Money Masters Transcripts Part 1

What's going on in America today? Why are we over our heads in debt? Why can't the politicians bring debt under control? Why are so many people - often both parents now - working at low-paying, deadend jobs and still making do with less? What's the future of the American economy and way of life?

Why does the government tell us inflation is low, when the buying power of our paychecks is declining at an alarming rate? Only a generation ago, bread was a quarter and you could get a new car for $1,995 !

Are we headed into an economic crash of unprecedented proportions - one which will make the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression which followed look like a Sunday school picnic? If so, can we prevent it? Or, will we simply arrive at the same point through more inlation-caused poverty, robbing Americans of their savings, fixed incomes and wages by imperceptible degrees - reducing their purchasing power. What can we do to protect our families?

Some reliable experts say a crash is coming. They also say that there are simple, inexpensive things anyone can do to protect their families - to keep food on the table and a roofover our heads even in the worst oftimes. But to do that, we have to understand why a depression is coming, who's behind it, what they want, and how the perpetrators plan on protecting their families. Armed with this knowledge, any of us can ride out the coming storm.

Larry Bates was a bank president for eleven years. As a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, he chaired the committee on Banking and Commerce. He's also a former professor of economics and the author of the best-selling book The New Economic Disorder.

"I can tell you right naw that there is going to be a crash of unprecedented proportions. A crash like we have never seen before in this country. The greatest shock of this decade is that more people are about to loose more money then at any time before in history, but the second greatest shock will be the incredible amount of money a relatively small group of people will make at the same time. You see, in periods of economic upheaval in periods of economic crisis, wealth is not destroyed, it is merely tranferred." - Larry Bates

Banker and former Presidential candidate Charles Collins is a lawyer, has owned banks, and served as a bank director. He believes we'll never get out of debt because the Federal Reserve is in control of our money.

"Right now, it's perpetuated by the Federal Reserve making us borrow the money from them, at interest, to pay the interest that's already accumulated. So we cannot get out of debt the way we're going now."

Economist Henry Pasquet is a tenured instructor in economics. He agrees the end is near for the U. S. economy.

"No, not when you are adding roughly a billion dollars a day. We just can't go on. We had less than 1 trillion dollars of national debt in 1980, now it's $5 trillion - 5 times greater in 15 years. It just doesn't take a genius to realize that this just can't go on forever."

The problem is we have one of the worst monetary systems ever devised - a central bank that operates independently of our government, which, with other private banks, creates all of our money with a parallel amount of interest-bearing debt. That's why we can never get out of debt. And that's why a deep depression is a certainty, for most of our citizens, whether caused suddenly in a severe economic crash, or gradually through continued relentless inflation. The Fed is creating it to enrich its private stockholders, just like it deliberately created the Great Depression the 1930s.

The Federal Reserve headquarters is in Washington, D.C. It sits on a very impressive address right on Constitution Avenue, right across from the Lincoln Memorial. But is it "Federal"? Is it really part of the United States government?

Well, what we are about to show you is that there is nothing federal about the Fed Reserve, and there are no reserves. The name is a deception created back before the Fed Reserve Act was passed in 1913 to make Americans think that America's new central bank operates in the public interest.

The truth is that the Fed is a private (or best, quasi-public) bank, owned by private National banks which are the stockholders, and run for their private profit.

"That's exactly correct, the Fed is privately-owned, for-profit corporation which has no reserves, at least no reserve to back up the Federal Reserve ot which are our common currency." - economist Henry Pasquet

The Federal Reserve Act was railroaded through a carefully prepared Congressional Conference Committee scheduled during unlikely hours of 1:30 a.m. to 4:30 a Monday, December 22, 1913, when most members were sleeping, at which 20-40 substantial differences in the House and Senate versions were supposedly described, deliberated, debated, reconciled and voted upon in a near miraculous 4 1/2 to 9 minutes per item, at that late hour. As author Anthony C. Sutton noted:

"This miracle of speediness, never equaled before or after in the U.S. Congress, is ominously comparable to the rubber stamp lawmaking of the banana republics."

At 4:30 a.m. a prepared report ofthis Committee was handed to the printers. Senator Bristow of Kansas, the Republican leader, stated on the Congressional Record that the Conference Committee had met without notifing them and that Republicans were not present, and were given no opportunity to either read or sign the Conference Committee report.

The Conference report is normally read on the Senate floor. The Republicans did not even see the report. Some Senators stated on the floor of the Senate that they had no knowledge of the contents of the Bill. At 6:02 p.m., December 23rd, when many members had already left the Capitol for the Christmas holiday, the very same day the Bill was hurried through the House and Senate, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act of l913 into law.

