The New Alchemy,

A Tale of Three Banks

excerpted from the book

The Creature from Jekyll Island

a second look at the Federal Reserve

by G. Edward Griffin

American Media, 2008, paperback (original 1994)

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No discussion of banking as a mechanism for financing wars would be complete without turning eventually to the name Rothschild. It was Mayer Amschel Rothschild who is quoted as saying: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Biographer Frederic Morton concluded that the Rothschild dynasty had: "... conquered the world more thoroughly, more cunningly, and much more lastingly than all the Caesars before or all the Hitlers after them." The dynasty was begun in Frankfurt, Germany, in the middle of the eighteenth century by Mayer Amschel Bauer, the son of a goldsmith. Mayer became a clerk in the Oppenheimer Bank in Hanover and was eventually promoted to junior partner. After his father's death, he returned to his home in Frankfurt to continue the family business. Over the door hung a red shield with an eagle as a sign to identify the establishment. The German words for red shield are roth schild, so he changed his name from Bauer to Rothschild and added five gold arrows held in the talons of the eagle to represent his five sons.

The Rothschild fortune began when Mayer adopted the practice of fractional-reserve banking. As we have seen, he was not alone in this, but the House of Rothschild greatly surpassed the competition. That was due to his sharp business acumen and also because of his five most unusual sons, all of whom became financial power centers of their own. As they matured and learned the magic of converting debt into money, they moved beyond the confines of Frankfurt and established additional operations in the financial centers, not only of Europe, but of much of the civilized world.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the brothers conducted important transactions on behalf of the governments of England, France, Prussia, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Naples, Portugal, Brazil, various German states, and other smaller countries. They were the personal bankers of many of the crowned heads of Europe. They made large investments, through agents, in markets as distant as the United States, India, Cuba, and Australia. They were financiers to Cecil Rhodes, making it possible for him to establish a monopoly over the diamond fields of South Africa. They are still connected with the de Beers.

Biographer Derek Wilson writes:

Those who lampooned or vilified the Rothschilds for their "sinister" influence had a considerable amount of justification for their anger and anxiety. The banking community had always constituted a "fifth estate" whose members were able, by their control of royal purse ç strings, to affect important events. But the house of Rothschild was immensely more powerful than any financial empire that had ever preceded it. It commanded vast wealth. It was international. It was independent. Royal governments were nervous of it because they could not control it. Popular movements hated it because it was not answerable to the people. Constitutionalists resented it because its influence was exercised behind the scenes-secretly.

Secrecy, of course, is essential for the success of a cabal, and the Rothschilds perfected the art. By remaining behind the scenes, they were able to avoid the brunt of public anger which was directed, instead, at the political figures which they largely controlled.

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Nathan Rothschild and the battle at Waterloo between Wellington and Napoleon

It was well known that the Rothschilds had developed a private courier service that was used, not only to transport gold and other tangible cargo, but to rapidly move information that could be useful in making investment decisions. It was expected, therefore, that Nathan in London would be the first to know the name of the victor after the cannon smoke had cleared from the battlefield. And they were not to be disappointed. The first news of Wellington's victory arrived in Brussels around midnight on June 18, 1815, where a Rothschild agent named Rothworth was waiting in readiness. He immediately mounted a fresh horse and set off for the port of Ostend where a boat was standing by to speed him across the channel to London. In the early hours of June 20, the exhausted messenger was pounding on Nathan's door, a full twenty-four hours before Wellington's own courier, Major Henry Percy, arrived.

At least one friendly biographer claims that Nathan's first act was to deliver the news to the Prime Minister, but that government officials were hesitant at first to believe it, because it ran contrary to reports they had received previously telling of serious British setbacks. At any rate, there is no doubt that Nathan's second act of the morning was to set off for the stock exchange to take up a position at his usual pillar.

All eyes were upon him as he slumped dejectedly, staring at the floor. Then, he raised his gaze and, with pained expression, began to sell. The whisper went through the crowded room, "Nathan is selling?" "Nathan is selling!" "Wellington must have lost." "Our government bonds will never be repaid." "Sell them now. Sell. Sell!"

Prices tumbled, and Nathan sold again. Prices plummeted, and still Nathan sold. Finally, prices collapsed altogether and, in one quick move, Nathan reversed his call and purchased the entire market in government bonds. In a matter of just a few hours, he had acquired the dominant holding of England's entire debt at but a tiny fraction of its worth.

