Category: $Money$ ToBeFree

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Inflation$$$$$$, Ron Paul, War

From: House.gov/paul

Inflation and War Finance

Congressman Ron Paul

January 29, 2007

The Pentagon recently reported that it now spends roughly $8.4 billion per month waging the war in Iraq, while the additional cost of our engagement in Afghanistan brings the monthly total to a staggering $10 billion. Since 2001, Congress has spent more than $500 billion on specific appropriations for Iraq. This sum is not reflected in official budget and deficit figures. Congress has funded the war by passing a series of so-called “supplemental” spending bills, which are passed outside of the normal appropriations process and thus deemed off-budget.

This is fundamentally dishonest: if we’re going to have a war, let’s face the costs– both human and economic– squarely. Congress has no business hiding the costs of war through accounting tricks.

As the war in Iraq surges forward, and the administration ponders military action against Iran, it’s important to ask ourselves an overlooked question: Can we really afford it? If every American taxpayer had to submit an extra five or ten thousand dollars to the IRS this April to pay for the war, I’m quite certain it would end very quickly. The problem is that government finances war by borrowing and printing money, rather than presenting a bill directly in the form of higher taxes. When the costs are obscured, the question of whether any war is worth it becomes distorted.

Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank have a cozy, unspoken arrangement that makes war easier to finance. Congress has an insatiable appetite for new spending, but raising taxes is politically unpopular. The Federal Reserve, however, is happy to accommodate deficit spending by creating new money through the Treasury Department. In exchange, Congress leaves the Fed alone to operate free of pesky oversight and free of political scrutiny. Monetary policy is utterly ignored in Washington, even though the Federal Reserve system is a creation of Congress.

The result of this arrangement is inflation. And inflation finances war.

Economist Lawrence Parks has explained how the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913 made possible our involvement in World War I. Without the ability to create new money, the federal government never could have afforded the enormous mobilization of men and material. Prior to that, American wars were financed through taxes and borrowing, both of which have limits. But government printing presses, at least in theory, have no limits. That’s why the money supply has nearly tripled just since 1990.

For perspective, consider our ongoing military commitment in Korea. In Korea alone, U.S. taxpayers have spent $1 trillion in today’s dollars over 55 years. What do we have to show for it? North Korea is a belligerent adversary armed with nuclear weapons, while South Korea is at best ambivalent about our role as their protector. The stalemate stretches on with no end in sight, as the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the men who fought in Korea give little thought to what was gained or lost. The Korean conflict should serve as a cautionary tale against the open-ended military occupation of any region.

The $500 billion we’ve officially spent in Iraq is an enormous sum, but the real total is much higher, hidden within the Defense Department and foreign aid budgets. As we build permanent military bases and a $1 billion embassy in Iraq, we need to keep asking whether it’s really worth it. Congress should at least fund the war in an honest way so the American people can judge for themselves.

Skousen: Masking the Inflationary Economy

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, Inflation$$$$$$, Joel Skousen

World Affairs Brief June 16, 2006 Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief

MASKING THE INFLATIONARY ECONOMY

According to Bloomberg, “U.S. consumer prices excluding food and energy rose more than forecast for a third consecutive month, increasing speculation the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates beyond this month. The 0.3 percent jump in the so-called core consumer price index reported by the Labor Department in Washington today exceeded the median forecast of a 0.2 percent increase by economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Core inflation over the last three months was the highest since 1995. Including food and fuel, prices climbed 0.4 percent.”

But as George Ure of Urban Survival comments, “What’s more interesting to me than the numbers themselves, is how the mainstream media has swallowed with virtually no disclosure the fact that the inflation reports in 2006 are not the same thing that we were looking at in 2005 … The Labor Department announced in 2005 that they were ‘changing weights’ of various components: Effective with release of data for January 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will update the consumption expenditure weights in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) and Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to the 2003-04 period.”

