History of the Federal Reserve:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531


6/4/08 Update- It's Deja Vu all over again. If you missed how your pockets were picked in April, get ready for round two. Lehman is next. Lehman was reportedly exploring options with the Fed. Read the saga of the BS bailout and give me one good reason we should bail out another brokerage firm. Contrast this behavior with UBS who 'fessed their mistakes, skewered management and took the write-downs, i.e. behaved responsibly and did not ask for a handout from the Fed. The only reason that Lehman would even have exploratory conversations is because the public did not protest enough on the Bears Stearns bailout. It was a social test of our sanity. We failed. It appears that they are offering a make up exam. If you already know the saga, click this link and stop the insanity.

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/fed_steals_tax_money.html

4/02/08

I'm watching the Treasury Inquisition on CNN and they are saying that the failure of Bear Stearns would have gone BEYOND the borders of Wall Street.
The actions were appropriate and necessary.


Well, I sort of agree, it would have rippled (or tidal waved as your position may deem) around the world and could have probably caused an international crash. That is because our money is based on confidence, not gold. If confidence in large US hedge funds and banks were diminished, the house of cards falls down. The Fed took steps to prop up the cards.

I'm glad they did. I'm really too busy with other things to have a global financial meltdown. Maybe we can keep this Ponzi scheme rolling until I'm dead. More power to you guys. (except I have kids and despite the fact they are teenagers, I am increasingly fond of them. This seems patently unfair to them. But as I mentioned, they are teenagers and I'm sure in a week or two they will do something to make this punishment trivial.)

But the very reason that we are having a global financial crisis is because the Federal Reserve has printed money that we don't have.

The Federal Reserve is not actually a FEDERAL anything, but a partnership with government and the largest banks in New York.

53% of the Federal Reserve is owned by 5 major banks in New York and these owners are secret.

Not even the President of the US nor Congress can find out who they are according to the documentary link above.
Only the Treasury can create money, not the Federal Reserve.
Only Congress can authorize payments from the Treasury, not the Federal Reserve.

RE: Bear Stearns
The largest banks in New York (Federal Reserve) decided that rather than let Bear go bankrupt which would cause a crisis of confidence and a possible run on many banks (themselves), they would shift the problem to the US Treasury.

They did not get Congressional approval. - They probably would have gotten it, it is not like it is hard to get Congress to spend money they don't have, but they certainly SHOULD have gotten it.

The Government (in this case politicians) embrace an invisible taxing body like the "Federal" reserve. The F Reserve controls money policy (printing money) allowing politicians to pay off cronies and fund pork without a tax increase. This allows them to get re-elected. By pushing the "payment" off into the future, it is a form of taxation without representation. Kids don't vote. (Yet.. but they are at that questioning age as you can see by the video. They aren't too happy with what we are handing them.)

Article 1 USC "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment".

Ok, I wasn't really paying attention when Nixon took us off the gold standard in the seventies. But that should have been challenged as well. I was 17 then, protesters were in vogue during the late sixties and early seventies, but the government was shooting us if we protested too much. And let's face it, protesting economics would have really been geeky. Free love and War protests were much more popular and had enormous short term payoffs for our generation. (like we got chicks and we didn't die) Life was so much simpler then. But thank God for Neil Young to keep the spirit alive. Find the COST OF FREEDOM


We've been accepting that the Fed can print money since 1913, they just weren't as flagrant as we have been in the last 20 years. But that doesn't make it right. I mean how many of us dust off the Constitution and read it to put us to sleep each night? I pretty much figured that there are enough watch dogs and enemies of the state that someone would bubble this up on Nightline, CNN, The Nightly Business Report, 60 minutes, or at least intellectual savants like Nancy Grace or Geraldo. I'd even enjoy commentary from John Stewart or Steve Colbert.


Hmmm, I wonder if these banks influence the media too?


Until I did just a modicum of research, I figured that anything this big would be exposed in the media. I mean we had hearings on Iran Contra, Monica, Larry Craig's toe tapping in the Minnesota mens room, you would think that a story like the "Foxes watching the Henhouse" would certainly be newsworthy when it opens the door and allows foreign individuals and corporations to gain access to our tax money. (remember, the Fed is a secret club)


I wrote a letter last night to every one of those Senators on the banking committee. As I watch this circus through the filter of this perspective, they are just putting on one of the most colossal red herring shows that I have ever seen. They are all asking the wrong questions, and focusing attention on how involved the Fed was in setting the price for Bear Stearns. Well, if you understand that the "FED" is fundamentally the 5 major banks in NY and it is essentially a cartel, well DUH! The question should be WHY do we even have a bail out, and how does the Federal Reserve get to step in and bail out with our money without congressional approval? By taking the approach of not addressing the fundamental question, they give tacit approval to the Fed continuing to take our money. (thereby calming international markets, because if Riyadh, London, Beijing, Frankfurt or London felt that we were wising up, we'd have the crisis of confidence all over again.)
If you are planning on moving to Canada or Australia you probably don't want to bother complaining to them that you really prefer that the government steal your money in full view. I think this sneaky stealing of your money is really un-American. (except for the greed part.)

