(left: Father James Sadowsky, the Jesuit “grey eminence” behind Murray Rothbard and Tom Woods)
By all appearances, Thomas Woods Jr., a noted promoter of the “Catholic” strand of Austrian economics, is being groomed as the heir apparent to Lew Rockwell in the Libertarian propaganda network. Given Woods’ increasing role and visibility, his background and ideas deserve to be explored further, and the contradictions between the Catholic doctrine and Austrian economics need to be exposed.
By Memehunter for The Daily Knell and Real Currencies
As documented in The “Catholic” Arm of Libertarianism, the Jesuits’ involvement in the Libertarian-Communist false dialectic is nothing new, and has in fact been ongoing for several centuries. In fact, according to Mises Institute’s founder Lew Rockwell, the Spanish Jesuits of the University of Salamanca were the founders of modern “free-market” thinking. Not surprisingly, Jesuits are also behind several of the Austrian think-tanks and propaganda outlets that have sprouted all over America in the last century.
While the Jesuits’ involvement with education and intellectual life may be laudable in some respects, many readers will no doubt be aware that the Jesuits occupy a significant position in the globalist elite’s hierarchy, and that their ideologies and goals often differ substantially from those associated with the traditional Catholic doctrine. In fact, as I wrote in The “Catholic” Arm of Libertarianism, Jesuits are likely part of a long-term Illuminati plot to “infiltrate and subvert Catholicism from within”.
Clearly, Thomas Woods Jr. is being positioned to slowly take over Rockwell and continue this dubious tradition of “Catholic” Austrian economics. In fact, Woods has devoted a considerable part of his output to justifying the “free market” from a “Catholic” perspective (see for instanceThe Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy).
However, there are apparently indissoluble differences between the Catholic and Austrian perspectives, and Woods, despite his scholarship and clever arguments, has not been able to avoid them entirely. In this article, we will first expose Woods’ connections to the Jesuit hierarchy as well as to other “controlled opposition” movements, before discussing some of the contradictions inherent in his intellectual positions.
Father James Sadowsky, SJ: the éminence grise behind Rothbard and Woods
The term “éminence grise” (grey eminence) was first used to describe a French monk who advised Cardinal Richelieu behind the scenes. The tradition continues today with Jesuit priests discreetly advising and guiding academics who are then charged of disseminating their ideas to an unsuspecting public.
One such grey eminence was Father James Sadowsky (1923-2012), who taught at Fordham University for 38 years. Sadowsky, a co-president of the International Philosophy Quarterly, was no run-of-the-mill Jesuit: while he was teaching in Beirut (prior to his appointment at Fordham), one of his students was Peter-Hans Kolvenbach who later became the General Superior of the Jesuits and, according to some alternative researchers, one of the most powerful men on the planet.
Sadowsky, described as an “anarcho-catholic priest”, was a close friend of Murray Rothbard from the early 1960s until Rothbard’s death. While we are told that Sadowsky and Rothbard mutually influenced each other and did not always agree on everything, it is reasonable to suspect that Sadowsky was behind many of Rothbard’s ideas, given what we know of the Jesuits’ modus operandi.
Sadowsky likely exerted a major influence on Woods as well: Woods cited Sadowsky’s writings several times in The Church and the Market and openly sought to acknowledge Sadowsky’s contribution to his book.
Besides the questionable Jesuit infiltration of the Catholic doctrine, it is important to document Woods’ and Rothbard’s connections with Sadowsky as this corroborates the evidence already presented on this blog and elsewhere regarding the Jesuits’ centuries-old campaign for the acceptance of usury in Catholic countries, as well as their unremitting role in fanning the flames of the Libertarian-Communist dialectic.
Woods’ ties to the John Birch Society
I have already shown how the John Birch Society was part of an operation orchestrated by Rothschild and Rockefeller operatives to channel the anti-Communist movement into an essentially harmless organization entirely under the control of the Money Power elites. As such, members and affiliates of the John Birch Society can generally be regarded as gatekeepers who may be telling the truth on many topics, but who generally remain silent on Freemasonry, Zionism, or the Jesuits’ involvement in the elites’ plans for a global takeover. A notable example is G. Edward Griffin.
Unlike Griffin, Woods does not seem to be openly affiliated with the JBS, so we do not know whether he is a bona fide member of the organization (perhaps some better-informed readers can confirm this). However, we know that Woods has given numerous speeches at JBS-sponsored conventions, and videos of his speeches and interviews are available on the JBS website. This strongly suggests that, knowingly or not, Woods is associated with an organization that fits the “controlled opposition” label to a T.
Woods’cognitive dissonances on government, usury, and the Church
Can one denounce government and “statism” and at the same time be a faithful Christian? Although we are not necessarily in favor of “big government” here at the Daily Knell, we also do not claim to strictly follow religious edicts. However, the following passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans is a seemingly insoluble dilemma for any minarchist or anarcho-capitalist Libertarian who claims to follow the Bible:
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. […] For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due to them – taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honour to whom honour is due.”
As noted by this blogger, “it seems very difficult to reconcile Christianity with any kind of anti-state ideology, left or right”.
Usury is another fundamental point of dissent between the Catholic and Austrian doctrines. As I pointed out in my earlier article, “Woods has struggled mightily to justify the Austrian School’s endorsement of usury which goes against authentic Catholic teachings”. In fact, Woods resorted to quoting a Jesuit, Leonard Lessius (1554-1623), who “played a significant role in eroding the interest prohibition”, to wiggle himself out of this uncomfortable position.
The plain truth is that it is impossible to reconcile any form of usury with the Catholic doctrine, as explained in this remarkable article by Anthony Santelli, a former student in economics at George Mason University who reverted to Catholicism and came to the conclusion that “all along it has been usury that lies at the root of many social ills.”
Finally, it is difficult to understand how Woods, as a practicing Catholic, can praise the work of some of his Austrian predecessors such as Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. Indeed, Rothbard wrote at length about the Church’s hatred of liberalism, while the atheist Mises claimed that Christianity had become a “religion of hatred”. Here, it may be relevant to note that both Woods and his advisor Sadowsky are converts: Sadowsky was originally an Anglican, whereas Woods was a Lutheran.
Conclusion
Like his predecessor Rockwell, Woods’ role is to convince Catholics, and more generally “right-wing” traditionalist Christians, that usury, along with the “free-market” anarcho-capitalist utopia of Austrian economics and its Satanic core, are compatible with their religious beliefs. This, of course, is a lie, as many writers have shown. In his attempts to defile Christian precepts with Libertarian propaganda, while refusing to address the true causes of our social and economic problems, Woods dutifully fulfills his role as a Jesuit-controlled gatekeeper.
Related:
How the Money Power created Libertarianism and Austrian Economics
The “Catholic” Arm of Libertarianism, By Memehunter
Answering Tom Woods
The Free Market Fundamentalism that Libertarianism is famous for is simply wrong. Free Markets are a means to an end, not a goal in themselves: to allow efficiency and equitable access to all in society. It’s quite clear that markets can easily go overboard and they need to be managed, just like all human enterprises and public spaces.
This is not to say that Libertarians don’t make a decent point in their analysis of the perverse consequences of many Government regulations. They do. It’s undoubtedly fair to say that many Governmental interventions do more damage than they do good.
Producers and consumers should be able to interact with as little interference as possible.
