MARCH 31
1913 – DEATH OF J. PIERPONT MORGAN, BANKER
J.P Morgan founded one of the world’s most powerful banks and had extraordinary political influence in the U.S. The National Citizens League, funded by millions of dollars from Morgan and a few other major bankers, financed respected university professors to endorse the concept of creating a private/corporate central bank, which became the Federal Reserve Bank, created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. Morgan’s men were among the small number of architects of the private/corporate Federal Reserve.
1999 – “THE MATRIX” FILM RELEASE DATE [25th anniversary]
“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?” — Morpheus to Neo
[ Opinion: 25 years later, ‘The Matrix’ is less sci-fi than tech reality
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/30/opinions/matrix-25-years-later-tech-reality-virk/index.html ]
APRIL 1
2011 – PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN BLOOMBERG: “FOREIGN BANKS TAPPED FED’S SECRET LIFELINE MOST AT CRISIS PEAK”
“Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as much as $33.5 billion through its New York branch from the Fed’s “discount window” lending program, according to Fed documents released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request… The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record.”
[Note: The Fed worked very hard to keep this information secret. The amount in secret loans to US banks and corporations and foreign banks following a partial audit of the Fed in 2012 revealed a total of $16 trillion. The GDP of the United States is only $14 trillion by comparison.
APRIL 2
1792 – COINAGE ACT PASSES CONGRESS
Congress used its power (as established under the U.S. Constitution) to establish a national Mint. The act authorized the creation of U.S. money — something that we have since forgotten and that Congress has willingly handed over the private banking corporations. Article I, Section 8 states that the government has the power to “coin” money. Coin is used as a verb, as in creating money.
2011 – EMAIL TO HILLARY CLINTON FROM SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL ABOUT QADDIFI’S GOLD (FROM WIKILEAKS)
“On April 2, 2011 sources with access to advisors to Salt al-Islam Qaddafi stated in strictest confidence that while the freezing of Libya’s foreign bank accounts presents Muammar Qaddafi with serious challenges, his ability to equip and maintain his armed forces and intelligence services remains intact. According to sensitive information available to this these individuals, Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French.franc (CFA). (Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.”)
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528
2015 – “ICELAND IS PROPOSING A RADICAL CHANGE TO ITS MONETARY SYSTEM” published article
“Iceland’s government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank…
“In Iceland, as in other modern market economies, the central bank controls the creation of banknotes and coins but not the creation of all money, which occurs as soon as a commercial bank offers a line of credit.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/iceland-is-proposing-a-radical-change-to-its-monetary-system-2015-4
APRIL 3
1729 – PUBLICATION OF “A MODEST INQUIRY IN THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF A PAPER-CURRENCY” BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
“As we have already experienced how much the Increase of our Currency by what Paper Money has been made, has encouraged our Trade…”
“Thus the Riches of a Country are to be valued by the Quantity of Labour its Inhabitants are able to purchase, and not by the Quantity of Silver and Gold they possess…”
The paper currency reduced the inconvenient method of barter transactons, expanded businesses and promoted the settlement of the area. New York and New Jersey experienced the same prosperity when they began printing and circulating their own paper currencies.
1912 – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK IS A FRAUD QUOTE BY H. L. BIRUM SR.
“The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they ‘create’ the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their “Federal Reserve Notes” and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.”
2020 – “WAS THE FED JUST NATIONALIZED?” BLOG POSTING BY ELLEN BROWN
“The Fed has evidently abandoned its vaunted “independence” and is now working in partnership with the Treasury. In some sense, it has been nationalized. A true partnership, however, would make the printing press available for more than just buying toxic corporate assets. A central bank that was run as a public utility could fund programs designed to kickstart the economy, stimulate productivity and generally serve the public.
“The reason the Fed is now working with the Treasury is that it needs the Treasury to help it bail out a financial industry burdened with an avalanche of dodgy assets that are fast losing value. The problem for the Fed is that it is only allowed to purchase or lend against securities with government guarantees, including Treasury securities, agency mortgage-backed securities, debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and (arguably) municipal securities. To get around that wrinkle, as Wolf Richter explains:
“’[T]he Treasury will create (or resuscitate) a series of special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to buy all manner of financial assets, backed by $425 billion in collateral conveniently supplied by the US taxpayer via the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The Fed will lend to SPVs against this collateral which, when leveraged, could fund $4-5 trillion in asset purchases.
“’That includes municipal bonds, non-agency mortgages, corporate bonds, commercial paper, and every variety of asset-backed security. The only things the government can’t (transparently, yet) buy are publicly-traded stocks and high-yield bonds.’”
APRIL 4
1834 – US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTES AGAINST RECHARTERING THE SECOND BANK OF THE UNITED STATES
The US House voted 134-82 against rechartering (re-licensing) the nation’s central bank – a private bank not ultimately accountable to the public but to its shareholders. Charters were originally considered democratic instruments of public control to keep corporations accountable – as opposed to today where charters are issued automatically as long as minimal conditions are met and a fee is paid. The bank had established loan policies that were detrimental to the nation’s economy but very profitable for its owners. The bank’s President, Nicholas Biddle, had threatened to harm the US economy by restricting the nation’s money supply if the charter were not renewed. The bank shrank the money supply. A financial panic and deep depression followed. President Andrew Jackson was convinced all the more that the private bank should not be in charge of issuing and circulating the nation’s money supply.
