autchembeddie's posterous

The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening.  Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy.  This generation was handed the keys

By Gonzalo Lira - BLN Contributing Writer

Let’s dream: Let’s imagine that the American political leadership decides to get serious about U.S. Federal government debt reduction—crazy as it may sound.

Actually, that’s too crazy. The American political leadership will never “do the right thing” with regards the deficit. After all, last spring, the American political leadership couldn’t agree on a measly $50 billion worth of cuts—a mere 1.4% of the total Federal government budget.

Okay, so in order to give our daydream a veneer of verisimilitude, let’s pretend instead that the members of Congress and the president are the victims of a cunning biological terrorist attack—they are infected with truly massive doses of both the Responsibility Bug and the Austerity Virus.

And then—under the unnatural effects of these sneaky terrorist pathogens—the American political leadership decides to cut the deficit outright, and start retiring the national debt.

Yeah: That’s much more realistic.

How much would they have to cut, in order to pay off the national debt? And how long would it take, to retire that national debt in its entirety?

Well, in order to figure this out, first they’d have to get honest about exactly how much is the U.S. Federal government’s debt. (Honesty is a perverse side-effect of the Responsibility Bug and the Austerity Virus. Scientists are working feverishly to try to stop this honesty stuff.)

Total outstanding Treasury debt is $9.7 trillion—but that’s not the entire Federal government debt. To those $9.7 trillion, you have to add another $4.6 trillion, which corresponds to “intragovernmental holdings”—basically IOU’s or markers the Federal government has put in the famed “Social Security lockbox”.

Thus the total Federal government debt: $14.35 trillion.

That’s the number the Congress and President of our dreams has to close: $14.35 trillion. Or to be more precise: $14,344,491,791,132.71.

The current deficit is $1.65 trillion per year—but that bald number doesn’t help up much.

A better factoid would be knowing, How much revenue does the U.S. Federal government bring in per year, via taxes, fees and so on?

That would be $2.173 trillion, according to the OMB.

So let’s imagine that the Capitol Hill and the White House of our dreams agree to immediately cut all deficit-expenditures—that is, cut $1.65 trillion right off the top—and then they also agree to pay down the national debt on an “accelerated” schedule: Let’s say they set aside a third of all Federal revenue to pay down the Federal government debt. In other words, for every $3 of revenue the Federal government brings in, $2 will be for government services and operations, and another $1 will be for paying down the debt.

A third of $2.173 trillion is $724 billion.

So they start paying off the Federal government debt at this pace: $724 billion a year—a TARP per year. The Federal government “makes do” with just the two-thirds of its revenue, $1.45 trillion.

Question: How long would it take for the Federal government to pay off the total Federal government debt?

Answer: If the Federal government took on no new debt, and instead paid off all its outstanding debt at a pace of $724 billion per year, it would take just shy of 20 years to pay off the National debt.

That’s right: At a minimum, it’ll take 20 years to pay off the Federal government deficit—assuming there are balanced budgets from here to fiscal year 2032, and the Federal government devotes one-third of its total revenue just to retiring the National debt.

Like I told you at the outset: This is just a dream.

Let’s keep on dreaming—hell, it’s one of the few things in this life that’s free.

So now that they’re cutting the deficit and the debt, what will our Dream-Congress and Dream-President have to cut in the budget, in order to make this target?

Let’s assume that Social Security is the sacred cow—after all, people have actually contributed to this fund, so in a sense it’s “theirs”. So no cuts in Social Security.

And no cuts in the interest payments, which in 2010 was $197 billion. Can’t unilaterally cut what you owe, so that’s also Untouchable.

Social Security was $701 billion in 2010. To make the math simple, let’s ignore the demographic time-bomb that is the Baby Boomer generation. So say it’s the same $700 billion moving forward. Ditto with the interest payments, which were $197 billion in 2010 but which of course would begin to decrease as we retired debt. These two fudges more-or-less cancel one another out.

So if Social Security and interest payments are Untouchable, that means $900 billion gets lopped off our $1.45 trillion budget.

That leaves us with $550 billion a year for “everything else”: The military, Medicare, Medicaid, mandatory and discretionary expenditures, infrastructure, NASA, the FBI, Homeland Security—everything else has to be covered by that $550 billion. A year.

Thus every other Federal government department would have to be cut by about 80%.

Sounds extreme, huh? But 80% cuts across the board is the number, once you start to think about it:

If the total outlays of the Federal government in 2010 were $3.45 trillion, and we’ve said that $900 billion of that is Untouchable in our new $1.45 trillion budget, then that leaves us with $550 billion to cover what used to be $2.55 trillion in expenditures.

That is, 80% cuts.

Thus the military would go down from about $700 billion (not including wars) to $140 billion. Medicare and Medicaid? From about $800 billion down to $160 billion. And so on, across every budget item.