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There have always been men who were in a position to make private fortunes out of cooperating with both sides in a war. The Rothschilds were not unique in this, but they no doubt perfected the art and became the personification of that breed. They were not necessarily evil in a moral sense. What preoccupied their minds were not questions of right or wrong but of profit and loss. This analytical indifference to human suffering was aptly described by one Rothschild when he said: "When the streets of Paris are running with blood, I buy." They may have held citizenship in the country of their residence, but patriotism was beyond their comprehension. They were also very bright, if not cunning, and these combined traits made them the role model of the cool pragmatists who dominate the political and financial world of today.

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One of the great puzzles of history is why governments always go into debt and seldom attempt to put themselves on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. A partial answer is that kings and politicians lack the courage to tax their subjects the enormous sums that would be required under such an arrangement. There is also the deeper question of why the expenditures are so high in the first place.

Given the mentality of the world's financial lords and masters ... it is conceivable that a coldly calculated strategy has been developed over the years to insure this result. In fact, the historical evidence strongly suggests that just such a plan was developed in eighteenth-century Europe and perfected in twentieth-century America. For the purposes of hypothetical analysis, let us identify this strategy as The Rothschild Formula.

Let us imagine a man who is totally pragmatic. He is smarter and more cunning than most men and, in fact, holds them in thinly disguised contempt. He may respect the talents of a few, but has little concern over the condition of mankind. He has observed that kings and politicians are always fighting over something or other and has concluded that wars are inevitable. He also has learned that wars can be profitable, not only by lending or creating the money to finance them, but from government favoritism in the granting of commercial subsidies or monopolies. He is not capable of such a primitive feeling as patriotism, so he is free to participate in the funding of any side in any conflict, limited only by factors of self interest. If such a man were to survey the world around him, it is not difficult to imagine that he would come to the following conclusions which would become the prime directives of his career:

1. War is the ultimate discipline to any government. If it can successfully meet the challenge of war, it will survive. If it cannot, it will perish. All else is secondary. The sanctity of its laws, the prosperity of its citizens, and the solvency of its treasury will be quickly sacrificed by any government in its primal act of self-survival.

2. All that is necessary, therefore, to insure that a government will maintain or expand its debt is to involve it in war or the threat of war. The greater the threat and the more destructive the war, the greater the need for debt.

3. To involve a country in war or the threat of war, it will be necessary for it to have enemies with credible military might. If such enemies already exist, all the better. If they exist but lack military strength, it will be necessary to provide them the money to build their war machine. If an enemy does not exist at all, then it will be necessary to create one by financing the rise of a hostile regime.

4. The ultimate obstacle is a government which declines to finance its wars through debt. Although this seldom happens, when it does, it will be necessary to encourage internal political opposition, insurrection, or revolution to replace that government with one that is more compliant to our will. The assassination of heads of state could play an important role in this process.

5. No nation can be allowed to remain militarily stronger than its adversaries, for that could lead to peace and a reduction of debt. To accomplish this balance of power, it may be necessary to finance both sides of the conflict. Unless one of the combatants is hostile to our interests and, therefore, must be destroyed, neither side should be allowed a decisive victory or defeat. While we must always proclaim the virtues of peace, the unspoken objective is perpetual war.

Whether anyone actually put this strategy into words or passed it along from generation to generation is not important. In fact, it is doubtful it has ever worked that way. Whether it is the product of conscious planning or merely the consequence of men responding to the profit opportunities inherent in fiat money, the world's financial lords have acted as though they were following such a plan.

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By the end of the eighteenth century, the House of Rothschild had become one of the most successful financial institutions the world has ever known... As pioneers in the practice of lending money to governments, they soon learned that this provided unique opportunities to parlay wealth into political power as well. Before long, most of the princes and kings of Europe had come within their influence.

... The fact that different branches of the Rothschild network might be providing funds for the enemy was pragmatically ignored. Thus, a time-honored practice among financiers was born: profiting from both sides.

... [There is a] special breed of international financiers whose success typically is built upon certain character traits. Those include cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to the human condition. That profile is the basis for proposing a theoretical strategy, called the Rothschild Formula, which motivates such men to propel governments into war for the profits they yield... As long as the mechanism of central banking exists, it will be to such men an irresistible temptation to convert debt into perpetual war and war into perpetual debt.

