed it into law on December 23, 1913. According to the New York Federal Reserve (2009), “The Act provided for a Reserve Bank Organization Committee that would designate no less than eight but no more than twelve cities to be Federal Reserve cities, and would then divide the nation into districts, each district to contain one Federal Reserve City.” This act single handedly gave the power of the U.S. monetary system to the newly created Federal Reserve.
This handing over of power had bigger implications then initially expected. According to Senate Doc. 23, 76th Congress, 1st Session (1939), Woodrow Wilson, the man who passed the bill, had this to say about it in 1916: “A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the Nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men... We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.” Wilson is asserting that those in charge of the Federal Reserve are the men who have the real power.
In order to understand what Wilson means by all of this we have to go back to before 1913. The Federal Reserve’s inception reaches back to November of 1910, on an island of the coast of Georgia entitled Jekyll Island. According to Edward Griffin’s (2003) lecture regarding his book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, a 600-page book dissecting the Federal Reserve and its origins, the Federal Reserve was created in 1910 on Jekyll Island during a highly secret meeting. In 1910, Jekyll Island was owned entirely by a group of millionaires from New York, including J.P. Morgan and William Rockefeller. Griffin asserts that in November of 1910, R.I. Senator Nelson Aldrich and six others meet privately on the Senator’s private train. They were instructed to only use first names and arrive independently. They then traveled for two days to Georgia, and then took a ferry to Jekyll Island and for nine days met in private to work out what would soon become the Federal Reserve System.
These seven individuals were Nelson Aldrich, Abraham Andrew, Frank Vanderlip, Henry Davison, Charles Norton, Benjamin Strong, and Paul Warburg. All of these men have direct ties to either J.P. Morgan or William Rockefeller. In order to obtain the attention of the greatest of skeptics, Edward Griffin goes on to give examples from various members proving his point, where they directly mention Jekyll Island and the creation of the Federal Reserve (all available in his lecture and book). But it wasn’t until years after the Federal Reserve was created that they stopped denying these meetings. Several of them eventually wrote books that included details of this trip.
So, why was there a need for secrecy in the beginning? This has to do with the very core structure of the Federal Reserve. Frank Vanderlip himself gives us the answer as Griffin (2003) cites: “If it had been exposed publicly that our particular group got together and wrote a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.” The reason it wouldn’t have been passed is intertwined with the very structure and operating procedures of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is unlike any other “government agency” in that it is not a government agency. The Federal Reserve is completely independent from the government of the United States.
According to the Federal Reserve’s website, the President of The United States selects the seven members of the Board of Governors and the Senate confirms this appointment. They all serve one, fourteen-year term. The President and Senate select from this board a Chairman and Vice Chairman to serve four-year terms. This is the greatest influence that the United States government has over the Federal Reserve. According to Section 5 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, private member banks own through stock the Federal Reserve. These private banks were the same ones owned by the same people represented at the Jekyll Island meeting. In 1913 the United States government handed over complete monetary power to private companies that they do not hold responsible.
The responsibilities of the Federal Reserve first and foremost are the formulation of monetary policy for the system. The Federal Reserve is not held accountable to any for its monetary policies. The monetary policy being implemented by the Federal Reserve is one based on debt. The Federal Reserve has the ability to create money out of thin air. This creation of money causes two major issues: debt and inflation. The first step in understanding the debt aspect is acknowledging the fact that the U.S. dollar is not back in gold. All the money in circulation is money the U.S. government has borrowed from the Federal Reserve.
When the U.S. government wants or needs more money in circulation they go to the Federal Reserve. The United States exchanged treasury bonds for money. The catch is they do it with interest rates. For all the money borrowed from the Federal Reserve and all banks involved in the system, the borrower is responsible for the borrowed amount plus whatever the additional interest is. If all money comes from the Federal Reserve, and the amount borrowed is $100 at 5% interest rate, then the person borrowing the money is expected to pay back $105. If this is how all money is created then there is no way to pay back that $105 if there is only $100 in existence. The only alternative is to create more money, and thus create more debt. For this newly created money, interest is applied, so the only option is to create even more money. This system keeps us in constant slavery via debt to the Federal Reserve.
Another additional major consequence comes from this process. With all the creation of money comes the basic principle of inflation. As more money enters the U.S. economy the value of every individual dollar decreases. That means that our buying power today with 10 dollars is far less then that of 1914. According to the United States Department of Labor (2009), 1 dollar in 1914 is equivalent to $21.22 today. That means that while we continually owe more and more money to the Federal Reserve, our buying power is diminishing exponentially. It is a system that violates U.S. citizens in many ways.
