Banks, Money and Taxes

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and

monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before

tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford

VOCABULARY

Mint Credit Debt Collateral Monetary Currency Vault

Goldsmith Income Cheques/checks Central bank Deposits Depositors Interest rate

Fractional reserve banking Fiat money Liquidity Solvency Insolvent Bankrupt

False Wealth and Real Poverty

Boom Bust inequality special

https://www.rt.com/shows/boom-bust/431675-wealth-inequality-fisher-island/

A Milestone for Global Capitalism

September 25, 2018

By Peter Phillips

Exciting news for capitalism is the recent achievement of trillion-dollar value for both Amazon

and Apple, making them the first corporations to obtain such a lofty status. Amazon’s

skyrocketing growth makes its CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person with an $160 billion

net worth.

Driving the engine of global wealth concentration are giant transnational investment

management firms. In 2017, seventeen trillion-dollar investment companies collectively

controlled $41.1 trillion of capital. These firms are all directly invested in each other, making

them a huge cluster of centralized capital managed by just 199 people, who decide how and

where that wealth will be invested.

In the case of Amazon, the top investment management corporations are: Vanguard $56.7

billion, BlackRock $49.5 billion, FMR $33 billion, Capital $33 billion, State Street $29 billion,

and most of the other trillion-dollar Giants and many others who hold 58.6% of Amazon shares.

So, while Bezos is a large tree in the forest, the forest itself is groomed by a few hundred global

power elites making investment decisions that drive the concentration of wealth into coffers of

the 1%. These elites interact through non-governmental policy-making organizations—privately

funded by large corporations—that include the Council of Thirty, Trilateral Commission, and the

Atlantic Council. Their role is to facilitate, manage, and protect the free flow of global capital.

They do this by providing policy recommendations and instructions to governments, intelligence

services, security forces, NATO, the Pentagon, and transnational governmental groups including

the G-7 G-20, World Bank, IMF, and International Bank of Settlements.

The biggest problem global power elite investors face is that they have more capital than there

are safe investment opportunities, which leads to risky speculative investments, permanent war

spending, and the privatization of the public commons.

The world’s total wealth is estimated to be close to $255 trillion, with the United States and

Europe holding approximately two-thirds of that total; meanwhile, 80 percent of the world’s

people live on less than $10 per day, the poorest half of the global population lives on less than

$2.50 per day, and more than 1.3 billion people live on only $1.25 per day. 795 million people

on the planet are suffering from chronic hunger, according to the United Nations World Food

Program.  Each year, poor nutrition kills 3.1 million children under the age of five. Each day

25,000-30,000 people die from starvation or malnutrition, a staggering total of more than ten

million such fatalities each year. Chronic hunger is mostly a problem of distribution, as one third

of all food produced in the world is wasted and lost. So, while the global power elite can

manifest a Bezos, they cannot or will not address the crisis of inequality and mass death in the

world today. In 2017, 2.3 million new millionaires were created, bringing the total number of

millionaires around the globe to more than 36 million. These millionaires represent 0.7 percent

of the world’s population and they control more than 47% of global wealth. At the same time,

the world’s bottom 70 percent only control 2.7% of the total wealth.

There can be no doubt that continued concentration of wealth is economically unsustainable.

Extreme inequality and massive repression will only bring resistance and rebellion by the

world’s masses.

The danger is that global power elites will fail to recognize the inevitability of economic and/or

environmental collapse before making the necessary adjustments to prevent millions of deaths

and massive civil unrest. Without significant corrective adjustments by the global power elites,

mass social movements and rebellions, coupled with environmental collapse, will inevitably lead

to global chaos and widespread war. We must institute a simple guiding principle of thinking of

the future of our grandchildren and their grandchildren when making decisions about the use of

global capital resources.

Seventy years ago, after World War II ended, people throughout the world were motivated to

find ways to permanently prevent such terrible bloodshed from ever again taking place. As the

United Nations was forming, a Commission on the moral principles necessary for sustainable

peace, made up of eighteen nations, met at Hunter College in New York City in 1946. They

began what two years later would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved

unanimously by the United Nations in December 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human

Rights is a document that social movements can easily adopt as a statement of moral principles

for actions of resistance to wealth concentration and global inequality. It is equally important as a

document of principles for the global power elite to use as a guide for corrective actions needed

in the world today.

