Notable Quotables
Notable Quotables
When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover that check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money. - publication by Boston Federal Reserve Bank titled
Putting It Simply.
Paul, Dr. Ron – The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch-- Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference—that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.
Paul, Dr. Ron – What's happening is, there's transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. So the people who get to use the money first which is created by the Federal Reserve system benefit. So the money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. That's why you have more billionaires than ever before. Today, this country is in the middle of a recession for a lot of people... As long as we live beyond our means we are destined to live beneath our means. And we have lived beyond our means because we are financing a foreign policy that is so extravagant and beyond what we can control, as well as the spending here at home. And we're depending on the creation of money out of thin air, which is nothing more than debasement of the currency. It's counterfeit... So, if you want a healthy economy, you have to study monetary theory and figure out why it is that we're suffering. And everybody doesn't suffer equally, or this wouldn't be so bad. It's always the poor people -- those who are on retired incomes -- that suffer the most. But the politicians and those who get to use the money first, like the military industrial complex, they make a lot of money and they benefit from it. - GOP debate, Dearborn, Michigan, October 9, 2007
Paul, Dr. Ron – You have to develop the transition, and eventually the next step would be to prohibit the
Fed from monetizing debt. This is the real evil. The politicians spend for war, welfare, and they don't have to do it responsibly.
Question: When you say monetize the debt, you mean they would only be able to spend the cash that they had on hand. They couldn't write any checks for which they don't have in their account any money?
Ron Paul: That's right. And that is the key to it. Because when the Fed comes along, and there's starvation for capital and
liquidity, and politicians are spending too much, the Fed can create 20, 30, 50 billion dollars in a day, just like they did trying to bail out this
housing bubble crash. So they create money out of thin air endlessly, eventually that has to stop because that drives the value of the dollar down. -
Fox Business Network, October 16, 2007
Paul, Dr. Ron – First reason is, it's not authorized in the Constitution, it's an illegal institution. The second reason, it's an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value. This station talks about free market capitalism, and you can't have free market capitalism if you have a secret bank creating money and credit out of thin air. They become the central planners, they decide what interest rates should be, what the supply of money should be...
Question: How does the gold standard solve that?
Ron Paul: It maintains a stable currency and a stable value. If the Fed concentrated more on stable money rather than stable prices... They push up new money in stocks and in commodities and in houses, and then they have to come in to rescue the situation. They create the bubbles, then they come in and rescue it, and they do nothing more than try to do price fixing. Capitalism depends, and capital comes from savings, but there's no savings in this country, so this is all artificial. It creates the misdirection and the malinvestment and all the excessive debt, and it always has to have a correction. Since the Fed has been in existence, the dollar has lost about 97% of its value. You're supposed to encourage savings, but if something loses its value, why save dollars? There's no encouragement whatsoever. [...] Gold is 6000 years old, and it still maintains its purchasing power. Oil prices really are very stable in terms of Gold. [...] Both conservatives and liberals want to enhance big government, and this is a seductive way to tax the middle class. -
CNBC debate with
Faiz Shakir, March 20, 2008
Lindbergh, Charles A. – When the President signs this bill, the invisible government of Monetary Power will be legalized. - 1913, referring to the Federal Reserve Act.
Russell, Richard - It’s taken almost two centuries for bankers to pull the wool over Americans’ eyes, but today you and I are working for intrinsically worthless paper that can be created by bureaucrats — created without sweat, without creative ability, without work, without anything but a decision by the Federal Reserve. This is the disease at the base of today’s monetary system. And like a cancer, it will spread until the system ultimately falls apart. This is the tragedy of the great lie. The great lie is that fiat paper represents a store of value, money of lasting wealth.
Grant, Jim – The Fed The Fed [Federal Reserve] is not really a bank. It is a government bureaucracy in the business of planning the economy through the manipulation of interest rates. - Bloomberg TV interview, January 28, 2011 with Margaret Brennan
Ruwart, Dr. Mary J. - In 1847, Marx and Engels proposed ten steps to convert the Western nations to Communist countries without firing a shot. (18) Most of these ideas have been successfully implemented in our own country with little, if any, resistance! … One of the ten steps called for “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly” just like our own Federal Reserve! … - Healing Our World, Ch 19.