An easier way to think of it is from the point of view of employment: If we cut 80% of the budget, how many Federal employees would we have to lay off?

Well, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there were 4.43 million people employed by the Federal government in 2009, of which 1.6 million were military personnel.

If we lay off 80% of that work force, we’d reduce the Federal government to a mere 880,000 employees for all branches and departments.

Or in other words, we’d have to lay off 3.54 million people. They’d be some very unhappy voters, those 3.54 million unemployed—but they’d be doing their bit, to reduce the deficit!

So they’d be happy, right?

. . . right?

————

This, of course, is a dream: Let’s get back to the nightmare.

Like I said, last Spring, the Congress and the White House could barely manage to cut a measly $50 billion from the Federal government budget—a mere 1.4% of the total Federal government outlays.

So there is no way—ever—that the political leadership will get serious about reducing the deficit, much less the overall debt. Hell, they’re about to raise the debt limit, and probably kick it up by a couple of trillion dollars—at least!

So there’ll never be any cuts—ever.

Therefore, the U.S. Federal government has to look at other alternatives to get out of paying its debt—and generate more nominal revenue.

After all, that huge Baby Boom generation is beginning to retire and—wouldn’t you know it—they didn’t provide for themselves in their retirement: They will be completely dependent on Social Security, which is as everyone knows a pay-as-you-go scheme. Or in other words, a Ponzi scheme.

Therefore, the Federal government can’t cut spending—and has to increase nominal spending. In other words, it has to go into even more debt.

In the end, there are only two ways to get out of a sovereign debt you can’t pay, or don’t want to pay: Either default, or inflate.

The U.S. Federal government will never default—because if it did, the entire U.S. financial superstructure would blow up on the spot. Even if it were a “half-hour default”, as some Neanderthal Republican politicians are saying ought to happen, it would still be a credit event—all sorts of contractual hedges would trigger. Even if this “default” really were merely a half-hour long, it would be akin to throwing sand into the gears of a nuclear reactor—unpredictably damaging to the U.S. financial system, potentially from merely “very bad” all the way to “mortal”.

So no default.

Therefore, inflate.

QE-2 is ending—but QE-lite is still going strong: The Federal Reserve reinvestment of excedents from its MBS and other toxic asset positions, brought onto the Fed’s balance sheet back during QE-1 in 2008 and 2009.

QE-lite is about $25 billion a month.

Furthermore, QE-3 is likely in the offing, as the Treasury department simply does not have the buyers for the debt it has on deck—and the Federal Reserve has become the buyer of last resort. The Fed can—and probably will—launch QE-3 under the cover that the “recovery” has been “sluggish”, and that therefore more monetary stimulus is necessary.

Therefore, more money printing by the Fed, to keep the Treasury department funded.

Therefore, more inflation, as we have been seeing lately, even in the official numbers.

Therefore—inevitably—an eventual Moment of Clarity in the markets, when they realize at a zeitgeist level that Fed-induced inflation is the only solution to the U.S. Federal government debt issue.

When that Moment of Clarity in the markets happens, then that’s the day the dollar dies: Weimar here we come.

Don’t believe me? OK—then go convince Capitol Hill and the White House to get serious about cutting the deficit: Go tell them to eliminate the national debt in 20 years. See if they take any serious steps in that direction.

At The Strategic Planning Group, we discuss in detail what to do in the face of dollar hyperinflation in our Scenario. Do check it out here, if you’re interested.

The eurozone is in serious trouble and Greece is just a symptom. Whether or not they default on their debt may not matter as similar problems plague Spain,

By Michael Snyder - BLN Contributing Writer

The rest of the world needs to sit up and take notice of what is going on in Greece right now.  This is what can happen when you allow government debt to spiral out of control.  Once it becomes clear that you can't pay your debts, a financial collapse can happen very suddenly and you start losing your sovereignty to those that you must turn to for financial help.  So is the financial collapse of Greece the "canary in the coal mine" for the global economy?  EU finance ministers have given the Greek government two weeks from Monday to approve another round of brutal austerity measures.  If the austerity measures are not approved, Greece will not receive the next bailout installment of 12 billion euros.  If that happens, the whole globe better buckle up because it is going to get crazy.

July 3rd is the deadline.  Basically the EU has put a gun to the head of the Greek government.  Without this bailout money, Greece will default and economic hell will break loose all across the country.

It is important to keep in mind that this is just the first Greek bailout that we are talking about.  Last year, the EU and the IMF agreed to provide the Greek government with a 110 billion euro bailout. The current 12 billion euro installment is part of that package.

Sadly, it has become apparent that the first bailout is not going to be nearly enough for Greece.  A second bailout, which will be the same size or even larger, is already being discussed.  This is going to put the Greek people even more under the heel of the money powers in Europe.

Keep in mind that all of these "bailouts" are just more loans.  There is no way that the Greeks are ever going to be able to repay all of this money.