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To finance the early stages of World War I, England and France had borrowed heavily from investors in America and had selected the House of Morgan as sales agent for their bonds. Morgan also acted as their U.S. purchasing agent for war materials, thus profiting from both ends of the cash flow: once when the money was borrowed and again when it was spent. Further profits were derived from production contracts placed with companies within the Morgan orbit. But the war began to go badly for the Allies when Germany's submarines took virtual control of the Atlantic shipping lanes. As England and France moved closer to defeat or a negotiated peace on Germany's terms, it became increasingly difficult to sell their bonds. No bonds meant no purchases, and the Morgan cash flow was threatened. Furthermore, if the previously sold bonds should go into default, as they certainly would in the wake of defeat, the Morgan consortium would suffer gigantic losses.

The only way to save the British Empire, to restore the value of the bonds, and to sustain the Morgan cash flow was for the United States government to provide the money. But, since neutral nations were prohibited from doing that by treaty, America would have to be brought into the war. A secret agreement to that effect was made between British officials and Colonel House, with the concurrence of the President. From that point forward, Wilson began to pressure Congress for a declaration of war. This was done at the very time he was campaigning for election on the slogan "He kept us out of war." Meanwhile, Morgan purchased control over major segments of the news media and engineered a nation-wide editorial blitz against Germany, calling for war as an act of American patriotism.

... The Lusitania was built to military specifications and was registered with the British Admiralty as an armed auxiliary cruiser. She carried passengers as a cover to conceal her real mission, which was to bring contraband war materials from the United States. This fact was known to Wilson and others in his administration, but they did nothing to stop it.

... The British knew that to draw the United States into the war would mean the difference between defeat and victory, and anything that could accomplish that was proper-even the coldly calculated sacrifice of one of her great ships [the Lusitania] with Englishmen aboard. But the trick was to have Americans on board also in order to create the proper emotional climate in the United States.

... The deed had been done, and it set in motion great waves of revulsion against the Germans. These waves eventually flooded through Washington and swept the United States into war. Within days of the declaration, Congress voted $1 billion in credit for England and France. $200 million was sent to England immediately and was applied to the Morgan account. The vast quantity of money needed to finance the war was created by the Federal Reserve System, which means it was collected from Americans through that hidden tax called inflation.

... The separate motives of such diverse personalities as Winston Churchill, J.P. Morgan, Colonel House, and Woodrow Wilson all found common cause in bringing America into World War I. Churchill maneuvered for military advantage, Morgan sought the profits of war, House schemed for political power, and Wilson dreamed of a chance to dominate a post-war League of Nations.

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Dr. Carroll Quigley, professor of history at Georgetown University, and author of the book 'Tragedy and Hope', about the world's money power structure. He describes the goal of this network of world financiers as being:

... nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences...

Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.

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In 1870, a wealthy British socialist by the name of john Ruskin ( was appointed as professor of fine arts at Oxford University in London. He taught that the state must take control of the means of production and organize them for the good of the community as a whole. He advocated placing control of the state into the hands of a small ruling class, perhaps even a single dictator. He said: "My continual aim has been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of one man to all others."

This, of course, is the same intellectual appeal of Communism. Lenin taught that the masses could not be trusted to handle their own affairs and that a special group of disciplined intellectuals must assume this role for them. That is the function of the Communist Party, which never comprises more than about three per cent of the population. Even when the charade of free elections is allowed, only members of the Party-or those over whom the KGB has total control-are permitted to run for office. The concept that a ruling party or class is the ideal structure for society is at the heart of all collectivist schemes, regardless of whether they are called Socialism, Communism, Nazism, Fascism, or any other "ism" which may yet be invented to disguise it. It is easy, therefore, for adherents of this elitist mentality to be comfortable in almost any of these collectivist camps, a fact to which Dr. Quigley alluded when he wrote: "This network, which we may-identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so."

Returning to the subject of the origins of this group, however, Dr. Quigley tells us:

Ruskin spoke to the Oxford undergraduates as members of the privileged ruling class. He told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline, but that this tradition could not be saved, and did not deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world.

Ruskin's message had a sensational impact. His inaugural lecture was copied out in long-hand by one undergraduate, Cecil Rhodes, who kept it with him for thirty years.

Cecil Rhodes made one of the world's greatest fortunes. With the cooperation of the Bank of England and financiers like Rothschild, he was able to establish a virtual monopoly over the diamond output of South Africa and most of the country's gold as well. The major portion of this vast income was spent to advance the ruling-class ideas of John Ruskin.

