THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Free Culture Work

[The following free culture work is an excerpt from Levers of Power, or the Ghost of Peter Cooper in All His Glory.]

BY KEITH M. JUDGE

The propaganda-fueled extremism characteristic of Libertarian, “neoliberal” market fundamentalism has generated widespread disinformation regarding what was momentarily portrayed as among its most important agendas: abolishment of the Federal Reserve.

When Alexander Hamilton, the well-groomed, wealthy and dapper industrialist with a shitty childhood, proposed the establishment of The First Bank of The United States in 1790, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison dissented. Jefferson noted that “the incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not . . . been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.”(1) In spite of Jefferson’s counsel, President George Washington approved the bank’s charter, which expired in 1811, when America’s affair with central banking went cold for eight years. The Second Bank of the United States was pitched as a bridge between government and Capital to guide public works. Its detractors included the entire State of Maryland, which taxed the bank’s notes, and Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of The United States, who compared The Second Bank of The United States to a “den of vipers” before allowing its charter to expire in 1836. Today’s central bank was established on December 23, 1913, when The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law “to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of re-discounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.”(2)

“Other purposes . . .” Well that’s rather broad, isn’t it?

The Federal Reserve is a mostly private organization with some rather prestigious clients, which include every “too-big-to-fail” bank in the country and the U.S. government. In theory, it acts as both the middleman between public and private enterprise and a secondary means for the distribution of money. Prior to wire transfer, The Fed bought U.S. notes at cost, for the amount of labor and material that went into them. Today, the Mint wires money to the Fed for free. Once in possession of U.S. sovereign currency, funds are loaned to the likes of Goldman Sachs or invested in government bonds, which means the Fed loans the government its own money.

Nearly 41 percent of U.S. debt is owed to the Federal Reserve.(3) The remainder is owed to private shareholders, state actors and foreign governments. China is the second-largest shareholder of U.S. debt, racking in about 7 percent of returns,(4) but for every dollar we owe China, China owes The United States 89 cents.(5) However you cut it, the Federal Reserve is the largest shareholder of U.S. debt, which means we’re printing money, then borrowing it at interest after having forfeited commerce to a fraudulent institution. If the American people owe anyone anything, we owe each other a swift kick in the ass.

Public debt is manufactured.

“Austerity,” “sequester,” or budget slashing is manufactured.

If government absorbed the functions of the Federal Reserve and Congress resumed its duty “to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures,”(6) government could spend however much it deemed necessary to fulfill its purpose. There would be no debt, nor deficit, and the small amount owed to foreign nationals would be manageable compared to our current financial obligations.

The Fed’s ostensible duties are multifold: to issue loans to government, to serve as the lender of last resort and to stabilize prices. Its primary method of control is the manipulation of interest rates; namely, the “federal funds rate” and the “discount rate.” In a depression, the Fed’s modus operandi is to lower rates on “too-big-to-fail” banks to encourage lending and borrowing. Employing their esteemed powers of discernment, the Fed chair and his or her board of governors, whose resumes include accolades from the same banks offered rock-bottom interest rates stamped with their approval, assume the banks and their shareholders will use the emergency influx of liquidity in a responsible, adult manner, by investing in enterprise, industry and innovation to benefit all Americans. In reality, these funds are dumped into abstract parcels of subjective value interchangeably referred to as assets, securities or financial instruments, which include derivatives (futures, options and swaps), debt and equity, all of which have contributed to the ongoing economic crisis.

Provided that money circulates freely throughout society to facilitate commerce and bolster damaged economies, inflation (printing money, or generating it) can lift a nation out of depression, but that’s not how our economy works. Today, 40 percent of Americans possess negative net wealth. In contrast, the wealthiest 25 percent of Americans own 87 percent of America’s wealth. Three-quarters of us own only 13 percent of the wealth in America.(7) The share of national income going to the top 1 percent has doubled since 1980, from 10 to 20 percent. Income for the top .01 percent has quadrupled (a national precedent).(8) In contrast, income for the bottom 90 percent of Americans increased by only 59 dollars on average in the last 45 years.(9) Finance and speculation now comprises 24 percent of the industries represented by America’s top 400 wealthiest individuals, an increase of 15 percentage points since 1982. Manufacturing now comprises approximately 4 percent of the industries represented by America’s wealthiest, a decrease of about 12 percentage points since 1982.(10)

It would be inaccurate to say the Fed is responsible for every economic crisis over the last hundred years, but when it loans companies abstract sums of money at negligible rates of interest, the central bank provides ample incentive for dangerous banking practices to proliferate. The discount rate, the interest on loans offered to “too-big-to-fail” banks, is 1 percent. The federal funds rate, interest on loans between banks, has hovered between .25 and .5 percent since the 2008 financial crisis. In contrast, the interest rates on loans issued to the U.S. government are as high as 2.6 percent.

