Banking

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad

Millions of Americans are waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve is bad, but very few of them can coherently explain why this is true.  For decades, an unelected, privately-owned central bank has controlled America’s currency, run our economy and has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy.  It operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and yet the actions it takes have an impact on every single American.  It is an institution designed to drain wealth from the U.S. government (and ultimately from the American people) and transfer it to the ultra-wealthy.  Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States has to borrow United States dollars from anyone?  Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States does not even issue its own currency?  Have you ever wondered why we allow a group of unelected private bankers to run our economy?

Those are some very important questions.  Hopefully what you are about to read will open the eyes of many.  The truth is that our financial system is centrally-controlled and centrally-managed by a group of banking oligarchs who have constructed an ever-expanding debt spiral which has been efficiently designed to slowly transfer all wealth into their hands.

The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve is not good for the United States….

1 – The Federal Reserve was created as a way to enslave the U.S. government with debt.  The truth is that the U.S. government only goes into debt if it chooses to.  Theoretically, one day that U.S. government could simply decide to print as many U.S. dollars as it wants and pay off all government debts.  But under the current system that is not allowed.  You see, today the U.S. government does not issue any money.  The Federal Reserve issues all money.  That is why they are called “Federal Reserve notes”.

Under the current regime, whenever the U.S. government wants more currency to be created it has to go into more debt.

In a previous article entitled “It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt” I explained how this insidious system works….

If you will pull a dollar bill out and take a look at it, you will notice that it says “Federal Reserve Note” at the top.

It belongs to the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. government cannot simply go out and create new money whenever it wants under our current system.

Instead, it must get it from the Federal Reserve.

So, when the U.S. government needs to borrow more money (which happens a lot these days) it goes over to the Federal Reserve and asks them for some more green pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes.   

The Federal Reserve swaps these green pieces of paper for pink pieces of paper called U.S. Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve either sells these U.S. Treasury bonds or they keep the bonds for themselves (which happens a lot these days).

So that is how the U.S. government gets more green pieces of paper called “U.S. dollars” to put into circulation. But by doing so, they get themselves into even more debt which they will owe even more interest on.

So every time the U.S. government does this, the national debt gets even bigger and the interest on that debt gets even bigger.

Now, apologists for the Federal Reserve system are quick to point out that the Federal Reserve does not make much of a profit.   Once a “statutory dividend” of 6% is paid to member banks and a capital account surplus is “maintained”, the rest of the profits of the Federal Reserve go back to the U.S. Treasury.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

The point is not how much of a profit the Federal Reserve makes or does not make.

The point is that the Federal Reserve is a tool for creating U.S. government debt which slowly drains our national wealth and which ends up greatly enriching the global elite.

As of July 1st, the U.S. government had spent $355 billion so far in 2010 on interest payments to the holders of the national debt.

Have you ever wondered who gets all that money?

The truth is that the wealthiest individuals around the globe have been getting very rich for a very long time off of government debt.

2 – The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air.  In a previous article, I noted how this fact comes out in congressional hearings and yet the American people just don’t seem to get too upset about it….

During a recent Joint Economic Committee hearing on Capital Hill, U.S. Representative Ron Paul directly confronted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about this 1.3 trillion dollars.  As Ron Paul described how this 1.3 trillion was just created out of thin air, all Bernanke could do was nod his head.  Why?  Because it was the truth.

3– The huge predator megabanks that now dominate the U.S. banking system use the Federal Reserve as a tool to make money.  One of the ways they do this is called the U.S. Treasury carry trade.  What happens is that the Federal Reserve lends huge amounts of money to the megabanks for next to nothing, and then these megabanks use all that cash to buy U.S. government debt.  This little “trick” helped enable four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) to have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.  Wouldn’t you like to have a perfect batting average?

4 – The Federal Reserve devalues our currency.  Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost 96 percent of its purchasing power.  The truth is that just a two percent inflation rate will wipe out half of your purchasing power within a single generation.  In the chart below, you can clearly see that the beginning of the rapid rise of inflation in the United States coincided with the creation of the Federal Reserve….

5 – The Federal Reserve manipulates the U.S. economy by setting national interest rates.  By keeping rates high or low, the Federal Reserve has the power to create economic growth or to destroy it.  They have the power to inflate massive bubbles and to pop them.  Most Americans give way too much credit and blame to presidents like Bush or Obama for how the economy is doing.  The truth is that they really don’t have that much control over the economy compared to the Federal Reserve.