But this is what happens when a nation lets debt get out of control.  For years and years it can seem like all of that debt does not have any consequences, but then the day of reckoning comes and it is a complete and total nightmare.

In order to get the next installment of 12 billion euros, European finance ministers are insisting that the Greek Parliament approves a package of austerity measures that will be worth approximately 28 billion euros.

At this point, it is uncertain whether those austerity measures will pass.

However, the pressure on the Greek government to get them pushed through is immense.

These austerity measures include tax increases, budget cuts and a "large-scale privatization program".

This is often what happens to third world nations that cannot pay their debts.  Organizations such as the IMF or the World Bank will come in and insist that they tax their people more, cut back on their spending and sell some of their public assets to big corporations.

As we can see from the wild protests that have been taking place in Greece, a significant percentage of the Greek population is not happy with all of these austerity measures.

Unfortunately, the EU and the IMF are able to put a lot more pressure on the Greek government than the Greek people are.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou recently gave the following warning to the Greek people about what could happen if this debt crisis ends badly....

The consequences of a violent bankruptcy or exit from the euro would be immediately catastrophic for households, the banks, and the country's credibility.

Not only would a Greek default be a total disaster for Greece, it would potentially be a total disaster for the entire global financial system.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, recently made the following statement about the seriousness of the debt crisis in Europe....

"The European debt crisis has the potential to have as big an impact as the subprime mortgage crisis did in the United States"

So will these bailouts solve the problem?

No, giving Greece more loans is only going to kick the can down the road for a little while longer.

The truth is that Greece is bankrupt.  Unless huge amounts of Greek debt are forgiven, Greece is going to default sooner or later.

When confidence in the finances of a nation is lost, borrowing costs can go up very quickly.  Today, the yield on two year Greek bonds is up to 28.6%.

Anyone that has ever been late on paying their credit cards knows how painful an interest rate like that can be.

So why doesn't Greece just slash government spending to the bone and get their financial house in order?

Well, it is not that easy.  Harsh austerity measures have already been implemented.  As a result, unemployment is rampant and there is rioting in the streets.

The truth is that, as an article in The Guardian recently explained, austerity has taken a brutal toll on the Greek economy....

A year of wage and pension cuts, benefit losses and tax increases has taken its toll: almost a quarter of the population now live below the poverty line, unemployment is at a record 16% and, as the economy contracts for a third year, economists estimate that about 100,000 businesses have closed.

As the economy crumbles, Greece has descended into an almost permanent state of civil unrest.

The fact that the EU and the IMF want even more austerity measures has sparked some wild rioting In Greece in recent days.  You can see video of the stunning violence going on in Greece right here.

Not all protesters are being violent.  Some of them are showing their displeasure in non-violent ways.  For example, workers for Greece's state-owned electric utility are staging 48 hours of rolling strikes that are designed to create blackouts over large areas.

The frightening thing is that Greece is not alone.  Ireland has already received a bailout and they are probably going to need another one at some point.

Portugal is a financial basket case and they are probably next in line for a bailout.

The employment situation in Spain is absolutely nightmarish.  Spain will probably be able to squeak by without a bailout if the global economy stays stable, but if the dominoes start to fall Spain could be in a massive amount of trouble very quickly.

Not that many people are talking about Italy, but the truth is that Italy has a huge debt problem.  On Friday, Moody's warned that it may downgrade Italy's Aa2 debt rating at some point within the next 90 days.

Belgium and France also have very substantial debt problems.  They probably would not be the first dominoes to fall, but if the "contagion" starts to spread they could certainly have massive problems.

The truth is that Europe's entire financial system is extremely vulnerable right now.  Big banks all over Europe (and especially in Germany) are leveraged to the hilt.  All it would take to topple many of them is a stiff breeze.

When Lehman Brothers collapsed, it was leveraged 31 to 1.

Today, German banks are leveraged 32 to 1.

German banks are also holding a massive amount of Greek debt.

That is why there is so much fear that the crisis in Greece could spread across the rest of Europe and start toppling dominoes.

The sovereign debt crisis in Europe did not happen overnight and it is going to be with us for a long, long time even if the global economy remains relatively stable.

At the moment, the best that officials in Europe can seem to come up with is to put off the pain for another day.  Pimco's Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC the following on Monday....

"This problem is not going to go away. It's going to weigh on markets here and we're going to see the same set of headlines over and over again. We simply cannot continue to kick the can down the road, because we're coming to the end of the road in Greece."

So if Europe starts having major problems will the U.S. step in and help?

Yes, if the crisis in Europe gets worse, the Federal Reserve will probably step in just like they did back in 2008.

But the U.S. is rapidly approaching a day of reckoning like the one that Greece is going through.  The U.S. government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and faith in the U.S. dollar is dying.

