Everything you have been told about the income tax is wrong. I share the information contained in the Grace Commission Report.
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“IRS Publication 6200”
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Most people do not know how money really works or where it comes from. In this video, I shed some light on that.
If you have ever wondered what exactly inflation is, and how it’s created, then this informative video, by Edward Griffin, done back in 1969 will explain it to you. Learn how institutions which can legally print money are artificially creating inflation every second. Those central banks are the root cause for decreasing the value our money and also the value of our work.
It is often said ” money doesn’t go as far as it used to” . Most people chalk it up to rising prices or greedy companies and take it no further. However that is not truly the case. If people realized they were in actuality paying a hidden tax, they may ask some serious questions.
The American people pay scores of taxes on everything from gasoline to gurdles and everything in between. One of the least known and most insidious is known as inflation.
To understand inflation,one must have a basic understanding of how our banking and monetary system works. In short, our money does not in fact come from the treasury, but is loaned to the government by a private corporation known as the Federal Reserve. As with any loan, there is interest attached to it, which is why we have the income tax. This private corporation has a monopoly over the money supply and because of that the only place the “money” can come from to pay for the debt is from the Fed, they have to constantly increase the money supply to pay for it. Since our money is no longer backed by anything (i.e gold, silver), putting more money into the circulation only decreases the value of the currency.
A simple illustration of this is you buy a pound of meat for $1 and then more currency is put into circulation, that additional currency has decreased its buying power, thus it takes more of it to buy the same amount of goods and to reflect that diminished value the “price” of the meat increases to $1.50.
What this means for you is you must work more to maintain even your current standard of living. The cost of living adjustments that people receive are mere pittance, designed to appease and pacify a population that, for the most part, have no idea what is befalling them.
This is why it is imperative that sound money be restored. It would halt the erosion of our currency’s buying power and severely stifle inflation. Executive Order 11110, which allows the treasury to issue silver backed United States notes rather than fiat Federal Reserve notes should be reactivated. Bills such as HR 1207 which audits the Federal Reserve, HR 2750, which abolishes the Fed, need to be supported and passed in their original form.
The alternative is an ever decreasing currency, having to work even more and eventually a collapse of the currency and economy. The choice is yours.
By Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
November 4, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
[The following is the full text of a somewhat shortened address presented to the Committee for Monetary Research and Education on 15 October 2009…]
The more things change, the more they remain the same. In 1814, in an address to the House of Representatives, Daniel Webster observed that
public credit, the last reliance of government, * * * does not exist. This is a state of things calling for the soberest counsels, and yet it seems to meet only the wildest speculations. Nothing is talked of but banks, and a circulating paper medium, and exchequer notes, and the thousand other contrivances which ingenuity, vexed and goaded by the direst necessity, can devise, with the vain hope of giving value to mere paper. All these things are not revenue, nor do they produce it. * * * [N]or is there a device more shallow or more mischievous, than to pour forth new floods of paper without credit as a remedy for the evils which paper without credit has already created.[1]
Even earlier, Thomas Jefferson had predicted the reason for such a sorry state of affairs:
From the conclusion of the [W]ar [of Independence] we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights.[2]
Jefferson was all too prescient. Ever since his day, the political class has looked elsewhere than to the American people for support—and always found it from the financial class.
The financial class has arrayed itself on the side of the political class, and the political class has arrayed itself on the side of the financial class—not just in an incestuous coupling, but in the veritable fusion of a political-cum-financial hermaphrodite: the full integration and consolidation of bank and state.
This unholy alliance has always centered around a mechanism by means of which the financial class can create ersatz “money” out of nothing tangible—through a monopolistic national bank (the First and Second Banks of the United States), then a national banking conglomerate (the National Banks of the Civil War), and finally a fully corporative-state banking apparatus (the modern Federal Reserve System), all operating on the basis of “reserves” so increasingly fractional that they have now become essentially fictional. Through the General Government, the political class has guaranteed the continuance of this scheme, in one form or another, for more than two hundred years.
By so doing, the political class has always been able to count on the support of the financial class—but only at the cost of enabling the financial class to exercise exorbitant influence over the General Government, and through the General Government over the American people themselves.
The true name of this system is financial fascism.
As with all fascistic arrangements, it involves an axis of coöperation between big private special-interest groups and rogue public officials—in this case, the Axis of Financial Fraud that runs from Lower Manhattan in New York City to Washington, in the Disgrace of Columbia.
Whenever and wherever a scheme of this type has been put into operation, it has rested upon a threefold fraud:
First, the falsehood that the purpose of “money” is to serve some disembodied entity—“the economy”; or some institution—“the government”; or some self-selected élite—“the financial community”, rather than the people as a whole.
Second, the falsehood that “money” should be created and managed by self-styled “experts” who are politically independent of the people.
Third, and most important, the falsehood that “money” should be based upon debt, whether public or private, not upon any tangible commodity, such as silver or gold, the supply and the value of which the free market determines.
Currency generated out of debt is not an attempt to create a medium of exchange “out of nothing”, such as the irredeemable, but debt-free, legal-tender Lincoln Greenbacks of the Civil War. Rather, it is an attempt to create a medium of exchange out of something worse than nothing. For, all other things being equal, debt is always less desirable than the absence of debt. At base, currency generated out of debt is a contradiction in terms, because it purports to transform liabilities into assets. Indeed, it is more of a fantasy even than the fabled Philosopher’s Stone. For that was supposedly able to transform one asset—lead—into a more valuable asset—gold, not to turn something that was not an asset at all into something else that was.
