Money... What you don't know about it will hurt you...sooner of later!

This is one of those areas that the powers-to-be keep the un-informed un-informed, whereas the person placing twenty-five cents in a gumball machine or buying a home for a million dollars should know how the money game is played but never asked to look at the rule book. One day it will all come to a screeching halt and that's when the un-informed* will be screeching the loudest... ~ Norman E. Hooben
*Just in case you didn't know, the un-informed is you! (over 90% of Americans)

“Follow the Money”
Understand the Federal Reserve Scam in Less Than 15 Minutes (VIDEO)

This clip is a brief exert from the documentary film THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take? – The film does well in breaking down the basic structure of the Federal Reserve, and illustrates the problem with fiat currency.  A comprehensive fact-check is included below the video.

Via Thrive Movement

VIDEO FACT-CHECK
This fact-check is taken from the Thrive Movement Website. It is being used here without permission, but in good conscience. The issue of our dangerous economy is one that should be understood by every American with a desire to be informed. It is sad that this is not common knowledge. -Tim O’Keefe (Waking Up Wisconsin)

Fractional Reserve

Fact: American banks have about nine times as much money loaned out as they have on reserve in their vaults.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Website as of December 31, 2009 any “depository institution” (bank) in the U.S. with more than $55.2 million in deposits must have at least 10% of their deposits (what banks call “liabilities”) on reserve.  Most banks in the U.S. have far more than $55.2 million in total deposits, so they are subject to this 10% requirement. Smaller banks, however, have lower reserve requirements. Banks with less than $10.2 million in deposits are not required to hold any reserves and banks that have between $10.2-$55.2 million in deposits are subject to only a 3% reserve requirement.
As stated in the “Reserve Requirements” section of the Federal Reserve site, the Board of Governors has “ sole authority over changes in reserve requirements.”
To learn more about how “fractional reserve” lending works, you can check out: Modern Money Mechanics by The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Money as Debt by Paul Grignon; or Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money by Ellen Brown.
Jekyll Island Drafting of the Federal Reserve Act

Fact: In 1910, representatives of the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Morgans and other private bankers gathered secretly on Jekyll Island to draft the legislation that would create the Federal Reserve.

The details of this secret meeting on Jekyll Island are described in Michael A Whitehouse’s article, Paul Warburg’s Crusade to Establish a Central Bank in the United States, which was published by the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve. Those who attended the meeting included: Senator Nelson Aldrich, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who had close ties with J.P Morgan and whose eldest daughter married John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Paul Warburg, European-born banker and Partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co.; Frank Vanderlip, President of National City Bank; Harry P. Davison, Partner of J.P. Morgan; Benjamin Strong, Vice President of Bankers Trust Co.; and Piatt Andrew, Former Secretary of the National Monetary Commission.
More details of the meeting and the attendees are also described in G. Edward Griffin’s book, The Creature from Jekyll Island (American Media 2002).
Sources:
Michael A. Whitehouse, “Paul Warburg’s Crusade to Establish a Central Bank in the United States”: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3815.
G. Edward Griffin.The Creature from Jekyll Island. Westlake Village: American Media, 2002.
IRS Established same year as the Federal Reserve

Fact: I found it revealing that in the same year the Federal Reserve was founded, 1913, the Internal Revenue Service was also established.    (read more)

In 1913, Wyoming ratified the 16th Amendment, providing the three-quarter majority of states necessary to amend the Constitution. The 16^th Amendment gave Congress the authority to enact an income tax.
The Federal Reserve Act passed on December 23, 1913.
Source:
A. Donald R. Wells. The Federal Reserve System: A History. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004. (18): http://books.google.com/books?id=eZuNLMCJgdkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=creation+of+federal+reserve&source=bll&ots=itNPRM1X8P&sig=Nlls-YC2R5JAR-ocjIEwz9wVnf0&hl=en&ei=Znc6TODsFpTUtQOmwtRR&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&ved=0CGQQ6AEwDQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
B. irs.gov: http://www.irs.gov/irs/article/0,,id=149200,00.html

Federal Reserve is Private

Fact: The Federal Reserve is not a government agency. It’s a group of private bankers.   (read more)

In a 2007 interview with Jim Lehrer, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan stated: “TheFederalReserveisanindependentagency…Thereisnootheragencyofgovernmentwhichcanoverruleactionsthatwetake.”
In 1982 a District Court ruled:
“…we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purpose of the FTCA, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.”
– Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (9th Cir. 1982)
The Federal Reserve System is also listed in the District of Columbia White Pages.
 