The Act transferred control of the money supply of the United States from Congress to a pnvate banking elite. It is not surprising that a bill granting a few national bankers a private money monopoly was passed in such a corrupted manner.

As author Anthony C. Sutton noted:

"The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public intent."

Heroic Nebraska Senator Hitchcock, the only Senate Democrat working against the bill, had proposed numerous amendments to the bill aimed at making the Federal Reserve System a government agency (i.e. placing control in the Department of the Treasury), rather than a private monopoly, but these were all tabled - so great was the power of the Money Changers over Congress by then.

If there's still any doubt whether the Federal Reserve is a part of the U.S. govemment, check your local telephone book. It's not listed in the blue "government pages." It is correctly listed in the "business" white pages, right next to Federal Express, another private company. But more directly, U.S. Courts have ruled that the Fed is a special form of private corporation.

Let's take a look at the Fed shareholders: according to researcher Eric Samuelson, as of November, 1997, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (which completely dominates the other eleven branches through stock ownership, control, influence, having the only permanent voting seat on the Federal Open Market Committee and by handling all open market bond transactions), which has 19,752,655 shares outstanding, was majority-owned by two banks - Chase Manhattan bank (now merged with Chemical Bank) with 6,389,445 shares or 32.35%, and Citibank, N.A., with 4,051,851 shares or 20.51%. Together those two banks own 10,441,295 shares or 52.86%: majority control.

While majority ownership conclusively demonstrates effective control, it is not critical to control, which is often exercised in large, publically-traded corporations by blocks of as little as 25%, and even 2%, when the other owners hold smaller blocks.

Why can't Congress do something about this dangerous concentration of power. Most members of Congress just don't understand the system, and the few who do are afraid to speak up. For example, initially a veteran Congressman asked us if he could be interviewed. However, both times our camera crew arrived at his office to do the interview, we were not able to film. The Congressman never appeared, and eventually got cold feet and withdrew.

Fighting the bankers is a good way to see one's opponent get heavily funded in the next election. But a few others in Congress have been bolder over the years. Here are three quick examples.

In 1923, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh, a Republican om Minnesota, the father of famed aviator, "Lucky" Lindy, put it this way,

"The financial system … has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by authority of … a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money."

One of the most outspoken critics in Congress of the Fed was the Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee during the Great Depression years, Louis T. McFadden (R-PA). He said in l932:

"We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board … This evil institution has impoverished … the people of the United States … and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through … the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."

Senator Barry Goldwater was a frequent critic of the Fed:

"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders … The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and … manipulates the credit of the United States"

Does that power affect you?

"The Fed really is more powerful than the federal government. It is more powerful than the President, Congress or the courts. Let me prove my case. The Fed determines what the average person's car payment and house paymentis goingto be and whether they have a job or not. And I submit to you - that is total control. The Fed is the largest single creditor of the U.S.government. What does Proverbs tell us? The borrower is servant to the lender." - Larry Bates

What one has to understand is that from the day the Constitution was adopted right up to today, the folks who profit from privately owned central banks, like the Fed, or, as President Madison called them, the "Money Changers", have fought a running battle for control over who gets to issue America's money.

Why is who issues the money so important? Think of money as just another commodity. If you have a monopoly on a commodity that everyone needs, eveyone wants, and nobody has enough of, there are lots of ways to make a profit and also exert tremendous political influence.

That's what this battle is all about. Throughout the history of the United States, the money power has gone back and forth between Congress and some sort of privately-owned central bank. The American people fought off four privately-owned central banks, before succombing to the first stage of a fifth privately-owned central bank during a time of national weakness - the Civil War.

The founding fathers knew the evils of a privately-owned central bank. First of all, they had seen how the privately-owned British central bank, the Bank of England, had run up the British national debt to such an extent that Parliament had been forced to place unfair taxes on the American colonies.

In fact, as we'll see later, Ben Franklin claimed that this was the real cause of the American Revolution. Most of the founding fathers realized the potential dangers of banking, and feared bankers' accumulation of wealth and power. Jefferson put it this way:

"I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."

That succinct statement of Jefferson is in fact, the solution to most of our economic problems today. James Madison, the main author of the Constitution, agreed. Interestingly, he called those behind the central bank scheme "MoneyChangers." Madison strongly criticized their actions:

"History records that the Money Changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance."

The battle over who gets to issue our money has been the pivotal issue through the history of the United States. Wars are fought over it. Depressions are caused to acquire it. Yet after World War I, this battle was rarely mentioned in newspapers or history books. Why?

MEDIA CONTROL

By World War I, the Money Changers with their dominant wealth, had seized control of most of the nation's press.