6 – The Federal Reserve also controls the  national money supply.  They can pump trillions into the economy or pull trillions out without being accountable to anyone.  This can have disastrous consequences.  For example, after the U.S. stock market crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve continued to contract the money supply.  Many analysts believe that this was one of the key things that precipitated the Great Depression.

7– The Federal Reserve is not part of the U.S. government.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.  In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore it was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.  It is kind of funny how Fed officials are always talking about how important their “independence” is, but whenever anyone starts criticizing them for being private they start stressing their ties with the government.

8 – The Federal Reserve has become far, far too powerful.  The reality is that those running the Federal Reserve are not elected and yet have an enormous amount of control.  In fact, Ron Paul recently told MSNBC that he believes that the Federal Reserve is 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.”

9– The Federal Reserve is dominated by Wall Street and the New York banks.  The New York representative is the only permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, while other regional banks rotate in 2 and 3 year intervals.  The former head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, is now U.S. Treasury Secretary.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important of the regional Fed banks by far, and in turn the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been dominated by Wall Street and the major New York banks.

10– Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wants to completely eliminate minimum reserve requirements for banks.  Fractional reserve banking has always been a way that the bankers have conned the public, but now Bernanke wants to get rid of the pretense of “reserves” altogether.

It is almost too bizarre to believe, but it is right there in black and white on the Federal Reserve’s own website….

The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.

11 – The Federal Reserve is not accountable to anyone.  The Federal Reserve has never undergone a true comprehensive audit since it was created back in 1913.  Ron Paul’s proposal to audit the Federal Reserve, which had previously been co-sponsored by 320 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, ultimately failed by a vote of 229-198.

But shouldn’t the American people be able to see what is going on inside the Federal Reserve?

Shouldn’t we have some way to keep them accountable?

After all, they have an incredible amount of power over us, shouldn’t we have at least a little bit of power over them?

Unfortunately, the truth is that they desperately do not want light to be shined on the elaborate “shell game” that they are running.

Have you ever wondered if it was just a coincidence that the personal income tax was implemented just about the same time that the Federal Reserve was created?

Why does the U.S. government have to tax us?

Why can’t the U.S. government just print up all the money that it needs?

Well, the way that our Congress spends money that would probably create horrific hyperinflation, but that is the subject for another article.

The point is that the U.S. government should not have to get U.S. dollars from someone else.

If you take a few minutes to stop and think about it, an America where there is no Federal Reserve, no personal income tax and no IRS is not that hard to imagine.

If the U.S. government functioned just fine without all of them at one time, then why couldn’t the U.S. government function just fine without all of them now?

The system we have now clearly is not working.  The Federal Reserve was supposed to guarantee that our financial system would be perfectly stable, but in reality our financial system has become much more unstable.

It is time for different thinking.  It is time for the U.S. government to take back control of our currency and of our economy.  It is time to start electing some people with common sense to represent us in Washington.

So what do you think of the Federal Reserve?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

103 U.S. Banks Have Collapsed So Far In 2010 – Do You Know If Your Bank Will Survive?

Have you ever noticed how almost all U.S. bank closings are now announced over the weekend?  It is almost as if someone wants to keep the increasing number of bank closures out of the news cycle as much as possible.  The Obama administration continues to use phrases like “green shoots” and “economic recovery”, but the truth is that the U.S. banking system is in the middle of a meltdown.  On Friday, federal regulators shut down 7 more banks.  That means that the total number of U.S. bank failures has reached 103 for 2010 so far.  Last year (which was a really bad year for bank closings), we did not break 100 until October.  Of course federal officials promise that “the worst is almost over”, but can we really trust anything that they tell us at this point?

When it comes to the health of the U.S. banking system, the statistical trends certainly do not look promising. 

At the end of 2008, there were 252 U.S. banks on the FDIC’s problem list.

At the end of 2009, there were 702 U.S. banks on the FDIC’s problem list.

About halfway through 2010, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said that 775 banks (approximately 10% of all U.S. banks) were on the problem list.

Does anyone else notice a trend developing?

It is time for everyone in the financial world to admit that the U.S. banking system is dying.

Do you know if your bank if on the problem list?

You might want to go check.

Not that your money is going to suddenly disappear.

Even if your local bank fails, the FDIC will guarantee your bank account, right?

Yes, it will.

But the FDIC is far from healthy at this point.

The FDIC is backing approximately 8,000 U.S. banks that have a total of about $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is pretty close to empty.

Well, actually “empty” is not quite the right word.

It was recently reported that the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund is sitting at negative 20.7 billion dollars.

And the FDIC estimates that the seven bank failures on Friday will reduce the fund by another $431 million.

Ouch.

The truth is that the FDIC is rapidly turning into a gigantic financial black hole.