This is not the first time the BLS has tampered with the CPI. It’s a constant process of removing highly inflated prices from the “typical basket of goods” Americans buy in order to manipulate the numbers downward. The BLS creates lots of different categories, as well, in order to mask inflation. They have created what they call a “core inflation rate” which, strangely, does not include food and fuel! How can these two basic necessities not be included in the core inflation category? They do it because they have a political mandate to hide the chronic effects of government monetary creation.

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Borrowing, Spending, Counterfeiting: Ron Paul in 2005 on the ‘Fed’ Inflating the Dollar

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, Inflation$$$$$$, Ron Paul

Borrowing, Spending, Counterfeiting
By Congressman Ron Paul
August 22, 2005

Few Americans truly understand how our Federal Reserve system enables Congress to spend far beyond its means, but the cycle of spending and printing money affects all of us. Simply put, the more money our Treasury prints, the less every dollar is worth. Our pure fiat money system, in place since the last vestiges of a gold standard were eliminated in the early 1970s, has reduced the value of your savings by 80%. Disregard the government’s Consumer Price Index, which substantially underreports price inflation. Monetary inflation is true inflation, and we only need to look at the cost of homes, cars, energy, and medical care to recognize that a dollar buys far less today than ever.

Economist Mark Thornton of the Ludwig von Mises Institute lays out a sobering case against the long-term health of the U.S. dollar. He identifies several facts and trends that bode ill for millions of Americans counting on dollar-denominated assets to fund their retirements.

First, federal debt continues to grow exponentially and shows no sign of abating. Americans were shocked at the notion of a $1 trillion federal debt in 1980; just 25 years later the total approaches $8 trillion. The Bush administration and the current Congress have increased spending at rates unseen since the New Deal and Great Society eras, and single-year deficits now exceed $500 billion. There is zero political will in Washington to curb spending, as evidenced by the shameful transportation bill recently passed by Congress.

Second, federal entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare will not be “fixed” by politicians who are unwilling to made hard choices and admit mistakes. Demographic trends will force tax increases and greater deficit spending to maintain benefits for millions of older Americans who are dependent on the federal government. Faced with uncomfortable financial realities, Congress will seek to avoid the day of reckoning by the most expedient means available— and the Federal Reserve undoubtedly will accommodate Washington by printing more dollars to pay the bills.

Third, future administrations are unlikely to challenge a foreign policy orthodoxy that views America as the world’s savior. We are hemorrhaging billions of dollars every month in Iraq, and we waste billions more every year through foreign aid and overseas meddling. A foreign policy based on nation-building and the imposition of “democracy” abroad, in direct contravention of our founders’ admonitions, is not economically sustainable. In Korea alone, U.S. taxpayers have spent nearly one trillion in today’s dollars over 55 years. A permanent military presence in Iraq and the wider Middle East will cost enormous amounts of money.

Finally, we face a reordering of the entire world economy. China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever. Foreign central banks are increasingly reluctant to hold more U.S. dollars, understanding that American leaders do not have the discipline to maintain a stable currency. When the rest of the world finally abandons the dollar as the global reserve currency, both Congress and American consumers will find borrowing money a more expensive proposition.

All of these factors make it likely that the U.S. dollar will continue to decline in value, perhaps precipitously, in the coming decade. Will it take an economic depression before the American public finally holds the political class accountable for its reckless borrowing, spending, and counterfeiting?

The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch– Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference– that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.

Real-World Inflation Illustration: Sports Cars

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, Inflation$$$$$$

By Jeff Fenske

In 1971, the (Nissan) Datsun 240Z sold new for $3,500.
In 2005, the base-priced Nissan 350Z sells for $26,700.
This amounts to a 760% real-world inflation increase since 1971.

In 1971, the Chevrolet Corvette sold new for $5,000.
In 2005, the base-priced Corvette sells for $43,710.
This amounts to a 870% real-world inflation rate since 1971.

