“Society has failed you,” Mammy Yoakum once told a spoiled brat, “but I won’t.” The Dogpatch matriarch then proceeds to wail tar out of the little hellion. Li’l Abner was syndicated in about 1000 newspapers before its last strip ran in 1977. The cartoon’s demise long preceded the time ‘too big to fail’ came into common circulation. Chrysler’s bailout arrived roughly two years after Mammy’s voice was forever extinguished.
Can ‘too big to fail’ ever amount to anything less than classic doublethink? ‘If it aint’ broke, don’t fix it’ is a small business axiom. Fly a little higher and it can equal fiscal heresy. Whatever they get caught red-handed doing, the rod cannot be taken to our betters on Wall Street or high in the Alps. In places other than skid row, you’d think, when balance sheets don’t reach black management must take its lumps. Not so at the tippy-top tiers of world finance; the suits will get their whipping boys. Guess who they always turn out to be? The corporal consequences of red books at meta-fiscal planes are always suffered by the lowest pay grades.
If you look at banking through a conventional lens, how is success measured? Would anyone find the results of the sub-prime mortgage crisis an example of responsible lending? The very foundation of the loaning business is good judgment on the capability – and inclination – of the borrower to pay the money back.
In 1930 The JP Morgan Group, Kuhn Loeb and other American banks were having trouble getting payments on what they lent Britain and France for WWI. The indebted nations told collectors that Germany had to pay them first. By that year, Allied accountants still hadn’t decided how much Germany could be taken for over The Great War. Some estimates had them paying through the nose into the 1970’s. What American bankers did know was that they were owed several King’s ransoms lent to France and England. Finances were tight the world over at the time. Still, there was nothing about shaking down losers in the terms when Wall Street extended those billions.
The “Jerries” were destitute and without means to make reparations payments. The ex-entente said that the debt couldn’t be settled until the Krauts were in a position to be leaned on again. Doesn’t that mean that several of the best addresses on Wall Street, including 23, would have been wiped out if the Allies had lost the war? It certainly goes to motive in April 1917. In any case, the intended fix was cooked up by Hjalmar Schacht, Charles Dawes, Owen Young and Montague Norman. It went by the name Bank for International Settlements based in Basel, Switzerland. Behind the front men stood JP Morgan Jr., Thomas Lamont and other American bankers afraid of getting stiffed.
Ninety-five years later it’s unclear what got fixed. The only sure thing the BIS accomplished was betrayal. During WWII the bank aided Nazi Germany facilitating international transactions. Their original mission was to get Deutschland to pony up. Despite never getting a reparating mark, the BIS is still with us. Why that is should be a mystery of international intrigue. It isn’t. The international banking clan is insatiable and won’t ease their grip on any ruse that eases the path toward absolutist management. The BIS, with no legit reason to exist for many decades, now demands to rule on all financial transactions. Presently, they make no secret of this. They prevail over Western central banking and most people have no idea they exist. That helps as they wrest decision making from average voters and depositors.
The Great Depression impeded much progress with reparations, and then Hitler came to power. Payments ceased altogether. Anyone second guessing the scheme to hand The Central Powers the whole tab for WWI a century ago is irrelevant today. Whatever the amount assessed, the world is burdened with a debt that will never be repaid. The first legacy of The Great War was amped up statism that revealed itself in the USSR, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Nazi Germany and elsewhere. International Banks continue to collect interest in the form of fabulous benefits doled out by modern states. They are the ideological heirs of the guiltiest parties in 1914. And, like other usurers with enforcement goons, no one is safe with principal outstanding. The settlement of WWI was the ultimate boon to the universal church of statism. The first of its secret tenets is rule by stealth and deceit.
That sect has had its saints over the years. Their holy synod must switch them around from time to time. First on the list is the pivotal man who made it all possible.
HL Mencken was trying to be funny when Star-Spangled Men ran in The New Republic September 21, 1920. The piece lampooned the depths civilians stooped to flaunting ‘patriotism’ during the war. It’s most famous and quoted line advocates a medal for: “University presidents …” [who] “cashiered every-professor unwilling to support Woodrow for the first vacancy in the Trinity”. That placement — above sainthood — proved not far off.
