The Bankers' Woes and Yours Too Pt. 1

In case you missed this enlightening piece over at American Zombie, which is a must see, I'm putting this info that was sent to me yesterday in here verbatim with all his links intact. The piece at Zombie's is informative, fascinating, and long. I watched it in increments. What amazed me was that we had never been taught this in our history classes (and I was a history major for a while). Here I am, into my 50's and I really thought the Federal Reserve was "federal" and was a "reserve." Silly me. If we're going to use taxpayer money to bail someone out, how about bailing out the taxpayers. We could probably refinance all those mortgages that are in trouble, let those folks keep their homes, and ya know, the banks would still get their money eventually. Let the banks that made the bad deals slide into oblivion, that's what they'd do to us. The taxpayers' money is just that, the TAXPAYERS money. Let's help out some taxpayers with the 700 billion they're talking about. That, btw, is a figure I can't even wrap my mind around.

And btw, while never having maintained that I was an economics genius, I am nevertheless amazed to learn how stupid I really am in this sphere.

Below is a piece sent to me yesterday. It's basically the same information the piece at Zombie's has, although not as thorough.

Have you had enough yet?
Much has been written, dissected, and discussed about the current US money market meltdown.It is the greatest swindle in history, the intentional conversion of real assets (land, houses) to fictional assets (numbers in a banking system computer).

Fact #1 – The US Federal Reserve is neither Federal, nor has reserves. It is a PRIVATE institution owned by foreign bankers. They are: 1) Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin; 2) Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris; 3) Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy; 4) Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam; 5) Lehman Brothers of New York; 6) Kuhn, Loeb Bank of New York (Now Shearson American Express); 7) Goldman, Sachs of New York. Source: Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins, 1952 & 1993.

Mullins was the first researcher to find out who owns the Federal Reserve. It was first published in 1952. In 1955 a German edition was seized and all 10,000 copies were burned, the only book that has been burned in Germany since WWII. Used copies are for sale at abebooks.com

Fact #2 – The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 stipulates that the shareholders of the Bank are to be kept secret, and that it is NOT subject to audits. It has never been audited. Another good book is “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by Edward Griffin. Buy it at his web site: realityzone.com. There is a free 42 minute video: here. A great video that takes you through the rise, and fall, of the previous four private central banks in the U.S.: The Money Masters. It’s an absolutely riveting production. It’s on Google Video, or buy the DVD at his web site: themoneymasters.com.

Fact #3 - This is not the first private bank in the US. The US has had 4 previous private, FOR PROFIT central banks. President Andrew Jackson’s re-election platform was, “Abolish the Bank!” The current is the longest-running one, however, from 1913 to the present date. How much longer will it last? Depends how many people are protesting: this Business Week article suggests.

Fact #4 – The Federal Reserve is NOT part of the U.S, government! Go to the library and open a white city of New York phone book. See the blue pages in the back? That’s for government listings. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is not listed in there. It’s listed in the white pages. So why are American taxpayers, and not the Federal Reserve, left with the debt?

Fact #5 – The media is not telling the truth. Last week when the world’s largest insurer, AIG, was bailed out, media such as The Wall Street Journal reported that, “The U.S. government seized control of American International Group Inc. -- one of the world's biggest insurers -- in an $85 billion deal”: article here. No, the shares of AIG were transferred to the Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, NOT the U.S. Government. Here is the Securities and Exchange Commission filing showing this: here.


Fact #6 – All the shareholders in the Federal Reserve are in business together, not against each other. Right now they’re either buying their competitors cheap, or asking the US taxpayer to prop up their own companies.

Fact #7 – Lehman was bought by Barclay’s for $1.35 billion. (Buy your own for a fire sale price). Rothschild has links to Lehmans, the Federal Reserve, and Barclays. Heck, it was his idea to set up the U.S. Federal Reserve!

Fact #8 - JP Morgan bought out a competitor, Bear Stearns in March 2008. It could have waited and paid less, but no matter; the Fed has now lent $29 billion to Stearns in a non-recourse loan. This means the loan is collateralized by mortgage debt and that the government cannot seize JP Morgan’s assets if the mortgage debt collateral comes insufficient to repay the loan. So, if mortgages fail, US taxpayers get saddled with the debt.

Fact #9 - This morning JP Morgan bought WaMu (Washington Mutual), another former
competitor, for $1.9 billion. Starting to see a pattern?

Fact #10 – When Lehman failed their debt to asset ratio was 30 to 1.