In a 1912 Senate Privileges and Elections Committee hearing, a letter was introduced to the Committee written by Representative Joseph Sibley (PA), a Rockefeller agent in Congress, to John D. Archbold, a Standard Oil employee of Rockefeller's, which read in part:

"An efficient literary bureau is needed, not for a day or a crisis but a permanent healthy control of the Associated Press and kindred avenues. It will cost money but will be cheapest in the end."

John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, called by his peers "the Dean of his profession", was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club. He responded with the following statement:

"There is no such thing as an independent press in America, if we except that of litle country towns. You know this and I know it. Not a man among you dares to utter his honest opinion. Were you to utter it, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

I am paid one hundred and fifty dollars a week so that I may keep my honest opinion out of the newspaper for which I write. You too are paid similar salaries for similar services. Were I to permit that a single edition of my newspaper contained an honest opinion, my occupation - like Othello's - would be gone in less than twenty-four hours.

The man who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinion would soon be on the streets in search of another job. It is the duty of a New York journalist to lie, to distort, to revile, to toady at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or what amounts to the same thing, his salary.

We are the tools and the vassals of the rich behind the scenes. We are marionettes. These men pull the strings and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our capacities are all the property of these men - we are intellectual prostitutes." (As quoted by T. St. John Gaffney in Breaking The Silence, page 4.)

That was the U.S. press in 1953. It is the mass media of America today.

Press control, and later electronic media control (radio and TV), was seized in carefully planned steps, yielding the present situation in which all major mass media and the critically important major reporting services, which are the source of most news and upon which most news is based, are controlled by the Money Changers.

Representative Callaway discussed some of this press control in the Congressional Record, Vol. 54, Feb. 9, 1917, p. 2947:

"In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press..

They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers.. An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers."

G. Edward Griffin quoting Ferdinand Lundberg adds this detail:

"So far as can be learned, the Rockefellers have given up their old policy of owning newspapers and magazines outright, relying now upon the publications of all camps to serve their best interests in return for the vast volume of petroleum and allied advertising under Rockefeller control.

After the J.P. Morgan bloc, the Rockefellers have the most advertising of any group to dispose of. And when advertising alone is not suficient to insure the fealty of a newspaper, the Rockefeller companies have been known to make direct payments in return for a friendly editorial attitude."

A few years ago, three-quarters of the majority stockholders of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN were banks, such as Chase Manhattan Corp., Citibank, Morgan Guaranty Trust and Bank of America; ten such corporations controlled 59 magazines (including Time and Newsweek), 58 newspapers (including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal), and various motion picture companies, giving the major Wall Street banks virtually total ownership of the mass media, with few exceptions (such as the Disney Company's purchase of ABC).

Only 50 cities in merica now have more than one daily paper, and they are oRen owned by the same group. Only about 25% of the nation's 1,500 daily papers are independently owned. This concentration has been rapidly accelerating in recent years and ownership is nearly monolithic now, reflecting the identical control described above.

Of course, much care is taken to fool the public with the appearance of competition by maintaining different corporate logos, anchorpersons and other trivia, projecting a sense of objectivity that belies the uniforrn underlying bank ownership and editorial control. This accounts for the total blackout on news coverage and investigative reporting of banker control of our country.

Nevertheless, throughout U.S. history, the battle over who gets the power to issue our money has raged. In fact it has changed hands back and forth eight times since 1694, in five transition periods which may aptly be described as "Bank Wars" (or more precisely: Private Central Bank vs. American People Wars), yet this fact has virtually vanished from public view for over three generations behind a smoke screen emitted by Fed cheerleaders in the media.

Until we stop talking about "deficits" and "government spending" and start talking about who creates and controls how much money we have, it's just a shell game - a complete and utter deception. It won't matter if we pass an iron-clad amendment to the Constitution mandating a balanced budget. Our situation is only going to get worse until we root out the cause at its source.

Our leaders and politicians need to understand, those few who are not part of the problem, what is happening, and how, as well as what solutions exist. The government must take back the power to issue our money, without debt.

Issuing our own debt-free money is not a radical solution. It's the same solution proposed at different points in U.S. history by men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, numerous Congressmen and economists.

So, to sum the economic problem up: in 1913, Congress delegated to a privately owned central bank, deceptively named the Federal Reserve System, control over the quantity of America's money, virtually all of which is created in parallel with an equivalent quantity of debt.

Though the Federal Reserve is now one of the two most powerful central banks in the world, it was not the first. So where did this idea come from? To really understand the magnitude of the problem, we have to travel back to Europe.


Acknowledgement and credits

The Money Masters: How International Bankers Gained Control of America

Video Script
Produced by Patrick S. J. Carmack
Directed by Bill Still
Royalty Production Company 1998

Ref: [http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/money-masters.html]

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License