Another real-world inflation illustration:
The Ford Mustang

• Original sticker price of the 1964 Ford Mustang: $2,368

• 2005 sticker prices: $20,000 V6 – $27,000 GT

So real-world inflation since 1964 for the Mustang is approximately 1000%

1960’s & 1970’s Data from:
“Mustang and Corvette Reborn,” The Travel Channel
“Full Throttle: 1971 Datsun 240Z”—The History Channel

[video] CNN/Lou Dobbs: Will North American Union Replace the U.S.A.?

On December 7, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom

“The Bush administration’s open-borders policy and its decision to ignore the enforcement of this country’s immigration laws is part of a broader agenda. President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6oDtMo43pc]

National Debt In The U.S. Growing By $1 Million A Minute

On December 7, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom

Washington, D.C. (AHN) – The national debt is growing by more than $1 million a minute, according to the National Debt Clock, which bases it’s figures on U.S. Department of the Treasury data. …

The national deficit stood at $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001, and, at current rates, it could reach $10 trillion before his current term expires in January 2009.

Video: Vicente Fox Admits Plan w/ Bush For Single NAFTA Currency

On December 6, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, America's Getting Jacked!, Freedom, George Bush Family

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYGrn0hZlCQ&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/nau_fox_admits_nafta_currency_plan.htm]

Video: Ron Paul Slams Ben Bernanke–”People Have Been Robbed!”

On December 3, 2007

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX9Uei89TuE]

Nick Begich: China’s incremental “Art of War”

On December 2, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, America's Getting Jacked!, Bomb Bomb America?, China, Nick Begich II, Russia, War

“They keep us over here
looking in one direction,
when the whole economy of the country
is being hijacked from another.”

_______________________

“China’s factories are brand new. They’re state of the art. They’re not like some of the old, fallen factories in the US that weren’t properly maintained, and were just essentially disassembled and moved to the third world over the last forty years.

China is modern. They can make boards for computer games or they can make boards for guidance systems on missiles with the flip of a switch, because all of it is computer driven assembly systems for electronics.

They have a better educated class of engineers coming in every year in increasing numbers….

China holds the number one currency reserves in the world, $1.3 trillion.

And Russia, a bankrupt country just a few years ago holds the third largest.

And here we are, the United States, functioning under capitalism for over 200 years and not very efficiently competing against this. Why is it?

It’s because, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been incrementally sold out by both administrations, Democrats and Republicans, on the installment plan. You know, one slice at a time until the bologna is all gone…. It’s the boiling frog syndrome where you don’t even feel it cookin’.

… Economic terrorism is maybe a phrase we should start to become familiar with…. This economic war has already destroyed more of the United States than anything we have seen in the past.

Multinationals, while we’re down, while we’re beaten into the ground on the manufacturing side
are ripping us off on the raw commodities side. They’re taking them out of the ground at pennies on the dollar. Most of them are foreign companies.

Here in Alaska, they’re not even national organizations. They’re foreign companies that are making their money, hijacking the resource at bargain-basement prices as our deficits increase, and as these closed meetings that take six years to find out about, finally get revealed on the outside of this administration, just in time for some indictments, and then Presidential pardons before everybody disappears to go make their [$$$megabuck$$$, payback] speeches.”

– Nick Begich

Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from
Changing the Way We See the World with Dr. Nick Begich on GCN Live
9/9/07

[5 min. video] The CFR Controls American Media

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, Media Bias Exposed

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPlvdSQ6cAM]

Ron Paul LAST YEAR: Monetary Inflation is the Problem

December 5, 2006:

“Politicians often manage to fool voters and the media, but they rarely fool the financial markets over time. …”

“This decline in the value of the dollar is simple to explain. The dollar loses value as the direct result of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury increasing the money supply. Inflation, as the late Milton Friedman explained, is always a monetary phenomenon. The federal government consistently wants to spend more than it can tax and borrow, so Congress turns to the Fed for help in covering the difference. The result is more dollars, both real and electronic – which means the value of every existing dollar goes down.”

Who owns the stock of the Federal Reserve Banks? – Eustace Mullins

Who Owns the Federal Reserve? — Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, The Rockefellers, The Rothschilds – World Kingpins!

