It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt

[웃 910]

It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt

A lot of people are very upset about the rapidly increasing U.S. national debt these days and they are demanding a solution. What they don't realize is that there simply is not a solution under the current U.S. financial system. It is now mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off the U.S. national debt. You see, the truth is that the U.S. government now owes more dollars than actually exist. If the U.S. government went out today and took every single penny from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they still would not be able to pay off the national debt. And if they did that, obviously American society would stop functioning because nobody would have any money to buy or sell anything.

And the U.S. government would still be massively in debt.

So why doesn't the U.S. government just fire up the printing presses and print a bunch of money to pay off the debt?

Well, for one very simple reason.

That is not the way our system works.

You see, for more dollars to enter the system, the U.S. government has to go into more debt.

The U.S. government does not issue U.S. currency - the Federal Reserve does.

The Federal Reserve is a private bank owned and operated for profit by a very powerful group of elite international bankers.

If you will pull a dollar bill out and take a look at it, you will notice that it says "Federal Reserve Note" at the top.

It belongs to the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. government cannot simply go out and create new money whenever it wants under our current system.

Instead, it must get it from the Federal Reserve.

So, when the U.S. government needs to borrow more money (which happens a lot these days) it goes over to the Federal Reserve and asks them for some more green pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes.

The Federal Reserve swaps these green pieces of paper for pink pieces of paper called U.S. Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve either sells these U.S. Treasury bonds or they keep the bonds for themselves (which happens a lot these days).

So that is how the U.S. government gets more green pieces of paper called "U.S. dollars" to put into circulation. But by doing so, they get themselves into even more debt which they will owe even more interest on.

So every time the U.S. government does this, the national debt gets even bigger and the interest on that debt gets even bigger.

Are you starting to get the picture?

As you read this, the U.S. national debt is approximately 12 trillion dollars, although it is going up so rapidly that it is really hard to pin down an exact figure.

So how much money actually exists in the United States today?

Well, there are several ways to measure this.

The "M0" money supply is the total of all physical bills and currency, plus the money on hand in bank vaults and all of the deposits those banks have at reserve banks. As of mid-2009, the Federal Reserve said that this amount was about 908 billion dollars.

The "M1" money supply includes all of the currency in the "M0" money supply, along with all of the money held in checking accounts and other checkable accounts at banks, as well as all money contained in travelers' checks. According to the Federal Reserve, this totaled approximately 1.7 trillion dollars in December 2009, but not all of this money actually "exists" as we will see in a moment.

The "M2" money supply includes everything in the "M1" money supply plus most other savings accounts, money market accounts, retail money market mutual funds, and small denomination time deposits (certificates of deposit of under $100,000). According to the Federal Reserve, this totaled approximately 8.5 trillion dollars in December 2009, but once again, not all of this money actually "exists" as we will see in a moment.

The "M3" money supply includes everything in the "M2" money supply plus all other CDs (large time deposits and institutional money market mutual fund balances), deposits of eurodollars and repurchase agreements. The Federal Reserve does not keep track of M3 anymore, but according to ShadowStats.com it is currently somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 trillion dollars. But again, not all of this "money" actually "exists" either.

So why doesn't it exist?

It is because our financial system is based on something called fractional reserve banking.

When you go over to your local bank and deposit $100, they do not keep your $100 in the bank. Instead, they keep only a small fraction of your money there at the bank and they lend out the rest to someone else. Then, if that person deposits the money that was just borrowed at the same bank, that bank can loan out most of that money once again. In this way, the amount of "money" quickly gets multiplied. But in reality, only $100 actually exists. The system works because we do not all run down to the bank and demand all of our money at the same time.

According to the New York Federal Reserve Bank, fractional reserve banking can be explained this way....

"If the reserve requirement is 10%, for example, a bank that receives a $100 deposit may lend out $90 of that deposit. If the borrower then writes a check to someone who deposits the $90, the bank receiving that deposit can lend out $81. As the process continues, the banking system can expand the initial deposit of $100 into a maximum of $1,000 of money ($100+$90+81+$72.90+...=$1,000)."

So much of the "money" out there today is basically made up out of thin air.

In fact, most banks have no reserve requirements at all on savings deposits, CDs and certain kinds of money market accounts. Primarily, reserve requirements apply only to "transactions deposits" – essentially checking accounts.

