From a video called "Money Masters" [
DOCUMENTARY EXPLAINS HOW THE BANKERS RUN UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD]
on You-tube. I hope it inspires you to watch the entire video (several hours) as it is full of pertinent information that could
very well be crucial to our way of life.
Jesus drove the money changers from the temple in the only time Jesus
used force during his ministry. What were money changers doing in
the temple? When Jews came to Jerusalem to pay their temple tax,
they could only pay it with a special coin the half shackle, of the
century. (A half oz of silver) it was the only coin at that
time of assured weight, pure silver and without the image of a pagan
emperor on it. Therefore to the Jews the half shackle was the
only coin acceptable to God. But the coins were not plentiful,
the money changers had cornered the market on them than they raised the
price just like any other commodity to what ever the market would
bear. In other words, money changers were making exorbitant
profits because they had a virtual monopoly on the money. The
Jews had to pay whatever they demanded. To Jesus this totally
violated the sanctity of gods house.
Roman Empire
200 years before Christ, Rome was having trouble with money
changers. Two early Roman emperors tried to diminish the power of
the money changers by reforming usury laws and limiting land ownership
to 500 acres. They were both assassinated. In 48 BC Julius
Cesar took back the power to coin money from the money changers and
minted coins for the benefit of all. With this new plentiful
supply of money he built great public works projects. By making
money plentiful he won the love of the common man but the money
changers hated him. Some believe this was an important factor in
Caesar assassination. One thing for sure, with the death of
Cesar came the demise of plentiful money in Rome. Taxes increased
as did corruption. Just as in the case of the US today usury and
debased coin became the rule. Eventually the roman money supply
was reduced by 90% and as a result, common people lost their lands and
their homes just as is about to happen soon in America. With the
demise of plentiful money the roman people lost confidence in the roman
government and refused to support it. Rome plunged into the gloom
of the dark ages.
The Goldsmiths
A thousand years after the death of Christ money changers, those who
lone out and manipulate the quantity of money, were active in medieval
England. In fact they were so active that acting together they
could manipulate the entire English economy. These were not
bankers per se, they were the goldsmiths. They were the bankers
because they were the people who started keeping peoples gold for safe
keeping in their vaults. The first paper money was merely a
receipt for gold left at the goldsmiths. Paper money caught on
because it was more convenient and easier than carrying around a lot of
gold and silver coins. Eventually the goldsmiths noticed that
only a small percentage of the depositors came in and asked for their
gold at one time. Goldsmiths started cheating on the
system. They discovered they could print more money than gold and
nobody would be the wiser. Than they could loan out this ‘extra’
money and collect interest on it. This was the birth of
fractional reserve banking, that is loaning out many more times the
money than for which you have assets.
So if they had a thousand dollars in gold on deposit
they could loan out about ten thousand dollars, collect the interest
and nobody would be the wiser. By this means is goldsmiths used
this practice to accumulate more and more wealth and used this wealth
to accumulate even more wealth. Today, every bank in the US is
allowed to loan out 10 times as much money as they actually have, this
is know as fractional reserve banking. That is why they get rich
at charging 8% interest on a loan because it is not 8% they are
charging, it is 80%. That is why bank building are always the
largest in town. 16:22
In the middle ages cannon law, the law of the
Catholic Church forbade charging interest on loans. This concept
was taught by Aristotle & St Thomas that the purpose of money was
to serve the members of society, to facilitate the exchange of goods
needed to lead a virtuous life. Interest, in their belief,
hindered this purpose by putting an unnecessary burden on the use of
money. In other words interest was contrary to reason and justice.
Reflecting church law in the middle ages Europe
forbade charging interest on loans and made it a crime called
usury. As commerce grew and therefore the opportunities for
investment arose in the late middle ages it came to be recognized that
to loan money had a cost for the lender both in risk and lost
opportunity, so some charges were allowed but not interest per
se. But all moralists, no mater what religion, condemned fraud,
oppression of the poor, and injustice as clearly immoral. As we
sill see fractional reserve lending is rooted in a fraud, results in
widespread poverty, and reduces the value of everyone else’s money.
