FedUpUSA

Archive for January 12th, 2011

Just in case there was any confusion that congress (and its Wall Street superiors) almost work for the majority, but not quite, here is some additional evidence: “The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country’s debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America’s international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.” Yet somehow the market has already factored in that no matter what happens, Congress has no choice but to continue heaping on the debt, and following this week’s auctions, the total should approach $14.1 trillion in debt, cutting the buffer by another $100 billion. Which is why expect to hear many more threats of untold destruction should Congress actually side with the supermajority for once.

More from Reuters:

The poll underscores the tough task ahead for U.S. lawmakers as the debt nears its current ceiling of $14.3 trillion. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week warned that a failure to raise the borrowing limit in the coming months could lead to “catastrophic economic consequences”.

Republicans, who won control of the House of Representatives in November on a promise to scale back government, hope to pair any debt-ceiling hike with a commitment from President Barack Obama to reduce long-term spending.

Republicans have vowed to slash $60 billion from the budget as soon as March, but many of those cuts are not likely to be popular with the public.

Just as amusing is the popular response on which programs are “cuttable”:

Only 24 percent say the country can afford to cut back on education spending, a likely Republican target, and 21 percent support cuts to law enforcement.

With the Pentagon fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 51 percent supported cutbacks to military spending.

Less than half, 45 percent, support an expected Republican effort to pare environmental enforcement.

Some 53 percent support cutting the budgets of financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, in spite of the widespread consensus that a lax regulatory atmosphere contributed to the devastating financial crisis of 2007-2009.

And 47 percent support cutbacks to national parks, which were shuttered for several weeks during the budget battles of 1995 and 1996.

So there you have it: take money from the SEC’s porn and hush money taxpayer funded sinking fund, and put it back into the Treasury. We are fairly confident that backdoor deals for SEC “enforcers” will provide sufficient loopholes for the grossly incompetent to continue living in abject corruption-funded splendor.

ZeroHedge

Thank you to Marco Nappolini, a researcher and strategist for MindfulMoney, a London-based investment news organisation for including FedUpUSA.org in their new research report, which explores the new finance-specific networks of influence. 

Of their findings, perhaps the most telling aspect is the apparent massive shift in people’s mindsets away from the mainstream media and toward independent sources:

The research confirms the existence of a network of investment super-connectors with extraordinary media influence and reach. These super-connected new influentials are, for the most part, not well established voices in the media but individual bloggers who fiercely champion their independence….In the US, the network functions as the unofficial voice of Wall Street & the US federal bank with no mainstream media players at the centre of the network.

While I personally, don’t find this shocking, it is nice to see my theory confirmed. 

According to the report, the top 20 most influential financial/economic sources are:

1. Naked Capitalism
2. Infectious Greed
3. The Big Picture
4. Jesse’s Cross Roads Cafe
5. Zerohedge
6. Mish’s Global Economic Analysis
7. Calculated Risk
8. Paul Krugman’s Blog
9. FT Alphaville
10. Ludwig von Mises Institute
11. The Market Trader [sic] (The Market-Ticker)
12. WSJ Blogs
13. The Epicurean Dealmaker
14.Credit Writedowns
15. Dealbreaker
16. China Financial Markets
17. Max Keiser
18. The Angry Bear
19. The Economist
20. Jr. Deputy Accountant

Seven of these top 20 are regularly featured here on FedUpUSA,, along with many more which didn’t make the list.  Number 11, The Market-Ticker, is where FedUpUSA began.  We try to bring people as much information as possible in one central location so that people can stay informed about our ever-changing economic situation.  Knowledge is power. 

A big thank you to all the people that work hard to bring accurate information to the public about our economic situation.  If it were left up to the mainstream media, people would still be enticed into buying stock like Bear Stearns…..3 days before it collapsed.  They’d still believe housing values always go up and they’d think our unemployment rate is really 9.4%.

