ALL WARS ARE BANKER’S WARS!
Below is a fantastic article exposing the true history of the United States and the banking forces that control Our government and send Our sons and daughters to war for their benefit and goal of a New World Order.
By Michael Rivero
“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 a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.” — Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
The United States fought the American Revolution primarily over King George III’s Currency act, which forced the colonists to conduct their business only using printed bank notes borrowed from the Bank of England at interest.
King George III
The Currency Act
The Bank of England
Interest Bearing bank note from the Bank of England, 1764
“The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.” — William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England in 1694
After the revolution, the new United States adopted a radically different economic system in which the government issued its own value-based money, so that private banks like the Bank of England were not siphoning off the wealth of the people through interest-bearing bank notes.
“The refusal of King George 3rd to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” — Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father
Following the revolution, the US Government actually took steps to keep the bankers out of the new government!
“Any person holding any office or any stock in any institution in the nature of a bank for issuing or discounting bills or notes payable to bearer or order, cannot be a member of the House whilst he holds such office or stock.” — Third Congress of the United States Senate, 23rd of December, 1793, signed by the President, George Washington
But bankers are nothing if not dedicated to their schemes to acquire your wealth, and know full well how easy it is to corrupt a nation’s leaders.
Mayer Amschal Rothschild
Just one year after Mayer Amschel Rothschild had uttered his infamous “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws”, the bankers succeeded in setting up a new Private Central Bank called the First Bank of the United States, largely through the efforts of the Rothschild’s chief US supporter, Alexander Hamilton.
Alexander Hamilton
The First Bank of the United States
Founded in 1791, by the end of its twenty year charter the First Bank of the United States had almost ruined the nation’s economy, while enriching the bankers. Congress refused to renew the charter and signaled their intention to go back to a state issued value based currency on which the people paid no interest at all to any banker. This resulted in a threat from Nathan Mayer Rothschild against the US Government, “Either the application for renewal of the charter is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war.” Congress still refused to renew the charter for the First Bank of the United States, whereupon Nathan Mayer Rothschild railed, “Teach those impudent Americans a lesson! Bring them back to colonial status!” The British Prime Minister at the time, Spencer Perceval was adamently opposed to war with the United States, primarily because the majority of England’s military might was occupied with the ongoing Napoleonic wars. Spencer Perceval was concerned that Britain might not prevail in a new American war, a concern shared by many in the British government. Then, Spencer Perceval was assassinated (the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated in office) and replaced by Robert Banks Jenkinson, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who was fully supportive of a war to recapture the colonies.
"If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.” — Gutle Schnaper, wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and mother of his five sons
Financed at virtually no interest by the Rothschild controlled Bank of England, Britain then provoked the war of 1812 to recolonize the United States and force them back into the slavery of the Bank of England, or to plunge the United States into so much debt they would be forced to accept a new private central bank. And the plan worked. Even though the War of 1812 was won by the United States, Congress was forced to grant a new charter for yet another private bank issuing the public currency as loans at interest, the Second Bank of the United States. Once again, private bankers were in control of the nation’s money supply and cared not who made the laws or how many British and American soldiers had to die for it.
The Second Bank of the United States
Bank Note from the Second Bank of the United States
Once again the nation was plunged into debt, unemployment, and poverty by the predations of the private central bank, and in 1832 Andrew Jackson successfully campaigned for his second term as President under the slogan, “Jackson And No Bank!” True to his word, Jackson succeeds in blocking the renewal of the charter for the Second Bank of the United States.
“Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!” — Andrew Jackson, shortly before ending the charter of the Second Bank of the United States. From the original minutes of the Philadelphia committee of citizens sent to meet with President Jackson (February 1834), according to Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels
News report of Jackson shutting down the Second Bank of the United States, Geneva Gazette, October 2, 1833
Shortly after President Jackson (the only American President to actually pay off the National Debt) ended the Second Bank of the United States, there was an attempted assassination which failed when both pistols used by the assassin, Richard Lawrence, failed to fire. Lawrence later said that with Jackson dead, “Money would be more plenty.”
President Zachary Taylor opposed the creation of a new Private Central Bank, owing to the historical abuses of the First and Second Banks of the United States.
“The idea of a national bank is dead, and will not be revived in my time.” — Zachary Taylor
Taylor died on July 9, 1850 after eating a bowl of cherries and milk rumored to have been poisoned. The symptoms he displayed are consistent with acute arsenic poisoning.