1883 – DEATH OF PETER COOPER, US INDUSTRIALIST, PHILANTHROPIST (FOUNDED COOPER UNION) AND GREENBACK CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT
“The substitution of greenbacks for National bank notes will make a uniform currency of money. A greenback legal tender is to the full as much real money as a gold legal tender, the only difference being that as many nations make gold a legal tender, there is more demand for it than for paper legal tenders which have the sovereign stamp of only one Government. The substitution of greenbacks for National bank notes would have the bounty now paid to banks which being invested as a sinking fund would in less than thirty years pay off the whole debt of the country.”
2016 — “ENDING TOO BIG TO FAIL POLICY SYMPOSIUM” SPONSORED BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF MINNEAPOLIS
“Seven years after the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, the biggest banks are still too big to fail (TBTF). Without action, they continue to pose a serious, ongoing risk to our nation’s economy. It’s time to seriously consider bold and transformational solutions to address TBTF once and for all…The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is launching a major initiative to develop a plan to end TBTF and prevent similar economic devastation from hurting the American people.The Minneapolis Fed’s #EndingTBTF initiative will explore various proposals from expert researchers and incorporate input from a wide range of thought leaders, culminating in an actionable plan to end TBTF, which will be released by the end of the year.” https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/special-studies/endingtbtf
APRIL 5
1764 – BRITISH PARLIAMENT PASSES CURRENCY ACT PROHIBITING COLONIES FROM PRINTING THEIR OWN MONEY
As early as 1723, the colony of Pennsylvania showed that it was possible for money to be issued by the government in the place of taxes without causing inflation. Money was printed and circulated there and elsewhere. No taxes needed to be collected in PA from 1723 to the 1750’s as a result. The Bank of England pressured the British Parliament to pass the Currency Act. Benjamin Franklin believed that passage of the Act caused poverty and triggered the Revolutionary War.
1933 – PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER CONFISCATING GOLD
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, ordering all citizens to turn in their private gold. The Order prohibited the “hoarding” of almost all privately held gold coins, bullion and certificates “to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking” (i.e. the Great Depression) that was caused by the monetary policies of the privately operated Federal Reserve system.
2008 – DEATH OF CHARLTON HESTON (WHO PLAYED MOSES IN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS}
[A stretch, but nevertheless, a means to share the following…]
From the Old Testament in the Bible, Deuteronomy 23:19
“Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn
interest.”
2021 – “THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CAPITALISM” posted article by Howard Switzer
“What drives this separation and disconnection from life? To understand the source of all this horror we must first look closer at capitalism and its main mechanism of power: money as debt. In the centuries old capitalist monetary system all money is created as interest bearing debt, credit issued by the commercial banking system when they make loans. This allows the owners of the big banks and their largest depositors to direct economic development through funding monopolies that dominate every industry. This was proved and diagramed by the Pujo Committee investigations in 1912.”
https://howardswitzer.medium.com/the-psychological-consequences-of-capitalism-8830577a3092
2023 – “A GROWING LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN THE FED IS SPILLING OVER INTO A LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN U.S. BANKS” POSTED ARTICLE BY PAM AND RUSS MARTENS
“Millions of Americans are beginning to ask themselves this question: Is the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) a competent central bank or a terminally compromised regulator that simply does the bidding of Wall Street’s mega banks to the peril of average Americans and the U.S. economy? Millions of other Americans have already made up their minds on this point.
:These persistent doubts about an institution with an $8.8 trillion balance sheet – that is backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer – is very bad for confidence in the U.S. banking system, especially when the Fed pivots from one banking bailout to the next. (What was the size of the Fed’s balance sheet prior to its serial bailouts? On December 26, 2007, the Fed’s balance sheet stood at $929 billion. It has soared by 847 percent in just over 15 years of serial bailouts.)”
APRIL 6
2013 – PLAN FOR MONETARY REFORM BY POSITIVE MONEY IN THE U.K.
“This document presents a plan for monetary reform, based on a proposal initially put forward by Frederick Soddy in the 1920s, and then subsequently by Irving Fisher and Henry Simons in the aftermath of the Great Depression… While inspired by Irving Fisher’s original work and variants on it, the proposals in this paper have some significant differences. The starting point was the work of Joseph Huber and James Robertson in their book Creating New Money (2000), which updated and modified Fisher’s proposals to take account of the fact that money, the payments system and banking in general is now electronic, rather than paper-based. The reform presented here develops Huber and Robertson’s proposal further, building on a submission made by Ben Dyson (Positive Money), Josh Ryan-Collins and Tony Greenham (new economics foundation), and Richard Werner (University of Southampton) to the UK’s Independent Commission on Banking in 2010.” http://www.positivemoney.org/2013/04/the-positive-money-proposal-plan-for-monetary-reform/
2020 – “PRINTING MONEY IS VALID RESPONSE TO CORONAVIRUS CRISIS” POSTED EDITORIAL FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES
“In times of emergency, particularly war, central banks have often handed freshly printed banknotes to governments. The fight against resultant inflation was postponed until after any crisis. Despite the pandemic, the world is not yet in that position today. There is no need, for now, to relax the framework of independent, inflation-targeting central banking. Yet this kind of monetary financing should be a tool available to policymakers, if needed.”
2021 – “A BRIDGE – PUBLIC BANKING ON THE PBI MODEL: WHY?”
“There are three key issues.
1. Can public banking serve as a bridge to money reform? Can we both be successful?
2. Does the public Bank of North Dakota (BND) create money as other commercial banks do, or is it simply a development revolving fund basic bank?
3. Is the scale of public benefit enough to make public bank advocacy worthwhile?”https://www.monetaryalliance.org/a-bridge-public-banking-on-the-pbi-model-why/?fbclid=IwAR2kZpkAyFahNBqKi3gowb12RChSS59QjXjcNSw-X9Mx2al6kbqVyxjsT1g