Dr. Quigley explains:

The Rhodes Scholarships, established by the terms of Cecil Rhodes' seventh will, are known to everyone. What is not so widely known is that Rhodes in five previous wills left his fortune to form a secret society, which was to devote itself to the preservation and expansion of the British Empire. And what does not seem to be known to anyone is that this secret society was created by Rhodes and principal trustee, Lord Miler, and continues to exist to this day .... In his book on Rhodes' wills, he [Stead, who was a member of the inner circle wrote in one place: "Mr. Rhodes was more than the founder of a dynasty. He aspired to be the creator of one of those vast semi-religious, quasi-political associations which, like the Society of Jesus, have played so large a part in the history of the world. To be more strictly accurate, he wished to found an Order as the instrument of the will of the Dynasty."

In this secret society Rhodes was to be leader(Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Miner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a "Circle of Initiates;" while there was to be an outer circle known as the Association of Helpers" (later organized by Miler as the Round Table organization).

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... the classical pattern of political conspiracy. This was the structure that made it possible for Quigley to differentiate between an international "network" and the secret society within that network. At the center, there is always a tiny group in complete control, with one man as the undisputed leader. Next is a circle of secondary leadership that, for the most part, is unaware of an inner core. They are led to believe that they are the inner-most ring.

In time, as these conspiracies are built from the center out, they form additional rings of organization. Those in the outer echelons usually are idealists with an honest desire to improve the world. They never suspect an inner control for other purposes, and only those few who demonstrate a ruthless capacity for higher leadership are ever allowed to see it.

After the death of Cecil Rhodes, the inner core of his secret society fell under the control of Lord Alfred Milner, Governor-General and High Commissioner of South Africa. As director of a number of public banks and as corporate precursor of England's Midland Bank, he became one of the greatest political and financial powers in the world. Miler recruited into his secret society a group of young men chiefly from Oxford and Toynbee Hall and, according to Quigley:

Through his influence these men were able to win influential posts in government and international finance and became the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs up to 1939 .... In 1909-1913 they organized semi-secret groups, known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and the United States ....

Money for the widely ramified activities of this organization came chiefly from the Rhodes Trust itself, and from wealthy associates such as the Beit brothers, from Sir Abe Bailey, and (after 1915) from the Astor family ... and from foundations and firms associated with the international banking fraternity, especially the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and other organizations associated with J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families, and the associates of Lazard Brothers and of Morgan, Grenfell, and Company ....

At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. Once again the task was entrusted to Lionel Curtis who established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group. This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. 1

The Council on Foreign Relations was a spin-off from the failure of the world's leaders at the end of World War I to embrace the League of Nations as a true world government. It became clear to the master planners that they had been unrealistic in their expectations for rapid acceptance. If their plan were to be carried forward, it would have to be done on the basis of patient gradualism symbolized by the Fabian turtle. Rose Martin says:

Colonel House was only one man, where a multitude was needed. He had set the pattern and outlined goals for the future, and he still had a scheme or two in mind. In particular, he foresaw it would be necessary for the Fabians to develop a top level Anglo-American planning group in the field of foreign relations which could secretly influence policy on the one hand and gradually "educate" public opinion on the other ....

To the ambitious young Fabians, British and American, who had flocked to the peace conference [Versailles] as economists and junior officials, it soon became evident that a New World Order [League of Nations] was not about to be produced at Paris. For them, Colonel House arranged a dinner meeting at the Hotel Majestic on May 19, 1919, together with a select group of Fabian-certified Englishmen - notably, Arnold Toynbee, R.H. Tawney and John Maynard Keynes. All were equally disillusioned, for various reasons, by the consequences of the peace. They made a gentlemen's agreement to set up an organization, with branches in England and America, "to facilitate the scientific study of international questions." As a result two potent and closely related opinion-making bodies were founded .... The English branch was called the Royal Institute of International Affairs. The American branch, first known as the Institute of International Affairs, was reorganized in 1921 as the Council on Foreign Relations.

It is through this front group, called the Council on Foreign Relations, and its influence over the media, tax-exempt foundations, universities, and government agencies that the international financiers have been able to dominate the domestic and foreign policies of the United States ever since.