When US senator Gerald Nye (R-ND) held hearings on war profiteering, they were known by the title of a book on the subject, Merchants of Death. Once the inquiry began in 1934 public support was overwhelming. Everybody knew Wall Street made a killing on the carnage and had ginned up support for US entry into the conflict. The media of the day covered proceedings with frequent headlines – Nye sold copy at a pace — but on The Hill other priorities prevailed. The sessions were abruptly halted February 24, 1936. Woodrow Wilson’s name had come up and into question — Democrats held 75 seats, Republicans 17 — the reigning party went into frenzy. You might have thought Jesus Christ himself was in the dock.
Carter Glass, Democrat of Virginia ruled appropriations; the so-called “southern gentleman” was widely renowned for demanding civility and decorum in the body. The first Democrat chief-exec of the 20th century, however, was too holy for reexamination. Any semblance of manners and self-restraint were instantly abandoned. What people get away with through displays of excess, artificial emotion is among the most disturbing – and manipulative — features of human nature.
Glass made a furious speech on the Senate floor, agonizing over any hint of stain upon the sacred memory of president 28, pounding his knuckles so hard on the desk they became bloody. Whether professors were actually cashiered or not – and some probably were – the “Merchants of Death” investigation certainly was. The erosion of Wilson’s reputation was a long slow process. By the time it finally reached the nadir it deserved the worldwide damage he’d unleashed had already crested.
In the meantime, international organizers were inspired by the Wilsonian vision which had failed at Versailles. They began to meet up more regularly and start exclusive clubs. Among the first was The Council on Foreign Relations. It came out of The Inquiry which had bungled every step of its original role. The eggheads and experts were assembled to ensure a stable post-war Germany. The Versailles Peace Conference they attended guaranteed the opposite.
The only concession to Wilson’s 14 Points in negotiations was the creation of Yugoslavia. If coups, assassination and massacres were the aims, that nation-building scheme was a marvelous success. The American delegation might have gotten a clue where things were headed when Clemenceau said “Fourteen! God only had ten.” Those slick experts Woody employed to save the world didn’t get “it” or anything they were after. The ones following in their footsteps at the Pratt mansion today still see themselves as the sharpest cats around.
Before the leaders of our ancestors decided to drag American farm boys into what Senator George Norris of Nebraska called a “the greatest holocaust the world has known” in 1917, players on Wall Street were in neck deep. Charles Schwab, who was forced out of the Morgan Group after being photographed gambling for high stakes at Monte Carlo, made the opening deal for Bethlehem Steel with Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty in the Fall of 1914. Wilson, to his credit, said no. But Okayed a later arrangement that allowed Bethlehem to assemble naval vessels and truck them in parts to a dormant Canadian port. That development is the actual birth of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower later warned us of.
There’s a supposed controversy over whether or not Jack Morgan, the Dupont clan and cronies were doing their damndest to get the US committed in 1917. This is about like asking if anyone actually petitioned Hank Paulson for bailouts in 2008. We now know that at least 700 banks and other corporate entities were extended funds in the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Is there any evidence a single eviction was averted by this process?
The stakes in 1917 were far higher. Later, in his antiwar speech, Norris asks:
To whom does war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier who for the munificent compensation of $16 per month shoulders his musket and goes into the trench, there to shed his blood and to die if necessary; not to the brokenhearted widow who waits for the return of the mangled body of her husband; not to the mother who weeps at the death of her brave boy; not to the little children who shiver with cold; not to the babe who suffers from hunger; nor to the millions of mothers and daughters who carry broken hearts to their graves. War brings no prosperity to the great mass of common and patriotic citizens. It increases the cost of living of those who toil and those who already must strain every effort to keep soul and body together. War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall Street–to those who are already in possession of more wealth than can be realized or enjoyed.
He goes on as poignantly:
Their object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money. Human suffering and the sacrifice of human life are necessary, but Wall Street considers only the dollars and the cents. The men who do the fighting, the people who make the sacrifices are the ones who will not be counted in the measure of this great prosperity that he [a stockbroker cited in his letter to clients] depicts. The stockbrokers would not, of course, go to war because the very object they have in bringing on the war is profit, and therefore they must remain in their Wall Street offices in order to share in that great prosperity which they say war will bring. The volunteer officer, even the drafting officer, will not find them. They will be concealed in their palatial offices on Wall Street, sitting behind mahogany desks, covered up with clipped coupons–coupons soiled with the sweat of honest toil, coupons stained with mothers’ tears, coupons dyed in the lifeblood of their fellowmen.