The economic crisis in the United States gets worse with each passing year.  Yes, the Federal Reserve can print up stacks of money and send it over to Europe, but that isn't going to solve anything in the long run.  The truth is that the U.S. is not even going to be able to keep itself from drowning.

The world financial system is far more vulnerable today than it was back in 2008.  The next wave of the financial collapse is going to hit at some point, and when it does it is going to probably be even more painful than the last wave.

Our world is becoming an incredibly unstable place.

You better get ready.

Can you smell the fear?  Right now world financial markets are visibly nervous and many are worried that Wall Street is about to go into panic mode.  It really is eerie how 2011 is shaping up to be so similar to 2008.  Major Wall Street banks are

In 2011, America is for sale and the communist Chinese are eager buyers.  The Chinese government is using sovereign wealth funds and Chinese state-owned enterprises to buy up economic assets and huge tracts of land all over the United States.  Many

I was not invited to the Bilderberg Conference (this weekend in St. Moritz). Actually I have never been invited. But I would really like to become a part of an international cabal to control the world. Not everyone can be a member of a cabal and pull the strings that make us dance. As we all know, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations control a vast conspiracy that has lead to our downfall. [For convenience, I am going to call the three organizations the Tri-Bilder Council, or TBC.]

I was recently reminded of this conspiracy in a lengthy letter to the editor of my local newspaper (Montecito Journal) responding to my article on the inevitability of QE3 (which originally appeared here). The writer of the letter criticized me for being foolishly naive and ignorant of the TBC conspiracy.

Here is the purported list of attendees at this year’s conference. Judge for yourself.

There are two types of people in the world when it comes to conspiracies: those who believe in them and those who don’t. I would be in the latter category. There are several problems with vast conspiracies. First, you can never prove them. At least no one has proved the TBC conspiracy. Ditto with the Kennedy assassinations, the Rothschild conspiracy, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It defies logic that such  conspiracies can have such vast power without anything leaking out. That’s why conspiratiophiles come up with lots of disparate facts to deduce the existence of such. But they never come up with someone who will swear under oath that “Yes, X conspiracy exists, I am a conspirator, these are my co-conspirators, and this is how we did it.” If the FBI can crack the Mafia’s omerta, you would think they could get someone to fess up to a conspiracy to rule the world. Let’s face it, if the TBC was a conspiracy, would they announce their meetings?

All offered “proofs” are forms of logical fallacies and do not withstand careful analysis. They take little facts and patch together their “proof,” such as “Because X happened, Y happened.” Or, “Because X happened first, it caused Y.” The one doesn’t necessarily follow the other. Their arguments never hold together under close examination.

I believe that the best logical analysis of such things is the one developed by William of Ockham in the 13^thC., commonly known as “Occam’s Razor.” It states that the explanation with the fewest unknowable or unprovable assumptions is usually the best one.

The reason that there is no vast conspiracy is because “They” don’t need one. “They” already rule the world. The “They” I am referring to are the Neo-Keynesian-Neo-classical econometricians whose ideas rule academia and thus, contemporary economics and politics.

I am not exaggerating here: the whole world follows these ideas. It is no surprise that the countries that were hit the worst by the boom and bust all used the same remedies in an attempt to rescue their failing economies. That is, they resorted to massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. In different ways, all are suffering from the same failed policies.

I don’t believe that “They” are evil. They all went to prestigious universities and studied the same economics and came out as true believers, never challenging the conventional wisdom. I don’t think Hank Paulson had evil intent when he went to Congress begging for bailout money: he believed that if he didn’t save Wall Street the financial world would come to an end. You can criticize him for his judgement and his general lack of understanding of economics, but look at the world he came from. They all believe the same things.

I am not suggesting that there aren’t evil people in the world or that no members of the TBC aren’t evil. But that’s not the point. If there is a conspiracy, it was one to suppress dissent and promote orthodoxy in academia starting in Europe almost 200 years ago. In fact many of these ideas can be traced back to Rome.

If you win in academia, at least in modern western societies, you win. It is where ideas are generated, discussed, and fought over. For all their supposed intellectual independence, colleges and universities are actually rather conservative institutions, carefully protecting whatever orthodoxy is popular at the time.

The TBC are merely reflections of today’s conventional wisdom. You can’t defeat them by denouncing them as conspirators. You have to defeat them with ideas.

By Dean Henderson - BlacklistedNews.com
 
(Part two of a four-part series)
 
In 1789 Alexander Hamilton became the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.  Hamilton was one of many Founding Fathers who were Freemasons.  He had close relations with the Rothschild family which owns the Bank of England and leads the European Freemason movement.  George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Ethan Allen, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Brown and Roger Sherman were all Masons.
 