The red ink just seems to be endless.

The FDIC now estimates that their funds will experience a $60 billion reduction due to additional bank closings between now and 2014.

And to be honest, that figure is way too optimistic.

So who is going to bail the FDIC out?

The same source that bails everyone out.

The U.S. taxpayers.

But isn’t that bad?

Yes, all of these bailouts are going to cause the U.S. national debt to continue to explode, but what else can we do?

Are we just going to shut down the FDIC?

That wouldn’t go over too well with anyone.

No, the truth is that this is the system that we have built.

All the crap flows downhill and ultimately ends up in the laps of U.S. taxpayers.

The bad news is that it looks like large numbers of banks are going to continue to fail.

You see, right now the American people are simply not doing a very good job of paying their bills.

During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans at U.S. banks that were at least three months past due increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

Just think about that for a moment.

Would you consider 16 in a row to be a trend?

In an economic system built on credit, it is absolutely imperative that most people pay their debts or the whole thing will come crashing down very quickly.

And right now it is undeniable that things are unraveling at a staggering pace.

So who is benefiting from all this?

Well, there is one segment of the banking industry that is actually performing quite nicely in the midst of all of this chaos.

Many of the largest banks in the U.S. have been reporting very large profits as they gobble up larger and larger shares of the U.S. banking market.

In a previous article entitled “Are We About To Witness The Greatest Banking Consolidation In U.S. History?”, we noted the rapidly growing power of America’s megabanks….

Back in 2000, the “Big Four” U.S. banks – Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – held approximately 22 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured institutions.  As of June 30th of last year that figure was up to 39 percent.

The Founding Fathers of this country warned us of the danger of big banks getting too much power, but we have not listened to their warnings.

Now we have monolithic global banks that are so immense in size that we seem almost powerless to control them.

In fact, the six biggest banks in the United States (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.

The truth is that these sharks aren’t shedding any tears when your local banks die off.

Why?

Because they know that many of the customers from the banks that have died will soon come their way.

The reality is that all of the legislation and regulations implemented during the past 30 or 40 years have rigged the game massively in favor of the big global banks.

So dozens upon dozens of smaller banks are going to continue to die and the megabanks are going to continue to eat up increasingly larger portions of market share.

So if you still have money in a small local bank, enjoy it while you can.

From now on, the small bank in America is an endangered species.

One Out Of Every Ten U.S. Banks Is Now On The FDIC’s Problem List – Do You Know If Your Bank Is Safe?

Do you know if your bank will be there next month?  For a growing number of Americans, that is becoming a very real question.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 775 banks (approximately ten percent of all U.S. banks) are now on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s list of “problem” banks.  This year we have already seen more than six dozen banks fail, and the frightening thing is that we are seeing a rapid acceleration in bank failures even though we are supposedly in a “recovery” right now.  So what happens if the economy takes a bad turn and hundreds of these banks that are barely surviving start failing?

Right now an increasing number of Americans are not paying their loans, and this is shredding the balance sheets of small and medium size banks all over the United States.  In fact, during the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

16 consecutive quarters?

Once is a coincidence.

Twice is a trend.

Sixteen times in a row is a total nightmare.

Is there anyone out there that is still convinced that the economy is getting better?

If so, perhaps this will convince you otherwise….

There were 252 banks on the FDIC’s “problem list” at the end of 2008.

There were 702 banks on the FDIC’s “problem list” at the end of 2009.

Now there are 775 banks of the FDIC’s “problem list”.

Are you starting to see a trend?

Federal regulators have already closed 73 banks in 2010, more than double the number shut down at this time last year.

The truth is that the U.S. banking system is coming apart like a 20 dollar suit.

So is the FDIC worried?

No, they insist that they have plenty of money to cover all of the banks that are going to fail.

After all, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Negative 20.7 billion dollars.

That should be enough to cover the hundreds of banks that are in the process of failing, right?

Well, if not, the FDIC can just run out and ask the U.S. government for a big, juicy bailout.

After all, can’t the U.S. government borrow an endless amount of money with absolutely no consequences?

Well, no.

Debt always catches up with you sooner or later.

In fact, the IMF is warning that that the gross public debt of the United States will hit 97 percent of GDP in 2011 and 110 percent of GDP in 2015.

Meanwhile, the U.S. financial system continues to shrink even after the unprecedented amount of “stimulus money” that the U.S. government has been shoveling into the economy.

The M3 money supply is now contracting at a frightening pace.

In fact, the current rate of monetary contraction now matches the average rate of monetary contraction the U.S. experienced between 1929 and 1933.

But don’t worry.