Fact #11 – Canadian banks, since 1991, are no longer required to do fractional banking. In other words, they can “create” as much money as they liked. In the old days they were restricted to lending, let’s say, 10 times what they had in customer’s deposits and other assets. Who got this passed? Why, Brian Mulroney. (This was never in the news.)

Fact #12 – The Bank of Canada, of which all shares are owned by the Minister of Finance, are all non-voting shares. So, if you own all the shares, but have no vote, who’s in control? Not the Canadian government. Source: Deliberately in Debt, by Nora Galenzoski.

Fact #13 – The Ottawa phone book shows the Bank of Canada listed in the white pages, and not under the blue government pages. The Bank of Canada is not part of the Canadian government.

Fact #14 – The 1984 U.S Grace Commission Report, requested by Ronald Reagan, said, 100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government.” Source: here.


Fact #15 – Canada’s debt in 1992 was $423 billion. Of this, the principal was $37 billion. The rest, or $386 billion, was interest.
Source: Canada’s 1993 Auditor General’s Report

I feel so stupid. How come we didn't know this stuff? How come we weren't TAUGHT this stuff?

Part 2 tomorrow.

Bailout Federal Reserve American Zombie

RIP Cool Hand

Paul Newman, amazing actor and excellent human being, passed away today at the age of 83. He will be very much missed.

EDIT:
I remember a story my mom told me about Paul Newman that still makes me laugh. In 1989-90 he and Joanne Woodward were filming "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" in downtown Kansas City, MO. My mom worked as a dispatcher for the KCPD, which was down the street from where they were filming. One of her co-workers decided she just couldn't stand it anymore and said she was going for ice cream, and hopefully a glimpse of Paul Newman. The woman went to the ice cream store and lo and behold, there he was not two feet from her. She ordered her ice cream cone, never taking her eyes of Newman. The clerk told her how much the cone was, the woman paid, then looked at the clerk and said, "But where's my ice cream cone." Mr. Newman very casually looked over and said, "Lady, it's in your purse."

Still makes me laugh.

Chris Rock: "Vote for the Guy with ONE House!"

Chris Rock was on Larry King last night. He had some interesting things to say even though some of King's questions seemed, well, a bit weirdly targeted. Rock held his own, and had some funny things to say. He also had a bit to say about Katrina and Louisiana. Here's the clip:

Campaign in the Name of Jesus and Keep Her Safe From Witchcraft

This article found on AOL is a bit scary, but then most things about Ms. Palin are a bit scary, including her interview with Katie Couric. The video below is included in the article, but after the last video I put in here was pulled, I'm redundantly linking it just in case as this one will do doubt be gone from public view shortly.



Now, all of you waiting for the new moon loaded down with black candles and wax thoughtform effigies of Gov. Palin, just put it out of your mind. None of your work will help.

EDIT: I got a comment yesterday on this Palin video: "Weird, odd, perhaps even bizarre. Rev. Jeremiah Wright: that's scary at the TOP of the other ticket." I published it as I'm not in the habit of censoring my comment section for anything but blatant flaming or spamming. This comment, however, bothered me all night. I had seen the entire context of Rev. Wright's "God Damn America" sermon, and while I felt that he could have toned down his rhetoric a bit, none of his historical facts was wrong. Unfortunately the MSM only showed the "God Damn America" portion and not what led up to it. I am not a student of the Bible, I am not a fundamentalist anything. There is no way I could have quoted Malachi. But the rest of what Wright said was historically correct. I have no doubt but that the person who wrote this comment is Caucasian. Having never been on the receiving end of the kind of racism that Wright condemns here, that indeed was codified into law in THIS country, we cannot possibly understand the rage, really understand it. Can you really quibble with his calling our history "American Apartheid?" His comments do not scare me in the least, in fact I was a bit disappointed in Obama for abandoning Wright in the interest of being politic to court the white middle class Democratic vote. Wright's rhetoric is incendiary, no doubt about it, but I defy you to find an historical inaccuracy in what he said. I can't prove what he had to say about God, but there certainly are documents to prove what he said about this country's historical treatment of Blacks--in your local public library (if it's still open and Palin hasn't burned the books yet) or the Library of Congress.

Okay, again, to be clear, perhaps his "God Damn America" statement was a little over the top, but it got your attention, just like Palin's "I'll find some examples (of McCain's record) and get back to ya," comment got mine. Wright at least knows his history. Palin doesn't even know her running mate's Senatorial voting record.