Purchasing Power of US Dollar

Fact: The purchasing power of the dollar has declined more than 96 percent.    (read more)

Based on figures provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index, $1 in 1913 is the equivalent of $22.92 in 2011. The exact value marking the decline of the dollar’s purchasing power since 1913 is 95.6%.
Sources:
US Inflation Calculator: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Global wealth gap

Fact: Globally, the richest 2% of adults currently own more than half the world’s wealth.   (read more)

In 2007, the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies at UC Santa Cruz published, within it’s “Mapping Global Inequalities” series, a paper entitled “The World Distribution of Household Wealth.” The study found that:
“The wealth share estimates reveal that the richest 2 percent of adult individuals own more than half of all global wealth, with the richest 1 percent alone accounting for 40 percent of global assets. The corresponding figures for the top 5 percent and the top 10 percent are 71 percent and 85 percent, respectively.  In contrast, the bottom half of wealth holders together hold barely 1 percent of global wealth. Members of the top decile are almost 400 times richer, on average, than the bottom 50 percent, and members of the top percentile are almost 2000 times richer.”
Source:
James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff. The World Distribution of Household Wealth. Mapping Global Inequalities, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz: July 2007: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3jv048hx#page-3.
American wealth gap

Fact: In the United States, the richest 1% own more assets than 90% of the population combined.    (read more)

According to the Economic Policy Institute:
“The richest one percent of U.S. households now owns 34.3 percent of the nation’s private wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent.”
Source: Inequality.org: http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm
 

Big Bankers benefit from the Great Depression

Fact: Before the crash in 1929 that led to the Great Depression, elite bankers pulled their money out of the stock market. After the crash, they used that money to buy up cheap stocks and smaller failing banks for pennies on the dollar.   (read more)

In Secrets of the Federal Reserve Eustace Mullins details how, during the Great Depression, elite bankers controlled the financial system such that it would protect and grow their own assets while American workers and farmers were stripped of their savings, having invested in stocks recommended by government leaders.
See also Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy, “How a Group of International Bankers Engineered the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression.”
Sources:
Pulled their money out: Gary Allen, “How a Group of International Bankers Engineered the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression” (Derived from None Dare Call it Conspiracy): http://hidhist.wordpress.com/banksters/how-a-group-of-international-bankers-engineered-the-1929-crash-and-the-great-depression/
Used their money to buy up cheap stocks: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/07/1929_crash_and_.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4856477.ece
http://euro-med.dk/?p=313
Morgan and Rockefeller: John Kenneth Galbraith. The Great Crash 1929. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009.
 

World Bank and IMF

Fact: At the international level, central bankers use the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to make more money while exploiting the resources of countries they lend to – bankrupting them in the process.   (read more)

John Perkins describes the mutually beneficial relationships amongst international corporations and the multinational organizations, such as the World Bank and the IMF, in his best selling book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This is the true story of Perkins’ life as an “Economic Hit Man.” The tell-all work describes how global consulting firms justify (with false economic projections) enormous international loans to developing countries that funnel money through massive engineering projects back to other U.S. companies, such as Bechtel and Halliburton. After that initial deal is made, Perkins writes, “I would work to bankrupt the countries that received those loans so that they would be forever beholden to their creditors, and so they would present easy targets when we needed favors, including military bases, UN votes, or access to oil and other natural resources” (17-18). In essence, the goal of lending to developing countries is to amass large profits for contractors and establish the political loyalty of governments around the world.

The IMF serves as a sort of “lender of last resort” to developing or struggling countries. Its stated goal is to “alleviate poverty”, however, many countries that have received IMF loans are now buried in debt, unable to pay back the interest. The World Bank, like the IMF, also issues Structural Adjustment Loans which place restrictions on how money can be spent. These Structural Adjustment Loans often benefit transnational corporations. (The Debt Threat By Noreena Hertz, page 102.)
Here’s some supporting evidence:
According to the World Bank Website, “procurement under World Bank-financed projects results in the award of about 20-30,000 contracts with a total value of about $20 billion each year. Of these, about 7,000 contracts (particularly large-value contracts) are reviewed by Bank staff prior to contract award. Information on the winning contracts, which were subject to the Bank’s review is publicly available after contract signature.”
According to CorpWatch, “The US Treasury Department calculates that for every US$1 the U.S. contributes to international development banks, US corporations receive more than double that amount in bank-financed procurement contracts.”
According to Halliburton Watch, “Since 1992, the World Bank approved more than $2.5 billion in financing for 13 Halliburton projects.”
According to another CorpWatch article, “ExxonMobil has been involved in several scandals, but the International Finance Corporation (IFC) — the private arm of the World Bank — is financing a part of a 3.7 billion dollar construction project in Chad and Cameroon in which ExxonMobil has 40 percent (Petronas has 35 percent, and Chevron 25 percent).”
“Bechtel got the contract as a result of the World Bank’s aggressive pressure campaign on Bolivia to privatize state enterprises.”