Roger Livingston helped Sherman and Franklin write the Declaration of Independence.  He gave George Washington his oaths of office while he was Grand Master of the New York Grand Lodge of Freemasons.  Washington himself was Grand Master of the Virginia Lodge.  Of the General Officers in the Revolutionary Army, thirty-three were Masons.  This was highly symbolic since 33rd Degree Masons become Illuminated. [1]
 
Populist founding fathers led by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine- none of whom were Masons- wanted to completely severe ties with the British Crown, but were overruled by the Masonic faction led by Washington, Hamilton and Grand Master of the St. Andrews Lodge in Boston General Joseph Warren, who wanted to “defy Parliament but remain loyal to the Crown”.  St. Andrews Lodge was the hub of New World Masonry and began issuing Knights Templar Degrees in 1769. [2] 
 
All US Masonic lodges are to this day warranted by the British Crown, whom they serve as a global intelligence and counterrevolutionary subversion network.  Their most recent initiative is the Masonic Child Identification Program (CHIP).  According to Wikipedia, the CHIP programs allow parents the opportunity to create a kit of identifying materials for their child, free of charge. The kit contains a fingerprint card, a physical description, a video, computer disk, or DVD of the child, a dental imprint, and a DNA sample.
 
The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1774 under the Presidency of Peyton Randolph, who succeeded Washington as Grand Master of the Virginia Lodge.  The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775 under the Presidency of Freemason John Hancock.  Peyton’s brother William succeeded him as Virginia Lodge Grand Master and became the leading proponent of centralization and federalism at the First Constitutional Convention in 1787.  The federalism at the heart of the US Constitution is identical to the federalism laid out in the Freemason’s Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723.  William Randolph became the nation’s first Attorney General and Secretary of State under George Washington.  His family returned to England loyal to the Crown.  John Marshall, the nation’s first Supreme Court Justice, was also a Mason. [3]
 
When Benjamin Franklin journeyed to France to seek financial help for American revolutionaries, his meetings took place at Rothschild banks.  He brokered arms sales via German Mason Baron von Steuben.  His Committees of Correspondence operated through Freemason channels and paralleled a British spy network.  In 1776 Franklin became de facto Ambassador to France.  In 1779 he became Grand Master of the French Neuf Soeurs (Nine Sisters) Lodge, to which John Paul Jones and Voltaire belonged.  Franklin was also a member of the more secretive Royal Lodge of Commanders of the Temple West of Carcasonne, whose members included Frederick Prince of Whales.  While Franklin preached temperance in the US, he cavorted wildly with his Lodge brothers in Europe.  Franklin served as Postmaster General from the 1750’s to 1775 - a role traditionally relegated to British spies. [4]
 
With Rothschild financing Alexander Hamilton founded two New York banks, including Bank of New York. [5]  He died in a gun battle with Aaron Burr, who founded Bank of Manhattan with Kuhn Loeb financing.  Hamilton exemplified the contempt which the Eight Families hold towards common people, once stating, “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many.  The first are the rich and the well born, the others the mass of the people...The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge and determine right.  Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share of government.  They will check the unsteadiness of the second.”[6]
 
Hamilton was only the first in a series of Eight Families cronies to hold the key position of Treasury Secretary.  In recent times Kennedy Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon came from Dillon Read (now part of UBS Warburg).  Nixon Treasury Secretaries David Kennedy and William Simon came from Continental Illinois Bank (now part of Bank of America) and Salomon Brothers (now part of Citigroup), respectively.  Carter Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal came from Goldman Sachs, Reagan Treasury Secretary Donald Regan came from Merrill Lynch (now part of Bank of America), Bush Sr. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady came from Dillon Read (UBS Warburg) and both Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Bush Jr. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came from Goldman Sachs.  Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner worked at Kissinger Associates and the New York Fed.
 
Thomas Jefferson argued that the United States needed a publicly-owned central bank so that European monarchs and aristocrats could not use the printing of money to control the affairs of the new nation.  Jefferson extolled, “A country which expects to remain ignorant and free...expects that which has never been and that which will never be.  There is scarcely a King in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever...banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.  Already they have raised up a money aristocracy.”  Jefferson watched as the Euro-banking conspiracy to control the United States unfolded, weighing in, “Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, unalterable through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”. [7[
 
But the Rothschild-sponsored Hamilton’s arguments for a private US central bank carried the day.  In 1791 the Bank of the United States (BUS) was founded, with the Rothschilds as main owners.  The bank’s charter was to run out in 1811.  Public opinion ran in favor of revoking the charter and replacing it with a Jeffersonian public central bank.  The debate was postponed as the nation was plunged by the Euro-bankers into the War of 1812.  Amidst a climate of fear and economic hardship, Hamilton’s bank got its charter renewed in 1816.
 
Old Hickory, Honest Abe & Camelot
 
In 1828 Andrew Jackson took a run at the US Presidency.  Throughout his campaign he railed against the international bankers who controlled the BUS.  Jackson ranted, “You are a den of vipers.  I intend to expose you and by Eternal God I will rout you out.  If the people understood the rank injustices of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning.”
 