The truth is that banks are freer today to dramatically "multiply" the amounts deposited with them than ever before. But all of this "multiplied" money is only on paper - it doesn't actually exist.

The point is that the broadest measures of the money supply (M2 and M3) vastly overstate how much "real money" actually exists in the system.

So if the U.S. government went out today and demanded every single dollar from all banks, businesses and individuals in the United States it would not be able to collect 14 trillion dollars (M3) or even 8.5 trillion dollars (M2) because those amounts are based on fractional reserve banking.

So the bottom line is this....

#1) If all money owned by all American banks, businesses and individuals was gathered up today and sent to the U.S. government, there would not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

#2) The only way to create more money is to go into even more debt which makes the problem even worse.

You see, this is what the whole Federal Reserve System was designed to do. It was designed to slowly drain the massive wealth of the American people and transfer it to the elite international bankers.

It is a game that is designed so that the U.S. government cannot win. As soon as they create more money by borrowing it, the U.S. government owes more than what was created because of interest.

If you owe more money than ever was created you can never pay it back.

That means perpetual debt for as long as the system exists.

It is a system designed to force the U.S. government into ever-increasing amounts of debt because there is no escape.

We could solve this problem by shutting down the Federal Reserve and restoring the power to issue U.S. currency to the U.S. Congress (which is what the U.S. Constitution calls for). But the politicians in Washington D.C. are not about to do that.

So unless you are willing to fundamentally change the current system, you might as well quit complaining about the U.S. national debt because it is now mathematically impossible to pay it off.

***UPDATE***

It has been suggested that the same dollar can be used to pay off debt over and over - this is theoretically true as long as the dollar remains in the system.

For example, if the U.S. government gives China a dollar to pay off a debt, there is a good chance that the U.S. government will be able to acquire that dollar again and use it to pay off another debt.

However, this is not true when debt is retired with the Federal Reserve. In that case, money is actually removed from the system. In fact, because of the "money multiplier", when debt is retired with the Federal Reserve it can remove ten times that amount of money (and actually more, but let's not get too technical) from the system.

You see, fractional reserve banking works both ways. When $100 is introduced into the system, it can theoretically create $1000 as the example in the article above demonstrates. However, when that $100 is removed, it can have the opposite impact.

And considering the fact that the Federal Reserve "purchased" the vast majority of new U.S. government debt last year, we have got a real mess on our hands.

Even if a way could be figured out how to pay off all the debt we owe to foreign nations (such as China, Japan, etc.) it would still be mathematically impossible to pay off the debt that we owe to the Federal Reserve which is exploding so fast that it is hard to even keep track of.

Of course we could repudiate that debt and shut down the Federal Reserve, but very few in Washington D.C. have any interest in doing that.

It has also been suggested that instead of just using dollars to pay off the U.S. national debt, we could use the assets of the U.S. government to pay it off.

That is rather extreme, but let us consider that for a moment.

That total value of all physical assets in the United States, both publicly and privately owned, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 to 50 trillion dollars. Of course the idea of the U.S. government "owning" every single asset of the American people is repugnant to our entire way of life, but let's assume that for a moment.

According to the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, which is an official United States government report, the total liabilities of the United States government, including future social security and medicare payments that the U.S. government is already committed to pay out, now exceed 65 TRILLION dollars. This amount is more than the entire GDP of the whole world.

In fact, there are other authors who have written that the actual figure for the future liabilities of the U.S. government should be much higher, but let's be conservative and go with 65 trillion for now.

So, if the U.S. government took control of all physical assets in the United States and sold them off, it could not even make enough money to pay for everything that the U.S. government is already on the hook for.

Ouch.

If you have not read the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government, you really should. Actually the 2009 report should be available very soon if it isn't already. If anyone knows if it is available, please let us know.

The truth is that the U.S. government is in much bigger financial trouble than we have been led to believe.

For example, according to the report (which remember is an official U.S. government report) the real U.S. budget deficit for 2008 was not 455 billion dollars. It was actually 5.1 trillion dollars.

So why the difference?

The CBO's 455 billion figure is based on cash accounting, while the 5.1 trillion figure in the 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government is based on GAAP accounting. GAAP accounting is what is used by all the major firms on Wall Street and it is regarded as a much more accurate reflection of financial reality.

