The Federal Reserve and "Dollars and Sense"

I hadn't known much about the Federal Reserve until I watched "Dollars and Sense" by the John Birch Society. I had the pleasure of meeting John McManus, the President of the JBS, last month, and I can say with absolute certainty, that he, as well as the rest of the John Birch Society, is not the extremist the mainstream media wants you to believe.

I highly recommend watching these videos. McManus articulates his points very well, so "Dollars and Sense" is very easy to watch, and is never boring or confusing.











Here are some of the main points from the speech:

1. In many Americans' lifetimes, the country has gone from the greatest creditor on Earth with the most respected currency, to the greatest debtor with an increasingly shunned currency.

2. A silver dollar is worth at least 12 times more than a paper dollar, due to inflation.

3. Inflation is not rising prices. It is an increase in the amount of currency, resulting in rising prices.

4. John Maynard Keynes: "By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly an unobserved, an important part of the wealth of citizens..."

5. The Federal Reserve, by inflation, is stealing from the poor and middle class, and giving to the rich.

6. Henry Hazlitt: "Inflation tears apart the whole fabric of stable economic relationships. It drives men toward desperate remedies. It leads men to demand totalitarian controls. It ends invariably in bitter disillusion and collapse."

7. Germany, after World War One, inflated the Reichsmark until it collapsed, all over the course of about three years. This caused much bitterness, and the man who was supposed to restore pride and bring Germany back to its feet was Adolf Hitler.

8. There are only 3 kinds of money: commodity (gold, silver); fiduciary (can be exchanged for commodity); and paper (not redeemable in commodity or fiduciary, made "legal tender" by government edict).

9. The U.S. had commodity and fiduciary money, but we are now using paper money.

10. The U.S. constitution on money: "Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standards of weights and measurements."

11. People took their gold and silver in to get it stamped into coins, a.k.a. "coining" money.

12. Congress did not have the power to establish a central bank, which is what the Federal Reserve is.

13. Again, the constitution: "No state shall coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts."

14. The attitude of the founders on paper money? Oliver Ellsworth: "Shut and bar the door against paper money." James Wilson: "Remove the possibility of paper money." John Langdon: "I would reject the whole constitution [if paper money is not barred]."

15. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913. We were taken off the gold standard in 1933, and off the silver standard in 1968.

16. The Federal Reserve note used to say "redeemable in lawful money", until someone asked for lawful money in exchange for his notes, and none of the bankers knew what he was talking about. The note now says "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." Redeemable in nothing.

17. Alan Greenspan, in the 1960s, was all for commodity money. He said in a 1967 book "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect saving from confiscation through inflation." He joined the Council on Foreign Relations (the group running this country) in 1978, and became chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1987, in favor of paper money.

18. The Federal Reserve: an unelected few, appointed by the President for 14 year terms, have the unconstitutional power to decide the amount of currency, establish the value of the currency, set interest rates, and create booms and busts.

19. The Federal Reserve was the idea of Edward Mandell House, President Wilson's top advisor. He wrote in his own 1912 book that he was working for "Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx." He later founded the Council on Foreign Relations.

20. Mayer Amschel Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."

21. Wright Patman, 1968: "In the United States today, we have in effect two governments. We have the duly constituted government. Then we have an independent, uncontrolled, and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve."

22. The Communist Manifesto: "5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." The Fed, though, is not even in the hands of the state. Therefore we went a step further than communism itself in that regard.