The ancient goldsmiths discovered that extra profits
could be made by rowing the economy between easy money and tight
money. When they made money easier to borrow than the amount of
money in circulation expanded, money was plentiful, people took out
more loans to expand their business, but then the money changer would
tighten the money supply, make it more difficult to get loans.
What would happen is just what happens today. A certain
percentage of people could not repay their previous loans, and could
not take out new loans to repay the old ones. Therefore they went
bankrupt and had to sell their assets to the goldsmiths for pennies on
the dollar.
The same thing is still going on today, only today we are calling this
the rowing of the economy, up and down “the business cycle.”
Tally Sticks
Like Julies Censer king Henry of England tried to
take away the power of the money changers about 1100 AD. He could
have used anything for money, - - even yak dung as is often in remote
Tibetan provinces. But he invented one of the most unique money
systems ever invented, it was called the Tally Stick System. This
form of money lasted 726 years, until 1826. The Tally system was
adopted to avoid the money manipulation of the gold smiths. One
of the original bank holders of the bank of England purchased his
position in the bank with a tally stick.
It is ironic that after it’s inception in 1694 the Bank of England
attacked the Tally Stick system because it was money outside the power
of the money changers just as king Henry had wanted it to be. 24
min
The secret is that money is only what people agree on to use for money. The trick was the King demanded that Tally Sticks be used to pay for taxes. And they worked well, as a matter of fact nothing else has worked so well for so long as Tally Sticks.
Finally in the 1500's King Henry the 8th relaxed the laws concerning usury and the money changers wasted no time reasserting themselves. They quickly made their gold and silver money plentiful for a few decades. But when Queen Mary took the thrown and tightened the usury laws again the money changers renewed the hoarding of gold and silver coins, forcing the economy to plummet. 25:48
When queen Mary’s sister queen Elizabeth the 1st took the thrown she was determined to regain control of the her English money. Her solution was to issue gold and silver coins from the public treasury and take away control of the money supply away from the money changers. Although control over money was not the only cause of the English revolution of 1642, religious differences fueled the conflict, monetary policy played a major role.
;Financed by the money changers Oliver Cromwell finally overthrew King Charles, purged the parliament and put the king to death. The money changers were immediately allowed to consolidate their finical power. The result was for the next 50 years the money changers plunged Great Britain into a series of costly wars. They took over a square mile of property in London known as the “City of London.” This area is still known today as one of the three predominant finical centers of the world.
Conflicts with the steward kings led the money changers in England with those in the Netherlands to finance the invasion of William of Orange who overthrew the stewards in 1688 and took the English thrown.
The Bank of England
By the end of the 1600 England was in finical ruin. 50 years of more or less continuous wars with France and Holland had exhausted her. Frantic government officials met with the money changers to beg for the loans necessary to pursue their political purposes. The price was high, a government sanctioned privately owned bank which could issue money created out of nothing. It was to be the modern worlds privately owned central bank, the Bank of England. Although it was deceptively called The Bank of England to make the general population think it was part of the government it was not. Like any other corporation it sold shares to get started. The investors who’s names were never revealed, were supposed to put up one and a quarter million British pounds in gold coin to buy their shares in the ban, but only 750 thousand pounds were ever received. Despite that, the bank was duly chartered in 1694 and started out in the business of loaning several times the money it was supposed to have in reserve all at interest. In exchange the new bank would lend the British politicians as much new money as they wanted as long as they secured the debt by direct taxation of the people.
So legalization of the Bank of England was little more than legal counterfeiting of a national currency for private gain. Unfortunately almost every nation now has a privately owned central bank using the bank of England as the basic model. Such is the power of these central banks that they take over control of a nations economy. It soon amounts to nothing more than a Plutocracy, ruled by the rich. It would be like putting the Army in control of the Mafia, the danger of tyranny would be extreme.
Yes we need central banks. No, we do not need
them in private hands.