Jackson won the election and revoked the bank’s charter stating, “The Act seems to be predicated on an erroneous idea that the present shareholders have a prescriptive right to not only the favor, but the bounty of the government...for their benefit does this Act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly.  Present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with government.  Should its influence be concentrated under the operation of such an Act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the independence of our country in war...controlling our currency, receiving our public monies and holding thousands of our citizens independence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.  It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government for selfish purposes...to make the rich richer and more powerful.  Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by acts of Congress.  I have done my duty to this country.”[8]
 
Populism prevailed and Jackson was re-elected.  In 1835 he was the target of an assassination attempt.  The gunman was Richard Lawrence, who confessed that he was, “in touch with the powers in Europe”. [9] 
 
Still, in 1836 Jackson refused to renew the BUS charter.  Under his watch the US national debt went to zero for the first and last time in our nation’s history.  This angered the international bankers, whose primary income is derived from interest payments on debt.  BUS President Nicholas Biddle cut off funding to the US government in 1842, plunging the US into a depression.  Biddle was an agent for the Paris-based Jacob Rothschild. [10]
 
The Mexican War was simultaneously sprung on Jackson.  A few years later the Civil War was unleashed, with London bankers backing the Union and French bankers backing the South. The Lehman family made a fortune smuggling arms to the south and cotton to the north.  By 1861 the US was $100 million in debt.  New President Abraham Lincoln snubbed the Euro-bankers again, issuing Lincoln Greenbacks to pay Union Army bills. 
 
The Rothschild-controlled Times of London wrote, “If that mischievous policy, which had its origins in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost.  It will pay off its debts and be without debt.  It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce.  It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world.  The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America.  That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.” [11]
 
The Euro-banker-written Hazard Circular was exposed and circulated throughout the country by angry populists.  It stated, “The great debt that capitalists will see is made out of the war and must be used to control the valve of money.  To accomplish this government bonds must be used as a banking basis.  We are now awaiting Secretary of Treasury Salmon Chase to make that recommendation.  It will not allow Greenbacks to circulate as money as we cannot control that.  We control bonds and through them banking issues”.
 
The 1863 National Banking Act reinstated a private US central bank and Chase’s war bonds were issued.  Lincoln was re-elected the next year, vowing to repeal the act after he took his January 1865 oaths of office.  Before he could act, he was assassinated at the Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.  Booth had major connections to the international bankers.  His granddaughter wrote This One Mad Act, which details Booth’s contact with “mysterious Europeans” just before the Lincoln assassination.
 
Following the Lincoln hit, Booth was whisked away by members of a secret society known as Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC).  KGC had close ties to the French Society of Seasons, which produced Karl Marx.  KGC had fomented much of the tension that caused the Civil War and President Lincoln had specifically targeted the group.  Booth was a KGC member and was connected through Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin to the House of Rothschild.  Benjamin fled to England after the Civil War. [12]
 
Nearly a century after Lincoln was assassinated for issuing Greenbacks, President John F. Kennedy found himself in the Eight Families’ crosshairs.  Kennedy had announced a crackdown on off-shore tax havens and proposed increases in tax rates on large oil and mining companies.  He supported eliminating tax loopholes which benefit the super-rich.  His economic policies were publicly attacked by Fortune magazine, the Wall Street Journal and both David and Nelson Rockefeller.  Even Kennedy’s own Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, who came from the UBS Warburg-controlled Dillon Read investment bank, voiced opposition to the JFK proposals. [13]
 
Kennedy’s fate was sealed in June 1963 when he authorized the issuance of more than $4 billion in United States Notes by his Treasury Department in an attempt to circumvent the high interest rate usury of the private Federal Reserve international banker crowd.  The wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was conveniently gunned down by Jack Ruby before Ruby himself was shot, told author A. J. Weberman in 1994, “The answer to the Kennedy assassination is with the Federal Reserve Bank.  Don’t underestimate that.  It’s wrong to blame it on Angleton and the CIA per se only.  This is only one finger on the same hand.  The people who supply the money are above the CIA”. [14]
 
Fueled by incoming President Lyndon Johnson’s immediate escalation of the Vietnam War, the US sank further into debt.  Its citizens were terrorized into silence.  If they could kill the President they could kill anyone.
 
The House of Rothschild
 
The Dutch House of Orange founded the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609 as the world’s first central bank.  Prince William of Orange married into the English House of Windsor, taking King James II’s daughter Mary as his bride.  The Orange Order Brotherhood, which recently fomented Northern Ireland Protestant violence, put William III on the English throne where he ruled both Holland and Britain.  In 1694 William III teamed up with the UK aristocracy to launch the private Bank of England.
 