Currency generated out of debt rests upon the delusion that increases in the stock of society’s medium of exchange will cause corresponding increases in society’s real wealth—that is, that debt can be the source of and foundation for wealth because real economic development can always be “stimulated” with new doses of debt. Of course, this naive notion that “having more money equals having more wealth” ignores the questions of whether increases in the supply of money decrease the purchasing power of all money, and of whether such increases actually undermine or even sabotage the operation of the free market, thereby decreasing real wealth. It also ignores the reality that every emission of new currency results in a redistribution of real wealth to the currency’s issuer from the society that initially accepts the new currency at its full face value and then continues to use it as it depreciates in purchasing power—that is, that the issuers of currency generated from debt are in fact embezzling wealth from everyone else.
The generation of currency out of debt is a confidence game, because it depends for its continuation upon the average citizen’s misplaced confidence in the efficacy and especially the stability of the system emitting that currency. As with every confidence game, however, reality eventually supplants illusion. As time goes by, society suffers an ever-increasing dependence upon ever-expanding increments of debt in order to generate ever-contracting increments of purported “economic growth”. The economy supersaturates with debt. Then, like the drug addict who chokes to death on his own vomit as a result of an overdose, the economy finds itself strangled by the ever-tightening cords of unpayable debt—and slips into the fatal coma of stagnation, then depression, and perhaps hyperinflation, too.
The sole constitutional power of Congress with respect to money is “[t]o coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.[3] Observe that this clause links as cognate powers “regulat[ing] the Value [of Money]” and “fix[ing] the Standard of Weights and Measures”, because the Constitution intends for “Money” itself to be a scientific “Standard”—rational, objective, verifiable, or falsifiable—akin to every other known or knowable “Standard of Weights and Measures”.
Although emitted under a purported delegation of power from Congress, the contemporary Federal Reserve Note, in contrast, is a standard of nothing tangible or even theoretical—as John Exter used to say, it is truly “an IOU nothing currency”. The Federal Reserve System provides this country with neither a rational, nor an objective, nor a verifiable or falsifiable standard—not even a standard predictable in its changeability—let alone anything that could be called a constitutional legal standard. Operating without a scientific monetary standard, the Federal Reserve System interferes with the free market’s formation of prices—indeed, the System’s manipulations under the rubric of “monetary policy” intentionally falsify prices, causing widespread and ineradicable economic confusion and the monumental waste of human efforts and natural resources.
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Of course, America’s financial class is not composed entirely of fools devoid of foresight. Anticipating all of these problems, the financial class arranged for the political class to provide three forms of protection for different levels of systemic risk in the Federal Reserve System:
at the lowest level, the concept of “deposit insurance”, designed to gull the victims of the fractional-reserve scam into believing that the banking system can and will secure its clients against a relatively few especially imprudent operators;
at the intermediate level, the concept of “the lender of last resort”, the spigot of “liquidity” within the banking system itself which enables the system to keep afloat some (albeit not all) large financial institutions when their mismanagement threatens to sink them in bankruptcy; and
at the highest level, the concept of “institutions too big to fail”, the ultimate safety-valve to be turned on whenever the financial class’s irresponsible speculations endanger one or more segments of the economy so sizeable that only the political class can marshal an adequate “bail out” through the General Government.
The term “institutions too big to fail” is a rather sorry misnomer—because under contemporary financial fascism the big financial institutions—and, it seems, the big industrial concerns as well—are proving too rotten with corruption not to fail. They cannot help but fail, they will fail, and for rogue public officials to provide them with “bail outs” merely transfers the real burden of failure from the pocketbooks of the financial class onto the backs of the American people. Having put across the swindle of “institutions too big to fail”, though, the financial class now holds the people of the United States hostage to its manipulations. Without “bail out” after “bail out”, the financial class warns, the economy will collapse, social chaos will break out, and the invocation of “martial law” will be necessary to restore order. Thus, common Americans have been made the unwilling, but perpetual guarantors of a gigantic Ponzi scheme in which well-organized racketeers in the financial class rake in the illicit profits—their cronies in the political class secure the votes, the pensions, and the golden parachutes—and average citizens must swallow the ever-increasing losses in jobs, in productivity, in income, in standards of living, and in every other measure of economic well-being.
Americans must also suffer the loss of their fundamental freedoms, because, politically, financial fascism is neither a benign nor a static system. Its vicious principles are such that their application will drive this country to a centralized financial police state—and then to a full-blown police state in every horrific sense of that term. Already in 1791 this potential for political disaster was recognized in the debate in the House of Representatives on the First Bank of the United States, during which Representative Giles warned the country that
“all the arguments adduced in favor of [a national bank], from whatever source they arise, if pursued, will be found to rush into the great one of expediency, to bear down all Constitutional provisions, and to end themselves in the unlimited ocean of despotism.”[4]
The question then becomes: Must the Axis of Financial Fraud be suffered to “crucify America on a cross of debt”?