We aren’t going into a Depression.

Everything is going to be just fine.

Just look deep into Obama’s eyes and keep repeating the word “change” to yourself over and over.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the M3 money supply declined from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2010.

That represents an annual rate of contraction of 9.6 percent.

In case you were wondering, that is a lot.

Not only that, but the assets of institutional money market funds declined at a 37 percent annual rate.

That was the sharpest drop ever.

Yes, it is time for the alarm bells to start going off.

The Telegraph recently quoted Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research as saying the following about the deep problems that the U.S. is facing….

“The plunge in M3 has no precedent since the Great Depression. The dominant reason for this is that regulators across the world are pressing banks to raise capital asset ratios and to shrink their risk assets. This is why the US is not recovering properly.”

If banks continue to cut their lending, the M3 is going to continue to shrink.

But as noted above, Americans are increasingly getting behind on their loans, so why should banks loan money to a bunch of deadbeats?

Right now U.S. banks are increasingly tightening their lending standards, and this is making it much tougher to get a loan.

In fact, in 2009 the biggest U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in lending since 1942.

But there is only one problem.

The U.S. economy is completely and totally dependent on credit.

Without easy credit, the entire U.S. economic machine is going to slowly grind to a halt.

So what do you do?

The reality is that we have one gigantic financial mess on our hands, and in many ways it is starting to look like the 1930s all over again.

But perhaps someone out there has a way to get us out of this nightmare.  Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts, opinions or solutions….

Are We About To Witness The Greatest Banking Consolidation In U.S. History?

As the number of bank failures in the United States continues to accelerate, many analysts are warning that we could soon see unprecedented changes in the U.S. banking industry.  In fact, there are some economists that are warning that we could be about to witness the greatest banking consolidation in U.S. history.  As dozens of small and medium size banks have failed, the megabanks have systematically been gobbling up larger and larger slices of market share.  In fact, if current trends continue, it doesn’t take much imagination to foresee a future where the entire U.S. banking industry has been consolidated down to between 5 and 10 “superbanks”.  So would that be so bad?  Well, yes it would.  It would represent a massive shift in financial power away from the American people to big, global corporate banks.  But if you happen to be a fan of big, global corporate banks perhaps you will really love what is about to happen to the U.S. banking industry.

On Friday, federal regulators seized Pinehurst Bank, which brought the total number of U.S. banks closed this year to 73.  At this point in 2009, only 36 banks had failed.

That means that the number of bank failures has doubled compared to the same time period a year ago.

Is that a good trend?

Well, it is a good trend if you are one of the megabanks that is gobbling up the remnants of these banks that were “small enough to fail”.

And the sad thing is that we are likely to see dozens and dozens more small and medium size banks fail in the coming months.

The FDIC recently announced that the number of banks on its “problem list” climbed to 702 at the end of 2009.  That is extremely alarming considering the fact that only 552 banks were on the problem list at the end of September 2009 and only 252 banks that were on the problem list at the end of 2008.

In fact, the FDIC is expecting so many banks to fail that they are opening up new offices just to handle all the expected failures.  The FDIC has opened a massive 100,000 square foot satellite office near Chicago that will house up to 500 temporary staffers and contractors to manage receiverships and liquidate assets from what they are expecting will be a gigantic wave of failed Midwest banks.  Not only that, but the FDIC has also opened similar offices in Irvine, California and Jacksonville, Florida.

But can the FDIC realistically handle all of these bank failures?

No.

The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke.

So if the FDIC completely runs out of money, where will all the necessary funds come from?

From U.S. taxpayers of course.

It seems that we are the ultimate bailout machine.

Meanwhile, the biggest U.S. banks are hoarding cash in preparation for hard times.  In fact, the biggest banks in the United States cut their collective small business lending balance by another 1 billion dollars in November 2009.  That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.

The truth is that in 2009, the biggest U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in lending since 1942.

So what were they doing with their money?

Well, thanks to the Federal Reserve, the megabanks were using the U.S. Treasury carry trade to make huge gobs of cash.  In fact, the little game that they are playing with U.S. Treasuries is working so well that four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) had a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

The truth is that the game is rigged to benefit the largest financial institutions, and they are slowly but surely gobbling up the entire U.S. banking market.

Back in 2000, the “Big Four” U.S. banks – Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – held approximately 22 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured institutions.  As of June 30th of last year that figure was up to 39 percent.

The Founding Fathers of this country warned us of the danger of big banks getting too much power, but we have not listened to their warnings.

Now we have monolithic global banks that are so immense in size that we seem almost powerless to control them.

In fact, the six biggest banks in the United States (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.