Below is the complete Wright statement, with the contentious line in context if you're interested:

Gustav, Ike and Prayers

Last week a fellow NOLA blogger sent out an email after the storm recounting his PTSD feelings. Many responded to him saying they felt the same way. This was my response:

Feeling all of the above if that was a multiple choice question. Motivation at zero. Still some junk in yard I could pick up but haven't. Neighbor's rubber tree I said I'd cut down still haven't. Have to feed the mule man they left alone with 25 mules, which is still making me so angry I want to blog about it but can't yet. Thinking about buying more boards since we did such a half assed job here for Gustav but. . . . .have decided to check on open ATM, pay our Buffa's Gustav tab, then come home and of all things play a video game that will keep me from watching Ike's track.

Someone wrote a while back that there was no PTSD here because there was no "post"--I'm tending to agree that it might just be a chronic condition with new ones marching up the Gulf and people glued to tracks.

I do have new definitions for things though:
Gulf Coast definitions

Cone: Something orange you put in traffic or pothole, OR something you put ice cream in
Gulf Coast: Something that throws you into a panic, gets burned into your brain, and forces you to drink something that has "proof" on the label.

Track: Something you watch horses race around, or watch trains pull in on.
Gulf Coast: Multiple lines, of varying colors that either aim for your backyard or someone else's but no one knows exactly where. They bear strange names like NOGAPS.

Boarding: Something you do on a plane, train or boat.
Gulf Coast: Something that causes you to stand in line at Home Depot, cuss a lot about why the drill battery wasn't charged last night, and keeps light out of your house until it's okay to take them down.

Five Day Forecast: Let's you make a decision about whether to have the five yr old's bday party indoors at Chucky Cheese or at the local park.
Gulf Coast: A reason to lay in a LARGE supply of tranquilizers.

Water: Something you drink or put on your lawn or swim in voluntarily.
Gulf Coast: Something that can come in your house or take your house away.

Sloshing: What the grandson does in a puddle after a rainstorm.
Gulf Coast: What water does over the tops of levees when they don't wanna say overtopping.

Others added really good ones. (Sorry for the lack of links to their respective blogs, trying to get this done in a hurry.)

LisaPal added:

Models- "beautiful" people employed to present apparel and other
products such that they will be perceived as appealing to consumers.
Local Definition- colorful linear harbingers of doom consulted
obsessively by Gulf Coast residents during the peak of hurricane season.

Someone please come up with an interesting acronym for GFDL. I don't
like any of mine.

Sophmom responded to that with:

GFDL - there is only one possibility: God Fucking Damn Line.

Gina added:

savings: something you put away for a special event in the future, like college tuition or a vacation.
savings in Gulf South: forget about that vacation since you'll wipe it all out on the prep/evacuation/return/rebuild/deductible

I'm sure we'll come up with more by this time next year.

As I breathe a sigh of relief that New Orleans will not feel the full brunt of Ike, the "freak storm" as Jeff Masters at wunderground.com calls it, we can already feel the outer wind bands and it just makes us shaky. Knowing that Houston is in Ike's crosshairs is a terrible combination of relief and horror for us here. Guilt at being relieved, but terrified for those in Ike's path. We know what it's like to be washed out by storm surge. We know what it's like three years later. To even consider that another city may have to experience that breaks my heart.

And our lower parishes here, which were devastated by Gustav 10 days ago will probably be hit again, and half of them never got their power back from the last one. The news media doesn't cover those parishes like they do New Orleans, hell they're just a bunch a bayou dwelling fishermen. Nevermind that in Plaquemines Parish they were working up until 6 hrs before Gustav came to build a makeshift levee to better protect them. They finished it too. Amazing. Heroic. (Remember them next time you're sitting in a Red Lobster. Ask if their seafood came from Thailand or Louisiana.) The people in these parishes were clobbered and are probably about to be clobbered again, which also means the wetlands will retreat even further.

We have left our boards up on our house just in case, so we've been living in a kind of bunker mode for two weeks now. The whole city has. Those coming back from evacuating (we didn't evacuate for Gustav and my next post will be about that) are exhausted and struggling to "get back to normal."

Pray for Texas today. If Ike does what he's looking like he might do, there will be others expressing the same shaky perseverence three years from now. But those folks will be from Texas.

Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate Katrina Refrigerator Rising Tide Gustav Ike