Also, it’s undoubtedly true that Governmental tyranny has been an unmittigated disaster for manking throughout the ages.
However, Austrianism completely ignores the monopolistic tendencies of capitalism and puts all the blame for monopolies on Governments being used by corporate elites to create cartels and monopolies. Why they don’t blame the owners of these monopolies remains an open question.
It is also amazingly simpleminded to assume that these monopolies would not exist without Government mandate, as Austrian Economists proclaim. I believe everybody thinking this over calmly will quickly realize that dominant market players will always disable small time competition and that they will quickly take over the maiden ‘free market’. If it’s not Government that should stop this, Austrians should explain who should.
There is also the issue that the markets serve society and not vice versa. So if, for instance, a nation suffers from lack of competitiveness in international trade there is absolutely no reason not to create tariffs to keep foreign competitors at bay. In fact: the nation has the solemn duty to protect itself from such a situation.
Free trade does NOT always benefit all involved, that’s complete nonsense. Often the free traders will point at the ‘long run’ but their arch enemy Keynes put that argument to rest by saying ‘in the long run we’re all dead’. And that’s the way it is.
When commissioning the Transcontinental Railroad, Abraham Lincoln said something to the effect of ‘If I buy the rails in Britain, we will have the rails and they will have the money. If I buy the rails for a little more in America, we will have the rails and the Union will also have the money’.
This is the simple truth and it is yet another amazing feat of propaganda that the Free Traders have managed to obscure this.
It’s the same thing with Transnationals plundering local economies. The small discount the individual gains at Wal-Mart is simply a knife in the back of his neighbor and the regional economy is devastated by buying there. The main problem is that Wal-Mart takes most of the money out of the local economy, with deflationary effects. Some time back a fascinating study was published quantifying the effects Wal-Mart has on the economy, both locally and nationally and the damage that that one Transnational has done has been incredible. Here’s my report on that study.
Choice
This is yet another great slogan of the Libertarians: choice. No, CHOICE, as it is often spelled by free market commenters I speak with. Even the Lord Himself is usually granted only one capital.
It’s annoying how people get enthralled with pleasant sounding words without ever really thinking through what such a word means and what kind of implications can be expected.
They will maintain that if two parties consent, there is ‘free will’ and that’s the end of it.
But let’s consider Rothbard’s ultimate example of ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’. He defended the ‘right’ of parents to sell their children in the ‘free market’.
Obviously he was mistaken as he apparently did not see the children as people. Nobody in his right mind is defending trading people, is he?
Would the child accept this ‘choice’? What would (s)he choose? Even if it consented, out of love and loyalty to its parents and because of a lack of awareness of the implications, would it be relevant?
Also, what kind of ‘freedom of choice’ would lead to such a decision? Are there many parents out there particularly interested in the ‘choice’ to sell their children?
Of course, selling one’s own children is a common practice. With desperate people. People in incredibly dire economic circumstances WILL sell their children.
Should they be allowed to? Of course not. Their situation should be mended.
Rothbard, with this heinous and morally utterly corrupt example just shows his real face here and this is ultimately where Libertarianism is headed.
It’s important to understand that this is not even just the sickening blathering of a man suffering from profound spiritual problems. This is the unavoidable end game of Capitalism. The right and the ability of the ultra rich to monopolize all ‘resources’, including ‘human resources’. It’s clear that when everybody has been made utterly destitute with their usurious banking con, the last and final bailout for the poor will be to sell their children into slavery. This is what happened to the Africans, once they were bankrupted by selling them liquor.
They first sold their children, then their wives and ultimately they went out enslaving neighboring tribes.
Is there anybody out there doubting this is the usurer’s wet dream?
To be honest: there probably are many who cannot believe it. But it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee: this is the kind of depravity that we face. This is the kind of darkness that rules the hearts of our overlords. It is not for nothing that this is where their ideologies ultimately lead to.
So ‘choice’ is not so wonderful as it has been made out to be. Not all choices are equal and many choices simply utterly detestable. The so called ‘freedom’ to make certain ‘choices’ is not quite what many joining the burgeoning ranks of Libertarianism really had in mind.
Conclusion
‘Choice’, nor ‘Free Markets’ are a goal in itself. There is a moral imperative. The fact that Libertarianism does everything in its power to avoid this, is why it is ultimately Satanic by nature.
We are not looking for ‘heavy handed violent statist interference’ as the libertarians like to put it. Nor do we believe that all, or even many, of our problems are going to be fixed by Government. But clearly ‘free markets’ do not exist. Not for longer than one minute, anyway.
The perceived ‘rights’ of the ultra rich are not particularly important. What is important is a reasonable deal for all. This is absolutely possible. We live in an incredibly abundant environment.
Of course this leads to the question ‘what is a reasonable deal?’, And undoubtedly this question will keep us busy for a long time. But there is also such a thing as common sense and once we start seeing through the many extremist ruses the Money Power’s Mind Controllers distract us with, from ‘anarcho-capitalism’ to ‘communism’, things will prove to actually be not really so complicated.
Related:
The Problem with Transnationals and what to do about them
The Satanic Core of Libertarianism
Faux Economics
Here’s a man that actually understands. Courtesy of Ted Daniels and Jamie Bergamasco:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3i-geRpH1w&feature=youtu.be]
Recently Tom Woods has been on a crusade ‘debunking’ the critique on Austrian Economics by Wayne Walton and myself. Yesterday he reasserts his faith in deflation in an article also posted on Lew Rockwell. In this article we not only, again, disassemble the breathtakingly ‘naive’ Austrian view on deflation, we throw in a challenge too.
Yesterday Woods wrote an article, also posted at Lew Rockwell’s, regurgitating the same nonsense about deflation and basically claiming victory. Apparently assuming nobody would find out about what actually happened, because he didn’t provide the link to the Facebook debate Wayne Walton and I were having with him earlier, that led to this article of his.
Of course we’ll point out the obvious (for the readers of this blog) once more, by analyzing his article, but before we do, let me say this.
It’s high time for a full blown, man to man debate with some of these Austrians. I’m willing to meet Tom Woods, Gary North, Anthony Wile, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell or any other Austrian of standing any time in a Skype debate. I have a few simple conditions, which will be as favorable to them as possible:
1. They can choose the discussion leader. There is a gentlemen’s agreement that this man will facilitate the debate in a civilized way, only somewhat favoring his own side. The public will be there to see if this gentlemen’s agreement is honoured.
2. The discussion is posted both on our sites (Makow, Truthseeker, Real Currencies, Daily Knell and all others who see fit to post) and on the Austrian outlets, with a mutual link to the analyses of the debate.
3. I will not go into the elite build up of Austrianism: I will just take out their stand on usury, deflation, Money Power and the State.
4. If anybody is ready to cover the costs, I’ll fly to the US, notwithstanding my fear of flying, which I will manage with a couple of stiff Gin-Tonics, and my utter disgust of the TSA. I’ll face them all on their own home turf any time, any place.
5. This offer will stand indefinitely.
Having said that, let’s get to the issue, which, in this case, is deflation.
More BS on Deflation
In the first place, Tom Woods refers to ‘us’ as ‘some in the End the Fed Movement’. That’s his prerogative, of course, but I prefer Activist Post’s Eric Blair’s 2010 framing of the debate, when it started with North’s assault on Brown and my rebuttal at the time.