It is no longer acceptable to believe that global power elites can manage capitalism to grow its

way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution

and waste, and civil unrest is inevitable. We need to pressure global capital elites to step up and

insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every family, and

all human beings. These changes are required for nothing less than humanity’s long-term

survival.

Peter Phillips is a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University, where he has

taught since 1994. He teaches courses in Political Sociology, Sociology of Power, Sociology of

Media, Sociology of Conspiracies and Investigative Sociology. He served as director of Project

Censored from 1996 to 2010 and as president of Media Freedom Foundation from 2003 to 2017.

Giants: The Global Power Elite is his 18th book from Seven Stories Press—it was released in

August 2018.

Ben Bernanke admits that the Federal Reserve caused the Great depression

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depression

How banks can control stock markets

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-01/misesians-gather-ghost-dead-economist-haunts-planet

https://www.projectcensored.org/a-milestone-for-global-

capitalism/?doing_wp_cron=1541790369.7685730457305908203125

How Does Money Work?

Critical and fundamental knowledge:

The Nature of Money → Money as Debt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8 Hidden Secrets of Money: Episodes 1-7 (1 & 7 below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyV0OfU3-FU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4_1pwsm5LY The True Monetary and Banking History (focus on Parts 1-3) http://www.themonetaryreset.com/search/label/How%20We%20Got%20Here optional – Inequality: Why are the rich getting richer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzCegQVljdY

Debt Is Not a Choice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQc0rLdB-E How To Be a Crook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oHbwdNcHbc Renaissance 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96c2wXcNA7A Debunking Money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_yh4-Zi92Q

Central Banks Traditionally, central banks are owned by governments who use them to print money whenever they have budget shortfalls or deficits. Central banks also set interest rates for the mortgage industry and more. When they print money for government budgets, they charge almost no interest. Now, almost all central banks are privately owned and, in some cases, countries are borrowing from outside privately owned banks. Canada borrows money from the BIS, is in debt to it, and pays interest to it for no reason since it could print its own money. What is a central bank and who owns them? http://humansarefree.com/2013/11/complete-list-of-banks-ownedcontrolled.html The Global Central Banking Cartel of the Rothschild Family http://www.theeventchronicle.com/finanace/three-countries-left-without-rothschild-central-bank/ Federal debt service/interest payments as a portion of federal taxes: https://flaglerlive.com/26685/gc-fdr-and-taxes/

Legal case in Canada against the BIS

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-bank-of-canada-should-be-reinstated-to-its-original-mandated-purposes

FORMER NAZI BANK TO RULE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY https://www.infowars.com/former-nazi-bank-to-rule-the-global-economy/ https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bank-of-international-settlements-meet-the-secretive-group-

that-runs-the-world/5442583 http://rabble.ca/news/2015/06/money-matters-comer-v-canada

The Amazing Masters of Money Documentary Excellent, long documentary on the history of banking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpG-r9FnnXY

The Myth of the Free Market

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/23/the-myth-of-the-free-market/

by THOMAS M. MAGSTADT

Midway through President Barack Obama’s first term, as numbing news of

multibillion dollar boondoggles, scandals and swindles dominated the headlines, the

times were ripe for a critical re-examination of the basic principles underlying

capitalism. Republicans and libertarians routinely attribute the economic and

technological achievements of the United States and the Western Europe to the

workings of the “free market”. Do the facts or logic support that claim? The result

was a piece I published in the fall of 2011 entitled “The Myth of the Free

Market”.* At the time I did not imagine that Donald Trump, a man whose success

in business and politics is based on a myth, would be our next president.

With our image in the world badly tarnished, the country deeply divided, and

foreign policy in a shambles, the mythmaker-in-chief is now impeached and facing a

trial in the U.S. Senate. It’s time to take another look at the myth at the core of

American capitalism.

i.

In the wake of the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression and in the throes

of a prolonged recession brought on by rogue financial institutions operating outside

a regulatory system supposedly designed to prevent the very kind of reckless

behavior and profiteering that led to the current doldrums, here is a short list of

myths perpetrated by the corporate greed-is-good culture – myths that taken together

add up to The Big Lie that is destroying the American economy, the middle class,

and the good character of a once-great country.

Let’s begin with an axiom the US Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, Koch

Industries, Inc., Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Company, and Bain Capital,

to name but a few, would all wholeheartedly endorse: state interference

(“regulation”) is inimical to economic growth, job creation, and prosperity. And

this corollary: a free Market is the best and only way to achieve the greatest good

for the greatest number.