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The Bolshevik revolution was not a spontaneous uprising of the masses. It was planned, financed, and orchestrated by outside... most of the money and leadership came from financiers in England and the United States... This group centered mainly around a secret society created Cecil Rhodes, one of the world's wealthiest men at the time. The purpose of that group was nothing less than world dominion and the establishment of a modern feudalist society controlled by the world's central banks. Headquartered in England, the Rhodes inner-most directorate was called the Round Table. In other countries, there were established subordinate structures called Round Table Groups. The Round-Table Group in the United States became known as the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR, which was initially dominated by J.P. Morgan and later by the Rockefellers, is the most powerful group in America today. It is even more powerful than the federal government, because almost all of the key positions in government are held by its members. In other words, it is the United States government.

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There were two revolutions in Russia that year [1917], not one. The first, called the February Revolution, resulted in the establishment of a provisional socialist government under the leadership of Aleksandr Kerensky. It was relatively moderate in its policies and attempted to accommodate all revolutionary factions including the Bolsheviks who were the smallest minority. When the February Revolution occurred, Lenin and Trotsky were not even in Russia...

The second revolution, called the October Revolution, was the one through which the Bolsheviks came to power. It was, in fact, no revolution at all. It was a coup d'etat. The Bolsheviks simply took advantage of the confusion and indecisiveness that existed among the various groups that comprised the new government and caught them by surprise with a lightening strike of force. With a combination of bribes and propaganda, they recruited several regiments of soldiers and sailors and, in the early morning darkness of October 25, methodically took military possession of all government buildings and communication centers. No one was prepared for such audacity, and resistance was almost non-existent. By dawn, without the Russian people even knowing what had happened-much less having any voice in that action, their country had been captured by a minority faction and became the world's first so-called "people's republic." Within two days, Kerensky had fled for his life, and all Provisional Government ministers had been arrested. That is how the Communists seized Russia and that is how they held it afterward. Contrary to the Marxian myth, they have never re resented the people. They simply have the guns.

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Eugene Lyons in his book, Workers' Paradise Lost

Lenin, Trotsky, and their cohorts did not overthrow the monarchy. They overthrew the first democratic society in Russian history, set up through a truly popular revolution in March, 1917 .... They represented the smallest of the Russian radical movements .... But theirs was a movement that scoffed at numbers and frankly mistrusted the multitudes. The workers could be educated for their role after the revolution; they would not be led but driven to their terrestrial heaven...

On the brink of the dictatorship, Lenin dared to promise that the state will fade away, since "all need of force will vanish." Not at some remote future, but at once: "The proletarian state begins to wither immediately after its triumph, for in a classless society a state is unnecessary and impossible .... Soviet power is a new kind of state, in which there is no bureaucracy, no police, no standing army." Also: "So long as the state exists, there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state."

Within a few months after they attained power, most of the tsarist practices the Leninists had condemned were revived, usually in more ominous forms: political prisoners, convictions without trial and without the formality of charges, savage persecution of dissenting views, death penalties for more varieties of crime than in any other modern nation. The rest were put into effect in the following years, including the suppression of all other parties, restoration of the internal passport, a state monopoly of the press, along with repressive practices the monarchy had outlived for a century or more.

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Lenin and Trotsky were not sent to Russia to overthrow the anti-Semitic Tsar. Their assignment from Wall Street was to overthrow the revolution.

p295
From the beginning of Hitler's rise to power, German industry was heavily financed by American and British bankers. Most of the largest U.S. Corporations were knowingly invested in war industries. I.G. Farben was the largest of the industrial cartels and was a primary source of political funding for Hitler. It was Farben that staffed and directed Hitler's intelligence section and ran the Nazi slave labor camps as a supplemental source of manpower for Germany's factories. Farben even hired the New York public relations firm of Ivy Lee, who was John D. Rockefeller's PR specialist, to help improve Hitler's public image in America.

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Much of the capital for the expansion of I.G. Farben came from Wall Street, primarily Rockefeller's National City Bank.

p295
During the Allied bombing raids over Germany, the factories and administrative buildings of I.G. Farben were spared upon instructions from the U.S. War Department. The War Department was liberally staffed with men, who in civilian life, had been associates of investment firms.

p295
During World War II, under the Lend-Lease program, the United States sent to the Soviets more than $11 billion in aid, including 14,000 aircraft, nearly half a million tanks and other military vehicles, more than 400 combat ships, and even half of the entire U.S. supply of uranium which then was critically needed for the development of the atomic bomb. But fully one-third of all the Lend-Lease shipments during this period comprised industrial equipment and supplies to be used for the development of the Russian economy after the war.