President Zachary Taylor, ca 1850
President James Buchanan also opposed a private central bank. During the panic of 1857 he attempted to set limits on banks issuing more loans than they had actual funds, and to require all issued bank notes to be backed by Federal Government assets. He was poisoned with arsenic and survived, although 38 other people at the dinner died.
President James Buchanon
The public school system is as subservient to the bankers’ wishes to keep certain history from you, just as the corporate media is subservient to Monsanto’s wishes to keep the dangers of GMOs from you, and the global warming cult’s wishes to conceal from you that the Earth has actually been cooling for the last 16 years. Thus is should come as little surprise that much of the real reasons for the events of the Civil War are not well known to the average American.
“The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no 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 its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.” — The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863
President Abraham Lincoln
When the Confederacy seceded from the United States, the bankers once again saw the opportunity for a rich harvest of debt, and offered to fund Lincoln’s efforts to bring the south back into the union, but at 30% interest. Lincoln remarked that he would not free the black man by enslaving the white man to the bankers and using his authority as President, issued a new government currency, the greenback. This was a direct threat to the wealth and power of the central bankers, who quickly responded.
Lincoln’s Greenback – Click for larger image
“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.” — The London Times responding to Lincoln’s decision to issue government Greenbacks to finance the Civil War, rather than agree to private banker’s loans at 30% interest.
In 1872 New York bankers sent a letter to every bank in the United States, urging them to fund newspapers that opposed government-issued money (Lincoln’s greenbacks).
“Dear Sir: It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers… as will oppose the issuing of greenback paper money, and that you also withhold patronage or favors from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the Government issue of money. Let the Government issue the coin and the banks issue the paper money of the country… [T]o restore to circulation the Government issue of money, will be to provide the people with money, and will therefore seriously affect your individual profit as bankers and lenders.” — Triumphant plutocracy; the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920, by Lynn Wheeler
“It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.” — Triumphant plutocracy; the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920, by Lynn Wheeler
“Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power, and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care for the laborer, while the European plan, led on by England, is for capital to control labor by controlling the wages. THIS CAN BE DONE BY CONTROLLING THE MONEY.” — Triumphant plutocracy; the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920, by Lynn Wheeler
Goaded by the private bankers, much of Europe supported the Confederacy against the Union, with the expectation that victory over Lincoln would mean the end of the Greenback. France and Britain considered an outright attack on the United States to aid the confederacy, but were held at bay by Russia, which had just ended the serfdom system and had a state central bank similar to the system the United States had been founded on.
Tsar Alexander II of Russia, who prevented France and Britain
from invading the US during the civil war.
Left free of European intervention, the Union won the war, and Lincoln announced his intention to go on issuing greenbacks. Following Lincoln’s assassination, the Greenbacks were pulled from circulation and the American people forced to go back to an economy based on bank notes borrowed at interest from the private bankers. Tsar Alexander II, who authorized Russian military assistance to Lincoln, was subsequently the victim of multiple attempts on his life in 1866, 1879, and 1880, until his assassination in 1881.
With the end of Lincoln’s Greenbacks, the US could no longer create its own interest free money and was manipulated during the term of President Ruthford B. Hayes into borrowing from the Rothschilds banking system in 1878, restoring to the Rothschilds control of the US economy they had lost under Andrew Jackson.
Messrs. Rothschild & Sons to Mr. Sherman.
[Cable message.]April 12,1878.
Hon. John Sherman,
Secretary of the Treasury, Washington D. C.:
Very pleased we have entered into relations again with American Government. Shall do our best to make the business successful.
ROTHSCHILDS.
James A. Garfield was elected President in 1880 on a platform of government control of the money supply.
“The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept. — James Garfield
“By the experience of commercial nations in all ages it has been found that gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but I confidently believe that arrangements can be made between the leading commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals. Congress should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now required by law may not disturb our monetary system by driving either metal out of circulation. If possible, such an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world. –James Garfield
“He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation. — James Garfield
President James Garfield
Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881 and died of his wounds several weeks later. Chester A. Arthur succeeded Garfield as President.
In 1896, William McKinley was elected President in the middle of a depression-driven debate over gold-backed government currency versus bank notes borrowed at interest from private banks. McKinley favored gold-backed currencies and a balanced government budget which would free the public from accumulating debt.