From: “Secrets of the Federal Reserve” by Eustace Mullins

“Our financial system is a false one and a huge burden on the people . . . This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth.” — Congressman Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Sr.

The shareholders of these banks which own the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are the people who have controlled our political and economic destinies since 1914.

They are the Rothschilds of Europe, Lazard Freres (Eugene Meyer), Kuhn Loeb Company, Warburg Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests.

Link

Disclaimer: I don’t at all see this as a Jewish conspiracy. I never point the finger at any race of people. Even those mentioned above aren’t the main problem. Paul wrote:

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

People are not the enemy. We should never hate people.

Hate evil, not people.

Peace,

Jeff Fenske

…………

G. Edward Griffin: The “Federal” Reserve is a Privately Owned Cartel

Starring Ron Paul & Ed Griffin: “Fiat Empire—Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution”

Pastor Baldwin: Moneychangers Destroying America—And Christians Don’t See It

Inflation – 1950 Dollar Worth Only 12 Cents Today

See Entire Article & Charts

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, Inflation$$$$$$

From: Opening page of The Inflation Report (contains 14 charts)

Inflation Report
By Michael Hodges – email
updated Sept. 2007
– a chapter of the Grandfather Economic Reports –

INFLATION – WHO SAYS IT’S DEAD?

88% EROSION OF PURCHASING POWER – AND CONTINUING

– a dollar in 1950 will buy only 12 cents worth of goods today, 88% less than before –

Inflation in my adult years increased average prices 1,000% or more –
example 1: a postage stamp in the 1950s cost 3 cents; today’s cost is 41 cents – 1,266% inflation;
example 2: a gallon of 90 Octane full-service gasoline cost 18 cents before; today it is $3.05 for self-service – 1,870 % inflation;
example 3: a house in 1959 cost $14,100; today’s median price is $213,000 – 1,400% inflation;
example 4: a dental crown used to cost $40; today it’s $1,100 – 2,750% inflation;
example 5: an ice cream cone in 1950 cost 5 cents; today its $2.50 – 4,900% inflation;
example 6: monthly government Medicare insurance premiums paid by seniors was $5.30 in 1970; its now $93.50 – 1,664% inflation; (and up 70% past 5 years)
example: several generations ago a person worked 1.4 months per year to pay for government; he now works 5 months.
And in the past, one wage-earner families lived well and built savings with minimal debt, many paying off their home and college-educating children without loans. How about today?

Few citizens know that a few years ago government changed how they measure and report inflation, as if that would stop it – – but families know better when they pay their bills for food, medical costs, energy, property taxes, insurance and try to buy a house.

Is inflation a threat to society? Consider this famous quote:
“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.” Lord John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), renowned British economist.

DEFINITION OF INFLATION:
Inflation is the loss of a constant purchasing value of the dollar,
caused by an increase out of ‘thin air’ of the supply of money and debt creation by the financial system

Related: All of my posts on INFLATION

[Corsi] Billionaire to Canada: Time for amero is now

On November 28, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom

From: WorldNetDaily

Stephen Jarislowsky, a billionaire money manager and investor the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail bills as the Canadian Warren Buffet, has told a parliamentary committee Canada and the United States both should abandon their national dollar currencies and move to a regional North American currency as soon as possible.

The Ron Paul Library–Writings & Speeches of Ron Paul

On November 28, 2007

From: The Ron Paul Library

This library is a collection of over 900 articles and speeches written by Congressman Ron Paul.
To understand his ideas, just review what he has written over the past 10 years.

Click Here for Library

Wall St. Journal: The Backlash Against Tithing

On November 26, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Revival

From: The Wall St. Journal

Can you put a price on faith? That is the question churchgoers are asking as the tradition of tithing — giving 10% of your income to the church — is increasingly challenged. Opponents of tithing say it is a misreading of the Bible….