The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street- as the Bank of England is known- is surrounded by thirty foot walls.  Three floors beneath it the third largest stock of gold bullion in the world is stored. [15] 
 
The Rothschilds and their inbred Eight Families partners gradually came to control the Bank of England.  The daily London gold “fixing” occurred at the N. M. Rothschild Bank until 2004.  As Bank of England Deputy Governor George Blunden put it, “Fear is what makes the bank’s powers so acceptable.  The bank is able to exert its influence when people are dependent on us and fear losing their privileges or when they are frightened.”[16]
 
Mayer Amschel Rothschild sold the British government German Hessian mercenaries to fight against American Revolutionaries, diverting the proceeds to his brother Nathan in London, where N.M. (Nathan and Mayer) Rothschild & Sons was established.  Mayer was a serious student of Cabala and launched his fortune on money embezzled from William IX- royal administrator of the Hesse-Kassel region and a prominent Freemason.
 
Rothschild-controlled Barings bankrolled the Chinese opium and African slave trades.  It financed the Louisiana Purchase.  When several states defaulted on its loans, Barings bribed Daniel Webster to make speeches stressing the virtues of loan repayment.  The states held their ground, so the House of Rothschild cut off the money spigot in 1842, plunging the US into a deep depression.  It was often said that the wealth of the Rothschilds depended on the bankruptcy of nations.  Mayer Amschel Rothschild once said, “I care not who controls a nation’s political affairs, so long as I control her currency”.
 
War didn’t hurt the family fortune either.  The House of Rothschild financed the Prussian War, the Crimean War and the British attempt to seize the Suez Canal from the French.  Nathan Rothschild made a huge financial bet on Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, while also funding the Duke of Wellington’s peninsular campaign against Napoleon.  Both the Mexican War and the Civil War were goldmines for the family.
 
One Rothschild family biography mentions a London meeting where an “International Banking Syndicate” decided to pit the American North against the South as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy.  German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once stated, “The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War.  These bankers were afraid that the United States...would upset their financial domination over the world.  The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed.”  Rothschild biographer Derek Wilson says the family was the official European banker to the US government and strong supporters of the Bank of the United States. [17] 
 
Family biographer Niall Ferguson notes a “substantial and unexplained gap” in private Rothschild correspondence between 1854-1860.  He says all copies of outgoing letters written by the London Rothschilds during this Civil War period “were destroyed at the orders of successive partners”. [18]
 
French and British troops had, at the height of the Civil War, encircled the US.  The British sent 11,000 troops to Crown-controlled Canada, which gave safe harbor to Confederate agents.  France’s Napoleon III installed Austrian Hapsburg family member Archduke Maximilian as his puppet emperor in Mexico, where French troops massed on the Texas border.  Only an 11th-hour deployment of two Russian warship fleets by US ally Czar Alexander II in 1863 saved the United States from re-colonization. [19] 
 
That same year the Chicago Tribune blasted, “Belmont (August Belmont was a US Rothschild agent and had a Triple Crown horse race named in his honor) and the Rothschilds...who have been buying up Confederate war bonds.”
 
Salmon Rothschild said of a deceased President Lincoln, “He rejects all forms of compromise.  He has the appearance of a peasant and can only tell barroom stories.”  Baron Jacob Rothschild was equally flattering towards the US citizenry.  He once commented to US Minister to Belgium Henry Sanford on the over half a million Americans who died during the Civil War, “When your patient is desperately sick, you try desperate measures, even to bloodletting.”  Salmon and Jacob were merely carrying forth a family tradition.  A few generations earlier Mayer Amschel Rothschild bragged of his investment strategy, “When the streets of Paris are running in blood, I buy”. [20]
 
Mayer Rothschild’s sons were known as the Frankfurt Five.  The eldest – Amschel - ran the family's Frankfurt bank with his father, while Nathan ran London operations.  Youngest son Jacob set up shop in Paris, while Salomon ran the Vienna branch and Karl was off to Naples.  Author Frederick Morton estimates that by 1850 the Rothschilds were worth over $10 billion. [21]  Some researchers believe that their fortune today exceeds $100 trillion.
 
The Warburgs, Kuhn Loebs, Goldman Sachs, Schiffs and Rothschilds have intermarried into one big happy banking family.  The Warburg family- which controls Deutsche Bank and BNP- tied up with the Rothschilds in 1814 in Hamburg, while Kuhn Loeb powerhouse Jacob Schiff shared quarters with Rothschilds in 1785.  Schiff immigrated to America in 1865.  He joined forces with Abraham Kuhn and married Solomon Loeb’s daughter.  Loeb and Kuhn married each others sisters and the Kuhn Loeb dynasty was consummated.  Felix Warburg married Jacob Schiff’s daughter.  Two Goldman daughters married two sons of the Sachs family, creating Goldman Sachs.  In 1806 Nathan Rothschild married the oldest daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, a leading financier in London. [22]  Thus, Merrill Lynch super-bull Abby Joseph Cohen and Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen are likely descended from Rothschilds.
 