And there is every indication that they are only going to get bigger and more dominant – especially if there is a major economic downturn ahead.

Unfortunately, that is what a number of respected economists are forecasting.

For example, Bob Chapman of the International Forecaster recently warned his readers that things could get really, really bad by the end of 2010….

It should interest you to know that my Intel source inside the Fed says absolutely no later than November the banking system should implode. Presently 75% of banks have problems and that the top 5 banks will take over all the others in a general nationalization. There is tremendous fear and uneasiness in the banking world.

Now, let us hope that Bob Chapman’s source is wrong.  Certainly the U.S. banking system is in a state of complete and total chaos, but hopefully we can make it into 2011 without a complete implosion of the banking industry.

However, Bob Chapman has been in the industry for decades and he would not have put out a warning like this without good reason.  Let us just pray that what this source is warning of does not actually come to pass.

But Bob Chapman is not the only one warning of difficult times ahead.

CNBC recently quoted Brian Kelly, the founder of Kanundrum Capital, as saying that the chances of a global depression breaking out have increased dramatically in recent days….

“Two weeks ago I would give the global depression scenario a one percent chance, but the chances have increased to 10 percent today.”

In fact, world famous economist Nouriel Roubini is absolutely convinced that there is a good deal of economic trouble ahead of us….

“We are still in the middle of this crisis and there is more trouble ahead of us, even if there is a recovery. During the great depression the economy contracted between 1929 and 1933, there was the beginning of a recovery, but then a second recession from 1937 to 1939. If you don’t address the issues, you risk having a double-dip recession and one which is at least as severe as the first one.”

So will the end of 2010 be a very difficult time for the U.S. economy?

Only time will tell.

But what does seem certain is that small and medium size banks will continue to fail in large numbers, and the big dominant banks will continue to gobble up market share.

We are witnessing a dramatic consolidation of the U.S. banking industry, and the only question seems to be how fast it is all going to play out.

Fed Up

Do you ever get to the point where you are just fed up with the way that things are headed?  There are times when it seems as if we are all stuck in some kind of horrific nightmare that we can’t wake up from.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching our esteemed leaders down in Washington D.C. wreck the U.S. economy, push us towards socialism and globalism, and slowly erode our constitutional freedoms.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching corruption and greed run wild down on Wall Street.  Day after day those of us who are awake to what is going on find ourselves increasingly frustrated with the vast majority of Americans who are either too dazed, too drugged or too asleep to even care that the great nation that their forefathers built is in the process of crumbling all around them.  Not that there aren’t some promising signs out there.  Certainly Rand Paul’s recent victory in Kentucky shows that the American people are not automatically going to vote for the candidates backed by the establishment anymore.  But it seems like every piece of good news these days is accompanied by a dozen news stories that are so bad that they make you want to scream.  It is incredibly frustrating that tens of millions of Americans who bust their backs working incredibly long hours, who try to do what is right, and who truly do love their country are going to pay the price for the errors of a bunch of idiots down in Washington D.C. and New York.  The America that so many of us grew up in love with (the once great Republic with the greatest free enterprise system in the world) is being strangled out of existence by a horde of globalists, socialists and elitists.  Well, there are millions of us who are fed up.  I am fed up.  So today you are going to get an “editorial”.  Actually what you are going to get is an old-fashioned rant.  But the truth is that we live during times when ranting is appropriate.  Feel free to express your agreement or disagreement with the various things I am going to rant about below.  Hopefully if enough people start talking about these things, the American people will wake up and start taking their country back.

So exactly what am I fed up about?   

I’m fed up with politicians in Washington D.C. who prance around and talk about what a good job they are doing while they pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world.  We are stealing trillions of dollars from future generations, and if they get the chance they will curse us for the horrific debt that we have left them. 

I’m fed up with an unelected, privately-owned central bank issuing and controlling the currency of the United States.  Nobody but the U.S. government should be issuing U.S. dollars.  The reality is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is, and the international bankers have used it for decades to transfer the wealth of the nation into their own pockets.

I’m fed up with being told that the money I have worked so hard to earn needs to be “redistributed” to people who wouldn’t know a hard day of work if it came up and bit them on the rear.

I’m fed up with Tea Party activists who believe in the Constitution and who desperately want to see a return to the ideals that the American republic was founded upon being labeled as “extremists” by the media while those who are pushing a socialism and globalism on America are referred to as “centrist” and “mainstream”.

I’m fed up with anyone who suggests that it is a good idea for the government to get to look at an image of our naked bodies before we are allowed to get on an airplane.

I’m fed up with hearing that there are banks that are “too big to fail” and that it is necessary for tax money taken from me to be used to bail them out.