“Our financial system needs some revision; our money is all good now, but its value must not further be threatened. It should all be put upon an enduring basis, not subject to easy attack, nor its stability to doubt or dispute. Our currency should continue under the supervision of the Government. The several forms of our paper money offer, in my judgment, a constant embarrassment to the Government and a safe balance in the Treasury.” — William McKinley
President William McKinley
McKinley was shot by an out-of-work anarchist on September 14, 1901, in Buffalo, NY, succumbing to his wounds a few days later. He was suceeded in office by Theodore Roosevelt.
Finally, in 1913, the Private Central Bankers of Europe, in particular the Rothschilds of Great Britain and the Warburgs of Germany, met with their American financial collaborators on Jekyll Island, Georgia to form a new banking cartel with the express purpose of forming the Third Bank of the United States, with the aim of placing complete control of the United States money supply once again under the control of private bankers. Owing to hostility over the previous banks, the name was changed to “The Federal Reserve” system in order to grant the new bank a quasi-governmental image, but in fact it is a privately owned bank, no more “Federal” than Federal Express.
The Federal Reserve - it is neither “Federal” nor does it have any actual “Reserves”
creating as it does money out of thin air
In 2012, the Federal Reserve attempted to rebuff a Freedom of Information Lawsuit by Bloomberg News on the grounds that as a private banking corporation and not actually a part of the government, the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to the “trade secret” operations of the Federal Reserve.
“When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check; but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.” — From the Boston Federal Reserve Bank pamphlet, “Putting it Simply.”
“Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities. Intrinsically, a ‘dollar’ bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries.” — “Modern Money Mechanics Workbook” – Federal Reserve of Chicago, 1975
“I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people.” — Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924
“States, most especially the large hegemonic ones, such as the United States and Great Britain, are controlled by the international central banking system, working through secret agreements at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and operating through national central banks (such as the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve)… The same international banking cartel that controls the United States today previously controlled Great Britain and held it up as the international hegemon. When the British order faded, and was replaced by the United States, the US ran the global economy. However, the same interests are served. States will be used and discarded at will by the international banking cartel; they are simply tools.” — Andrew Gavin Marshall
1913 proved to be a transformative year for the nation’s economy, first with the passage of the 16th “income tax” Amendment and the false claim that it had been ratified.
“I think if you were to go back and and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th amendment, which was the internal revenue, the income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment.” – U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox, Sullivan Vs. United States, 2003.
Later that same year, and apparently unwilling to risk another questionable amendment, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act over Christmas holiday 1913, while members of Congress opposed to the measure were at home. This was a very underhanded deal, as the Constitution explicitly vests Congress with the authority to issue the public currency, does not authorize its delegation, and thus should have required a new Amendment to transfer that authority to a private bank. But pass it Congress did, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it as he promised the bankers he would in exchange for generous campaign contributions.
News report of Wilson’s signing the Federal Reserve Act. Under the Constitution, only a new Amendment could transfer the government’s authority to create the currency to a private party.
President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson later regretted that decision.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” — Woodrow Wilson 1919
Thomas Edison, arguably the most brilliant man of the age, was also well aware of the fraud of private central banks.
Thomas Edison
“People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest …But here is the point: If the 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 that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold.” — Thomas A. Edison
The next year, World War One started, and it is important to remember that prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve, there was no such thing as a world war.
World War One started between Austria-Hungary and Serbia with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered World War One
Although the war started between Austria-Hungary and Serbia , it quickly shifted to focus on Germany, whose industrial capacity was seen as an economic threat to Great Britain, who saw the decline of the British Pound as a result of too much emphasis on financial activity to the neglect of agriculture, industrial development, and infrastructure (not unlike the present day United States). Although pre-war Germany had a private central bank, it was heavily restricted and inflation kept to reasonable levels. Under government control, investment was guaranteed to internal economic development, and Germany was seen as a major power. So, in the media of the day, Germany was portrayed as the prime opponent of World War One, and not just defeated, but its industrial base flattened. Following the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was ordered to pay the war costs of all the participating nations, even though Germany had not actually started the war. This amounted to three times the value of all of Germany itself. Germany’s private central bank, to whom Germany had gone deeply into debt to pay the costs of the war, broke free of government control, and massive inflation followed (mostly triggered by currency speculators) , permanently trapping the German people in endless debt.