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With the termination of the Lend-Lease program, it was necessary to invent new mechanisms for the support of Soviet Russia and her satellites. One of these was the sale of much-needed commodities at prices below the world market and, in fact, below the prices that Americans themselves had to pay for the same items. This meant, of course-as it did in the case of Lend Lease-that the American taxpayer had to make up the difference. The Soviets were not even required to have the money to buy these goods. American financial institutions, the federal government, and international agencies, which are largely funded by the federal government, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank-lent the money to them. Furthermore, the interest rates on these loans also are below the market requiring still additional subsidy by American citizens. And that is not all. Almost all of these loans have been guaranteed by the United States government, which means that if-no, make that when-these countries default in their payments, the gullible American public is once again called upon to make them good. In other words, the new mechanism, innocently and deceptively referred to as "trade," is little more than a thinly disguised means by which members of the Round Table who direct our national policies have bled billions of dollars from American citizens for an ongoing economic transfusion into the Soviet bloc-and continue to do so now that the word Soviet has been changed to the less offensive Democratic Socialism. This enables those regimes to enter into contracts with American businessmen to provide essential services. And the circle is complete: From the American taxpayer to the American government to the "socialist" regime to the American businessman and, ultimately, to the American financier who funded the project and provided the political influence to make it all possible.

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These men [members of the Round Table network/the world's money-power structure] are incapable of genuine patriotism. They think of themselves, not as citizens of any particular country, but as citizens of the world. They can do business just as easily with bloodthirsty dictatorships as with any other government-especially since they are assured by the transfer mechanism that the American taxpayer is going to make good on the deal.

When David Rockefeller was asked about the propriety of providing funding for Marxist and Communist countries which are openly hostile to the United States, he responded: "I don't think an international bank such as ours ought to try to set itself as a judge about what kind of government a country wishes to have."

Wishes to have? He was talking about Angola where the Marxist dictatorship was forced upon the people with Cuban soldiers and Soviet weapons!

Thomas Theobald, Vice President of Citicorp was asked in 1981 about his bank's loans to Poland. Was he embarrassed by making loans to a Communist country, especially following the regime's brutal repression of free-trade unions? Not at all. "Who knows which political system works?" he replied. "The only test we care about is, can they pay their bills." What he meant, of course, was can the American taxpayer pay Poland's bills.

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In the beginning, the Council on Foreign Relations was dominated by J.P. Morgan. It is still controlled by international financiers. The Morgan group gradually has been replaced by the Rockefeller consortium, and the roll call of participating businesses now reads like the Fortune 500.

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The alchemists of ancient times vainly sought the philosopher' stone which they believed would turn lead into gold. Is it possible that such a stone actually has been found? Can it be that the money alchemists of our own time have learned how to transmute war into debt, and debt into war, and both into gold for themselves?

p303
We theorized a strategy, dubbed the Rothschild Formula, in which the world's money cabal deliberately encourages war as a means of stimulating the profitable production of armaments and of keeping nations perpetually in debt.

p304
In the Gulf War, every effort was made to insure that [Saddam] Hussein's regime was contained but not destroyed... His military infrastructure and most of his weapons were spared. After the cease fire, he was allowed to keep his fleet of helicopter gunships, which he promptly used to put down a large-scale internal revolt.

The big pill to swallow is that, for many years, Hussein was an asset to the global planners in the West, and they did everything possible to keep him in power. It was only when he refused to allow U.S. companies to dominate Iraqi oil production that he was seriously targeted. Prior to that, he was untouchable precisely because he was widely perceived as a perfect, despicable enemy.

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Fareed Zakaria, Managing Editor of the Council on Foreign Relations' (CFR) journal, Foreign Affairs, in 1996

It's tempting to get rid of Saddam. But his bad behavior actually serves America's purposes in the region .... If Saddam Hussein did not exist, we would have to invent him .... The end of Saddam Hussein would be the end of the anti-Saddam coalition. Nothing destroys an alliance like the disappearance of the enemy .... Maintaining a long-term American presence in the gulf would be difficult in the absence of a regional threat.