So needless to say, the United States is in a financial mess of unprecedented magnitude.

So what should we do? Does anyone have any suggestions?

***UPDATE 2***

We have received a lot of great comments on this article. Trying to understand the U.S. financial system (even after studying it for years) can be very difficult at times. In fact, it can almost seem like playing 3 dimensional chess.

Several readers have correctly pointed out that when the U.S. money supply is expanded by the Federal Reserve, the interest that is to be paid on that new debt is not created.

So where does the money to pay that interest come from? Well, eventually the money supply has to be expanded some more. But that creates even more debt.

That brings us to the next point.

Several readers have insisted that the Federal Reserve is not privately owned and that since it returns "most" of the profits it makes to the U.S. government that we should not be concerned about the debt owed to it.

The truth is that what you have with the Federal Reserve is layers of ownership. The following was originally posted on the Federal Reserve's website....

"The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations – possibly leading to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year."

So Federal Reserve "stock" is owned by member banks. So who owns the member banks? Well, when you sift through additional layers of ownership, you will ultimately find that people like the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers and the Queen of England have very large ownership interests in the big banks. But there are so many layers of ownership that they are able to disguise themselves well.

You see, these people are not stupid. They did not become the richest people in the world by being morons. It was the banking elite of the world who designed the Federal Reserve and it is the banking elite of the world who benefit the most from the Federal Reserve today. In the article above when we described the Federal Reserve as "a private bank owned and operated for profit by a very powerful group of elite international bankers" we may have been oversimplifying things a bit, but it is the essence of what is going on.

In an excellent article that she did on the Federal Reserve, Ellen Brown described a number of the ways that the Federal Reserve makes money for those who own it....

The interest on bonds acquired with its newly-issued Federal Reserve Notes pays the Fed’s operating expenses plus a guaranteed 6% return to its banker shareholders. A mere 6% a year may not be considered a profit in the world of Wall Street high finance, but most businesses that manage to cover all their expenses and give their shareholders a guaranteed 6% return are considered "for profit" corporations.

In addition to this guaranteed 6%, the banks will now be getting interest from the taxpayers on their "reserves." The basic reserve requirement set by the Federal Reserve is 10%. The website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York explains that as money is redeposited and relent throughout the banking system, this 10% held in "reserve" can be fanned into ten times that sum in loans; that is, $10,000 in reserves becomes $100,000 in loans. Federal Reserve Statistical Release H.8 puts the total "loans and leases in bank credit" as of September 24, 2008 at $7,049 billion. Ten percent of that is $700 billion. That means we the taxpayers will be paying interest to the banks on at least $700 billion annually – this so that the banks can retain the reserves to accumulate interest on ten times that sum in loans.

The banks earn these returns from the taxpayers for the privilege of having the banks’ interests protected by an all-powerful independent private central bank, even when those interests may be opposed to the taxpayers’ -- for example, when the banks use their special status as private money creators to fund speculative derivative schemes that threaten to collapse the U.S. economy. Among other special benefits, banks and other financial institutions (but not other corporations) can borrow at the low Fed funds rate of about 2%. They can then turn around and put this money into 30-year Treasury bonds at 4.5%, earning an immediate 2.5% from the taxpayers, just by virtue of their position as favored banks. A long list of banks (but not other corporations) is also now protected from the short selling that can crash the price of other stocks.

The reality is that there are a lot of ways that the Federal Reserve is a money-making tool. Yes, they do return "some" of their profits to the U.S. government each year. But the Federal Reserve is NOT a government agency and it DOES make profits.

So just how much money is made over there? The truth is that we have to rely on what the Federal Reserve tells us, because they have never been subjected to a comprehensive audit by the U.S. government.

Ever.

Right now there is legislation going through Congress that would change that, and the Federal Reserve is fighting it tooth and nail. They are warning that such an audit could cause a financial disaster.

What are they so afraid of?

Are they afraid that we might get to peek inside and see what they have been up to all these years?

If you are a history buff, then you probably know that debates about a "central bank" go all the way back to the Founding Fathers.

The European banking elite have always been determined to control our currency, and that is exactly what is happening today.

