The Great Lunacy
Papa and I had a neat conversation last night. It ended up where all our conversations ended up, but that’s beside the point.
What came out of it is that we shared some laughter over the sheer ludicrousness of the U.S. financial picture. What many people do not realize is that the government does not issue the nation’s credit. Rather, it is private banks who have secured control over the nation’s money supply. When the government needs a loan, private banks can print money at no cost to them, for which they then charge the government interest, which is why the nation’s debt can never be paid down.
In the U.S. today, banks and lenders are falling like flies because they have overextended themselves. In order to prevent complete economic catastrophe, the government is forced to act in some way to stem the bleeding. It does this by providing bailouts to the nation’s banks. However, where do they acquire the means to bail out the banks? They borrow it from the banks, and then pay interest on it. Or rather the taxpayers pay interest on it. So the government, in order to prop up the economy, borrows money from private banks so that it can nationalize those same banks with the money that it borrowed.
I’m sure my understanding of this is simplistic in some fashion; it simply seems too ludicrous to be true. However, remember what Henry Ford said: “It is well enough that people do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution by morning.”
