Money: Inflation

Quotes

“I consider that it is not only prudential, but absolutely necessary to protect the inhabitants of this city from being imposed upon by a spurious currency…I think it much safer to go upon the hard money system altogether. I have examined the Constitution upon this subject and find my doubts removed…Article I, Section 10 declares that nothing else except gold and silver shall be lawful tender…The different states, and even Congress itself, have passed many laws diametrically contrary to the Constitution of the United States…The Constitution acknowledges that the people have all power not reserved to itself.” (Joseph Smith)

“By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some....There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.(John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919.)

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied. The issuing power of money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs.” (Thomas Jefferson, this indignant protest can be heard today across the vista of two whole centuries Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, 1802.)

“The banks themselves were doing business on capitals, three-fourths of which were fictitious. This fictitious capital...is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it [the bank] must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe, have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of the debt. We have been truly sowing with wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.” (Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 10:133.)

“We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium.... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness.... [These] are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.” (Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 12:379-80.)

“Give me control over a nation's currency, and I care not who makes the laws.” (Baron Mayer Amschel Rothschild)

“This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth.…When the President signs this Act, the invisible government by the Money Power, proven to exist by the Money Trust Investigation, will be legalized.…The money power overawes the legislative and executive forces of the Nation and of the States. I have seen these forces exerted during the different stages of this bill.…” (Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, referring to the act which established the Federal Reserve. Congressional Record, Vol. 51, p. 1446. December 22, 1913.)

“The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on depressions will be scientifically created.” (Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, after the passage of the Federal Reserve act 1913.)

“German currency had become completely worthless. Purchasing power of salaries and wages was reduced to zero. The life savings of the middle classes and working classes were wiped out. But something even more important was destroyed: the faith of the people in the economic structure of the German society.…the government deliberately let the mark tumble in order to free the State of its public debts, to escape from paying reparations.…All [the people] knew was that a large bank account could not buy a straggly bunch of carrots, and half peck of potatoes, and few ounces of sugar, a pound of flour. They knew that as individuals they were bankrupt. And they knew hunger when it gnawed at them, as it did daily. In their misery and hopelessness, they made the Republic the scapegoat for all that had happened. Such times were heaven-sent for Adolph Hitler.” (William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 61-62. 1960.)

“Everything is in place for a rapid increase in U.S. currency. There is no precious metal backing for it; there is virtually no check on how much of it can be issued; and an acceleration of inflation here—brought on by the enormous and growing national debt—could result in a duplication of the horror that befell Germans in 1923-24.” (John F. McManus, Financial Terrorism, 1993.)

“We are completely saddled and bridled, and…the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where [it] will guide.” (Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 9:337-338.)

“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God...A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.” (Scriptural, Lev. 19:36, Proverbs 11:1.)

“No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” (U.S. Constitution, 1787.)

“The millions of working families of America are now indebted to the few thousand banking families for twice the assessed value of the entire United States. And these Banking families obtained that debt against us for the cost of paper, ink, and bookkeeping!” (Des Griffin Descent Into Slavery, p. 284.)

“You are a den of vipers! I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning.” (President Andrew Jackson, 1834.)

“The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” (Benjamin Franklin)

“Under the Federal Reserve Act, panics are scientifically created. The present panic is the first scientific one, worked out as we figure a mathematical equation.” (Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, The Economic Pinch, 1921.)