This leads me to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution has two specific passages with regard to the monetary policy that should be implemented by the United States government. The first one is with regard to the power of Congress. According to the Constitution (1789), Article 1, Section 8, “The Congress shall have power to… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” The second is with regard to things prohibited or the states. Article 1, Section 10 states “No State shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” These two excerpts assert that Congress is to be in control of the money, and that in the event of something like the Federal Reserve, that states should reject it.
The Federal Reserve is an unconstitutional agency. Its existence violates the very foundation on which this country was built. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia (1996), Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, wrote “I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” With such large disdain for agencies such as the Federal Reserve, it is interesting that there has been little opposition.
On June 4th, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed executive order 11110. This executive order returned the power of monetary control to the U.S. government. It gave (or rather, it reasserted) Congress’ ability to introduce new currency based on every ounce of silver in the U.S. treasury’s vault. All in all, Kennedy brought 4.3 billion dollars into circulation. According to john-f-kennedy.net (2009), “If enough of these silver certificates were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the government the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money.” Five months later, after Kennedy’s assassination no more silver certificates were ever created.
There has been a growing movement to end the Federal Reserve and restore the Constitutional power over money to Congress among thousands of American citizens, as well as politicians. Several presidential candidates were even including in this list, including Republican Representative Ron Paul, Constitutional Party nominee Chuck Baldwin, and Libertarian nominee and former Republican Representative Bob Barr. The list even included Democratic representative Denis Kucinich, who recently addressed the House of Representatives as follows: “Banking is not a proper function of the government, but oversight is. The Treasury Department should not be outsourcing to the Fed its oversight responsibilities. The Fed, which failed miserably to oversee the banks, should be put under Treasury instead. Its time for the government to operate in the public interest, not in the interest of private banks. Its time to stop bailing out banks and begin building up America.” Several pieces of legislation to nationalize the Federal Reserve have been placed before Congress from Republicans and Democrats alike.
The Federal Reserve is an enormous part of American culture. The Federal Reserve affects our very lives every day, just by its existence. We deal with their money every day. Millions of Americans are in debt to private banks directly, and all Americans are indirectly in debt to the Federal Reserve. It affects all aspects of our lives. The U.S. foreign debt would be far less if we weren’t paying money to the Federal Reserve. The national debt was one of the major focal points for all presidential candidates of the last election.
Money is an integral part of our every day life. Every day we purchasing things using Federal Reserve notes, notes that have not meaning and are in fact keeping us in slavery to a private elite group of individuals. Debt has become something normal. Our culture has taught us that it is acceptable, and not as big a deal as it actually is. Also, oppositely, there are enormous groups of people rallying to end the Federal Reserve. There are groups in every state across the U.S. supporting two bills to get passed in Congress that will take the first steps to nationalizing the Federal Reserve. We are in a new cultural climate, one that encourages “change.” The youth and adults alike are invigorated for social and political justice. This is one of the key issues involved in that. Ending the Federal Reserve will get the United States back on track and away from the tyrannical direction it is currently heading.
In conclusion, money is one of the most important cultural and political policies. We all use money every day. Most of us overlook the Federal Reserve and do not see the true corruption involved with it. The fact that the Federal Reserve goes unchecked shows the truth about our government; we have not been concerned with the United States Constitution for the past 96 years. This is a very big statement that has huge implications. It says a lot about America. It suggests that all the politicians who run on Constitutionality that do not address the Federal Reserve are in fact not honoring the Constitution. It also says great things about those individuals who are concerned about it. It is a sign of hope for a new beginning for the United States. A sign that our culture is still a reflection of the culture we were founded on. This culture is of freedom from oppression, and that freedom has no chance as long as the Fed still remains.
Works Cited:
Department of Labor, (2009). Inflation. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from The United States Department of Labor Web site: Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject
The Federal Reserve and Executive Order 11110. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from John F. Kennedy Web site: John-F-Kennedy.net - JFK, The Federal Reserve And Executive Order 11110 by Cedric X
Federal Reserve of New York (2009). Founding of the Fed. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from Federal Reserve of New York Web site: The Founding of the Fed - Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Griffin, Edward (2003). The Creature From Jekyll Island. A Lecture on the Federal Reserve, Retrieved April 13, 2009, from The Creature From Jekyll Island a Lecture on the Federal Reserve - e Griffin Exposes the Most Blatant Scam in Human History
Jefferson, Thomas. (1996). In Columbia World of Quotations [Web]. New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved April 13, 2009, from 30729. Jefferson, Thomas. The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996
Owen, Robert (1939). Senate Document 23, 76th Congress, 1st Session. National Economy and the Banking System of The U.S..
I pulled out all the nonsense Com Fluff, so hopefully it still makes sense.
I'm sure people will discredit the whole Jekyll Island thing, but instead of just dismissing it, just read the sources.