Myth #1: There is no such thing as a free market, never has been, never will be. All

markets are regulated, but some markets are regulated in the interest of the many

and others in the interest of the few. The American economy is now clearly and

indisputably regulated by the few and for the few who now control the wealth of the

nation.

Proof: The top 20% own all but about 15% of the privately held money and assets

in this country. The top 10% of taxpayers owns roughly 72% of the wealth and over

90% of the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Between 1981 and 2005, federal taxes

on business declined 43 percent. Corporate income taxes accounted for about one-

quarter of federal revenues in 1950; today, corporations contribute a mere 6% to the

Treasury.

Myth #2: Market economies are hardly a guarantee of peace. The United States

boasts by far the world’s largest military establishment. Much of the money spent in

the name of national security and war waging goes to private corporations through

hundreds of thousands of procurement contracts (around 400,000). For FY2002

through FY2008, nearly half of all federal expenditures went to eight federal

departments and agencies involved in national and homeland security – including

the servicing of war-incurred debt.

Proof: The US is still enmeshed in two protracted wars we initiated (Afghanistan

and Iraq). Not counting the intelligence services and “black budget”, the US

accounts for 43-45% of total world military expenditures every year. According to

the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United

States accounted for $19.6 billion of the $20.6 billion global increase in military

spending in 2010 – fully 96% of the total. The “military-industrial complex” has

corporate and defense tentacles reaching into virtually every political constituency.

DOD alone maintains nearly 5,500 bases and military sites in the U.S. and around

the world

Myth #3: Market economies are based on competition and therefore guarantee

efficiency and prosperity.

Proof: At least 95 percent of the national debt is war-related. The Defense

Department absorbs 25-30 percent of the federal budget, depending what is counted

and who’s doing the counting. Two-thirds (68 percent) of all federal government

civil and military employees are involved in national security and war related

activities. If you add the $100 billion or more for the two wars we are still fighting,

the $80 billion for the intelligence budget, and various other defense-related

expenditures, that figure is actually much higher – roughly one-half the entire

federal budget for the period 2002-2008.

Myth #4: The Constitution prescribes that corporations are no different from natural

persons, with the same right to freedom of speech and expression as you and me,

which means, among other things, that Chevron and Walmart can spend as much

money as they please to manipulate public opinion and influence the outcome of

elections.

Proof: The Constitution says nothing about corporations, much less does it

declare ad absurdum that corporations are people. Not until 1886 in the case

of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, did the Supreme

Court make this astonishing discovery. Never mind that it’s preposterous to equate

natural persons and corporations: the die was cast. The 1886 precedent-setting

decision –not the Constitution – is the sledgehammer the Supreme Court has used

to smash all federal legislation aimed at limiting corporate campaign spending to

bits. The most recent example Citizens United decision, is also the most lethal for

democracy because it puts Congress and the presidency on the auction block.

ii.

No democracy is immune from manipulation by the few—at present, in the form of

right-wing populism. During the Cold War the fear of subversion focused on

Communism and the danger from below. When the Cold War ended, the fear of

subversion all but disappeared only to be replaced by state-sponsored terrorism after

9-ll. Interference in free elections by states with advanced cyber warfare

capabilities is now a bigger problem for Western democracies than the Soviet

Union’s extensive but often clumsy efforts at disinformation, infiltration, and

subversion ever were.

The extreme costs of political campaigns combined with the extreme inequality in

wealth means that a very few individuals who control vast amounts of money can

make or break virtually any candidate for high office, including incumbents. If you

don’t believe me, ask former Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin – a latter-day

Solon who tried to reform our disastrous campaign finance laws and was defeated in

2010 by Ron Johnson, a business executive and prominent member of America’s

entrenched plutocracy, who poured eight million dollars of his own money into

winning a Senate seat.

Before the 2016 election, it was difficult to imagine a populist pretender, a

demagogue with a gift for manipulating the very people he and his corrupt circle of

high-rolling titans and boot-licking toadies exploit, in the Oval Office. Today, no

imagination is necessary—the nightmare is a reality.

iii.

Conclusion: A vibrant market economy will not be long-lived or “sustainable” in

the absence of smart regulation designed to accomplish two primary aims – wealth

creation and social justice. In the pursuit of wealth and justice, it is the role of the

state to balance these two aims.