Ever since the Federal Reserve was created, there have been members of the U.S. Congress that have been trying to warn the American people about the insidious nature of this institution.

Just check out what the Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee had to say all the way back in the 1930s....

"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders."

The Federal Reserve is not the solution and it never has been.

The Federal Reserve is the problem.

Any thoughts?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archive...s-national-debt

[mawilson 2,133]

It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt

It's possible.

Our national debt is still less than 100% of our GDP.

The US seems unable to collect more than 20-30% of GDP in total tax revenue

(for example, Sweden collects close to 50%) - but even at 20% we could pay off

the debt in 5 years, if we could just stop all federal spending.

Of course, the government is not going to stop spending our money, but they can

at least try not to spend more than they take in.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

They could just learn the lesson of Global Warming Scientists, and cook the numbers. It's even easier with statistics and economic projections. All you have to do is redefine the terms...

Wait! The OMB has been doing that even since they were created!

Edited February 11, 2010 by Lone Ranger

[ready4ONE 5,400]

It's possible.

Our national debt is still less than 100% of our GDP.

The US seems unable to collect more than 20-30% of GDP in total tax revenue

(for example, Sweden collects close to 50%) - but even at 20% we could pay off

the debt in 5 years, if we could just stop all federal spending.

Of course, the government is not going to stop spending our money, but they can

at least try not to spend more than they take in.

Don't stop a good rant with pesky facts!!!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt

If the U.S. government went out today and took every single penny from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they still would not be able to pay off the national debt. And if they did that, obviously American society would stop functioning because nobody would have any money to buy or sell anything.

And the U.S. government would still be massively in debt.

What a moronic argument.

Look here: If I went out today and took ever single penny from every single account I have at every single bank I have accounts with, I still would not be able to pay all my current debt - my mortgage. I will, however, be able to pay it off as scheduled without breaking much of a sweat. Following the above quoted BS line of argument, I would need to surrender right now and explain to my mortgage lender that it is mathematically impossible for me to pay off my mortgage. In fact, they should never have given me a loan to begin with since I don't have 100% cash collateral to put up. Of course, if I had 100% cash collateral for a loan, I wouldn't need one in the first place.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Mr. Big Dog

[scandal 951]

The Federal Reserve is a private bank owned and operated for profit by a very powerful group of elite international bankers.

That's about as far as I got in reading this particular piece of drivel.

Factually it's dead wrong, and entirely conspiratorial. With vague undertones of antisemitism to boot. Next.

[웃 910]

That's about as far as I got in reading this particular piece of drivel.

Factually it's dead wrong, and entirely conspiratorial. With vague undertones of antisemitism to boot. Next.

I didn't even read one word of it! Seriously. Just posted it without even reading a sentence. Thanks for the heads up.

[I'm Gone 60]

With vague undertones of antisemitism to boot.

What? Where was one Jew mentioned in that story.

[scandal 951]

What? Where was one Jew mentioned in that story.

Do a Google search on the phrase "powerful group of elite international bankers" and see what comes up.

There are countless virulently antisemitic articles, books, and publications that refer to an international conspiracy of Jewish moneylenders who seek to control the world's finances.

I agree with you -this article in particular makes no such overt mention. I did a search for the word "Jew" or "Jewish" before I posted- nothing came back.

Hence I chose my words carefully and said only "vague undertones" of antisemitism. I stand by that phrasing.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I didn't even read one word of it! Seriously. Just posted it without even reading a sentence. Thanks for the heads up.

[웃 910]

Do a Google search on the phrase "powerful group of elite international bankers" and see what comes up.

There are countless virulently antisemitic articles, books, and publications that refer to an international conspiracy of Jewish moneylenders who seek to control the world's finances.

I agree with you -this article in particular makes no such overt mention. I did a search for the word "Jew" or "Jewish" before I posted- nothing came back.

Hence I chose my words carefully and said only "vague undertones" of antisemitism. I stand by that phrasing.

No offense, but that is about as ridiculous as 9/11 conspiracy. I did a google search of the exact phrase and a measly, pathetic, minuscule 1080 hits came up. To compare, "scandal" gets 40,300,000...."Lord Infamous" even got more hits with 96,200.