The history of the Federal Reserve is a very interesting one. There were three failed attempts at a National Bank prior to the creation of The Federal Reserve. Under the context of the need to back up local banks, the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913. Woodrow Wilson signed it into law on December 23, 1913. According to the New York Federal Reserve (2009), “The Act provided for a Reserve Bank Organization Committee that would designate no less than eight but no more than twelve cities to be Federal Reserve cities, and would then divide the nation into districts, each district to contain one Federal Reserve City.” This act single handedly gave the power of the U.S. monetary system to the newly created Federal Reserve.
This handing over of power had bigger implications then initially expected. According to Senate Doc. 23, 76th Congress, 1st Session (1939), Woodrow Wilson, the man who passed the bill, had this to say about it in 1916: “A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the Nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men... We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.” Wilson is asserting that those in charge of the Federal Reserve are the men who have the real power.
In order to understand what Wilson means by all of this we have to go back to before 1913. The Federal Reserve’s inception reaches back to November of 1910, on an island of the coast of Georgia entitled Jekyll Island. According to Edward Griffin’s (2003) lecture regarding his book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, a 600-page book dissecting the Federal Reserve and its origins, the Federal Reserve was created in 1910 on Jekyll Island during a highly secret meeting. In 1910, Jekyll Island was owned entirely by a group of millionaires from New York, including J.P. Morgan and William Rockefeller. Griffin asserts that in November of 1910, R.I. Senator Nelson Aldrich and six others meet privately on the Senator’s private train. They were instructed to only use first names and arrive independently. They then traveled for two days to Georgia, and then took a ferry to Jekyll Island and for nine days met in private to work out what would soon become the Federal Reserve System.
These seven individuals were Nelson Aldrich, Abraham Andrew, Frank Vanderlip, Henry Davison, Charles Norton, Benjamin Strong, and Paul Warburg. All of these men have direct ties to either J.P. Morgan or William Rockefeller. In order to obtain the attention of the greatest of skeptics, Edward Griffin goes on to give examples from various members proving his point, where they directly mention Jekyll Island and the creation of the Federal Reserve (all available in his lecture and book). But it wasn’t until years after the Federal Reserve was created that they stopped denying these meetings. Several of them eventually wrote books that included details of this trip.
So, why was there a need for secrecy in the beginning? This has to do with the very core structure of the Federal Reserve. Frank Vanderlip himself gives us the answer as Griffin (2003) cites: “If it had been exposed publicly that our particular group got together and wrote a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.” The reason it wouldn’t have been passed is intertwined with the very structure and operating procedures of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is unlike any other “government agency” in that it is not a government agency. The Federal Reserve is completely independent from the government of the United States.
According to the Federal Reserve’s website, the President of The United States selects the seven members of the Board of Governors and the Senate confirms this appointment. They all serve one, fourteen-year term. The President and Senate select from this board a Chairman and Vice Chairman to serve four-year terms. This is the greatest influence that the United States government has over the Federal Reserve. According to Section 5 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, private member banks own through stock the Federal Reserve. These private banks were the same ones owned by the same people represented at the Jekyll Island meeting. In 1913 the United States government handed over complete monetary power to private companies that they do not hold responsible.
The responsibilities of the Federal Reserve first and foremost are the formulation of monetary policy for the system. The Federal Reserve is not held accountable to any for its monetary policies. The monetary policy being implemented by the Federal Reserve is one based on debt. The Federal Reserve has the ability to create money out of thin air. This creation of money causes two major issues: debt and inflation. The first step in understanding the debt aspect is acknowledging the fact that the U.S. dollar is not back in gold. All the money in circulation is money the U.S. government has borrowed from the Federal Reserve.
When the U.S. government wants or needs more money in circulation they go to the Federal Reserve. The United States exchanged treasury bonds for money. The catch is they do it with interest rates. For all the money borrowed from the Federal Reserve and all banks involved in the system, the borrower is responsible for the borrowed amount plus whatever the additional interest is. If all money comes from the Federal Reserve, and the amount borrowed is $100 at 5% interest rate, then the person borrowing the money is expected to pay back $105. If this is how all money is created then there is no way to pay back that $105 if there is only $100 in existence. The only alternative is to create more money, and thus create more debt. For this newly created money, interest is applied, so the only option is to create even more money. This system keeps us in constant slavery via debt to the Federal Reserve.
Another additional major consequence comes from this process. With all the creation of money comes the basic principle of inflation. As more money enters the U.S. economy the value of every individual dollar decreases. That means that our buying power today with 10 dollars is far less then that of 1914. According to the United States Department of Labor (2009), 1 dollar in 1914 is equivalent to $21.22 today. That means that while we continually owe more and more money to the Federal Reserve, our buying power is diminishing exponentially. It is a system that violates U.S. citizens in many ways.