It’s the Interest Free currency crowd against the Goldbugs. Basically a struggle that started in the late 1800’s. According to Blair, ‘this may indeed be the most important discussion of our lifetime’, and although I can think of one or two even more important issues, it’s still pretty important and ‘we’ are not just ‘some in the End the Fed movement’.
‘We’ are those who have tolerated the Austrians in the Truth movement, because they, at a superficial level, seemed to support some of ‘our’ positions, most notably their opposition to the FED. Meanwhile ignoring, downplaying or outright denying 9/11 ‘conspiracy’, like Kokesh, Paul, Paul, North, Rockwell and so many other Austrians infiltrating the real deal, facilitated by that traitor Alex Jones.
But, as I’ve shown elsewhere, their take on the FED has been taken from the populist movement and used to propose the insidious ‘Gold Standard’ (nowadays packaged as a ‘free market for currencies’) as the solution to FED usurious fractional reserve banking.
Secondly, in a speech that Tom Woods refers to in his article, he ‘debunks’ the notion that the Gold Standard was a disaster by quoting the Industrial Revolution. According to Woods, this was a great success while on a Gold Standard. This, obviously, is in the eye of the beholder. During the ‘Industrial Revolution’, the common man was relegated to 80 hour working weeks in the sweatshops, making just enough to feed himself (but not his family) on a spuds/grains only diet. His wife AND children were working long weeks also, just to feed themselves. From the point of view of those holding gold, those we call the Money Power, this was indeed a great success. This is capitalism at its best: all owned by a ‘happy’ few, with the many licking their boots in exchange for a horrorjob.
During the non-usurious age of plenty, called the ‘dark ages’ by the Money Power apologists, a working man worked 15 weeks per year to feed not only himself, but also his massive family.
Third, in this same talk (by the way, for some very, very well off individuals, while complaining Austrianism gained so little traction with the elite) Woods does the same thing that many Austrians do and which he tried to pull of in the mentioned Facebook discussion also: he tried to downplay the relation between deflation and depression by quoting the (in)famous Atkeson/Kehoe study which famously denies a relation between the two. There are two rather major problems with this study though. In the first place, it was commissioned by…………yes, you guessed it, or you knew: by the FED.
Now, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, because I like to rub it in: how disingeneous is this: our Austrian Fed busters quoting a Fed study when it serves their purposes, in this case defending deflation. The Fed, tirelessly exposed by valiant Austrian Knights for hiding their messing up the volume of money. When they mess up the volume in terms of inflation, that is. But when it comes to hiding their deflating the money supply it’s all of the sudden a trusted source and ally?
To be honest: these kinds of antics are typical of Austrians.
The second thing I have a MAJOR problem with is this: in this study deflation is defined as ‘declining prices’. And ‘t is true: in this day and age of obscuring truth about money, inflation is often defined as ‘rising prices’ and deflation as its opposite. But everybody with even negligable awareness of what is going on in terms of slanting definitions and hiding truth through wordgames in economics knows that inflation really means ‘a growing money supply’ and deflation ‘a dwindling money supply’. Sure, nowadays it’s hip to say there are two definitions. But Tom Woods is a ‘senior fellow’ of the ‘reputable’ Mises Institute, so I’m not going to give him ANY slack here. He’s just playing the game of make believe.
Fourth, Woods calls Walton ‘tone-deaf’ to the financial world, as, according to Woods, the financial world is paranoid about deflation and apparently fears nothing more than just that.
This is where we enter the, what I like to call, ‘ultra naive’ parts of the Austrian paradigm. It’s amazing how many Austrian positions are both utterly naive to the real world and simultaneously incredibly comfortable to the Powers that Be and this is a typical case in point. Obviously, the elite does not fear deflation. However, it is keenly aware the masses (us) absolutely deplore deflation. We hate it, because it broke our back in the thirties and many other depressions. So of course the Money Power and its shills cater to this by being very busy pretending they hate deflation too.
That’s why Ben Shalom Bernanke is very comfortable being called ‘helicopter Ben’, because he will be dumping cash on a deflated economy, calming the gullible. Of course the not so gullible clearly see his QE1, 2, 3, x do nothing to reflate the economy (and thus nothing to end deflation) but is solely focussed on allowing the ultra rich in unloading their busted ‘derivatives’ like Mortgage Backed Securities and other silly financial ‘products’ at full nominal value at the expense of the ultimately taxpayer backed Federal Reserve Bank.
Fifth, continuing in the same ‘naive’ vein, he then addresses Wayne’s very, very solid point that “Monetary deflation benefits the private bankers who wish the People to default in order to seize collateral with, or without govt force.”, saying that this is ‘clearly incorrect’, because banks surely would not want to get their hands on ‘potentially illiquid assets’.
Ahum………yes. Right.
He continues by saying: ‘When asset prices are falling, why would banks want to grab assets?’
Well Tom, let me explain this to you: not everybody is surviving from month to month. There are individuals and organizations that are actually capable of long term planning. And I’m not talking a year here. I’m talking not even several years, but decades. Centuries even.
So while I, and maybe even you, live day by day, the banks actually realize that at some point the deflation is going to end and their newly acquired assets are bound to gain a lot in value……. Yes, it’s called speculation and banks and their owners have shown to be quite good at that.
But this argument Woods apparently expects and he proceeds to say: “Ah, but couldn’t the banks coordinate the deflation together, and then when it hits bottom, grab all the assets at that moment, when their prices have nowhere to go but up? Even assuming that bankers would adopt such a far-fetched strategy, there is no way for them to know at what point in the deflationary process the defaults are going to occur.”
Ah yes…. far-fetched……….Like I said, their is a certain ‘naiveté’ to Austrianism that would even be quite touching, would one be unaware of the untold billions poured into disseminating these childish ‘mistakes’.
Nowadays, it’s a mainstream science matter of record that all the banks own each other and are one major cartel, no, monopoly.
So no this is not ‘far-fetched’. What IS far-fetched is Woods’ statement that ‘there is no way for them to know at what point in the deflationary process the defaults are going to occur.”
Utterly ‘oblivious’, probably because of the same ‘naiveté’, that the banks are causing the deflation willfully and know exactly when it will end. Because it will end when they will start lending again.
Conclusion
Tom Woods made a fool of himself. He comes up with the same nonsense and then some that Austrianism is now becoming famous for as many in the Alternative Media are waking up to their stupid ‘ideas’, that were generated at such a massive cost to the Money Power by Tom Woods’s employer Lew Rockwell and his Volker Fund buddies.
But of course we’re far too polite and far too interested in maintaining cordial relations with everybody even pretending to oppose the banksters. That’s why we propose a debate ignoring Austrian financing: just aiming at the issues themselves.
In this article we have not even mentioned that during deflation debts become worse in real terms, as do the interest costs related to them. We have not mentioned its disastrous effects on economic growth.
That’s because Deflation Apologist Tom Woods chose to ignore these rather important issues……
Discussing Gold and Interest with the Daily Bell
Austrian Economics, Apostles of Austerity Defending Deflation
the Austrian ‘Free Market for Currencies’ Hoax
The Inflation vs. Deflation Dialectic
Who is Ed Griffin?
Faux Economics
Last month Wayne Walton interviewed me on the various issues under discussion at Real Currencies:
You can download two mp3’s: first hour, second hour.
