What Could Go Wrong

Now let me get this straight.  The Federal Reserve, which is neither federal nor does it have any reserves, except for some of their special paper and the ink for, er, ‘their’ printing presses, lends money to the federal government, at interest.  The federal government calls them up and asks for some money,(1) and the people there - called bankers(2) - say, ‘Why, sure,’ and send an order to the shop floor manager to fire up the printing presses, and away we go, for another such round.

Oh - and while they are at it, they check on orders from their system of banks throughout the country.  Whose job it is to loan money to the public.  At, of course, interest.  And for every dollar they loan out, they enter on their ledgers nine or ten ‘dollars,’ which they a) can lend out, and b) tell their superiors at the Federal Reserve about; who then print up the corresponding amount of ‘dollars’ - now even blatantly just called ‘Federal Reserve Notes’(3) - on their - ‘their’ - printing presses.

And then they go back to the Bahamas, to sit in the sun, and sip from their tall cool ones.  Waiting to be called back to do some more work at The Fed.  Not forgetting to snicker every once in awhile into their drinks, at the country bumpkins whom they do business with.

And to.

I was born in the midst of their Great Depression, lucrative to them, from having bought up businesses for pennies on the dollar, and then getting the federal government to borrow some more money from them, the government trying - by initiating spending - to ‘prime the pump’ to get out of the Depression that the bankers had created in the first place.  Was born to help set things right.  And like Hamlet, have had moments of feeling ‘cursed spite’.  But I will persevere. 

And prevail. 

Because there is a larger ‘scheme’ than that of these, our erstwhile masters, at work.

—

footnotes:

(1) Because most of the money that the federal government takes in from the public in income tax these days goes towards paying off just the interest on the federal debt.  The latter of which is now some $22 trillion.  That’s trillion.  With a ’T’.  And counting.

   And as The Fed would add:

   ‘Please.’

(2) I used to be under the impression, from having read it somewhere, that the words ‘bank’ and ‘’banker' came from the fact that the pirates of olden days used to stash their ill-gotten gains along the banks of river inlets; and thus the legendary maps where ‘X’ marked the spot.   Which always seemed like it made good sense to me.  But I recently came across a reference to the word coming from a Dutch word, meaning something or other.

   Either way, it amounts to the same thing. 

(3) Did you know that there is a legal definition of a dollar that involves a certain amount of silver?  No?  You didn’t??

   Not surprised.  Like paint drying, the pieces of paper themselves - originally receipts - were changed in their wording ever so subtly over the years.  So’s one would hardly notice. 

   Funny, that.

   Not.