This leads me to the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution has two specific passages with regard to the monetary policy that should be implemented by the United States government. The first one is with regard to the power of Congress. According to the Constitution (1789), Article 1, Section 8, “The Congress shall have power to… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” The second is with regard to things prohibited or the states. Article 1, Section 10 states “No State shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” These two excerpts assert that Congress is to be in control of the money, and that in the event of something like the Federal Reserve, that states should reject it.
The Federal Reserve is an unconstitutional agency. Its existence violates the very foundation on which this country was built. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia (1996), Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, wrote “I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” With such large disdain for agencies such as the Federal Reserve, it is interesting that there has been little opposition.
On June 4th, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed executive order 11110. This executive order returned the power of monetary control to the U.S. government. It gave (or rather, it reasserted) Congress’ ability to introduce new currency based on every ounce of silver in the U.S. treasury’s vault. All in all, Kennedy brought 4.3 billion dollars into circulation. According to john-f-kennedy.net (2009), “If enough of these silver certificates were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the government the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money.” Five months later, after Kennedy’s assassination no more silver certificates were ever created.
There has been a growing movement to end the Federal Reserve and restore the Constitutional power over money to Congress among thousands of American citizens, as well as politicians. Several presidential candidates were even including in this list, including Republican Representative Ron Paul, Constitutional Party nominee Chuck Baldwin, and Libertarian nominee and former Republican Representative Bob Barr. The list even included Democratic representative Denis Kucinich, who recently addressed the House of Representatives as follows: “Banking is not a proper function of the government, but oversight is. The Treasury Department should not be outsourcing to the Fed its oversight responsibilities. The Fed, which failed miserably to oversee the banks, should be put under Treasury instead. Its time for the government to operate in the public interest, not in the interest of private banks. Its time to stop bailing out banks and begin building up America.” Several pieces of legislation to nationalize the Federal Reserve have been placed before Congress from Republicans and Democrats alike.
The Federal Reserve is an enormous part of American culture. The Federal Reserve affects our very lives every day, just by its existence. We deal with their money every day. Millions of Americans are in debt to private banks directly, and all Americans are indirectly in debt to the Federal Reserve. It affects all aspects of our lives. The U.S. foreign debt would be far less if we weren’t paying money to the Federal Reserve. The national debt was one of the major focal points for all presidential candidates of the last election.
Money is an integral part of our every day life. Every day we purchasing things using Federal Reserve notes, notes that have not meaning and are in fact keeping us in slavery to a private elite group of individuals. Debt has become something normal. Our culture has taught us that it is acceptable, and not as big a deal as it actually is. Also, oppositely, there are enormous groups of people rallying to end the Federal Reserve. There are groups in every state across the U.S. supporting two bills to get passed in Congress that will take the first steps to nationalizing the Federal Reserve. We are in a new cultural climate, one that encourages “change.” The youth and adults alike are invigorated for social and political justice. This is one of the key issues involved in that. Ending the Federal Reserve will get the United States back on track and away from the tyrannical direction it is currently heading.
In conclusion, money is one of the most important cultural and political policies. We all use money every day. Most of us overlook the Federal Reserve and do not see the true corruption involved with it. The fact that the Federal Reserve goes unchecked shows the truth about our government; we have not been concerned with the United States Constitution for the past 96 years. This is a very big statement that has huge implications. It says a lot about America. It suggests that all the politicians who run on Constitutionality that do not address the Federal Reserve are in fact not honoring the Constitution. It also says great things about those individuals who are concerned about it. It is a sign of hope for a new beginning for the United States. A sign that our culture is still a reflection of the culture we were founded on. This culture is of freedom from oppression, and that freedom has no chance as long as the Fed still remains.
Works Cited:
Department of Labor, (2009). Inflation. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from The United States Department of Labor Web site: Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject
The Federal Reserve and Executive Order 11110. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from John F. Kennedy Web site: John-F-Kennedy.net - JFK, The Federal Reserve And Executive Order 11110 by Cedric X
Federal Reserve of New York (2009). Founding of the Fed. Retrieved April 14, 2009, from Federal Reserve of New York Web site: The Founding of the Fed - Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Griffin, Edward (2003). The Creature From Jekyll Island. A Lecture on the Federal Reserve, Retrieved April 13, 2009, from The Creature From Jekyll Island a Lecture on the Federal Reserve - e Griffin Exposes the Most Blatant Scam in Human History
Jefferson, Thomas. (1996). In Columbia World of Quotations [Web]. New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved April 13, 2009, from 30729. Jefferson, Thomas. The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996
Owen, Robert (1939). Senate Document 23, 76th Congress, 1st Session. National Economy and the Banking System of The U.S..
