History and Banking

When facing a Lawsuit Over Credit Card Debt, understanding Banking and its relevance is very important.

Money, Banking, and the Control of Currency have been very important issues throughout our history...As you will see by the quotes below.

We believe the Country is need of reform in both Banking and Monetary Policy...The quotes below provide an insightful look into the views on these topics, from influential people throughout history.

Banking Quotes From Influential
People Throughout History

• "Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal -- that there is no human relation between master and slave." - Leo Tolstoy



• "All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." -- John Adams, Founding Father

• "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." - President James Madison

• "You are a den of vipers and thieves (bankers) and I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out. If Congress has the right to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, and not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.." -- Andrew Jackson's address to Congress 1829

• "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." - Thomas Jefferson.

• "I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy..... I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war." - Abraham Lincoln

• "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing." Thomas Jefferson, 1798

• "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -Thomas Jefferson, The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809). This prophecy has come true.

• You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury." - *Benjamin Franklin Autobiography

• "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." - Hazard Circular - London Times 1865

• "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." - President James A. Garfield (1831-1881)

• "If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people. " - Thomas Edison, The New York Times, December 6, 1921

• "The Central Banks (which charge interest to governments for the money they produce from out of nothing, with no labour or wealth involved) have secured these loans against your future taxes. Without even asking you, a substantial part of your future worth has been put up as collateral. What Central Banks do in a big way with countries, your local bank will replicate on organisations and individuals, using the same slight of hand to produce the funds they lend out of thin air." - Alternative Trading Network article

• "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." - James Garfield (assasinated within weeks of release of this statement during first year of his Presidency in 1881)

• "Those few who can understand the system (check book money and credit) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on it favors, that there will be little opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear it burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." - The Rothschild Brothers of London

• "Because of 'fractional' reserve system, banks, as a whole, can expand our money supply several times, by making loans and investments." "Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU." - Federal Reserve Bank, New York

• "The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it (p15). The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled." - John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it came, where it went - 1975, p29.

• "The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing." - William Paterson (founder of Bank of England 1694)

• "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is, perhaps, the most, astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint, and un-mint the modern ledger-entry currency". Major L. L. B. Angus

• "Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment, out of nothing." - Ralph M. Hawtery (Former Secretary of the British Treasury)

• "In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply."- John Kenneth Galbrath

• "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States." -Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

• "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." - Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain
• "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is, perhaps, the most, astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint, and un-mint the modern ledger-entry currency". Major L. L. B. Angus
• "Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment, out of nothing." - Ralph M. Hawtery (Former Secretary of the British Treasury)

"In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply."- John Kenneth Galbrath

• "I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. .. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected." -John Danforth, Republican senator from Missouri, reported in the Arizona Republic of April 21, 1992

• "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States." -Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)

• "Federal Reserve is not Federal and it has doubtful reserves. The name is an open deception designed to give this private bank the appearance that it is operating in the public's interest, when in fact it is run solely to gain private profit for its select stock holders. It came into being as the result of one of the slickest moves in financial history. On 23rd December 1913 the house of representatives had past the Federal Reserve Act, but it was still having difficulty getting it out of the senate. Most members of congress had gone home for the holidays, but unfortunately the senate had not adjourned sene die (without day) so they were technically still in session. There were only three members still present. On a unanimous consent voice vote the 1913 Federal Reserve Act was passed. No objection was made, possibly because there was no one there to object." from Who owns the FED