The answer is NO! There is a way out. The purveyors of the culture of debt at both ends of the Axis of Financial Fraud have forgotten that their pyramids of phony paper promises are still subject to constitutional law. To smash the Axis once and for all, Americans must:
(i) restore commodity money of silver and gold as the only official media of exchange for the General Government and the States;
(ii) gradually displace and replace currency generated from debt with commodity money through competition in the free market;
(iii) enforce the absolute separation of bank and state, so that common people are no longer compelled to underwrite the financial class’s Ponzi schemes; and
(iv) declare uncollectible all unconstitutionally incurred debt.
The last entry in this list bears repetition and explanation: To declare uncollectible all unconstitutionally incurred debt is entirely different from “repudiating debt”. Repudiation of debt presumes that the debt was originally lawful, but that now, for some reason, the law must be set aside, or disregarded, or changed ex post facto. In contrast, declaring uncollectible all unconstitutionally incurred debt presumes that the debt was never valid at all. But how can this be accomplished? In at least two ways:
First, under the doctrine of the Supreme Court’s decision in Craig v. Missouri,[5] all contracts, agreements, or other arrangements in which any part of the consideration consists or consisted of the emission of unconstitutional “bills of credit” through or under the auspices of any Federal Reserve Bank, “member bank”, or “depositary institution” within the Federal Reserve System are declared to be void ab initio and unenforceable in any court of the United States or of any State.
Second, all public debt obligations of the United States, howsoever made and in whatever form, that have been incurred for the purpose of raising revenue to be expended from the general fund of the Treasury in payment of costs arising under a particular budget of the United States are declared to be void ab initio and unenforceable in any court of the United States or of any State in the same percentage that the unconstitutional programs, activities, or expenditures in that budget bear to the total programs, activities, or expenditures therein. Every lender must be presumed to know the constitutional limits on the expenditures of money the General Government borrows, to the same extent that every official of that government knows those limits. So, if a lender extends a loan to public officials, knowing that his loan will be used for unconstitutional purposes, or with willful blindness to or reckless disregard of the unconstitutionality of those purposes, he is thereby a participant in a fraud against the American people. And for the repayment of such a loan, the American people cannot be held liable.
Plainly enough, though, the present Congress, President, and Supreme Court will never reform the contemporary monetary and banking systems, and reduce average Americans’ burden of debt, along these lines. That leaves it to the victims of the swindle: WE THE PEOPLE themselves. Which is quite appropriate.
After all, the real “federal government” is not the General Government alone—it is not the General Government and the States alone—rather, it is the General Government, and the States, and most importantly WE THE PEOPLE. Most importantly, because the real “federal government” is not a pyramid in which power flows up from the bottom to concentrate at the top, with an all-seeing eye at its apex. For the strength of any pyramid is found not at its apex, but in its base. WE THE PEOPLE are the essential support of the entire structure, the source of its strength, the font of political power, the ultimate sovereigns.
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All too many Americans for all too long have been conditioned to think of “the federal government” in terms of “higher” and “lower” levels as on some crude bureaucratic organizational chart: with Washington, D.C. at the top, the States and THE PEOPLE at the bottom. The correct description, however, takes into account degrees of authority: The truly “highest” level is the one closest to the well-spring of sovereignty, the “lower” levels the ones increasingly removed from that source. WE THE PEOPLE occupy the “highest” level in the real “federal government”, because WE THE PEOPLE not only originally “ordain[ed] and establish[ed] th[e] Constitution”, but also sustain—and must enforce—its authority every day. As the Supreme Court has held, “[t]he power to enact carries with it final authority to declare the meaning of the legislation”.[6] Moreover, as Sir William Blackstone taught the Founding Fathers, “whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to”.[7]
To be sure, the partisans of the Federal Reserve System will contend that the System has been declared constitutional on numerous occasions, or at least is generally treated as constitutional, and that therefore its validity cannot now be contested. In fact, however, the Supreme Court has never heard a challenge to the central-banking scheme, or its irredeemable paper currency, on the numerous grounds of their greatest constitutional vulnerability. In any event, the very same legal gurus who tout the alleged legitimacy of the Federal Reserve System—as well as the propriety of the ever-expanding expenditures of the General Government that the Federal Reserve System finances through the banks’ “monetization” of public debt—also claim that America has a so-called “living constitution”, the meaning of which can change from time to time to meet differing circumstances. If that is true, then no matter how many times in the past the Federal Reserve System and the General Government’s expenditures have supposedly been declared constitutional, WE THE PEOPLE can decide tomorrow that circumstances demand reinterpretation of this “living constitution” in order to strike down the Federal Reserve System and those expenditures, and thereby to save this country from economic disaster. Or, WE THE PEOPLE can decide on the basis of the Constitution’s “original intent” that the Federal Reserve System and expenditures of those kinds were never even arguably lawful in the first place. In either case, the Federal Reserve System and all such expenditures—and the huge mountain of ostensible public and private debt associated with them—can be eliminated.
Why WE THE PEOPLE will take this course is obvious. As the old saw has it, “Nothing focuses a man’s mind more than his impending hanging!” THE PEOPLE have been asleep for a long time. Now, however, as the economic screws tighten on every side, they have finally awakened to the danger confronting them. Everyone with an IQ even a single point higher than his age recognizes the utter and irremediable corruption of the Federal Reserve System and the entire financial and political régime centered around and dependent upon it: Consider the gargantuan “bail outs” that amount to the most mammoth, brazen, and insolent financial looting any society has ever suffered in the history of the world. Consider the régime’s refusal to accept responsibility or to provide for accountability or even minimal transparency. Consider the régime’s grab for ever-more-abusive powers, not only over the financial sector of the economy, but also over what remains of the industrial sector. In short, ordinary Americans are witnessing—and know they are witnessing—a war being waged against them by the racketeers of the financial class and rogue public officials in the outlaw city-states of New York and Washington, D.C. So far, it is a war in which only the aggressors are doing any fighting. But that disparity will not persist much longer.
