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Originally posted by: ricarleite
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Originally posted by: JediSage

That is wierd.

Think about the companies of the world, or for that matter, the companies in the US. By their very nature they compete with eachother. What do they have to gain by fighting wars? Central banking has been at the heart of conflict since the beginning of time. The big European banks being some of the biggest culprits. The Rothschilds, the Warburgs. The Morgans and Rockerfellers in the US. It's an old story. I've done a lot of research on Napoleon. One of the reasons he was constantly fighting in Europe was because he had France almost totally debt free, which means the European banks lost one of their biggest customers. What's the answer? Squeeze the credit of his neighbors and force them to get involved.

There's a lot of thought that the US got involved in WWI because massive loans from central banks to England and France were in danger of default, so the Luisitania incident "occured".

I have always thought that in north america, as opposed to europe, banking institutions didn't gather so much power, mostly because of the economical stability of the dollar (although it has lost some value recently), and because banking institutions in the US are de-centralized. Also, because of financial issued far too complicated for me to talk about, north american banks are not reference for investments such as Cayman Islands or Switzerland...

I can think of thousands of north american companies, I can think of some who would profit from governmental decisions (Lockheed, Halliburton...), but I can't think of a north american bank with that same power...

BTW, what is the major bank in america?

The Federal Reserve, which is made to look like an instrument of government, but is really a cartel of private banks. This is a brief, rough summary of how it works:

The Fed was created in 1913 to serve as a "controller" for the US banking industry. Basically what they wanted to do was control how other banks (competitors) functioned, especially how much they could keep in reserve compared to their outstanding loans (lending ratio). It bothered them that many of their competitors were being fiscally responsible by keeping their lending ratio within reason, for example: they loaned out only 10 dollars for every 1 in the vault, whereas the big boys wanted to lend at a ratio of say, 1000 to 1 (the more money out in loans the more interest they could accumulate). However, due to the more pure, free-market economy at the time, this would not be doable without help. So, many of the power brokers at the time representing the huge central banks in Europe and the monied interests here (who still had family ties to "old money" in Europe) met at an island off the coast of Georgia called "Jekyl Island". This is where they decided to address the following needs:

1. How do they force their competitors to lend money at the same ratio as they do?
2. How do they make the rules even more favorable to them (ie: how do they control interest rates at which their own banks borrowed $$)?
3. How do they address "runs" on their cash supply that were damaging to their solvency (ability to meet short and long term debt)?
4. How do they break lose from a currency based on precious metals, that by definition forced them to be more conservative in their lending?
5. How do they eliminate or at least control new players in the game?
6. How do they keep the lower and middle classes under control in a society that was allowing them too much room for growth?
7. How do they create this animal without alarming the American public or the American government?

The answer was to create a private, central, controlling bank that did not look or feel like a central controlling bank. They did this by getting enough support in congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act, so named because it created an illusion of building a safety net to protect the American people from bank runs and currency drains that had hurt many people. Once the act was passed, that took care of item #7. They also made it look like the government exercises a modicum of control by allowing congress to appoint the Fed Board chairman.

The people behind this whole thing were avowed socialists, of the "Fabian Socialist" brotherhood, who basically wanted to create a banker's paradise by squashing the lower and middle classes and eventually nationalize private industry and property (the monetary and political scientists have always been in league) to exercise greater control over profits, lending, credit, interest, etc; The way to do this is via inflation, which the Fed creates in great measure every time they fire up the printing press (the result of breaking lose from a currency based on precious metals). If the people get too upity, they begin to prematurely call in loans, which forces the lending banks to do the same, while simultaneously forcing interest rates and inflation sky high. If the economy is in the doldrums, the politicians will get involved, giving the illusion that their actually doing something. This answers #6.

Numbers 1,2, & 5 are answered in the nature of the act itself. The rules and regs so heavily favored the Fed that new and existing banks either went under, or were forced to play by the rules. The Fed has the police power of the US government behind it.

Item #4: The Fed has been very good at talking about how an "elastic" money supply not bound by the rules of precious metals is good for the economy, but they've never been able to prove how it helps by creating inflation and runaway spending. The only value the dollar has is the amount of confidence people have in the US economy. No confidence = dead currency.

Now imagine what would happen if massive banks like Chase, Citi, and Bank of America all had loans to say...Iraq. And Iraq looked like it was going to default and write off the debt without repayment. The result for America would be disasterous, meaning that the banks mentioned would experience a massive run as people would have serious doubts about their solvency. This means one of two things: 1. The banks would go under because their lending habits have left almost no actual money in their depositors accounts. This would result in a near collapse of the American economy because of the domino effect it would have on the customers these banks services. Or, 2. The Fed steps in and prints more money. Which results in more inflation, which means the grip on the US economy is made even tighter anyway.

I know that was lengthy, but I think it's worth reading, even if you're not interested in banking.