McFadden, Congressman Lewis T. (Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee) - Every effort has been made by the Fed [Federal Reserve] to conceal its power, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government and it controls everything here (in Congress) and it controls all of our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will. - 1933
Ruwart, Dr. Mary J. - In 1914, the Federal Reserve (Fed) received an exclusive monopoly to issue U.S. currency. Like AT&T, the Fed is a private corporation, owned by its member banks. The Fed is a powerful institution; some believe it is the most powerful in the world. … Before the creation of the Fed, banks found they needed reserves of approximately 21% so that they would have enough money on hand when their customers wanted to make a withdrawal. When the Fed took over the reserves of the national banks, it lowered the reserve requirement to half that. The Fed itself used a reserve system: it kept only 35% of the reserves entrusted to it by the member banks! The balance was loaned out, mostly to the government, with the wealth of the American people as collateral. Lowering reserves resulted in the creation of more money. As a result, the money supply doubled between 1914 and 1920 and once again from 1921 to 1929. In contrast, gold in the reserve vault increased only 3% in the 1920s. The bankers would obviously be unable to keep their promise to deliver gold to depositors if a large number of people withdrew their money at the same time. Businesses could not use all the newly created money the banks wished to loan, so stock speculators were encouraged to borrow. Many people got heavily into debt, thinking that the boom would continue. In 1929, the Fed started deflation by slowing the creation of new money. People who had counted on renewing their loans to cover stock speculations or other investments found they could no longer borrow. They were forced to sell their securities, and a stock market plunge ensued. The mini-crash in October 1987 also may have been triggered by the Fed’s slowing the creation of new money. People who lost money spent less on goods and services; business began to slow. With banks unwilling to renew loans, businesses began to reduce their work force. People nervously began withdrawing their gold deposits as banks in other countries quit honoring their promise to return the gold. Rumors circulated that the Federal Reserve would soon be bankrupt as well. Naturally, there was no way for the banks to exchange the inflated dollars for gold. As people withdraw their bank funds, the money supply decreases—just the reverse of what happens when they deposit it. The banks’ failure to loan coupled with massive withdrawals, caused even greater deflation. People lost their savings and their purchasing power; in turn, businesses lost their customers and laid off workers. Each loss contributed to the next, resulting in the most severe depression Americans had ever known. Had this happened in Scotland between 1793 and 1845, bank owners (stockholders) would have to make their promises good by digging into their own pockets. In our country, however, the government enforcement agents were instructed to come after the American citizenry instead! Franklin Roosevelt convinced Congress to pass a bill making it illegal for Americans to own gold. Everyone had to exchange their valuable gold for Federal Reserve notes, which had no intrinsic value. Gold was still given to foreigners who brought their dollars to be exchanged for gold, but not to Americans! … Why was the Fed introduced in the United States and relieved of its promise to return gold that was deposited by our great-grandparents and their contemporaries? Why did the Fed slow money creation in 1929, precipitating the stock market crash? Why does the Fed alternate inflation and deflation at the expense of the American public today? Several authors have proposed that the evolution of central banks represents a collusion between politicians and a small elite with ownership/control of major banking institutions. Bank owners want to create as much money as possible, without having to dig into their own pockets when depositors want their money. Politicians long to fulfill their grandiose campaign promises without visibly taxing their constituency. Central banking can give both groups what they want. First, through the aggression of exclusive licensing, politicians give the central bank a monopoly on issuing currency. As long as banks must make good on their promises to depositors, however, they are still subject to the regulation of the marketplace ecosystem. The politicians encourage the aggressive practice of fraud by refusing to make banks and similar institutions (i.e., Savings & Loans, known as “S&Ls”) keep promises to depositors. Instead, owners and managers who make risky loans can simply walk away from their mistakes, as President Bush’s son Neil did. Depositors either lose their life savings or are reimbursed from taxes taken at gunpoint, if necessary from their neighbors. The bankers, of course, must give the politicians something in return. When the ranchers, loggers, or other special interest groups want more subsides, our representatives need not incur the wrath of the populace by suggesting more taxes. Instead, they borrow some of the Fed’s newly created money! When it comes time to pay the loan back with interest, the politicians pay it back with a bigger loan using our wealth as collateral. The special interest groups thank the politicians by funding their reelections. As a result, our national debt has grown so big that the interest alone consumed 25% of 1989 federal outlays! The single largest holder of the national debt is the Federal Reserve itself. … our pension and investment plans often buy the government I.O.U.s. For our pension funds to pay us, we may first have to pay higher taxes to cover the I.O.U.s. How much higher will our taxes be? The 1989 national debt was more than $11,000 for every man, woman, and child! Like any special interest group, the Fed is inclined to help the politicians who protect it. By manipulating the money supply to cause boom or bust at the appropriate times, the Fed controls the illusion of prosperity an illusion that determines which politicians people will vote for or against. Like any other special interest group, the Fed can control our government to a significant extent. For example, the exclusive monopoly of the Second Bank of the United States was scheduled to end in 1836. Andrew Jackson swore not to renew it if he were reelected president in 1832. Soon after his victory, he removed the government’s deposits from the central bank. The bank’s president, Nicholas Biddle, attempted to bring about a depression by cutting back on the creation of money, just as the Federal Reserve would do almost 100 years later. Biddle hoped to blackmail Congress into renewing the bank’s monopoly by making the voters miserable. Fortunately, these tactics were not successful. The American people were not fooled and the bank charter was not renewed. Unfortunately, this lesson was forgotten, and central banking was reestablished with the Federal Reserve. - Healing Our World, Ch 9.
Series 1913-1934 Federal Reserve Note - Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.
Series 1934-1963 Federal Reserve Note - This note is legal tender for all debts public and private and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank.
Series 1963- Federal Reserve Note - This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.
Crane, Edward H. - The Great Depression was not caused by
laissez faire but by the actions of well-intended politicians and bureaucrats. The Federal Reserve System, after all, was not created in response to the Great Depression, but in 1913. Soon thereafter it began experimenting with its awesome powers, expanding the money supply during the roaring ‘20s, propping up the pound sterling in London, extending credit so Europeans could buy American agricultural products. All the while, Congress was becoming more and more protectionist. When the Fed reversed policies in 1929 and actually shrunk the money supply by a third over the next three years and Congress culminated its protectionist tendencies with the Smoot-Hawley tariff, the collapse was underway. The fact that Hoover then raised taxes and Roosevelt kept wages artificially high guaranteed the massive unemployment that marked the 1930s. Government caused and exacerbated the Great Depression. - April 6, 1995, at a meeting of the Philanthropy Roundtable.
Sen. Barry Goldwater – “Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States."