As Jefferson predicted, now that THE PEOPLE are no longer making money, but instead are losing it hand over fist—and with it their jobs, their prosperity, their economic security, and their hopes for decent retirement—they have but one other alternative: They must “think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights”. When they do, THE PEOPLE will recognize that the only way to restore their national independence, societal prosperity, and individual liberty is to break the links once and for all between bank and state and between currency and debt, using the industrial-strength tools the Constitution supplies.
How will they do it? WE THE PEOPLE must first declare and then secure their economic and legal independence from the Federal Reserve System’s régime of fiat currency and central banking within their own States and Localities. They can succeed in this endeavor because:
(i) THE PEOPLE do not need the advice, or the help, or the interference, or the direction, or least of all the dictation of anyone in Washington, D.C. or New York City to live as free and prosperous Americans in their own States and Localities.
(ii) THE PEOPLE vastly outnumber the totality of all public officials, politicians, financiers, bankers, and these parasites’ clients, partisans, hangers-on, and touts.
(iii) THE PEOPLE physically control most of the property in this country—and actual “possession is nine-tenths of the law”. If THE PEOPLE en masse and through properly organized and authorized resistance simply refused to relinquish their physical possession in defiance of the financial class’s merely paper claims, precisely what could the financial class do about it?
(iv) THE PEOPLE can still exercise an effective franchise in many States. And, most consequentially in the final analysis,
(v) THE PEOPLE constitute the Militia, which the Constitution declares to be “necessary to the security of a free State”, and to which institution alone the Constitution explicitly assigns the responsibility and the authority “to execute the Laws of the Union”.[8] Combining THE PEOPLE’S actual possession of most of the property throughout America with their authority through the Militia “to execute the Laws” would mean that the financial class could not possibly maintain its stranglehold over the economy for a single minute after THE PEOPLE decided to declare uncollectible all unconstitutionally incurred debt.
The initial step on the long march to reform is to introduce, State by State, an alternative currency of silver and gold that can compete with, and shortly replace, the Federal Reserve Note in each State’s public finances and private economy. This process must take place through the States, because:
(i) the States are large enough politically and economically to make it work;
(ii) the States have the undoubted legal authority to do it;
(iii) with respect to the choice of a currency for the performance of their own governmental functions, the States enjoy absolute legal immunity from interference by rogue public officials in the General Government;[9] and
(iv) the Militia, through which the alternative currency will quickly move into each State’s private economy, are “the Militia of the several States”.[10]
This plan is not some pie-in-the-sky vision. For several States—New Hampshire, Montana, Indiana, and Georgia, for instance—have already set out in the right direction (albeit only with halting steps so far). True enough, they and other States still have a long road to travel—but, as the Chinese say, even a journey of a thousand li begins with but a single step.
An alternative currency—introduced through the States’ governments and spread throughout the economy by THE PEOPLE themselves in their Militia—is not simply an idea whose time has come. More than that, true constitutional monetary reform will be the new “shot heard ‘round the world”, the announcement of a new American declaration of independence from the corrupt alliance of politicians and financiers that has driven this country to the brink of irretrievable disaster.
Footnotes:
1, 9 December 1814
2, Quoted in Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), at 99
3, Article I, Section 8, Clause 5
4, The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (J. Gales compilation, 1834), Volume 2, at 1942-1943.
5, 29 U.S. (4 Peters) 410 (1830).
6, Propper v. Clark, 337 U.S. 472, 484 (1949)
7, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 1, at 212.
8, U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 15 and amend. II.
9, Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wallace) 71 (1869).
10, U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cls. 15 and 16, and art. II, § 2, cl. 1.
© 2009 Edwin Vieira, Jr. – All Rights Reserved
Guest Interview
The editors of the Daily Bell are pleased to publish an exclusive follow-up interview with legendary hard-money historian G. Edward Griffin who has much to say about the economic crisis, the mood of the monetary elite and the effect of the Internet on freedom.
Introduction: Mr. Griffin is a distinguished film producer, author and political lecturer. He is the founder of Freedom Force International, a libertarian-oriented activist network focused on advancing individual freedom. First released in 1994, Mr. Griffin’s best-selling financial book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, is a no-holds-barred look into the inner workings of the Federal Reserve banking system, or cartel if you will. Mr. Griffin peels back the layers of obstruction to rational analysis and leads the reader on a wonderfully researched, although disturbing, journey from the very beginning, when the Fed was still in the planning stages, up to the present, where it is now struggling to survive. For many years, the editors of the Daily Bell have been avid readers of Mr. Griffin’s tremendous literary contributions on free markets and personal liberty. His insights are especially noteworthy given the validity of his vision and the exciting and troublesome nature of the times in which we live.
Daily Bell: Has the stimulus helped? Why or why not?