I’m fed up with a financial system that is so rigged that four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) can have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

I’m fed up with a financial system where the Dow can plunge nearly 1000 points in a single hour and nobody can seem to be able to figure out what happened.

I’m fed up with being told that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” when carbon dioxide does not cause global warming and over 95% of total carbon dioxide emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth.

I’m fed up with people telling me that we should be glad to pay all the new taxes in the “health care reform” law because socialized medicine is such a good idea.   

I’m fed up with the open manipulation of the gold and silver markets right under the noses of the federal government.

I’m fed up with politicians that spend money in order to get votes without any concern for the financial future of this nation whatsoever.

I’m fed up with a government that can protect the South Korean border so well that not a single person gets through illegally for decades, and yet has done such a bad job of protecting our own border that Phoenix, Arizona has become the car theft capital of the world.

I’m fed up with a government that is so embarrassed by the recent anti-illegal immigration law passed in Arizona that they apologize to the communist Chinese for it.

I’m fed up with yuppies who went out and bought McMansions that they could not possibly afford whining and crying now that they are losing their houses.

I’m fed up with politicians shipping our manufacturing base to the third world and then pretending that it is our fault when we can’t get jobs.

I’m fed up with people telling me how wonderful “free trade” and “the global economy” are while our once great manufacturing cities such as Detroit turn into rusted-out war zones.

I’m fed up with international organizations such as the IMF and the WHO telling us that they want the American people to start paying global taxes.

I’m fed up with politicians being treated like celebrities and rock stars when they are actually leading American right into the toilet.

I’m fed up with a president and a Congress that are rapidly dismantling the strategic nuclear arsenal that has helped keep America safe for decades.

I’m fed up with politicians who run over to China and beg them to keep buying even more of our debt.

I’m fed up with the United Nations and members of the U.S. government claiming that there are far too many people in the world and that we need to promote population control measures all over the globe.

I’m fed up with a Supreme Court that has absolutely no respect at all for the personal property rights of ordinary Americans.

I’m fed up with a government that insists that freakishly-altered genetically modified crops are good for us, and that allows companies like Monsanto to ruthlessly push these “Frankenfoods” on to dinner tables all across the United States.

I’m fed up with a public that is far more interested in the death of Michael Jackson and in what is going on with Jon & Kate than in the absolutely crucial economic and political issues that directly affect them and their families. 

I’m fed up with a government that is so incompetent when it comes to foreign policy that Russia and China are literally running circles around them.

I’m fed up with a government that allows nearly a million innocent babies to be killed year in and year out.

I’m fed up with watching Wall Street bankers rake in record-setting bonuses while nearly 40 million Americans are on food stamps.

I’m fed up with a national debt that is impossible to pay off, a dollar that has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created and a financial system that is designed to fail.

If you don’t understand why the U.S. economic system is doomed, you should check out the video posted below.  The inevitable collapse of the U.S. financial system is beautifully illustrated in this brand new documentary entitled “Meltup”.  It is one of the best videos on the economic crisis that America is facing that has ever been posted on YouTube.  This video is likely to make you very mad, but after watching it you will have a much greater understanding of the economic nightmare that the United States is now facing….

So are you fed up too? Please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you are upset about….

The Economic Recovery Is Moving Along Quite Well – For The Boys Down On Wall Street

If you are part of the Wall Street establishment, the economic recovery is moving along quite well.  Many of the biggest firms on Wall Street just handed out record-setting bonuses, the Stock Market has been moving up steadily and the DOW is back up to around 11,000.  Profits at the top banks have been quite impressive lately.  Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo combined for first quarter profits of $13.4 billion – the most in almost three years.  Yes, life is quite good down on Wall Street these days.  People are still buying fast cars, big yachts and homes in the Hamptons.  It is almost as if “the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression” didn’t even happen.  Things are quickly getting back to “normal” for the banking elite and to many it seems like there are a lot more smiles down on Wall Street than there have been in a long, long time.

Bank of America’s chief executive officer, Brian T. Moynihan, is being quoted by Reuters as saying that “the worst of the credit cycle is clearly behind us” and that the economic growth we are experiencing is “real”.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is quoted as saying that the U.S. economy may be poised for “a strong recovery”.

And why wouldn’t they say these things?  Profits are up.  Their stock portfolios are up.  They are getting record bonuses.  They know that if anything does go wrong again that their friends in Washington D.C. will bail them out because they are “too big to fail”.