Justin Cooke and Brian Stavely of Dose of Reality Radio interviewed me on Austrian Economics, Ron Paul and various other issues. These guys have a late night show and I had to set the alarm clock at 2:45, but I think we managed to have a decent conversation.
Wayne Walton and I got involved in a discussion on Facebook with Thomas Woods. Woods comes up with all the usual Austrian nonsense defending deflation and usury and resorts to the siltent treatment when I start deconstructing these arguments with the usual stuff.
It’s the same Thomas Woods that is now involved in a dialectical ‘debate’ with the Huffington Post, as Jason Erb discusses on Faux Capitalist.
Left: William Rees-Mogg, the fascist British Lord who pulls the strings behind most of the Libertarian movement and “hard money” community
In yet another groundbreaking article, Memehunter explores the crucial role that Agora plays in the Libertarian propaganda effort. This outlet, controlled by Lord Rees-Mogg, ex-editor of the Times, and former member of the Governing Council of the BBC, is responsible for the dissemination of the lion’s share of modern Libertarian spin.
Many ‘heroes’ and ‘alternative’ media outlets are directly controlled through Agora, including the Daily Bell, the Daily Reckoning and even The International Forecaster is directly linked to this network.
The Rees-Mogg connection shows how, from the top down, the Libertarian and Mainstream Media are One.
by Memehunter for Real Currencies and the Daily Knell
In a series of articles earlier this year, Anthony Migchels and I exposed how Libertarianism and Austrian economics were sponsored by the elites as a dialectical counterpart to Communism during the 20th century. See especially:
Old Rothschild- and Rockefeller hands controlled the Libertarian-Communist dialectic
How the Money Power spawns Libertarians
The sad truth is that not much has changed during the last 60 years. We already know that Ron Paul is backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg group.
But what few people realize is that the entire Libertarian movement is still controlled by a handful of individuals who are directly connected to the highest elite circles, including the Rothschild dynasty. In this article, we will shed more light on these connections and expose the elites’ control of the Libertarian movement in the 21st century.
The Agora Empire
As documented in The Daily Bell Hoax?, blogger (and libertarian sympathizer) Lila Rajiva recently revealed that Ron Paul had a longtime partnership with James Dale Davidson, founder (with Lord William Rees-Mogg) of the financial conglomerate Agora Inc. Through the Agora network, Davidson, Rees-Mogg, and executives Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin control most of the “hard-money” investment newsletters and “free-market” websites in the West, most of them ferociously pro-Paul.
These outlets include: Anthony Wile’s Daily Bell, Bonner’s Daily Reckoning, Doug Casey’s International Speculator, Gary North’s Remnant Review, The Oxford Club, Whiskey & Gunpowder, Laissez-faire Books, a leading libertarian bookseller, and a slew of other “alternative media” websites. It is no exaggeration to say that Agora controls most of the Libertarian material published in the West.
Rajiva’s revelations are important because they blow apart the myth of the “Ron Paul revolution” as a grassroots movement, and confirm Paul’s close ties with elite globalist financial concerns. In fact, Lyndon Larouche’s Executive Intelligence Review (cited by Rajiva) implied a direct link between Libertarian circles and the Rockefeller and Rothschild, the very elites whose domination they claim to abhor!
Libertarians, “hard-money” investors and power elites: an enduring partnership
Although Davidson and Rees-Mogg apparently promote pseudo-libertarian solutions and “free-market” thinking, both are bona fide members of the highest elite circles. Davidson was likely a Rhodes scholar (although he does not publicize this information), a leading indicator of acceptance into elite British circles.
His partner Rees-Mogg was a longtime editor of the Times and a member of the governing council of the BBC. He is a member of the very select Roxburghe Club and apparently has ties to the Pilgrims Society. He also belongs to The Other Club, together with British and Zionist aristocrats such as the Cecils, Howards, Cavendishes, Rothschilds, and Oppenheimers. Rees-Mogg is also on the board of Rothschild’s St. James Place Capital.
Rees-Mogg and Davidson apparently work in tandem with mainstream British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, whose father was a military intelligence officer and who has long been suspected of being an intelligence asset himself. It is surely no accident that Evans-Pritchard, known for his anti-Clinton crusade and hard-money sympathies, is one of the few mainstream journalists frequently cited by Wile’s Daily Bell, but very few readers would suspect that they are essentially partners.
Although Rees-Mogg is associated with the Libertarian movement, he would be more accurately described as a fascist. In an article entitled “It’s the Elites Who Matter”, published in the Times in January 1995, Rees-Mogg publicly called for limiting education to the top 5% of the population, creating an elite that would be ideally positioned to dominate the remaining 95% of the people after Rees-Mogg’s so-called “Information Revolution” would bring in a feudalist dystopia.
Soon after Davidson and Rees-Mogg published The Sovereign Individual in 1997, they founded the Sovereign Society, another Agora offshoot. Besides Davidson and Rees-Mogg, the Board of Advisors of the Sovereign Society has included over the years some of the best-known names in the “hard money” community, such as Doug Casey (a classmate of future president Clinton inJesuit hotbed Georgetown University), CIA asset Mark Skousen (son of a FBI agent and nephew of J. Edgar Hoover’s assistant Cleon Skousen), perennial libertarian candidate Harry Browne, the Aden Sisters (Pamela and Mary-Ann), and Daily Bell advisor Ron Holland.
Casey also founded the Eris Society, a group of “free thinkers” who meet annually. Among the past speakers at Eris Society meetings, we find the names of Ron Paul, Skousen, Browne, Davidson, “Uncle” Richard Maybury, and investor Jim Rogers. Already in 1994, Casey, Davidson, and Skousen were collaborating on a presentation about “ERIS Island”, indicating that their partnership predates the foundation of the Sovereign Society.
Another Agora spin-off is the FreedomFest, the “world’s largest gathering of free minds”. While FreedomFest claims to be independent and “not affiliated with any organization or think-tank”, we find that it is coordinated by Skousen and Holland’s wife Tami, and that speakers associated with Agora are regularly invited. Perhaps surprisingly, Bilderberger Peter Thiel was featured as a keynote speaker in 2011.
Of course, the old Libertarian networks centered around the Volker fund that we exposed in Old Rothschild- and Rockefeller hands controlled the Libertarian-Communist dialectic are still active: thus, Gary North, a Volker protégé, retains an enormous influence in Austrian economics. More interestingly, alumni of the Libertarian think-tanks sponsored by the Volker fund and its affiliates are often found working together with the “new generation” of Agora-associated hard-money investors.
For instance, academics Richard Ebeling, past director of the Foundation for Economic Education, and Tibor Machan, a scholar of the Institute for Humane Studies, are advisors for the Daily Bell. Together with Lew Rockwell, director of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, they also sit on the advisory board of Ron Holland’s Biologix Hair Inc., a company that claims to have developed a therapy for hair rejuvenation.
Only one degree of separation between Rothschild and the Daily Bell
The Daily Bell is a prime example of these apparently independent libertarian outlets that are in fact closely associated with the highest elite circles. The Bell, which earlier this year had to close its comments section in the face of an onslaught of negative criticism, is well-known for its staunch support of Ron Paul, strident goldbug mindset, stubborn advocacy of Austrian faux economics, and more recently for its vociferous condemnation of anti-interest activists.