My own grandfather was wounded twice in WWI, at St. Mihiel. The old boy got a Purple Heart and a knapsack full of humorous, outlandish tales out of it. That may have been less than just compensation. He wasn’t in the Bonus Army of 1934, but did support it. He had 5 children to raise at the time under very demanding conditions … that were mostly brought on by the war itself. Traveling 133 miles north from Petersburg Va., to camp out in DC wasn’t a practical option.
Doing a Google search of “Bank of International Settlements demands control of financial transactions” produces no relevant hits on page one. On page two we get, “One Bank to Rule them All: The Discreet Power of the Bank for International Settlement.” It covers how they slink around avariciously to amass the knowledge and power to render common citizens less able to have any say-so over financial fate.
Just five years ago Benoit Coeure, then chair of BIS, made a statement on the need to maintain physical cash.
“No one wants to force consumers to choose their payment methods. Diversity is a good thing and it fosters innovation. The goal is to offer choice, which means allowing consumers to continue paying with currency issued by the central bank.”
Less than one year later Augustin Carstens, General Manager of the bank said this:
“We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”
Who should we believe? Large numbers of think tanks and international organizations have been promoting the elimination of cash for years. There’s zero discussion in their pronouncements about any need to consult popular volition on the matter. Eswar Prasad of The Brookings Institute placed, Cash will soon be obsolete. Will America be ready? in the New York Times July 22, 2021. It ran curiously close behind Carstens financial Papal Bull. The article included:
“The end of cash is on the horizon, and it will have far-reaching effects on the economy, finance and society more broadly.”
Let’s look at some potential “far reaching effects on the economy.” Cyprus’ financial crisis of 2012 was “solved” with a more controversial remedy than the Wall Street bail outs under Hank Paulson in the US. It became known as the “bail-in.” Here’s how Nathan Lewis of Forbes described the deal in May 2013:
The difference with the “bail-in” is that the order of creditor seniority is changed. In the end, it amounts to the cronies (other banks and government) and non-cronies. The cronies get 100% or more; the non-cronies, including non-interest-bearing depositors who should be super-senior, get a kick in the guts instead.
Here’s what it looked like in Cyprus:
All insured deposits (individuals and legal entities) up to €100.000 have, as of 26 March 2013, been transferred from Laiki Bank to the Bank of Cyprus. In addition, the entire amount of deposits belonging to financial institutions, the government, municipalities, municipal councils and other public entities, insurance companies, charities, schools, educational institutions, and deposits belonging to JCC Payment Systems Ltd have been transferred to the Bank of Cyprus.
Did you get that? Financial institutions (e.g. German banks, and central banks including the Bundesbank) get full repayment, along with government entities, while everyone else gets to eat sand.
If you were robbing a bank, would you take only a little of the money in the vault? No, you would take all of it. The bankers see it the same way when they rob you.
Once you have performed the initial crime of sticking the losses with the non-crony creditors (who are generally senior), while the cronies (who are generally junior) get out scot-free, you might as well keep going.
This is one of the more grotesque examples of the high-handed, larcenous maneuvers large-scale financial institutions’ are capable of. These crimes can only succeed when abetted by confederates at top-tiers of government.
We have already seen numerous instances of political-ins standing idly by, as people are deprived of their rightful property and earnings merely for voicing honest views. In many cases government officials abet these thefts behind the scenes. No one has compiled, so far, on how many occasions it was actually the factual truth that was suppressed with censorship and de-monetization.
Government, corporations and quasi-governmental international predators – like the BIS – feel fully entitled to amass and archive any scrap of detail about common citizens. Delving deeply into what the globalist community is up to, or has planned, is rarely featured in major media reports. It’s a kind of coverage that falls under numerous different labels: Conspiracy theory, fascism, hate, paranoia even treason in cases like Ed Snowden’s. These rhetorical bludgeons avert scrutiny of uber-democratic international plots to rule through cronyism, collusion, high-brow hobnobbery and mission creep. The plan to keep hard currency out of your pocket has been afoot for years. The keenest advocates have always been international wheeler-dealers. Once a person’s every financial resource is in the clutches of bankers and corporatocracy – recording each move — what other instrument to coerce conformity is necessary?