Regulation is not the enemy of incentive, invention, or innovation. Nor is it

incompatible with progress, profits, or personal gain. In a properly ordered republic,

business makes the money and the government makes the rules. If the federal

government persists in allowing oil companies, investment banks, and front groups

for billionaires to make the rules free of public scrutiny and transparency, the very

competition so vital to a market economy will be ever more constricted and

joblessness will become chronic rather than “cyclical”, as companies cut jobs here at

home, replace workers with robots, and go abroad in search of cheap labor, lax labor

laws, and tariff-free access to fast-growing markets in Asia and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a dysfunctional Washington dithers, the rich get richer, the middle class

gets poorer, the poor lose hope, elections are a sham, and the American Dream dies

a slow but certain death.

*The original appeared at Open Salon in October 2011 where it became an

Editor’s Pick. This updated article is adapted from the original.

How to Destroy the Global Economy https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-03/hells-top-banker-explains-how-destroy-global-

economy

Who Cares about Money?

People worry about money – for the wrong reason – not having enough:

And the worries are starting to pile up. According to a Bankrate survey of 2,500 people:

• 78% of adults are losing sleep over work, relationships, retirement and other worries

• Over half (56%) of Americans are lying awake at night worrying about money.

• The key worries are retirement (24%), health care and/or insurance bills (22%), the ability to pay credit-card debt (18%), mortgage/rent payments (18%), educational expenses (11% versus 26%) and stock-market volatility (5%)

In addition, 40% of people in a separate poll by that site say they feel the next recession has already begun or will begin within the next 12 months. 45% of U.S. workers have a second job to make ends meet and middle aged workers are feeling the pressure too, including 48% of millennials, 39% of Generation Xers and 28% baby boomers.

People should worry about how money is created. Money’s existence is now based on fraud and interest

rates are used by banks to enslave people and whole nations to debt, and banks and corporations use

money earned by people with good intentions to fund wars, political corruption, economic exploitation

and environmental destruction. Let’s look closer at how money is based on fraud.

1929 and Other Stock Market Demolitions, Not Crashes

Ben Bernanke admits that the Federal Reserve caused the Great depression

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depression

How The Fed Keeps Accidentally Crashing The Stock Market (12:34 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNglSt82-U

Difficult article on how banks can control stock markets https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-01/misesians-gather-ghost-dead-economist-haunts-planet

Psychology: The Stock-Holder’s Syndrome Nowadays, nearly everyone owns stocks or shares in publicly listed corporations, so very few people are willing to be critical of corporate corruption. President Trump, for example, owns stocks in Raytheon, the military arms giant who produced the missiles that recently hit Syria. http://www.hangthebankers.com/trump-owns-shares-company-syria-raytheon/

Taxes: The Price Your Rulers Charge

The U.S. government does not even have laws permitting it to collect income taxes.

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/america-freedom-to-fascism/

In America, income tax was introduced during the 1920s, to help pay the debts owed to the thieves at

the Federal Reserve. The Canadian Income Tax was introduced around World War Two.

Government disappearing money – taxes and fiat – into secret programs – 50 trillion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNuk70L5Ccc https://home.solari.com/

Mortgages: Mort = Death Home prices since 1940 https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/how-much-housing-prices-have-risen-since-1940.html

AV5 - Roger Hayes - Bankster Mortgage Fraud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErF_QN_1-E

Humanity vs Insanity Episode 111: The Great British Mortgage Swindle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe3W2JukS5g The Great British Mortgage Swindle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pik0pvgxzk

Great Modern Economists Steven Keen, author of Debunking Economics discusses the fact that modern schools of economics use economic theories that do not factor in the role of Nature, the environment, land and all the energy they provide in the form of food and other fuels. They typically work with anthropocentric or nature-omitting models and think markets consist entirely labor and capital, or human demand and human generated supply. Additionally, now that the global warming narrative is forcing them to include environmental factor, they deny that global warming can have a significant impact on the capitalistic, anthropocentric economies. https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/474059-economics-crises-recessions-planet/

Michael Hudson, author of Killing the Host and Junk Economics and Superimperialism https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=killing+the++host

Ontario:

America …

In the United States, the income tax is illegal – no law exists that authorizes the IRS (Internal

Revenue Agency) to collect income taxes. Watch America: Freedom the Fascism. This feature

film includes a huge list of different US taxes that suck money out of citizens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ayb02bwp0

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-25/around-world-80-crazy-taxes