Griffin: Has the stimulus helped? I guess the question is has the stimulus helped whom? Or What? The general idea is that the stimulus is supposed to stimulate the American economy and help the American people and in that I don’t believe that there is any reason to think that it has helped at all. I don’t think it was really designed to do that at all. It was designed to be sold that way but I don’t think that anyone in Washington thought that it would actually accomplish the end objective. Now I suppose that some people did think so, I would have to backtrack on that, there are some collectivists that believe the government can solve all problems, that the government can take everything from the citizens and redistribute it back to them in a more efficient manner. There are people like that out there and they thought the stimulus package would help. Surely everybody understands that the money that is being spent is coming out of the pockets of the very people it is supposed to help.
Daily Bell: From the central banking mechanism?
Griffin: Yes, the government doesn’t have this money. The government is spending this money but they don’t have this money, and the paradox there is that they are not collecting it from taxes but they are just creating it out of nothing. They are using the Federal Reserve mechanism to create this money out of nothing, push it into the economy and then that results in inflation. The cost of it is born by everybody but it is usually born mostly by the people at the bottom of the economic scale who will feel the effects of inflation the most.
Daily Bell: Modern governments are supposed to take care of the poor, but often it doesn’t work that way.
Griffin: The very wealthy don’t suffer too much from the effects of inflation and the upper middle class get by OK, but the bottom part of the middle class and those who are on limited incomes have a real tough time with inflation. So I am saying the cost of all these stimulus packages are falling on the very people who are supposedly to be helped and not only that, the benefit is not going to those people at all but to the politically favored class, those who are in government jobs or government contracts with the government. It is going to the banks, going to the insurance companies, the big corporations – all who have strong lobbying influence with Washington. The money is coming from the middle and lower class and going to the politically favored class. So is it helping? It is helping the politically favored class a lot, it is helping the politicians a lot because they can posture and grandstand and say we are doing something, we are taking charge here. So it is helping them. But as for helping the economy or the people at large, it is a miserable failure.
Daily Bell: Are we headed toward price inflation?
Griffin: I think we are going to see some continued deflation in the economy, particularly in the bubble sectors. These markets had a long way to contract and I don’t think they are finished. However, it is inevitable that we are going to see price inflation and lots of it. Probably hyper-inflation because the only thing these people in Washington know is how to print more money which almost inevitably leads to higher prices.
Daily Bell: Isn’t price inflation already in the system?
Griffin: Of course it is, particularly in cost of living sectors – food, education and healthcare. Things people have to deal with every day. We are already are seeing price inflation there.
Daily Bell: Price inflation, which inevitably results from the printing of money. …
Griffin: What is interesting when you have a complete understanding about this, is to realize that while they are creating tremendous amounts of money out of nothing and pouring it into the economy through the politically favored class, as I mentioned earlier, at the same time a tremendous amount of money is dropping out of the system at the bottom because of the collapse of real estate values, the loss of savings, the writing off of bad loans, mortgages or writing off a $20k or $30k credit card bill or whatever the debt is. And eventually they go into bankruptcy court and they are cleared of that debt, that money literally goes out of existence.
Daily Bell: So inflation – which is actually the quantity of money – is evening out for the moment?
Griffin: With the fiat money system, money comes in and out of existence and people sometimes forget that fact. So in these economic downturn times, a lot of money is disappearing and at the same time is appearing at the top. The thing to keep your eye on is where the money is going out of the system. It’s coming out of the middle class. These are the people that have lost their savings, have lost the equity in their homes. They have lost all the money that they thought they had in the way of assets, a lot of it anyway. So we see there is money going out and at the same time there is money coming in. It is a transfer of wealth. The wealthy, because of the political connections, are making more and more money and the middle class is literally being squeezed. These guys at the top hope to squeeze these middle guys out of existence.
Daily Bell: Is the power elite running scared?
Griffin: I wouldn’t say they are running scared. I think they are cautious. I think things are unfolding pretty much the way they had anticipated all along. I think these people are smart enough to realize that as we come closer and closer to their New World Order, as they like to call it, the system is becoming more and more a command economy rather than a free market.
Daily Bell: But aren’t people waking up?
Griffin: There is a lot of upheaval going on. I think there is anticipation that there is a lot of waking up going on. But I think they have been preparing for that. I think they are cautious, but I think they fully expect to contain that or possibly turn it to their advantage. For example, if they could encourage rebellion, revolts and riots, that would provide the excuse for martial law. I think the motivation behind their equipping police forces and national guard units with crowd control weapons and the reason they have been building these massive FEMA concentration camps all around the country, is their anticipation of the need for a final crackdown.
Daily Bell: Has the Internet contributed to elite setbacks?
Griffin: I think the Internet has been the most powerful force to set back the plans of the power elite. They hate the Internet, they hate the free exchange of information. You can see the impact all around the world. The totalitarian systems are moving heaven and earth in order to regulate and restrict the free use of the Internet. They want to control it. They can control it. And they are working very hard as we speak to maneuver the legislation so that they will control it.
Daily Bell: How are they going about it?
Griffin: They are trying to sell it to the average person as a good move for the public. They are trying to convince people that if the government doesn’t control the Internet then we will have pornography, people will have their privacy stolen, children will be abused. A lot of people don’t really understand the real issues. They say “oh yeah, naturally we need more and more regulation on the Internet.”
Daily Bell: This is being done independently by governments?