Not only is Ron Holland, senior editor at the Daily Bell, a longtime associate of Rees-Mogg and Davidson, but so was perennial libertarian candidate Harry Browne, with whom Daily Bell founder Anthony Wile worked for several years.
More importantly, Davidson and Rees-Mogg were once shareholders in Lines Overseas Management (LOM), the Bahamas off-shore company implicated in a stock manipulation affair for which Wile, along with other shady entrepreneurs, was in litigation with the SEC for most of the last decade. Interestingly, the late Bob Chapman was also named in the same SEC probe, raising serious doubts about Chapman’s International Forecaster as well.
In fact, Davidson and Rees-Mogg blatantly promoted LOM in The Sovereign Individual, citing the “triple-digit returns” of their “colleagues” at LOM (p. 298), and advising their readers to contact LOM for investment of “sums in excess of $100,000” (p.403). This indicates that Wile was already involved in a close business partnership with Davidson and Rees-Mogg in the late 1990s, an association that is likely to have lasted much longer given Wile’s longstanding partnerships with Browne and Holland, both advisors at the Sovereign Society.
Considering that Rees-Mogg is an advisor to Rothschild, we can say that there is essentially only one degree of separation between Rothschild and the Daily Bell. How ironic given the Daily Bell’s endless posturing as a free-market publication that aims to “expose the power elite and their societal manipulations”.
But there is more to the story. In The Daily Bell Hoax?, I revealed the existence of a business partnership between the Daily Bell and gold mining concern Dicon Gold Inc., whose main assets are located in Colombia. At the same time, Kathleen Peddicord, founder of the Agora-affiliated “Live and Invest Overseas” publishing group and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Sovereign Society, was recently promoting Colombia, and especially Medellin, as a “screaming bargain” for real estate.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Daily Bell recently started praising former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s pro-business administration, although Uribe was once listed by the Defense Intelligence Agency as an “important Colombian narco-trafficker” and “a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar”. It is difficult to imagine that the well-informed editors of the Daily Bell would not have been aware of this fact. I will leave it to the reader to connect the dots…
Conclusion
Although the names have changed, the cozy relationship between the top Money Power elites and the Libertarian movement has remained essentially the same for the better part of a century, if not longer. This connection must be relentlessly exposed because Libertarian “alternative media” outlets and “hard money” entrepreneurs continually promote their views as being “pro-freedom” and “anti-elite”, in contrast to the mainstream “statist” message, whereas they have in fact always been part of a centuries-old Hegelian dialectic which is entirely controlled by the same transnational oligarchy. We must recognize these gatekeepers for what they are and look beyond their phony posturing if we want to find real solutions to the economic and political issues that our society is facing.
Special thanks to reader Bob whose comments (here and here) sparked this investigation
h/t to Faux Capitalist for pointing out Chapman’s involvement with Lines Overseas Management
Visit the Daily Knell, a new blog on which Memehunter, Anthony Migchels (Real Currencies), and Jason Erb (Exposing Faux Capitalism) expose libertarian lies, Austrian faux economics, and phony elite dialectics.
In this article, Memehunter explores the murky underworld of the Libertarian movement, in the wake of blogger Lila Rajiva’s stunning revelations about the “long-standing relationship” between Ron Paul and the founder of financial behemoth Agora Inc., with which the well-known libertarian website The Daily Bell is affiliated. The ramifications of the partnership between the Daily Bell, known for its strident “gold bug” mindset, and gold mining concern Dicon Gold Inc. are also discussed.
By Memehunter for Real Currencies and the Daily Knell
The Daily Bell, a leading libertarian website known as much for its staunch support of Austrian economics as for its strident “gold bug” mindset, recently featured an article entitled “The Ron Paul Hoax?” which attempted to defend Ron Paul’s reputation in the wake of a series of articles on Clint Richardson’s Reality Blog showing Paul to be essentially nothing more than a fraud. Although the Bell admits to having doubts about the efficacy of Paul’s “Audit the Fed” legislation, they refuse to believe that Paul himself is a fraud. Of course, one may wonder how muchevidence the Bell and its supporters will need before accepting the truth.
But more importantly, this unshakeable belief in Ron Paul as “the world’s only apparently honest politician” (no less!) strikes one as an inscrutable paradox in the face of these recent revelations about Paul’s character, especially coming from an anarcho-capitalist website that purports to denounce party politics, Western-style democracy, and the institution of government in general.
Ron Paul and the Agora Empire
One clue to this enigma has recently been provided by blogger Lila Rajiva, co-author with William Bonner (president of the publishing company Agora Inc.) of the bestseller Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, and herself a libertarian sympathizer. In a scathing article, Rajiva revealed that the Daily Bell is closely associated with the Agora network, a large conglomerate known for its financial newsletters promoting “get-rich-quick” schemes and assorted penny stocks, all the while touting bogus “free markets” and Austrian faux economics.
Some of the numerous Agora affiliates and alternate business names include the Daily Reckoning, the Oxford Club, International Living, Penny Sleuth, Whiskey & Gunpowder, Doug Casey’s International Speculator, Gary North’s Remnant Review, as well as Laissez-Faire Books, a leading libertarian bookseller. In fact, according to Rajiva, the Agora network and its executives Bonner and Addison Wiggin hold sway over most of the libertarian circles in the West.
Agora also appears to have ties with the Rockefeller dynasty via Peter G. Peterson, longtime chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and chief backer of the film “IOUSA”, whose content was inspired by Bonner and Wiggin’s book Empire of Debt. Going even deeper, Rajiva finds all kinds of shady characters associated with Agora, including ex-CIA director William Colby and Le Cercle member Lord Rees-Mogg, a close associate of the Rothschilds.
But the real stunner was Rajiva’s disclosure that Ron Paul had “a long-standing relationship” with Agora founder James Davidson, via Murray Rothbard. Perhaps not surprisingly, Agora and its affiliates, including the Daily Bell, have until recently been indefatigable promoters of Paul’s political platform. However, the Daily Bell has never mentioned its ties to Agora, which would obviously throw into question the Bell’s credibility as an impartial observer of the political and financial scene.
“Private gold-backed currencies” and Colombian gold mines
Another reason why the Daily Bell, itself an ardent promoter of privately gold-backed currencies, is enraptured with Paul’s unremitting advocacy of the gold standard could be that the directors of the Bell have a vested interest in a return to a gold standard, and more generally a larger role for gold and silver as circulating currencies. Indeed, as Diana Zoppa, an advisor to the Daily Bell, acknowledged in an interview with Kerry Lutz of the Financial Survival Network, Zoppa’s hiring by the Daily Bell was facilitated by the existence of a business partnership between the directors of the Bell and Zoppa’s husband, Shawn Perger, owner of a gold-mining company called Dicon Gold Inc., whose main assets are found in Colombia.
This partnership seems to have been a very close one because Perger and Zoppa apparently followed Daily Bell founder Anthony Wile and moved to Switzerland (the Daily Bell’s home base until recently) for a few years. We also learn from the Daily Bell that Perger and his team “have built deep social relationships with the wealthier and more private Colombian families who have held the ownership rights of some very attractive gold projects”. Coincidentally or not, the Daily Bell has been, of late, very vocal in its support of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s pro-business administration and “free-market strategies”, and has even established an “on-the-ground editorial presence” in Colombia.