The vast majority of Americans, including many of those who believe that they are “educated” about the Federal Reserve, do not really understand how the Federal Reserve really makes money for the international banking elite.  Many of those opposed to the Federal Reserve will point to the record $80.9 billion in profits that the Federal Reserve made last year as evidence that they are robbing the American people blind.  But then those defending the Federal Reserve will point out that the Fed returned $78.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury.  As a result, the Fed only made a couple billion dollars last year.  Pretty harmless, eh?  Well, actually no.  You see, the money that the Federal Reserve directly makes is not the issue.  Rather, the “magic” of the Federal Reserve system is that it took the power of money creation away from the U.S. government and gave it to the bankers.  Now, the only way that the U.S. government can inject more money into the economy is by going into more debt.  But when new government debt is created, the amount of money to pay the interest on that debt is not also created.  In this way, it was intended by the international bankers that U.S. government debt would expand indefinitely and the U.S. money supply would also expand indefinitely.  In the process, the international bankers would become insanely wealthy by lending money to the U.S. government.

Every single year, hundreds of billions of dollars in profits are made lending money to the U.S. government.

But why in the world should the U.S. government be going into debt to anyone?

Why can’t the U.S. government just print more money whenever it wants?

Well, that is not the way our system works.  The U.S. government has given the power of money creation over to a consortium of international private bankers.

Not only is this unconstitutional, but it is also one of the greatest ripoffs in human history.

In 1922, Henry Ford wrote the following….

“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.”

It is important to try to understand how the international banking elite became so fabulously wealthy.  One of the primary ways that this was accomplished was by gaining control over the issuance of national currencies and by trapping large national governments in colossal debt spirals.

The U.S. national debt problem simply cannot be fixed under the current system.  U.S. government debt has been mathematically designed to expand forever.  It is a trap from which there is no escape.

Many liberals won’t listen because they don’t really care about ever paying off the debt, and most conservatives won’t listen because they are convinced we can solve the national debt problem if we just get a bunch of “good conservatives” into positions of power, but the truth is that we have such a horrific debt problem because it was designed to be this way from the beginning.

So how would America be different if we could go back to 1913 and keep the Federal Reserve Act from ever being passed?  Well, the following are 10 things that would be different if the Federal Reserve had never been created….

#1 If the U.S. government had been issuing debt-free money all this time, the U.S. government could conceivably have a national debt of zero dollars.  Instead, we currently have a national debt that is over 14 trillion dollars.

#2 If the U.S. government had been issuing debt-free money all this time, the U.S. government would likely not be spending one penny on interest payments.  Instead, the U.S. government spent over 413 billion dollars on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2010.  This is money that belonged to U.S. taxpayers that was transferred to the U.S. government which in turn was transferred to wealthy international bankers and other foreign governments.  It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.

#3 If the U.S. government could issue debt-free money, there would not even have to be a debate about raising “the debt ceiling”, because such a debate would not even be necessary.

#4 If the U.S. government could issue debt-free money, it is conceivable that we would not even need the IRS.  You doubt this?  Well, the truth is that the United States did just fine for well over a hundred years without a national income tax.  But about the same time the Federal Reserve was created a national income tax was instituted as well.  The whole idea was that the wealth of the American people would be transferred to the U.S. government by force and then transferred into the hands of the ultra-wealthy in the form of interest payments.

#5 If the Federal Reserve did not exist, we would not be on the verge of national insolvency.  The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.  Remember when I used the term “debt spiral” earlier?  Well, this is what a debt spiral looks like….

#6 If the Federal Reserve did not exist, the big Wall Street banks would not have such an overwhelming advantage.  Most Americans simply have no idea that over the last several years the Federal Reserve has been giving gigantic piles of nearly interest-free money to the big Wall Street banks which they turned right around and started lending to the federal government at a much higher rate of return.  I don’t know about you, but if I was allowed to do that I could make a whole bunch of money very quickly.  In fact, it has come out that the Federal Reserve made over $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks, large financial institutions and other “friends” during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.