Griffin: Actually, there is a movement afoot for the United Nations to control the Internet. The idea is that international control would be fairer than what we’ve got now, which is a good deal of American control. Of course, most countries don’t make any pretense of respecting individual rights or free-speech. They are totalitarian in nature. The whole world is filled with dictatorships of one kind or another, and these people have no respect for human rights or freedom of speech. You can be sure that if the United Nations winds up in control that the free exchange of information that the whole thing will come to a shuttering stop!
Daily Bell: Not a pleasant thought. But meanwhile, the power elite has other things to occupy itself with. Is it fair to say that the fiat money system is broken beyond repair?
Griffin: No, the fiat money system is all that the world has right now. Of course, it is not working well at all and thus there has been talk of a new monetary system – one that might possibly be backed a little bit by gold or silver. But that’s what they always say to sell it in the early stages. If you look at the people who are making these statements, the Western world leaders, they are enemies of gold and silver. They love fiat money. They want to control it because it’s a means of strengthening their hand over the people. Fiat money is not dead by any means.
Daily Bell: Is there more unrest in the West than the mainstream media suggests?
Griffin: Good question, I don’t know that I am qualified to answer that. My contacts indicate that there is a lot of unrest when you get out beyond informed groups to the people who make up the bulk of the population. But it’s unrest that is not knowledgeable; it’s not based on information.
Daily Bell: What is the trigger, then?
Griffin: It’s based on emotion and envy and anger and I am afraid that that kind of unrest can be used to bring about the very opposite of what we need in this world. If you can manipulate the mobs into being angry, say for example, at capitalism, then you can end up with something even worse.
Daily Bell: Yes, that’s why change has to be non-violent.
Griffin: And it has to be knowledgeable. It’s not knowledgeable to say the banks are failing and therefore capitalism has failed, so let’s try socialism. What’s left out of that argument is that the banks are not functioning within a free-market system. The banks in the world today are a prime example of collectivism. They are in bed with the government. They couldn’t exist without government favoritism and government monopoly. The banks and the government are practically one in the same. That’s not capitalism, that’s not free enterprise competition. But the masses have been told that that is capitalism. So when the collectivist system goes belly up, as it periodically does, then those who are misled can get angry at capitalism, which is the wrong target. I worry about that kind of rising resentment and anger in the world because it is not based on facts.
Daily Bell: Yet understanding of free-markets has taken off in the last decade, thanks to the Internet in large part.
Griffin: Funny, I am thinking that there are two parts in my brain fighting against each other at the moment. On the one hand I want to say something very positive and encouraging because there certainly are strong signs of a growing movement for the free market. But when you look at who is still in charge of the world’s governments and institutions, it’s still a very small component of the larger scene.
Daily Bell: But it is growing? …
Griffin: Yes, it is definitely growing and I believe it has a solid base to it. In fact, I get a great deal of encouragement from that. We just have to keep the fire under it and I think as more and more people become upset with the collapse going on around them, they will honestly start looking for a new way. And thanks to the Internet, many are starting to realize that we haven’t had free-enterprise capitalism, we haven’t had free markets for many years. I’m encouraged by that, but we still have a long way to go.
Daily Bell: We compared the Internet to the Gutenberg press and said the results would be similar. Do you think so?
Griffin: I think that is a good analogy. The Gutenberg press made information available to the masses and the Internet has done the same. Good analogy, yes.
Daily Bell: We’ve spoken about some general threats to the freedom of the Internet. Will the current American administration be able to crack down on the Internet and censor its messages about free-markets and freedom in general?
Griffin: The current administration can do anything it wants to do. That is the answer to the question. They have the political power, the military power and the economic power. They own the economy and they control the military. And the media goes along with everything they want to do. I think they want a crack down, and will try, but they are going to need some kind of an excuse. They are going to need some kind of a major event to justify it.
Daily Bell: Will Ron Paul and his free-market message have an increasing impact on American politics?
Griffin: I believe he will, but I don’t know if it will be because of his personal involvement or this thing that we might call the Ron Paul phenomenon. Ron Paul generated this phenomenon because of his astoundingly excellent position on so many policies and because he ran as a candidate of a major political party which gave him visibility, which he would never have had, particularly with young people. Once that is started, it can’t be stopped really. Once the bell is rung it can’t be un-rung. So I think, even if Ron Paul is not personally involved in any more political movements, that the Ron Paul phenomenon is going to continue to grow.
Daily Bell: We think the conservative movement is desperate to co-opt the libertarian message and has launched a number of artificial candidates to do so including notably Sarah Palin. Agree?
Griffin: I agree that that is a strategy they have considered and would execute if they could. When it comes to particular candidates, I don’t know enough about them. Sarah Palin is very hard to pin down. I don’t know what her political philosophy is. And that worries me, because if someone is offering themselves for leadership, especially in these troubled times, they have to stand up and say what it is they believe in. I am talking about real principles and not just in terms of whether we should or shouldn’t drill oil. That’s an issue, and an interesting issue, but what are the principles, what is the ideology, what is the yardstick that will be used, the guidelines that will be used to make all the decisions that come down the line.
Daily Bell: She comes off as free-market oriented in some ways but not in others. Most notably her ongoing support for the military industrial complex is problematic.
Griffin: I don’t know what her philosophy is. But I have a feeling that what you said is absolutely correct, that they are going to package her as a quote “conservative” whatever that means. Certainly, they are going to package her as a constructive alternative to Obama. Yet when it comes to the real issues like the loss of American sovereignty, the abolition of the Federal Reserve System, important issues like that, we don’t know where she stands.