Conclusion
As with most of the alternative media, the Daily Bell does play an important role in opening the eyes of “red pill” newcomers who are exposed for the first time to a non-mainstream view of politics and economics. The Bell has not been afraid to tackle controversial issues, including questioning the veracity of the official accounts of the Apollo XIII mission and of Osama bin Laden’s death. Nevertheless, the Bell’s refusal to address the issue of usury, its blatant dismissal of the Zionist role in the New World Order conspiracy, coupled with its relentless pro-gold and pro-Paul propaganda, are symptomatic of a larger malaise in the alternative media. It is time for dedicated truthseekers to move past these gatekeepers and their phony dialectic, in order to continue their quest for real alternatives and authentic solutions to the monetary, political, and spiritual issues of our age.
Afterthought: the Daily Bell penned a rather annoyed response, trying to defame paper/electronic/fiat currencies once more. Memehunter made short shrift of it:
The Daily Bell gets schooled by its own commentators on Bitcoin and fiat currencies
As the title suggests: even the DB’s own feedbackers were not distracted.
Related:
How the Money Power created Libertarianism and Austrian Economics
The “Catholic” Arm of Libertarianism, By Memehunter
The Satanic Core of Libertarianism, By Memehunter
Old Rothschild- and Rockefeller hands controlled the Libertarian-Communist dialectic, By Memehunter
How the Money Power spawns Libertarians
Who is Ed Griffin?
PS: This year Faux Capitalist’s Jason Erb (http://fauxcapitalist.com), Memehunter and Real Currencies cooperated regularly in exposing the manipulations of the Daily Bell.
These efforts have now been syndicated in the Daily Knell.
Go have a look!
with Anthony Migchels
The Daily Bell appears to be quite obsessed with both Memehunter and Real Currencies, having exhibited a painful compulsion to refer indirectly but unmistakably to their past discussions with both of us in a series of articles, even though we have mostly left them alone for the last six months (in fact, Memehunter took a well-deserved break after the Daily Bell shut down its comment section).
However, these recent articles contain such blatant distortions that we deemed it necessary to attempt to rectify the situation. Furthermore, it is apparent that the elves over at the Bell cannot wait to debate again with us. It is our sincere hope that, by creating the Daily Knell, a blog dedicated to exposing libertarian lies, we have finally fulfilled their wish.
Social Credit, Mises-Rockefeller connections, and other falsehoods
Let us begin with the claim that Social Credit was promoted by the Fabian Society, which, to be fair, originates from Deadeye’s blog.
Although it is true that Alfred Orage, the editor of the New Age, promoted C. H. Douglas’ Social Credit, we learn from Wikipedia that “in an effort to discredit the Social Credit movement, one leading Fabian, Sidney Webb, is said to have declared that he didn’t care whether Douglas was technically correct or not – they simply did not like his policy” and that the British Labour Party resisted pressures to implement social credit, due to incompatibilities with “hierarchical views of Fabian Socialism”.
That does not sound like a ringing endorsement. It is also fairly obvious to anyone vaguely familiar with Social Credit that, partially flawed as this economic philosophy may be, it is most certainly not favorable to Money Power.
The Daily Bell, obviously still smirking from Memehunter’s “attacks against free-market thinking”, also brought back the issue of Ludwig von Mises’ funding by Rockefeller,implying that Mises had to beg Rockefeller for some money that was “given unwillingly and soon withdrawn”.
However, as we learned in Old Rothschild- and Rockefeller hands controlled the Libertarian-Communist dialectic:
“Already in 1926, Ludwig von Mises’s first tour in the United States was paid by the Rockefeller Foundation. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which supported Mises in the 1940s, was also heavily sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Mises’s salary in New York was paid by Lawrence Fertig, Kohlberg’s colleague at the AJLAC [American Jewish League against Communism], and by the Volker Fund.”
In fact, as this chart suggests, Mises was very much at the center of an entire network connecting Libertarian think-tanks and foundations all the way to the top of Money Power.
Among other falsehoods propagated by the Daily Bell are the following:
– The annoying tendency to equate any non-commodity based currency with “governmental coercion”. Many alternative currencies, such as the Gelre or the Chiemgauer, are not based on governmental coercion and are not sponsored by the UN or UNESCO. Clearly, the Bell has a vested agenda in trying to equate any paper or digital currency with some kind of coercion, and in promoting the idea that the means of exchange should be commodity-based, an idea which is actually detrimental to free trade. Maybe this has to do with its partnership with a gold mining company?
– The tendency to lump together Stephen Zarlenga, Ellen Brown, and “a number of blogs attacking Austrian-based free-market economics”. In contrast with Real Currencies and the Daily Knell, Ellen Brown does not consider interest to be a problem. Although it is a step in the right direction to have government earn the interest rather than a private banking cartel, interest-free currencies would be a much better option. Moreover, Brown’s scheme is associated with severe power centralization, which we do not favor.
– Contrary to the Bell’s repeated assertions, we are not saying that interest should be banned. By offering interest-free mutual credit, people will naturally prefer to borrow in an interest-free currency rather than in an interest-bearing one. There is no need, in fact, for “coercion” of any kind. Memehunter frequently made this point on the Daily Bell (in the feedbacks), so we have to suspect that this is pure “sophistry” on the part of the elves.
– The claim that “Money Power does not care whether its control is exercised publicly or privately”. Although it is obvious that governments all over the world have been corrupted, and that politicians “can be controlled and bought”, the fact remains, that, in principle, a public institution is accountable and should represent the interests of a nation, whereas there is no such obligation on a private institution. This is exactly why Money Power has worked hard to undermine the institution of government, and to progressively replace nations by larger economic blocs led by unelected technocrats instead of elected politicians, as is the case with the European Union.
Annunaki and Austrian “gold porn”
Moreover, the Daily Bell, together with other Austrian outlets, propagates various spurious economic ideas and myths which deserve to be exposed. For instance, this paragraph:
“People are free to find mines and dig up their own gold and silver. Drives the elites crazy. That’s why the elites are constantly trying to ban and confiscate honest money. The elites hate the free circulation of money metals.“
Of course, people can dig up their own gold and silver. But what good is that for? Will the world be a better place because everyone is busy mining gold and silver? Last we heard, Zecharia Sitchin and his theories had been debunked, but maybe some hardcore Libertarian goldbugs cling to the idea that humans were genetically engineered by the Annunaki to mine gold in South Africa…
In fact, this famous scene may be the ultimate fantasy of Austrian sympathizers favoring a return to an interest-bearing gold-backed currency:
“You see in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those who loan gold, and those who dig. You dig.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a97cOa2Sy9A?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent]
More seriously, we must remember that the means of exchange is basically credit, a record of an unpaid debt. There is no valid reason why the amount of credit available to a community should be limited by the amount of a scarce commodity. The Daily Bell unfailingly criticizes any monetary scheme involving some sort of human supervision with the oft-repeated argument that “no one can know how much money is enough”, but cannot justify why having the money supply tethered to the quantity of gold or silver available is in any way a guarantee that the money supply will be “monitored” more adequately and will correspond to the needs of a community.
Furthermore, whereas physical gold may be in some sense more “honest” than paper currency because it cannot be inflated so easily, it is debatable whether private gold-backed currencies are in any way more honest than paper or digital currency. Blogger FOFOA has explained this at length in “The Return to Honest Money”.