But for tens of millions of other Americans, the economy seems like it is getting worse than ever.  It is hard to explain the gut-wrenching agony that many highly-educated and highly-qualified American workers are going through as they send out hundreds of resumes only to get no response.  Or the absolute frustration of only being able to get a very low paying retail job and realizing that it will not even be able to pay the mortgage – much less support an entire family.  Or the soul-crushing despair of working two or three jobs and still not being able to pay the bills at the end of the month.

But these are the daily realities that millions of Americans must face now.  The truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.  The number of unemployed Americans per job opening hit 5.5 in February.  It is like we are all caught in some bizarre game of musical chairs, and the losers end up destitute and out in the street.

Even many of those who can get jobs find themselves in bad situations.  Gallup’s underemployment measure hit 20.0% on March 15th.  That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.  A lot of very educated, very qualified people find themselves slaving away at jobs that high school students are qualified for.

But the ones being hurt the worst by this unemployment epidemic are the poor.  Check out the following chart.  At the end of 2009, the unemployment rate for those at the top end of the income scale in the United States was about 3%.  For those at the bottom of the income scale, the unemployment rate was about 30%….

It isn’t the boys down on Wall Street that are losing their homes and their jobs.

No, they are “too big to fail”.

It is millions of ordinary Americans that are losing their homes and their jobs.

And things keep getting worse.

According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March.  This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

Not only that, but RealtyTrac projects that there will be a total of 4.5 million home foreclosures by the end 2010.  If you figure that there are approximately 4 people per household, that is another 18 million people that will be facing the pain of a foreclosure filing.

For many Americans, losing their home to foreclosure is just too much.  For example, one man in Ohio actually decided to bulldoze his own home rather than let the bank take it in foreclosure proceedings.

Because of the extreme economic conditions, millions of Americans are in severe pain and are becoming increasingly desperate.  In some of the most depressed areas, crime is absolutely spiralling out of control.  So far this year in Detroit, car thefts are up 83%, robberies are up 50%, burglaries are up 20% and property destruction is up 42%.

Adding to all of this economic despair is the fact that food and gas prices are starting to shoot up.

In some areas of the United States, people are already paying as much as $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline, and many experts are now predicting that gasoline could hit $4.00 a gallon by the end of 2010.

Not only that, but wholesale food prices rose 2.4% in March, matching the biggest gain in 26 years.

So while the economic recovery is buzzing along quite well down on Wall Street, the reality is that for millions of other Americans things are really hard.  In fact, not even the smaller banks are experiencing much of a recovery.  The FDIC’s list of problem banks just hit a 17-year high.

No, the main beneficiaries of this “economic recovery” are the boys over on Wall Street.  They should enjoy it while it lasts, because even harder economic times are on the way, and the reality is that none of us will be able to completely escape the economic pain that is coming.

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Megabanks: The Banking Oligarchy That Controls Assets Equivalent To 60 Percent Of America’s GNP

Today financial power is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals.  In fact, the six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.  Back in the 1990s that figure was less than 20 percent.  These six banks – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo – literally dictate what goes on in the U.S. banking industry.  These entities are the poster children for “too big to fail”, and they donate massive amounts of cash to the campaigns of both Republicans and Democrats to ensure that they will continue to receive favorable treatment.  The vast majority of Americans have had a banking account, a credit card and/or a mortgage with one of these institutions at some point.  If they acted in concert, these six banks could literally bring down the U.S. economy overnight if they wanted to.  Together with the Federal Reserve, these six banks represent the real financial power in America.  They are the 800 pound gorilla in the room that influences nearly every major financial deal that gets done and virtually every major political decision that gets made.  As the last couple of years have demonstrated, top politicians from both parties (John McCain and Barack Obama for example) will instantly jump into action and start advocating that the U.S. government spend billions upon billions of dollars when the interests of these behemoths are threatened.  The frightening thing is that the power of these megabanks is growing at a frightening pace.  As dozens upon dozens of smaller U.S. banks are “allowed to fail”, they either go out of existence or the Feds actually encourage these smaller banks to sell themselves to one of the big sharks.  In either event, the banking power in the United States becomes further consolidated in the hands of the megabanks.

Bill Moyers recently interviewed Simon Johnson and James Kwak, the authors of a new book entitled 13 Bankers: The Wall St. Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.  During that interview Kwak described to Moyers just how explosive the growth of the power of these megabanks has been….

Bill Moyers: And you write that they control 60 percent of our gross national product?

James Kwak: They have assets equivalent to 60 percent of our gross national product. And to put this in perspective, in the mid-1990s, these six banks or their predecessors, since there have been a lot of mergers, had less than 20 percent. Their assets were less than 20 percent of the gross national product.

Does it alarm you that the banking elite have accumulated such a large amount of financial power?