Daily Bell: We think the American intel establishment is launching more and more conspiratorial and pro-war Internet sites – ones that nonetheless feature free-market rhetoric – in order to confuse the public. Agree?
Griffin: I am not aware of them but it sounds like something they should do. If I was running their strategy, that is exactly what I would do. I don’t know what sites you would be referring to but I would expect that to be the case.
Daily Bell: Will the American establishment media ever get to the bottom of 9/11?
Griffin: The American establishment media will never get to the bottom of 9/11 because they are controlled by the same financial and political forces that seem in some sense responsible for 9/11. I am talking about that cluster of personalities on the Council of Foreign Relations and the people that circle around them. They are the ones that are really calling the shots, not only in the government, but also in the media, educational systems, foundations, etc. The media is as much a part of that group as the government. So I don’t expect to see the media break step with the official position of the government.
Daily Bell: Why did John Farmer, the 9/11 Commission lead litigator, recently come out with a book that basically accused the entire American military, political and industrial structure of lying about what happened on that terrible day?
Griffin: I don’t know, I have not read the book but I am guessing that it might be a kind of decoy to lead people away from the real issue. I suspect that it is part of a decoy. Make a half confession instead of a fuller one.
Daily Bell: Did you ever believe this sort of free-market movement would exist – as it evidently does – within your lifetime?
Griffin: I never questioned whether there would be a free market movement – I was determined to be part of it. That is much of the focus of my work. Yes I did expect to see it.
Daily Bell: Can you list some of your own notable accomplishments – outside of writing one of the best books ever on the Federal Reserve – in aiding this trend?
Griffin: As far as my own work is concerned, others would be better to evaluate how effective that was. I just keep chugging away as best I can.
Daily Bell: What do you believe will happen within the next ten years? Are you optimistic for free markets and freedom in the West and in particular in America?
Griffin: I divide my view into the short view of history and the long view. I have to be honest and say in the short run that I am very pessimistic. I believe that the forces that brought us to this situation are firmly in control of the systems of the world right now. I don’t think we are going to see a turn around in the short term.
Daily Bell: You are speaking of governmental forces?
Griffin: No, I’m not just talking about the political structures, but about the media centers and the educational systems and the labor unions, the church organizations. All the great power centers where people have their leaders and derive their opinions. Those are now all firmly in the hands of collectivists who have this single goal of establishing a new world order based on the model of collectivism.
Daily Bell: You see it as very pervasive.
Griffin: They are in charge. Anyone who thinks we are going to turn that around quickly, well, I don’t think he or she is being realistic. But that does not mean that the long view cannot be favorable. I’m much more optimistic in the longer term. There’s no way to stop this thing in my view. They can stop some of us, but they can’t stop all of us. The ideas cannot be stopped. Once people understand the truth, they are not ever going to easily forget it.
Daily Bell: You’ve done a great deal to help with that effort.
Griffin: All of us together are building a movement where an understanding of free-enterprise and free-markets is reaching the point of critical mass. People are passing the word. Books are being written. DVD’s are being distributed. Outside of the mainstream media, the Internet is having a powerful impact. The overall flow of information is pretty strong right now. It is going to take about two generations, in my opinion, but in the long run I see total victory for free markets and for personal freedom. I feel really good about that.
Daily Bell: From our point of view, the Middle Eastern wars are intended to spread Western-style collectivist democracy to the Islamic world. Has the West stumbled in its war against the Muslim religion (failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc.)?
Griffin: Have they stumbled? In my view, the conflict between the Western world and Islam is largely manufactured. There is no question that there are extreme groups within Islam, but my own research leads me to the conclusion that those are the very groups that have been fronted, aided and abetted by forces within America because they wanted to create an enemy – a dreaded foe to justify all the other schemes.
Daily Bell: The BBC, in a program last year came to a similar conclusion.
Griffin: Without an enemy, they cannot fight a war. Without a war, they cannot justify being in the Middle East. If they are not in the Middle East, they can’t control the oil and on and on you go.
Daily Bell: So … it’s at least partially manufactured?
Griffin: The war against Islam is manufactured and is actually a war that need not be. Did they fumble the war? No they created it! They created it and it is just a meme. They don’t want to win the war! They want to fight the war for ten years, twenty years, thirty years. They are not fumbling it. It is exactly what they want. It is not a question of winning or losing, it’s a question of just having it, prolonging it and using it as a means of scaring the daylights out of the American people and conditioning them to accept the loss of their freedom at home.
Daily Bell: Homeland Security is a dangerous institution in our opinion and one of the prime outcomes of 9/11. Do you see it being rolled back?
Griffin: I do not see it being rolled back under the present regime. It is not there because the American people wanted it, it is there because rulers wanted it and we still have the same rulers. I don’t see any reason why they would roll it back. They might try to tidy it up a little bit, so far as public relations are concerned. But I would be very surprised if they cut its budget, cut its staff, cut its powers or anything like that. I think it is going to continue to expand, all aspects of it.
Daily Bell: We had a polite but public argument with the savvy Ellen Brown. Can you give us a further response to Ellen Brown’s (Brownian) perspective on nationalizing banks since they, rather than the Federal Reserve, are responsible in her view for banking abuses?