I even did a couple scans on words that don't even make sense:

"farsde": 519 hits

"shnoe": 16,000 hits

"jupesy": 57 hits

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The Medici created a lucrative partnership with another medieval power, the Catholic Church. In what had to be one of the most ingenious enterprises of all time, the Medici bank collected 10% of your earnings for the Church. If you couldn't pay, you faced excommunication - a one-way ticket to hell.

The Pope himself had a massive overdraft, and the Medici bank became the most profitable business in Europe. By 1434, half the bank's revenue came from the Rome “branch”, which was in fact little more than a mobile bank that followed the Pope around the world.

Papal connections gave the Medici bank immense power, soon everyone wanted an account with the Pope's personal bank. On one occasion the nomination of a new bishop was “delayed”, until his father - a Cardinal - had repaid their debts to the Medici bank.

And the Medici kept ahead of their banking rivals because of the invention of limited liability. Giovanni di Bicci had set up a franchise system, where regional branch managers shared a stake in the business. Giovanni also banned loans to princes and kings, who were notoriously bad investments.

http://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/medici/bankers.html

[scandal 951]

No offense, but that is about as ridiculous as 9/11 conspiracy. I did a google search of the exact phrase and a measly, pathetic, minuscule 1080 hits came up. To compare, "scandal" gets 40,300,000...."Lord Infamous" even got more hits with 96,200.

I even did a couple scans on words that don't even make sense:

"farsde": 519 hits

"shnoe": 16,000 hits

"jupesy": 57 hits

By your own admission, you never read the original article you posted.

Do yourself a favor - read this.

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/control_of_fed/print.asp

Jewish "Control" of the Federal Reserve:

A Classic Anti-Semitic Myth

Introduction

For centuries, anti-Semitic propaganda has demonized the Jew as a conspiratorial, manipulative outsider, often with powers and designs of world domination. From the Middle Ages through the Holocaust, fabricated accusations against Jews as poisoners and corrupters have led to horrendous suffering for the Jewish people.

In more recent years, the anti-Semitic notion that "the Jews" dominate and command the U.S. Federal Reserve System and in effect control the world’s money has surfaced across the extremist spectrum. Contemporary economic anxieties and distrust of government have given new life to this timeworn myth.

The world of finance is an area of complexity, if not mystery, to most Americans, and confusions can easily be manipulated and suspicions aroused. The bigot’s rationale is often conveyed in inflated images of intricate, stealthy "conspiracies." For example, under the headline "The jews [sic] have a Plan," the Idaho-based Nazi-like group Aryan Nations has reported finding significance in the fact that the Federal Reserve System and the Anti-Defamation League were founded in the same year — 1913. Another "specialist" in anti-Semitic conspiracy fantasies, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, recently expounded and embellished the same "historical" point.

"Money Power"

In 1962, Omni Publications, a distributor of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, reprinted an early attack on the Federal Reserve called The Truth About the Slump (1931), in which author A.N. Field asserted:

"The Money Power that rules the world today is centered in the hands of individuals of a particular race and creed." Field labeled the founding of America’s Federal Reserve as that point when "the United States was enslaved under this German-Jew engine of control."

In the 1950’s, anti-Semite Wickliffe Vennard published The Federal Reserve Corporation,alleging Jewish domination of the "Fed" while declaring along the way that Hitler, like Jesus, had come into power "to chase the money changers from the Temple." But the most widely cited expositor of conspiracy theories regarding Jews and the Federal Reserve is probably Eustace Mullins — a longtime anti-Semitic propagandist and a Holocaust denier who still actively peddles this propaganda. Mullins, whose book, The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, is widely promoted in the extremist netherworid, argues:

"The American people have assumed the burden of hundreds of billions of dollars of debt simply because we let a handful of enemy aliens take over our monetary system. The three most important architects of our present monetary system are ...Paul Warburg, the German Jew who wrote the Federal Reserve Act, Emmanuel Goldenweiser, the Russian Jew who supervised the details of Federal Reserve Board operations through its first thirty years, and Harry Dexter White, son of Lithuanian Jews, who set up the International Monetary Fund."

The "Rothschild" Connection

"Most of the owners of the largest banks in America," wrote the late Sheldon Emry, an early leader of the racist and anti-Semitic ‘Identity" church movement, "are of Eastern European ancestry and connected with the Rothschild banks."