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Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) policymakers ... are implementing the Rothschild Formula. To justify world government, there must be wars. Wars require enemies with frightful weapons is one of the best enemies money can buy.

p305
There are few historians who would challenge the fact that the funding of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War was accomplished ... through the Federal Reserve System. An overview of all wars since the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694 suggests that most of them would have been greatly reduced in severity, or perhaps not even fought at all, without fiat money. It is the ability of governments to acquire money without direct taxation that makes modern warfare possible, and a central bank has become the preferred method of accomplishing that.

p306
The Bolshevik Revolution was a coup d'etat in which a radical minority captured the Russian government from the moderate revolutionary majority. The Red Cross Mission of New York financiers threw support to the Bolsheviks and, in return, received economic rewards in the form of rights to Russia's natural resources plus contracts for construction and supplies. The continued participation in the economic development of Russia and Eastern Europe since that time indicates that this relationship has survived to the present day. These financiers are not pro-Communist. Their motivation is profit and power. They are now working to bring both Russia and the United States into a world government which they expect to control. War and threats of war are tools to prod the masses toward the acceptance of that goal. It is essential, therefore, that the United States and the industrialized nations of world have credible enemies. As these words are being written, Russia is wearing the mask of peace and cooperation. But we have seen that before. We may yet see a return of the Evil Empire when the timing is right. U.S. government and megabank funding, first of Russian, and now of Chinese and Middle-East military capabilities, cannot be understood without this insight.

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America had its first central bank even before the Constitution was drafted. It was called the Bank of North America and was chartered by the Continental Congress in 1781. Modeled after the Bank of England, it was authorized to issue more paper promissory notes than it held in deposits. In the beginning, these notes were widely circulated and served as a national currency. Although the bank was essentially a private institution, it was designed for the purpose of creating money to lend to the federal government, which it did from the start.

The Bank of North America was riddled with fraud, and it quickly fell into political disfavor. Its inflated bank notes eventually were rejected by ordinary citizens and ceased to circulate outside of the Bank's home city of Philadelphia. Its charter was allowed to expire and, in 1783, it was converted into a purely commercial bank chartered by the state of Pennsylvania.

The advocates of fiat money did not give up. In 1791, the First Bank of the United States (America's second central bank) was created by Congress. The new bank was a replica of the first, including fraud. Private investors in the Bank were among the nation's most wealthy and influential citizens, including some Congressmen and Senators. But the largest investment and the most powerful influence in the new Bank came from the Rothschilds in Europe.

The Bank set about immediately to serve its function of creating money for the government. This led to a massive inflation of the money supply and rising prices. In the first five years, 42% of everything people had saved in the form of money was confiscated through the hidden tax called inflation. This was the same phenomenon that had plagued the colonies less than two decades earlier, but instead of being caused by printing-press money, it was now fueled by fractional-reserve bank notes created by a central bank.

As the time for renewal of the Bank's charter approached, two groups with opposite intentions became strange political allies against it: the Jeffersonians who wanted sound money; and the frontier banks, called wildcatters, who wanted unlimited license to steal. On January 24, 1811, the charter was defeated by one vote in the Senate and one in the House. The central bank was gone, but the wildcatters were everywhere.

The War of 1812 was not popular among the American public, and funding would have been impossible through taxes alone. The government chose to fund the war by encouraging wildcat banks to purchase its war-debt bonds and convert them into bank notes which the government then used to purchase war material. Within two years, the nation's money supply had tripled, and so had prices. Once again, the monetary and political scientists had succeeded in fleecing the American public of approximately 66% of all the money they held during that period. And that was on top of the 42% fleecing they got a few years earlier by the Bank of the United States.

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The government had encouraged widespread banking fraud during the War of 1812 as an expedient for paying its bills, and this had left the nation in monetary chaos. At the end of the war, instead of allowing the fraudulent banks to fall and letting the free market heal the damage, Congress decided to protect the banks, to organize the fraud, and to perpetuate the losses. It did this by creating the nation's third central bank called the Second Bank of the United States.

The new bank was almost an exact carbon copy of the previous one. It was authorized to create money for the federal government and to regulate state banks. It influenced larger amounts of capital and was better organized across state lines than the old bank. Consequently its policies had a greater impact on the creation and extinguishing of the nation's money supply. For the first time in our history, the effects began to ricochet across the entire country at once instead of being confined to geographical regions. The age of the boom-bust cycle had at last arrived in America.

In 1820, public opinion began to swing back in favor of the sound-money principles espoused by the Jeffersonian Republicans. But since the Republican Party had by then abandoned those principles, a new coalition was formed, headed by Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, called the Democrat Party. One of its primary platforms was the abolishment of the Bank. After Jackson was elected in 1828, he began in full earnest to bring that about.