Today the Rothschild’s control a far-flung financial empire, which includes majority stakes in most world central banks.  The Edmond de Rothschild clan owns the Banque Privee SA in Lugano, Switzerland and the Rothschild Bank AG of Zurich.  The family of Jacob Lord Rothschild owns the powerful Rothschild Italia in Milan.  They are founding members of the exclusive $10 trillion Club of the Isles - which controls corporate giants Royal Dutch Shell, Imperial Chemical Industries, Lloyds of London, Unilever, Barclays, Lonrho, Rio Tinto Zinc, BHP Billiton and Anglo American DeBeers. It dominates the world supply of petroleum, gold, diamonds, and many other vital raw materials. [23]
 
The Club of the Isles provides capital for George Soros’ Quantum Fund NV - which made a killing in 1998-99 destroying the currencies of Thailand, Indonesia and Russia.  Soros was a major shareholder at George W. Bush’s Harken Energy.  Quantum NV operates from the Dutch island of Curacao, in the shadow of recently shuttered Royal Dutch/Shell and Exxon Mobil refineries.  Curacao was recently cited by an OECD Task Force on Money Laundering as a major drug money laundering nation.  The Club of Isles is led by the Rothschilds and includes Queen Elizabeth II and other wealthy European aristocrats and Black Nobility.  Fugitive Swiss financier and Mossad cutout Marc Rich, whose business interests were recently taken over by the Russian mafia Alfa Group, is also part of the Soros network. [24]
 
Ties to drug money are nothing new to the Rothschilds.  N. M. Rothschild & Sons was at the epicenter of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International (BCCI) scandal, but escaped the limelight when a warehouse full of documents conveniently burned to the ground around the time Rothschild-controlled Bank of England shut BCCI down. 
 
Recent Rothschild endeavors include the backing of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, control over Blackstone Group (see “…The 911 Short Selling Financial Scam”: globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24687), and the takeover of giant Swiss oil trader Glencore. 
 
Perhaps the largest repository for Rothschild wealth today is Rothschilds Continuation Holdings AG - a secretive Swiss-based bank holding company.  By the late 1990s scions of the Rothschild global empire were Barons Guy and Elie de Rothschild in France and Lord Jacob and Sir Evelyn Rothschild in Britain. [25] 
 
Evelyn was chairman of the Economist and a director at DeBeers and IBM UK. 
 
Jacob backed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California gubernatorial campaign.  He took control of Khodorkovsky’s YUKOS oil shares just before the Russian government arrested him.  In 2010 Jacob joined Rupert Murdoch in a shale oil extraction partnership in Israel through Genie Energy - a subsidiary of IDT Corporation. [26] 
 
Within months, Sarah Palin had hired former IDT executive Michael Glassner as her chief of staff. [27]  Is Palin the Rothschild choice in 2012?
 
Next Week: Part III: Knights of the Roundtable & The Illuminati
 
[1] The Temple & the Lodge. Michael Bagent & Richard Leigh. Arcade Publishing. New York. 1989. p.259
[2] Ibid. p.219
[3] Ibid. p.253
[4] Ibid. p.233
[5] The Robot’s Rebellion: The Story of the Spiritual Renaissance. David Icke. Gateway Books. Bath, UK. 1994. p.156
[6] Democracy for the Few. Michael Parenti. St. Martin’s Press. New York. 1977. p.51
[7] Fourth Reich of the Rich. Des Griffin. Emissary Publications. Pasadena, CA. 1978. p.171
[8] Ibid. p.173
[9] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. New York. 2000. p.68
[10] The Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Eustace Mullins. Bankers Research Institute. Staunton, VA. 1983. p.179
[11] Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More. David Icke. David Icke Books Ltd. Isle of Wight. UK. 2010. p.92
[12] Marrs. p.212
[13] Idid. p.139
[14] Ibid p.141
[15] Icke. The Robot’s Rebellion.  p.114
[16] Ibid. p.181
[17] Rothschild: The Wealth and Power of a Dynasty. Derek Wilson. Charles Schribner’s Sons. New York. 1988. p.178
[18] The House of Rothschild. Niall Ferguson. Viking Press New York 1998 p.28
[19] Marrs. p.215
[20] Ibid
[21] “What You Didn’t Know about Taxes and the Crown”. Mark Owen. Paranoia. #41. Spring 2006. p.66
[22] Marrs. p.63
[23] “The Coming Fall of the House of Windsor”. The New Federalist. 1994
[24] “The Secret Financial Network Behind ‘Wizard’ George Soros”. William Engdahl. Executive Intelligence Review. 11-1-96
[25] Marrs. p.86
[26] “Murdoch, Rothschild Invest in Israeli Oil Shale”. Jerusalem Post. November 22, 2010
[27] “Sarah Palin hires chief of staff for PAC", Huffington Post. February 2011
 
Dean Henderson is the author of Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network and The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries.  His Left Hook blog is at www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com