In the literature of bigots, the name Rothschild is a trigger for the most explosive of anti-Semitic tremors, and it usually sets off a litany of other Jewish names. In his recent book Called to Serve, Col. James "Bo" Gritz, the 1992 Presidential candidate of the extremist Populist Party, charged that "eight Jewish families control the FED" (Federal Reserve System).

In 1983, the charge that Rothschild banks and other international banking concerns, mostly with Jewish names, controlled the Federal Reserve was published (probably from earlier sources) in the newsletter of a local Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) — not an extremist group. The article stated that the Federal Reserve System "is not a Federal entity but a private corporation owned in part by the following: Rothschild banks of London and Berlin, Lazard Brothers bank of Paris, Israel Moses Seif banks of Italy, Warburg bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam, Lehman Bros. bank of New York, Chase Manhattan bank of New York, Kuhn, Loeb bank of New York, Goldman Sachs bank of New York."

In fact the Federal Reserve Bank of New York —the largest and most significant of the Fed’s 12 banks — lists the banks in the Second Federal Reserve District that are members and stockholders in the New York Federal Reserve Bank. With the exception of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the institutions cited by the NARFE newsletter as allegedly owning and controlling the Federal Reserve system ("Rothschild ...Lazard Brothers ...Israel Moses Seif ...Warburg ...Lehman Brothers ...Kuhn, Loeb ...Goldman, Sachs") were not members of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

About the Federal Reserve System

The Federal Reserve System is the central banking authority of the United States. It is a fiscal agency for the U.S. Government and custodian of the reserve accounts of commercial banks; it makes loans to the commercial banks; and is authorized to issue Federal Reserve notes — that is, the hand-to-hand currency with which we run our daily economic lives.

Those commercial banks which are members of the "Fed" are required by law to purchase stock in their district Federal Reserve banks in order to supply them with a capital resource. These banks do not have .any "control" over the Federal Reserve. Control is exercised only by a Board of Governors, each member of which is a public servant appointed to his or her position by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions; a book published by the Fed’s Board of Governors, states:

Each of the twelve Federal Reserve banks is a corporation organized and operated for public service. The Federal Reserve Banks differ essentially from privately managed banks in that profits are not’ the object of their operations, and their stockholders, which are the member banks of the Federal Reserve System, do not have the powers and privileges that customarily belong to stockholders of privately managed corporations.

The Nation of Islam: Echoing White Anti-Semites

"The Federal Reserve is owned by... the Jews. You go back to the Rothschilds, and you go back to a lot ofthe early Jews that are in that financial system."

This spurious allegation was among the many voiced by Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI), in his infamous harangue at Kean College in New Jersey late in 1993. NOI leader Louis Farrakhan, in a March 19, 1995, speech, was more specific:

"The Rothschilds financed both sides of all the European wars. They always wanted to get their hands on the Central Bank of America. And they finally did. On Dec. 22, 1913, Congress passed into law the Federal Reserve Act.... [T]he international bankers took control of the money by taking control of the Central Bank of America, the Federal Reserve...."

Farrakhan’s words echo the conspiracy tracts advertised in extreme right publications such as The Spotlight of the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby and those of the anti-Semitic and white -supremacist "Identity church" movement. Indeed, all of these varied hatemongers could have sat comfortably alongside one another in the audience at Howard University on February 23, 1994, when Malik Shabazz (a warm-up speaker for Khalid Muhammed) shouted sharp questions while more than a thousand persons responded in a manner reminiscent of the Nuremberg rallies:

"Who is it that controls the Federal Reserve?"

"Jews!"

"Who?"

"Jews!"

Conclusion

The charge that "Jews control the Federal Reserve" is a classic example of the hatemonger’s paranoid-style exploitation of legitimate concerns — in this case, the nation’s economy. Moreover, the wide appeal of this anti-Semitic conspiracy theory among all kinds of extremists strikingly demonstrates how the agendas of otherwise opposing hate groups meet on common ground: the scapegoating of Jews.

[familyguy 2]

One word can debunk this op ed rant DEFLATION

[luckytxn 2,265]

Just was reading about how much the government pays in interest to service the debt. It is amazing that we can pay this every year to other countries.