The head of the Bank was a formidable adversary by the name of Nicholas Biddle. Biddle, not only possessed great personal abilities, but many members of Congress were indebted to him for business favors. Consequently, the Bank had many political friends.

As Jackson's first term of office neared its end, Biddle asked Congress for an early renewal of the Bank's charter, hoping that Jackson would not risk controversy in a reelection year. The bill was easily passed, but Jackson accepted the challenge and vetoed the measure. Thus, a battle over the Bank's future became the primary presidential campaign issue.

Jackson was reelected by a large margin, and one of his first acts was to remove federal deposits from the Bank and place them into private, regional banks. Biddle counterattacked by contracting credit and calling in loans. This was calculated to shrink the money supply and trigger a national panic-depression, which it did. He publicly blamed the downturn on Jackson's removal of deposits.

The plan almost worked. Biddle's political allies succeeded in having Jackson officially censured in the Senate. However, when the truth about Biddle's strategy finally leaked out, it backfired against him. He was called before a special Congressional investigative committee to explain his actions, the censure against Jackson was rescinded, and the nation's third central bank passed into oblivion.

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The Second Bank of the United States was dead, but banking was very much alive. Many of the old problems continued, and new ones arrived. The issuance of banknotes had been severely limited, but that was largely offset by the increasing use of checkbook money, which had no limits at all on its issue.

When The Second Bank of the U.S. slipped into history, the nation was nearing the end of the boom phase of a boom/bust cycle. When the inevitable contraction of the money supply came, politicians began to offer proposals on how to infuse stability into the banking system. None dealt with the real problem, which was fractional-reserve banking itself. They concentrated instead on proposals on how to make it work. All of these proposals were tried and they failed.

These years are sometimes described as a period of free banking, which is an insult to truth. All that happened was that banks were converted from corporations to private associations, a change in form, not substance. They continued to be burdened by government controls, regulations, supports, and other blocks against the free market.

The economic chaos and conflict of this period was a major cause of the Civil War. Lincoln made it clear during his public speeches that slavery was not the issue. The basic problem was that North and South were dependent on each other for trade. The industrialized North sold its products to the South which sold its cotton to the North. The South also had a similar trade with Europe, and that was an annoyance to the North. Europe was selling many products at lower prices, and the North was losing market share. Northern politicians passed protectionist legislation putting import duties on industrial products. This all but stopped the importation of European goods and forced the South to buy from the North at higher prices. Europe retaliated by curtailing the purchase of American cotton. That hurt the South even more. It was a classic case of legalized plunder, and the South wanted out.

Meanwhile, there were powerful forces in Europe that wanted to see America embroiled in civil war. If she could be split into two hostile countries, there would be less obstacle to European expansion on the North American continent. France was eager to capture Mexico and graft it onto a new empire which would include many of the Southern states as well. England, on the other hand, had military forces poised along the Canadian border ready for action. Political agitators, funded and organized from Europe, were active on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. The issue of slavery was but j a ploy. America had become the target in a ruthless game of world economics and politics.

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America's bloodiest and most devastating war [Civil War] was fought, not over the issue of freedom versus slavery, but because of clashing economic interests. At the heart of this conflict were questions of legalized plunder, banking monopolies, and even European territorial expansion into Latin America. The boot print of the Rothschild formula is unmistakable across the graves of American soldiers on both sides.

In the North, neither greenbacks, taxes, nor war bonds were enough to finance the war. So a national banking system was created to convert government bonds into fiat money, and the people lost over half of their monetary assets to the hidden tax of inflation. In the South, printing presses accomplished the same effect, and the monetary loss was total.

The issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln and the naval assistance offered by Tsar Alexander, II, were largely responsible for keeping England and France from intervening in the war on the side of the Confederacy. Lincoln was assassinated by a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society with rumored ties to American politicians and British financiers. Tsar Alexander was assassinated a few years later by a member of the People's Will, a Nihilist secret society in Russia with rumored ties to financiers in New York City, specifically, Jacob Schiff and the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.

As for the Creature of central banking, there had been some victories and some defeats. The greenbacks had for a while deprived the bankers of their override on a small portion of government debt, but the National Banking Act quickly put a stop to that. Furthermore, by using government bonds as backing for the money supply, it locked the nation into perpetual debt. The foundation was firmly in place, but the ultimate structure still needed to be erected. The monetary system was yet to be concentrated into one central-bank mechanism, and the control was yet to be taken away from the politicians and placed into the hands of the bankers themselves.


The Creature from Jekyll Island

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