When the Weimar Republic collapsed economically, it opened the door for the National Socialists to take power. Their first financial move was to issue their own state currency which was not borrowed from private central bankers. Freed from having to pay interest on the money in circulation, Germany blossomed and quickly began to rebuild its industry. The media called it “The German Miracle”. TIME magazine lionized Hitler for the amazing improvement in life for the German people and the explosion of German industry, and even named him TIME Magazine’s Man Of The Year in 1938.
Hitler as TIME’s Man Of The Year
Once again, Germany’s industrial output became a threat to Great Britain.
“Should Germany merchandise (do business) again in the next 50 years we have led this war (WW1) in vain.” – Winston Churchill in The Times (1919)
“We will force this war upon Hitler, if he wants it or not.” – Winston Churchill (1936 broadcast)
“Germany becomes too powerful. We have to crush it.” – Winston Churchill (November 1936 speaking to US – General Robert E. Wood)
“This war is an English war and its goal is the destruction of Germany.” – Winston Churchill
(- Autumn 1939 broadcast)
Germany’s state-issued value based currency was also a direct threat to the wealth and power of the private central banks, and as early as 1933 they started to organize a global boycott against Germany to strangle this upstart ruler who thought he could break free of private central bankers!
As had been the case in World War One, Great Britain and other nations threatened by Germany’s economic power looked for an excuse to go to war, and as public anger in Germany grew over the boycott, Hitler foolishly gave them that excuse. Years later, in a spirit of candor, the real reasons for that war were made clear.
“The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to.”– Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946)
“Germany’s unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn’t profit anymore. …We butchered the wrong pig.” -Winston Churchill (The Second World War – Bern, 1960)
Marine Corps Major General Smedly Butler.
As a side note, we need to step back before WW2 and recall Marine Major General Smedley Butler. In 1933, Wall Street bankers and financiers had bankrolled the successful coups by both Hitler and Mussolini. Brown Brothers Harriman in New York was financing Hitler right up to the day war was declared with Germany. And they decided that a fascist dictatorship in the United States based on the one on Italy would be far better for their business interests than Roosevelt’s “New Deal” which threatened massive wealth re-distribution to recapitalize the working and middle class of America. So the Wall Street tycoons recruited General Butler to lead the overthrow of the US Government and install a “Secretary of General Affairs” who would be answerable to Wall Street and not the people, would crush social unrest and shut down all labor unions. General Butler pretended to go along with the scheme but then exposed the plot to Congress. Congress, then as now in the pocket of the Wall Street bankers, refused to act. When Roosevelt learned of the planned coup he demanded the arrest of the plotters, but the plotters simply reminded Roosevelt that if any one of them were sent to prison, their friends on Wall Street would deliberatly collapse the still-fragile economy and blame Roosevelt for it. Roosevelt was thus unable to act until the start of WW2, at which time he prosecuted many of the plotters under the Trading With The Enemy act. The Congressional minutes into the coup were finally declassified in 1967, but rumors of the attempted coup became the inspiration for the movie, “Seven Days in May” but with the true financial villains erased from the script.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of our country’s most agile military force — the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent more of my time being a high–class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. “I suspected I was just a part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that the Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. I operated on three continents.” — General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant,1935
P
resident John F. Kennedy
As President, John F. Kennedy understood the predatory nature of private central banking. He understood why Andrew fought so hard to end the Second Bank of the United States. So Kennedy wrote and signed Executive Order 11110 which ordered the US Treasury to issue a new public currency, the United States Note.
Kennedy’s United States Note
Kennedy’s United States Notes were not borrowed from the Federal Reserve but created by the US Government and backed by the silver stockpiles held by the US Government. It represented a return to the system of economics the United States had been founded on, and was perfectly legal for Kennedy to do. All told, some four and one half billion dollars went into public circulation, eroding interest payments to the Federal Reserve and loosening their control over the nation. Five months later John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas, and the United States Notes pulled from circulation and destroyed (except for samples held by collectors).
John J. McCloy
John J. McCloy, President of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and President of the World Bank, was named to the Warren Commission, presumably to make certain the banking dimensions behind the assassination were concealed from the public.
As we enter the eleventh year of what future history will most certainly describe as World War Three, we need to examine the financial dimensions behind the wars.