But the larger issue is that, although it may be an excellent store of value, physical gold is not well-suited as a means of exchange because of its scarcity. However, the Bell seems unable to distinguish between both monetary functions and refuses to understand why it is advisable to use different media for both, as brilliantly demonstrated once again by FOFOA.
Interest-free currencies as an “elite promotion”: look who’s talking!
Finally, over this series of articles, the Daily Bell repeatedly tried to drive home the point that because Margrit Kennedy worked at some point for UNESCO, and that some interest-free currencies are affiliated with ecological movements, interest-free currencies are necessarily part of some kind of “elite promotion”.
The fact that the UN does seem to have started to promote LETS lately is obviously an attempt to co-opt it and thus is a source of concern. Why would the UN do so? LETS has suffered from two major drawbacks, keeping it from really threatening Money Power domination. The first is that it uses a working man’s hour as a unit of account. As a result, nobody knows what 1 LETS is really worth. Therefore businesses have been hesitant to accept LETS units.
Secondly, LET Systems have been managed by amateur community organizers, who have proven themselves incapable of organizing local trade in a way that transcends the level of the most primitive service exchanges between individuals. By promoting LETS as a viable ‘complementary currency’, it’s likely that the UN has willingly promoted a non-threatening ‘alternative’. In no way has the UN been shown to promote, help develop or even investigate what is necessary to threaten the Money Power monopoly on currencies worldwide.
Given the Daily Bell’s own connections to large financial companies and gold mining concerns, as well as collaborators who worked for top “Anglosphere power elite” banks, one may also wonder whether the Bell’s strident goldbug propaganda, its unabashed justification of interest, and irrepressible “Hate the State” rhetoric may themselves be elite promotions of some kind. In fact, Austrian economics were, from the outset, an elite promotion, as we have shown in this series of articles:
The “Catholic” Arm of Libertarianism
The Satanic Core of Libertarianism
How the Money Power spawns Libertarians
Old Rothschild- and Rockefeller hands controlled the Libertarian-Communist dialectic
Conclusion
The Daily Bell in its discussions with both Memehunter and Real Currencies, but also with people like Ellen Brown, has resorted to misrepresentation and downplaying of valid points. Already in the early stages of the discussion, we pointed out that it was quite obvious that if government creates a monopoly, it is much worse to have it hand that monopoly over to a private banking cartel than to have Government use it to print its own interest-free currency. Notwithstanding the fact that such a monopoly is uncalled for, this simple transfer would save the taxpayer 450 billion per year. All this interest now ends up with wealthy “Anglosphere power-elite” bankers and foreign creditors and thus in no way serves the real economy.
Additionally, the Daily Bell did everything it could to downplay the interest issue. The elves ignored the fact that it’s a massive wealth transfer from poor to rich, to the tune of 5 to 10 trillion per year globally. They also tried to explain it away as irrelevant to the issue of manipulation of volume, which is not only untrue (interest does affect the volume issue, as ever more money is required to pay ever more interest, thus leading to an eternally growing money supply, a situation which is obviously terminally unstable), but also clearly is just a trick to get the issue off the table.
And lastly, how can it be that the swashbuckling elves of the Bell ridiculously need a politician like Ron Paul to implement their vaunted free market? How can it be that this man has been promoting the same crap for 40 years? Is that consistency or an acute disability to learn? Or is it perhaps a party line that had to be toed? Why do the elves need “violent statist coercion” to get what they want, while people all over the world are creating regional currencies based on agreement and not coercion?
We know the answer: Gold will not work as an everyday means of exchange in a truly free market. Ron Paul and the Daily Bell, through their Agora connection, are part of a large network parading as a grassroots movement. They both represent Gold interests and need state coercion to get their specie accepted for tax payments and thus get an unfair and almost decisive advantage in the ‘free market’ for currencies.
Nothing new under the sun… Just some more Money Power special interest groups trying to manipulate the debate and buy votes in Washington.
Recently the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report called ‘the Chicago Plan Revisited’. The report claims that Fractional Reserve Banking is problematic and discusses the perceived benefits of Full Reserve Banking.
However: the problem is not money creation and not even Fractional Reserve Banking. The problem is interest. It matters not whether we pay interest for fully or partly backed loans.
The report did make the rounds in the Alternative Media. Several people sent it to me and a number of sites commented on it.
Most people of course understand that when the IMF moves its lips it is probably in the process of committing genocide, but since full reserve banking has been almost universally promoted by monetary reformers in the US (but not Europe), it has raised many eyebrows. People feel vindicated.
But unfortunately the Money Power is again ahead of the field and has slyly sold this ‘reform’ to both the libertarians and the populists.
Fractional Reserve Banking
First, let’s recap. Under a fractional reserve banking system, banks do not lend out deposits, but create new credit, new dollars based on the deposit. Classically a bank can create 90 cents for every dollar that is deposited. This is not a constant. The last 20 years the banks were allowed to create up to 98 cents on every dollar deposited.
It is not true that the bank can lend out ten times the deposit as is often claimed. In the old days the goldsmiths did lend out ten times the deposit, but in the modern age the banks have managed to obscure the process.
The banking system as a whole does create 10 times as much and up to 50 times as much when they are allowed to lend out 98 cents on the dollar.
Here’s how it works: when a dollar is deposited, the bank creates 90 cents and lends it out. Now there is $1,90 (the deposit, plus the new 90 cents). The new 90 cents are then deposited in another account, perhaps at another bank. This 90 cent deposit is used to create 81 cents. Now there is $2,71 in circulation. Next the 81 new cents are deposited at the next bank, who the proceeds to lend out 72 new cents, after which there is $3,43 in total. Etcetera. After the whole process is done there are 10 new dollars in circulation.
So this is the sleight of hand of fractional reserve banking: the bank requires a deposit to lend, but it does not lend the deposit. It creates the credit the minute it is lent out. Individual banks almost double the depost, but the banking system as whole in this way ultimately creates 10 new dollars on every dollar that is deposited.
To fully appreciate the extent of this fraud, it is crucial to understand that the banking system is one, as we previously discussed. All the banks own each other so basically there is one banker at the top that does indeed create all the money out there.
Full Reserve Banking
Full reserve banking pretends to solve the problem because it would require the banks not to create new money based on the deposit, but to actually lend out the deposit itself.
Full reserve banking is propagated by many monetary reformers, both proven frauds like Murray Rothbard and his Austrian Economics and classical populists. The Kucinich HR2990 N.E.E.D act, which was penned by the American Monetary Institute’s Zarlenga and which calls for a debt free government unit, also wants to provide credit via full reserve banking.
However, the problem is not debt, it’s interest.
This is just one of the reasons why it is so essential to have a clear grasp of the issue, to understand that debt does not automatically mean interest. The point is: we are made to believe that we would feel better if we would pay interest over fully backed loans than over freshly printed cash.
For instance, Gary North made a career of denouncing ‘Greenbackers’ (an antiquated term in this day and age of Social and Mutual Credit) by writing:
“Counterfeiting (he is calling fractional reserve banking counterfeiting, AM) is theft for one reason, and only one reason. Paper bills are issued that look exactly like bills that are backed by 100% of their face value in money metals, but these bills do not have such a backing. In other words, if all the individuals went to claim their money metals at the same time, some people could not collect.“
Pay attention here, because these are the ‘little details’ that make or break real reform. It is somewhat subtle lies like this that allow the Money Power to maintain its domination.