#7 If the Federal Reserve did not exist, it is theoretically conceivable that we would have an economy with little to no inflation.  Of course that would greatly depend on the discipline of our government officials (which is not very great at this point), but the sad truth is that our current system is always going to produce inflation.  In fact, the Federal Reserve system was originally designed to be inflationary.  Just check out the inflation chart posted below.  The U.S. never had ongoing problems with inflation before the Fed was created, but now it is just wildly out of control….

#8 If the Federal Reserve had never been created, the U.S. dollar would not be a dying currency.  Since the Federal Reserve was created, the U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its purchasing power.  By constantly inflating the currency, it transfers financial power away from those already holding the wealth (the American people) to those that are able to create more currency and more government debt.  Back in 1913, the total U.S. national debt was just under 3 billion dollars.  Today, the U.S. government is spending approximately 6.85 million dollars per minute, and the U.S. national debt is increasing by over 4 billion dollars per day.

#9 If the Federal Reserve did not exist, we would not have an unelected, unaccountable “fourth branch of government” running around that has gotten completely and totally out of control.  Even some members of Congress are now openly complaining about how much power the Fed has.  For example, Ron Paul told MSNBC last year that he believes that the Federal Reserve is now more powerful than Congress…..

“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress.”

#10 If the Federal Reserve had never been created, the American people would be much more free.  We would not be enslaved to this horrific national debt.  Our politicians would not have to run around the globe begging people to lend us money.  Representatives that we directly elect would be the ones setting national monetary policy.  Our politicians would be much less under the influence of the international banking elite.  We would not be at the mercy of the financial bubbles that the Fed has constantly been creating.

There is a reason why so many of the most prominent politicians from the early years of the United States were so passionately against a central bank.  The following is a February 1834 quote by President Andrew Jackson about the evils of central banking….

I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.

But we didn’t listen to men like Andrew Jackson.

We allowed the Federal Reserve to be created in 1913 and we have allowed it to develop into an absolute monstrosity over the past century.

Now we are drowning in debt and we are on the verge of national bankruptcy.

Will the American people wake up before it is too late?

The Economic Collapse

Or both.  Listen to what the former Atlanta Federal Reserve President has to say….it’s not what you expect.

Maybe.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s internal watchdog is reviewing an allegation that Robert Khuzami, the agency’s top enforcement official, gave preferential treatment to Citigroup Inc. executives in the agency’s $75 million settlement with the firm in July.

Inspector General H. David Kotz opened the probe after a request from U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, who forwarded an unsigned letter making the allegation. Khuzami told his staff to soften claims against two executives after conferring with a lawyer representing the bank, according to the letter. Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman, declined to comment.

Oh really? 

After “conferring”?  Is this in the public record somewhere?  What this “conference” was about, perhaps a set of minutes of said meeting?

According to the letter, the SEC’s staff was prepared to file fraud claims against both individuals. Khuzami ordered his staff to drop the claims after holding a “secret conversation, without telling the staff, with a prominent defense lawyer who is a good friend” of his and “who was counsel for the company, not the individuals affected,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Bloomberg News.

Oh I see.  That sounds somewhat like the sort of “preference” that the OTS gave IndyMac bank, when they decided to backdate some deposits, and one of the OTS folks working with them actively allowed it.

Why was that so important?  Because the same person had done so during the S&L crisis, and kept his job after that incident!

Oh, and incidentally, Grassley promised an “investigation” of that too. 

What came of it?  Nothing.

Zerohedge has managed to dig up some financial disclosures from this “gentlemen” that make quite a damning case – and implicate possible malfeasance (or worse) in other cases related to banks – especially Deutsche Bank.

Of course given the proclivity of our government and it’s so-called “regulators” to permit theft from the public in plain sight of the police, much like my experience in NY City more than a decade ago when drug peddlers were attempting to sell me narcotics within five feet of a uniformed city police officer, I have absolutely zero confidence that anything approaching an indictment and prosecution will be forthcoming.

The message?

Steal anything that’s not nailed down – the SEC doesn’t give a damn and neither does Congress, despite all the strum and furor they claim when the press – including bloggers like myself and Zerohedge, dig up the facts.