For those of you staying put, you can simply ask that they steal your money the old fashioned way:

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/fed_steals_tax_money.html

If you were paying attention, the gist of what you saw today was designed to suggest that the Fed should get MORE power because now firms once the province of the SEC need more government regulation. Are you sure that you want that?
Besides, I think that Bear Stearns was asked to participate in some of the Savings and Loan stuff a few years ago by the Fed. They apparently declined to help at the time. Do you think that had anything to do with them getting slashed and burned at the stake? It was Bear Stearns, the biggest broker to hedge funds, that nine years ago declined to join 14 other investment banks in the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management LP. Then last month, as New York-based Bear Stearns pleaded for help to rescue two of its hedge funds teetering on the brink of collapse, many of the same firms refused to come to its aid. Payback is a bitch?
As I write this they are asking Ben, and the Bear Stearns CEO, and a host of others "Did you have advance notice of Bears' liquidity crisis?" They are making the claim that the bankers only had 24 hours notice that Bear Stearns was going to collapse. That is just complete BS (I love the irony BS-Bear Stearns), no collapse that big could have occurred that fast and the length of pause before the obligatory "no" answer was given, tells me plenty. Bears liquidity problems were pretty much out in the press in the summer of 07.


Today I saw a pattern of answers designed to give me confidence that this is serious, but shielded me from the real truth. It seemed like a sugar coated turd. But then when you are getting your pockets picked for $29Billion, would you really expect a clumsy set of ill spoken crooks in stripes? No, we can command exceptional speakers that can speak "diffuse" for that kind of money. Listen to them with a critical ear and I think you may actually write a letter of inquiry to your congressman.


The Federal Government owns you. If you are a full time worker, you owe nearly half a million dollars.

4/23/08 update: Did some additional research, looks like we were first made aware of this in 1932

Over the years we have legally repealed the Federal Reserve. But the Federal Reserve gets mad when you try to fire them.

Executive Order 11110
AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:
SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended - (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

John F. Kennedy THE WHITE HOUSE, June 4, 1963
Once again, Executive Order 11110 is still valid. According to Title 3, United States Code, Section 301 dated January 26, 1998:
Executive Order (EO) 10289 dated Sept. 17, 1951, 16 F.R. 9499, was as amended by:
EO... 10583, dated December 18, 1954, 19 F.R. 8725;
EO... 10882 dated July 18, 1960, 25 F.R. 6869;
EO... 11110 dated June 4, 1963, 28 F.R. 5605;
EO... 11825 dated December 31, 1974, 40 F.R. 1003;
EO... 12608 dated September 9, 1987, 52 F.R. 34617

The 1974 and 1987 amendments, added after Kennedy's 1963 amendment, did not change or alter any part of Kennedy's EO 11110. A search of Clinton's 1998 and 1999 EO's and Presidential Directives has also shown no reference to any alterations, suspensions, or changes to EO 11110.

4/28/08 update: Vincent Reinhart, who used to be the Fed's director of monetary affairs says that the Bear Stearns Bailout the worst mistake in a generation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN2921966020080429


Jim Cramer calls for investigation of the Fed.

6/4/08 Update- Looks like we didn't protest enough about the bailout, so they are going back to the trough. Lehman is next. Anytime you have a company that can't explain its finances, there is something wrong with it. David Einhorn is particularly critical of FAS 159 (The Fair Value Option for Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities), a new accounting standard, which he called "Profiting from your own demise." If you don't think that taxpayers (YOU) have an obligation to bailout companies that make bad decisions, you could raise your hand and protest by clicking the link below. Otherwise just put both your hands up.

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/fed_steals_tax_money.html


" I have unwittingly ruined my country! "
- Woodrow Wilson days after signing the Federal Reserve into law in 1913.

Give me EVERYTHING you own-NOW! -The Fed
Let's Pop the Deficit Bubble -from the Wall Street Journal