In a full reserve gold based banking system there would be no theft, according to Gary North. However: we would still pay $300k interest over a $200k mortgage. We would be paying them in gold coins or in paper fully backed by gold, but we would be paying.
We all know that gold is completely controlled by the Rothschilds and their ilk. Gold based loans is what brought them to power.
Are we really going to believe they care whether they get paid for a gold or paper based, full or fractional reserve banking based monopoly?
I don’t think so.
The truth is, that Fractional Reserve Banking actually proves for all with eyes to see that we can create all the money we will ever need at basically zero cost.
And if credit can be so cheaply created, it is insane that society should pay such incredible sums for it.
Let’s recall that interest is always a wealth transfer from poor to rich. The rich have money, the poor need to borrow. All in all the poorest 80% pay anywhere between 5 to 10 trillion dollars per year in interest to the richest 10% worldwide.
And yes, fractional reserve banking is unstable: banks go bust all the time. But really, even that would not happen if the system was not controlled by total maniacs who create the boom/bust cycle by letting their own banks go bust after each credit induced boom. In this way they create depressions, because their banks cannot lend when busted, meaning a deflation with associated economic collapse.
Normal people managing the system would allow a stable situation, even with fractional reserve banking.
It also is a convoluted and expensive way of creating credit. Mutual Credit is completely simple and requires zero reserves or savings and the credit facility cannot go bust because of bank runs.
But antiquated as it may be, fractional reserve banking is not the heart of the matter.
Compound Interest
The Chicago Plan encompasses more than full reserve banking. It is based on debt free Government money. This is obviously much better than a usurious monopoly in private hands. This matter is also (favorably) discussed in the IMF report.
However, debt free money combined with full reserve banking allows the Money Power to regain full control of all the money in circulation in a relatively short period of time through compound interest.
Here’s some relevant text from the linked article on compound interest with debt free units:
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they obtain 10% of it’s supply.
They start lending at say 5%. Of this 5% they use 2% for cost. The remaining 3% is profit, new capital, new deposits for their banks.
After 1 year of lending they control 13% of the money supply. After two years 16.09%. After three years 19.28.
After 10 years of lending they would control 34 percent and after 20 years 81% of the money supply.
Compound interest in operation.
Of course, the exact numbers are not important here, it’s the process that matters.”
Conclusion
Full Reserve Banking is still……well, banking. The wise know that banking is one and banking is the problem. Don’t try to control the banks, because they will always control you. They control the money supply and rape us with interest on a money supply they completely own, be it through paper or through gold, through fractional or full reserve banking.
To the Money Power it’s all the same.
The System was built to enslave, it cannot be really reformed. Banks should be closed and replaced with Mutual (interest free) Credit facilities.
But why would the IMF promote a debt free Government unit? That indeed is a good question. It’s not the first time that a blatant Money Power outfit like the IMF does so. Some time back the Financial Times’s Lex suggested the Government might consider printing some debt free cash. (Unfortunately I read about it in their paper edition and their Internet content is behind a pay per view wall.)
Why?
It seems the System is so insolvent the Money Power is actually fearing losing control over the bond market, which is the basis of its supremacy. The level of indebtedness is such that its banks and the taxpayer underwriting their operations might get overwhelmed. Printing some debt free cash to plug a few gaping holes might actually just be what the doctor ordered at this stage.
Related:
Mutual Credit, the Astonishingly Simple Truth about Money Creation
Gary North’s Bluff: the Lie he’s been sitting on for 50 years
Understand that the Banking System is One
The Few Banks that Own All
Debt free money alone does not solve compound interest
The Problem is not Debt, it’s Interest (with Video!)
Robert Stark interviewed me a few months back. Due to technical problems the interview came available only just now. We had a very interesting chat. I was absolutely impressed by his preparation, all the major issues under discussion at Real Currencies are discussed in just an hour.
Stark used to be associated with the Voice of Reason Broadcast Network, but has moved to Counter Currents. The Interview can be found here.
CCR-The_Stark_Truth-20120627.mp3
Topics:
- How Mutual Credit Works
- The Goals of Monetary Reform.http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-goal-of-monetary-reform/
- Why Banking must be interest free http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/usurious-usurpation/ and how interest is a wealth transfer from the poor to rich.http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/the-problem-is-not-debt-its-interest/
- How the government creates the monopoly with the legal tender laws and hands it over to the private banking cartel.
- Other Monetary Reform Movements such as the Greenbakers, Public Banking, and Social Credit.
- A comprehensive critique of Austrian Economics.http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/faux-economics/
- How Libertarianism as controlled opposition.http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/how-the-money-power-created-libertarianism-and-austrian-economics/
- Is Anti Usury Activism Anti-Semitic? http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/is-anti-usury-activism-antisemitic/ and how it became associated with fascism after WWII.
- Why there isn’t a strong populist movement, and the phony left right paradigm represented by Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party
- The Euro Crisis. http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/the-euro-crisis/
The JAK Bank: Interest Free Full Reserve Banking!
The JAK Bank provides us with an important model for interest free saving and lending. It is a fully fledged alternative for interest bearing Full Reserve Banking.
The Swedish JAK Bank is based on a Danish concept from 1931. It started in 1965 and obtained a banking licence in 1997. It’s a cooperative bank owned by its members, of which there are about 38,000. JAK stands for Jord Arbete Kapital, which is Swedish for Land, Labor and Capital, the factors of production.
Its main goal is to provide its members with interest free loans.
It operates under four basic principles:
The Jak bank basically works as we expect a bank to function: it takes in deposits from its members and lends these out to other members.
Loans are backed by either collateral or guarantors. The JAK has very low default rate, for which there are several reasons. Interest free loans are obviously much easier to repay. Members are far more committed than ‘customers’. And JAK requires its members to save to obtain the right to borrow. Savers are known to be good debtors.
How can it be interest free? Well, very simple: instead of interest savers are rewarded with interest free loans for themselves.
Most people would rather have interest free loans than interest on savings, especially if they actually did the math.
To obtain the right to a loan, new members must have saved for at least six months. During this time savers acquire ‘saving points’. Saving points are a product of savings and the Savings Factor. JAK members can choose from 6, 12 and 24-month deposit accounts which represent the advance notice required to make a withdrawal. The longer term deposits are associated with a higher ‘Savings Factor’: 0,7 for a six month deposit, 0,9 for a 24 month deposit.
Saving 1 Krona for 1 month is 1 ‘Saving Point’ times the Saving Factor. 1 Saving Point is the right to borrow 1 Krona for one month.
This is the simple mechanism of the JAK bank. In this way people are basically organized to provide themselves with loans based on their future savings and income. Exactly as it should be.
The main problem with the JAK bank is that it has problems financing itself. Members are not willing to pay high fees. New members pay 200 Kronor (about 22 euro) and yearly membership fees are 200 Kronor also. This is only just about enough to pay for its operations.
Conclusion
The JAK model is important, both in a debt free currency environment, for instance Social Credit, and in an interest free Mutual Credit environment.
Full Reserve Banking is promoted by many monetary reformers. The problem is that it does not end the wealth transfer from poor to rich through Usury.
The JAK bank provides a very effective mechanism to create non usurious Full Reserve Banking and thus deserves more attention.
Related:
Interest-Free Economics
Full Reserve Banking revisited