It should.  These institutions have the power to wreck entire economies.  Just consider what happened in Greece lately.  Now, it is being alleged that the megabanks are ripping off American cities with the same kinds of predatory deals that brought down the financial system in Greece. 

And that is what these megabanks are.

They are predators.

In fact, a very revealing article in Rolling Stone described Goldman Sachs this way….

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

Unfortunately, they may have actually been understating things a bit.

These megabanks have rigged the game so that the wealth of the nation is slowly transferred from us to themselves and to the international financial interests that control them.

They can make money if the markets are going up, and they can make money if the markets are going down.

For example, in a newly released email from the height of the housing crash, the CEO of Goldman Sachs bragged that his firm “made more than we lost” by betting against the housing market.

Thankfully the SEC is starting to look into the fraud that Goldman Sachs committed during this time period, but the truth is that Goldman is not likely to receive any more than a slap on the wrist for what it has done.

They are way too big, way too powerful and have too many friends in high places for them to get into any real trouble.

For example, it has come out that Barack Obama does not intend to return any of the campaign contributions that he received from Goldman Sachs.  And surely they will be glad to continue to pour big money into his political coffers.

So where does that leave the rest of us?

Well, the rest of us can expect higher taxes and a lower standard of living according to the IMF.  The IMF (which has deep connections to these megabanks) says that the party is “over” for nations that have been enjoying the good life.  In a recent article, the Washington Post summarized the message that the IMF is trying to communicate through their recent policy papers….

To keep the global economy on track, people in the United States and the rest of the developed world need to work longer before retiring, pay higher taxes and expect less from government. And the cheap imports lining the shelves of mega-chains such as Wal-Mart and Target? They need to be more expensive.

So are you ready to work longer, pay higher taxes, expect less from government and have a lower standard of living?

That is what the IMF says we are all going to be facing in the years ahead.

We are all going to financially suffer as the megabanks continue to thrive and consolidate power.

Isn’t that wonderful?

You say you don’t like that so much?

Well, good luck taking on the 800 pound gorilla.

The Federal Reserve Created This Financial Mess And Now They Expect Us To Pay Higher Taxes And Have A Lower Standard Of Living So We Can Pay Interest To Them

When you watch the mainstream news, how often do you hear them identify the Federal Reserve as the ultimate source of all of our financial problems?  Never?  Well, there is a good reason.  The Federal Reserve was created and continues to benefit the elite international bankers that are raping the United States blind financially.  Many of the same financial powers own large interests in the 6 gigantic media companies that dominate U.S. mainstream media.  So you won’t hear the truth from them.  On this website we go on and on about how bad the U.S. national debt is.  And it is really, really, really bad.  But rarely do you hear from anyone who we owe all of this money to.  Yeah, we owe large amounts to Japan and China and a bunch of other nations, but the biggest holder of our debt by far is the Federal Reserve.  Just like the owner of your mortgage or your car loan, they expect to be paid back – with interest.   

Now U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is warning that the U.S. national debt could balloon to more than 100% of GDP by the year 2020.  For those familiar with national debt statistics, that is a very, very dangerous threshold to cross.  Basically the United States is in debt up to its eyeballs and the debt continues to grow at an exponential rate.

So what is the solution?

Well, according to Bernanke, United States citizens will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending. 

Perhaps both. 

The truth is that either alternative will slow down the U.S. economy and will reduce our standard of living, but this is the situation that we have gotten ourselves into.

And we have got to service that gigantic debt that we owe to the Federal Reserve (among others).

In fact, a whole lot of government officials are talking about taxes these days.

And not about lowering them.

Some administration officials are floating the idea of a national sales tax and others are openly discussing adopting a European-style “value-added” tax.

Any way that they can drain more money out of us sounds good to them.

In fact, members of Barack Obama’s “fiscal reform commission” say that higher taxes must be considered as a way to handle the U.S. government’s mounting debt problem.

Of course they could just stop wasting trillions of dollars, but apparently that is too hard.

And so where will all of these new taxes go?

To managing our colossal debt of course.

The truth is that we have locked generations of Americans into debt slavery.

We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and grandchildren will spend all of their lives trying to pay interest on it.

Haven’t we left them with such a wonderful legacy?

If you don’t understand who the Federal Reserve is or what they are doing to us, please watch the excellent 4 minute video below.  It does a great job of introducing people to the rotten core at the center of the U.S. financial system.  We encourage you to send this video out to as many of your friends and family as possible.  Perhaps if there is a mass awakening, Americans can elect politicians that will shut down the Fed and will reclaim America’s financial destiny….

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