Five years ago Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods placed Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal in The Atlantic. The two lawyers, from Harvard and Arizona State University respectively, fully advocated People’s Republic of China style social credit scores here in the States. Isn’t Chinese leadership – and leadership generally — where public scrutiny should be directed? It would cost much less than all the snooping directed at Joe Six-Pack. Putting all financial action on a digital page for despots to examine, is what’s most necessary to get society where these two barristers would take us. It’s eye-balling people like themselves that they find a species of lese-majeste.
High brow thinkers like Larry Fink, Klaus Schwab and Augusten Carstens and the late David Rockefeller have assured us that everything they’ve proposed is in the name of “financial efficiency” and “a more integrated world” – whatever that is. More efficient for who? Every leap and bound accomplished so far by globalist jet-setting players corresponds chronologically with less buying power for serfs. The BIS is the top dog in the pecking order but a syndicate of other international organizations is also in on it. It’s the priority of the UN’s “Better then Cash Alliance.” Ruth Godwin-Groen triumphantly notes the corporate entities brought on board in the video. What means the UN deploys to garner their compliance remains unknown to people who never voted on the matter. A central banking system with knowledge and “control” (Carstens’word) of all liquidity would render global governance a fait accompli almost instantly.
The abuses of bankers, including the very bankers behind initial centralization are not arcane. WWI followed hot on the heels of the Federal Reserve System and the 16th amendment. In 1913, when federal income tax went into effect, an unmarried payer had to make $3,000 a year or more to be liable for 1%. Less than 4% of Americans earned that much. The top rate was 7% for incomes over $500,000. By 1917 $2000 per annum was the threshold and the rate doubled to 2%. The highest earners’ rate climbed nearly tenfold to 67%. The government’s sudden necessity to crank up the shakedown was the war. It was at about this time Randolph Bourne said “War is the health of the state.”
Almost all of the new lucre generated by upping the levy went to arms manufacture and ended up paid out to fat cats in South Manhattan. Morgan and pals expected their end when the honor bound Gauls and Anglo-Saxons honored obligations. Jack’s crew must have thought they were dealing with Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale. These chumps were left holding the bag. It’s less connected citizens who will end up holding it if the organizations founded by the Morgan group prevail in the end.
Let’s be clear, American’s were taxed to exact funds that went to nearly straight to Wall Street after we entered The Great War. Alan Brugar claimed each deceased American earned profiteers $10,000, which may be an underestimate. US families lost 115,516 sons in the conflict, which would place earnings at a little over one billion. The war’s cost was over 10 billion. Another 320 some thousand were non-fatal casualties. Perusing the 125 US Congressional Medal of Honor winners from WWI, you’ll not find the surnames Morgan, Davison, Lamont, Kuhn, Loeb, Dupont, Schwab, Rockefeller, Whitney, Brown or Harriman among them. American soldiers counted casualties and rations while Wall Street counted receipts.
The most renowned Harvard grad of WWI was Wall Street attorney Charles Whittlesey who led The Lost Patrol. Standing to the end against an overwhelming German force less than 200 of his 554 men made it out. The ex-soldier lawyerly documented his intentions before jumping into the Atlantic from the SS Toloa in 1921. He must have wondered what it was all for. 104 years ago, even the insiders probably hadn’t fully realized the fiscal opportunities only war can provide. Whittlesey’s corpse was never found.
Anyone willing to place all their shekels, or the knowledge of where they were spent, into the grip of the offspring of The Merchants of Death is a threat to us all. They are truer believers than anyone Eric Hoffer ever dreamed of.
International organizations seldom operate openly. The stealthy conclaves and communiqués of business moguls, media magnates and political potentates are concealed for a reason. To tactically evade the principle ‘one man, one vote.’
A comprehensive ledger of each and every worldwide expenditure would abandon any pretense of privacy rights. Meanwhile, the ones advocating such measures have no intention of baring all themselves. Transacting at high levels with states is only one ploy corporate leviathans would use covering their trails. Ultimately, any such plan as total digitization would render both individual and popular dissent extinct. An ultra-organized economic state, like the USSR, never went to that extreme, nor has The People’s Republic … yet.
Any entity that can influence – and potentially rule on — intimate details of your financial disposition with near anonymity is too despotic by far already. When such quasi-governmental professoriates’ can never be called to account, society has failed both them and us. Failing upwards to a place above reproach has the makings of a classic dystopia flick. We are on the verge of that script being ‘based on true events.’