Towards the end of World War Two, when it became obvious that the allies were going to win and dictate the post war environment, the major world economic powers met at Bretton Woods, a luxury resort in New Hampshire in July of 1944, and hammered out the Bretton Woods agreement for international finance. The British Pound lost its position as the global trade and reserve currency to the US dollar (part of the price demanded by Roosevelt in exchange for the US entry into the war). Absent the economic advantages of being the world’s “go-to” currency, Britain was forced to nationalize the Bank of England in 1946. The Bretton Woods agreement, ratified in 1945, in addition to making the dollar the global reserve and trade currency, obligated the signatory nations to tie their currencies to the dollar. The nations that ratified Bretton Woods did so on two conditions. The first was that the Federal Reserve would refrain from over-printing the dollar as a means to loot real products and produce from other nations in exchange for ink and paper; basically an imperial tax. That assurance was backed up by the second requirement, which was that the US dollar would always be convertible to gold at $35 per ounce.
The Bretton Woods resort, New Hampshire
The Federal Reserve, being a private bank and not answerable to the US Government, did start overprinting paper dollars, and much of the perceived prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s was the result of foreign nations’ obligations to accept the paper notes as being worth gold at the rate of $35 an ounce. Then in 1970, France looked at the huge pile of paper notes sitting in their vaults, for which real French products like wine and cheese had been traded, and notified the United States government that they would exercise their option under Bretton Woods to return the paper notes for gold at the $35 per ounce exchange rate. The United States had nowhere near the gold to redeem the paper notes, so on August 15th, 1971, Richard Nixon “temporarily” suspended the gold convertibility of the US Federal Reserve Notes.
Nixon announces the end of gold convertability
Later termed the “Nixon shock”, this move effectively ended Bretton Woods and many global currencies started to delink from the US dollar.
The “Nixon Shock”
Worse, since the United States had collateralized their loans with the nation’s gold reserves, it quickly became apparent that the US Government did not in fact have enough gold to cover the outstanding debts. Foreign nations began to get very nervous about their loans to the US and understandably were reluctant to loan any additional money to the United States without some form of collateral. So Richard Nixon started the environmental movement, with the EPA and its various programs such as “wilderness zones”, Roadless areas”, Heritage rivers”, “Wetlands”, all of which took vast areas of public lands and made them off limits to the American people who were technically the owners of those lands. But Nixon had little concern for the environment and the real purpose of this land grab under the guise of the environment was to pledge those pristine lands and their vast mineral resources as collateral on the national debt. The plethora of different programs was simply to conceal the true scale of how much American land was being pledged to foreign lenders as collateral on the government’s debts; eventually almost 25% of the nation itself. All of this is illegal as the Enclave Clause of the Constitution limits the Federal Government to owning the land under Federal Government buildings and military bases, and that Enclave Clause was written into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers to specifically to prevent the Federal Government simply seizing the land beloning to the people to sell off, pledge as collateral, or rent!
With open lands for collateral already in short supply, the US Government embarked on a new program to shore up sagging international demand for the dollar. The United States approached the world’s oil producing nations, mostly in the Middle East, and offered them a deal. In exchange for only selling their oil for dollars, the United States would guarantee the military safety of those oil-rich nations. The oil rich nations would agree to spend and invest their US paper dollars inside the United States, in particular in US Treasury Bonds, redeemable through future generations of US taxpayers. The concept was labeled the “petrodollar”. In effect, the US, no longer able to back the dollar with gold, was now backing it with oil. Other peoples’ oil. And that necessity to keep control over those oil nations to prop up the dollar has shaped America’s foreign policy in the region ever since.
But as America’s manufacturing and agriculture has declined, the oil producing nations faced a dilemma. Those piles of US Federal Reserve notes were not able to purchase much from the United States because the United States had little (other than real estate) anyone wanted to buy. Europe’s cars and aircraft were superior and less costly, while experiments with GMO food crops led to nations refusing to buy US food exports. Israel’s constant belligerence against its neighbors caused them to wonder if the US could actually keep their end of the petrodollar arrangement. Oil producing nations started to talk of selling their oil for whatever currency the purchasers chose to use.
Saddam Hussein
Iraq, already hostile to the United States following Desert Storm, demanded the right to sell their oil for Euros in 2000 and in 2002, the United Nations agreed to allow it under the “Oil for food” program instituted following Desert Storm. One year later t