Griffin: Well I am not aware of that debate, but I am certainly able to address the issue of nationalizing banks. There is no reason in my mind for the banking system, or for that matter, the automobile industry, the motion picture industry, housing or any other part of American life to be run by the government. I don’t see any reason for the hospitals or medical clinics to be run by the government either.
Daily Bell: Good point.
Griffin: The idea that whenever there is a problem the solution is for the government to go in and take control is one of the most absurd and childish concepts I have ever heard of. The idea that the government can do anything better than the free market is just based on complete absence of understanding how the free market works. The only thing I think the government can do better than anybody else is to fight a war. The only thing a government can do better is to kill and destroy, and that is what it is good at. If war is used to kill and destroy in defense of a nation, in defense but not as an aggressive act, and it is used to defend the lives, liberty and property of its citizens then war performs a proper function, in my view.
Daily Bell: So you see a need for some kind of limited government, practically speaking.
Griffin: It is tragic that we have to defend ourselves. But history shows if you cannot defend yourself then you become a slave to someone who moves in and takes over. So we need to have the killing machine, but that’s about all.
Daily Bell: But not the banking system?
Griffin: The idea that government should be running the banks is absurd. The American government has been in the banking business since 1913 when the Fed was founded. The solution is not to get more into the banking business but to get the government out of it completely. So I would say no, let’s get the government out of the banks completely and then make the banks follow the rules and regulations that any other business must follow. Give them no favoritism, no subsidy, no bailouts. Make them honor their contracts and if they fail then they fail. Let new banks come into existence.
Daily Bell: How long has gold and silver been used as money? We think silver anyway is a substance that has been used in commerce for up to 10,000 years of human history, not 2,000 as certain monetary authorities suggest.
Griffin: I would have to get my notes out on exact dates but it doesn’t really make any difference if it’s been 2,000 years or 10,000 years. The real issue is not how long but how well it has performed in that function. When you look at the historical record, there is nothing that has done as well as gold or silver as a medium of exchange because it has all of the essential qualities required of money. It is not perishable, it’s divisible, it has great value and it can be precisely measured. People have used just about everything for a medium of exchange but nothing has worked as well as gold and silver for thousands of years. The record is clear on it. That is what history has chosen over and over again. Why do we have to go looking around for something else? I don’t understand that.
Daily Bell: Do you have any other comments to make regarding where we are at this point in the 2000s rather unique history?
Griffin: The only comment I would like to make is that it is an exciting time in which to live. I am glad I am living at this time. I am glad because, for me or anybody else who is a free-market thinking person and one who cares about the future, it gives us an opportunity to make a difference in the world. I think it is a wonderful time to be alive.
Daily Bell: Thank you, Ed. You continue to make a huge difference. It is always a pleasure and an honor to speak to a free-market legend in his own lifetime!
After Thoughts with Scott Smith
What can we say about this remarkable man and the remarkable and honest answers he has provided us? Ed Griffin has fought for freedom throughout his life and his famous book on the Federal Reserve has in one way or another inspired millions to question their assumptions about money and the reality of their lives in modern society.
Ed Griffin is an achiever for freedom and he has continuously made an effort to advance its cause. We don’t have any explanation for what makes Ed Griffin go. He obviously does what he does because he has to do it. We’re just glad he’s around.
If we had any quibble with this interview (how can we, really?) it would be in the area of pessimism – even short-term pessimism. We know Ed was just explaining his viewpoint as honestly as possible, but we think, generally, that pessimism probably expends negative energy that would be better spent doing positive things.
And Ed, despite his views about the elite and their controlling ways, has quite obviously never let pessimism slow him down. He went out and wrote a tremendous book (one of a number he has written) that literally changed people’s lives and perceptions of their culture.
Additionally, Ed is very active in the peaceful fight for freedom in America. He may be pessimistic, short term, but he is the most active pessimist we know. Every day he gets up and does his part, his share, to fight collectivism and to try to gain back some ground for the American Constitution.
For us, Ed is a great inspiration – as a leader, as a fighter in a peaceful revolution of ideas and as a person who has created a life based on an inspiring and important belief structure that he obviously built up on his own. Ed, by the way, lived much of his life in a pre-Internet era. Much of his adult work was conducted pre-Internet, which makes it all the more noteworthy.
For us, of course, as we have often reported, the Internet is something of a game-changer. We look at what the Internet has allowed people to accomplish in terms of supporting freedom, and we begin to believe that the changes that have been made by the Internet are “already in the pipeline.”
Yes people’s minds have already been changed. Now, Ed Griffin believes it may take another two generations to show overwhelming results. But maybe not. There is, as Ed himself agrees, a foundational freedom movement in America, and we see one growing in Britain as well. There are setbacks in all things, and cyclical turnings as well. But people like Ed Griffin and Ron Paul inform us through their actions and intent that there are always two sides at work – and at least two stories being told simultaneously. And maybe, ironically, Ed’s own efforts may contribute to speeding things up. Freedom, real freedom, may not take two generations to achieve.
We want to end by observing that Ed Griffin-a man who certainly ought to know – sees many positives in the world today and in the Internet as well. What we’ll take away from this interview is the energy it exudes, and the excitement that Ed obviously has about the future of freedom, even as he acknowledges, realistically, the challenges ahead.
Thanks again, Mr. Griffin, for all you’ve done and have yet to do.
Interviews and after-thoughts may include the contributions of several Daily Bell editors and writers.
Dprogram
September 16, 2009
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