G. Edward Griffin: The “Federal” Reserve is a Privately Owned Cartel

On November 15, 2007

In $Money$ ToBeFree, Freedom, G. Edward Griffin, Real History, Secret Societies, The Rockefellers

From Whale.to:

Victor Thorn:
John Rockefeller said, “Competition is a sin.”

G. Edward Griffin:
“Absolutely! All of his biographers quoted him on that. So they began to look for ways to eliminate their competition, and of course, if they couldn’t beat them in the open marketplace, which was the old way of eliminating competition, now they were looking for new ways, and that was to form monopolies and cartels – to go into joint ventures with competing firms so that they could no longer compete on price or markets, patents and processes. They would come together and form a cartel, and then they wouldn’t have to compete and they could share the market. Well, that was what was happening at the turn of the century; and lo and behold, when you look at these men sitting around the table at a clubhouse on Jekyll Island, all of a sudden you realize, “Oh my gosh, the Federal Reserve System is a CARTEL.” And that is exactly what it is. It is not a government agency. It is a cartel no different than the banana cartel, the oil cartel, or any other. It just happens to be a banking cartel. That is the second thing that emerges from the study of what happened on Jekyll Island.”

Pat Robertson’s Deceptive Tithing Doctrine: ” an irreducible MINIMUM,” “ANTICIPATORY tithing”

Pat Robertson Advocates Israel Bombing Iran Before 2008 Election

On November 11, 2007

In "The love of money…", $Money$ ToBeFree, Pat Robertson, Revival

http://www.cbnlatinoamerica.org/answers.pdf

Pat Robertson ANSWERS TO 200 OF LIFE’S MOST PROBING QUESTIONS

THOMAS NELSON PUBLISHERS NASHVILLE

In determining a giving pattern, the Christian should consider 10 percent as an irreducible minimum. We belong to the Lord and so do all our possessions. Therefore:, what we give should be determined by God’s leading in our lives [Exactly. “God’s leading, period.” Not a percentage from the Old Covenant as being a starting point, designed to finance the Levites. Pastors aren’t of the Levitical priesthood, and we are now capable of being Spirit-led – jeff] may give 25 percent, others 50 percent. Some might use 10 percent to live on and give away 90 percent.

We give as God has blessed us. I believe there is also merit in the concept of anticipatory tithing. Consider the income that you anticipate receiving, and tithe as if you already had it.

Tithing was in the old covenant, Old Testament law so the Levitical priesthood would have income no matter what. Now that Jesus died on the cross and the Holy Spirit has been given, the law is now written in Christians’ hearts. So the Holy Spirit now helps us determine how much and where to give. This is the new and better way spoken of in Hebrews 7 and:

2 Cor. 9:7: Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart….

In Acts 15, the elders decided to keep only a few practices from the old covenant, none of which was tithing.

Teaching viewers to give 10% of their income helps keep The 700 Club on the air whether it’s God’s will or not. Many ‘churches’ do the same, teaching ‘benchmark’ tithing (10% should be the minimum).

But Pat goes one step further:

“I believe there is also merit in the concept of anticipatory tithing. Consider the income that you anticipate receiving, and tithe as if you already had it.”

Paul warned us about the love of $$money$$:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1Tim. 6:10 (WEB)

Why is Pat Robertson Supporting Giuliani?

Pat Robertson Supports Torture? Who Would Jesus Torture?

Pat Robertson lies about his Chavez comments; claims he “didn’t say ‘ASSASSINATION’”

Pat Robertson Hides Business Interests In War-Torn Liberia

Pastor Chuck Baldwin: Best And Worst Of 2008 — The Religious Right has become nothing more than a gaggle of glorified hacks for the Republican Party

Ron Paul: Federal Reserve ‘Robbed’ Americans of their Wealth

On November 9, 2007

From businessandmedia.org:

“There is a dollar crisis out and people’s money being stolen,” Paul said. “People who have saved, they’re being robbed. I mean, if you have a devaluation of the dollar at 10 percent, people have been robbed of 10 percent.”