U.S. politicians bicker over the debt and deficit, yet they sit idly by while the Fed charges the government of the people a higher interest rate than institutions hell-bent on replacing that government. A quarter versus two dollars and fifty cents? And the national average mortgage rate is 3.9 percent?(11) The people and their government are paying more than the most affluent financial institutions in the world.

When the Federal Reserve sets interest rates on behalf of “too-big-to-fail” banks, it’s engaging in price-fixing,(12) which is illegal for everyone except “too-big-to-fail” banks, which Eric Holder said are above the law.(13) There are consequences to this sort of activity. If the money supply contracts and prices drop, banks become unable to compete by lowering their own interest rates. That’s a lot of power to entrust to an unconstitutional entity chaired by unelected officials.

How much rescuing do the titans of global finance need?

A lot, apparently, since The Fed has been funneling obscene quantities of liquid money to Fortune 500 companies by way of an obscure market strategy with another drab, bullshit name: “quantitative easing.” The arcane financial practice is occasionally referred to as “QE1,” QE2" and “QE3" when the Fed chairman announces the central bank’s agenda in carefully constructed, annual press releases veiled in obscurantism. The so-called reports supposedly address the apparent successes or failures of the constructs, laws and systems enacted by our politicians to manipulate economies across the globe. These documents, rife with the sacerdotal language of a fiscal, priestly caste, are buried in a landslide of disinformation propagated by the likes of MSNBC, FOX and CNN as soon as they’re produced. In a climate such as this, it’s no wonder no one knows what the hell quantitative easing is.

A century ago, the Fed bought dollars for the cost of the ink, paper and labor used to print them. Today, the Treasury wires funds to the Fed at zero cost while striking out a chunk of the bad investments acquired by America’s “too-big-to-fail” banks. In other words, the Fed buys bogus market products with sovereign U.S. currency from the same companies extorting the U.S. government, and the practice is called “quantitative easing,” which increases bank reserves while making us the proud owners of metastasizing financial toxicity.

The word “inflation” attracts a lot of negative attention, but inflation also has the potential to reverse economic stagnation. FDR’s New Deal played a significant role in post-Depression economic reconstruction and is a prime example. The New Deal regulated the banking industry in an attempt to reduce fraud and abuse while empowering labor. It employed a broad swath of the American public by way of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). Currency flooded markets to facilitate commerce, but results were mixed. Investment flowed directly into the accounts of government-sanctioned cartels aided by Federal agencies such as the AAA, which organized farming monopolies that displaced millions of families across the Midwest, but none of this would’ve been possible in the first place without a shit-ton of money.

Market fundamentalists, who universally criticize FDR’s New Deal, are quick to blame the Great Depression on government-sanctioned, deflationary policy. Rather than increase interest rates to discourage rampant speculation and allow failing banks to fail, lauded “conservative” economist Milton Friedman believes the 1929 Federal Reserve should’ve pursued an economic strategy familiar to anyone who remembers the 2008 financial crisis: lower rates to incentivize borrowing and bail out “too-big-to-fail” banks.(14) Do we allow banks to fail and suffer the consequences, or flush them with liquidity and watch the stock market soar while our communities slowly crumble and are displaced? That’s the ultimatum painted by the market hacks who teach this garbage, but there are no ultimatums in life.

The New Deal increased manufacturing and stanched job loss(15) despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to correct the market by increasing interest rates during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency.(16) The economy didn’t shrink, as Friedman claims. FDR inflated the economy and did so without adding a dime to the debt or deficit. Section 220 of the National Industrial Recovery Act: "For the purposes of this Act, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $3,300,000,000."(17) That's 3 billion, 3 hundred million dollars, 5 percent of U.S. GDP in 1933. If you count for inflation, that amount equals approximately $63 trillion today, over three times U.S. GDP in 2016. Even five percent of GDP in 2016,(18) 1 trillion dollars, is a substantial sum in today’s postmodern, socioeconomic and political climate, and FDR took 3 billion in 1933 dollars straight from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. One month prior to passage of the NIRA, The United States 73rd Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act that included language first proposed by Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma on March 23rd, 1933,(19) that allowed for the issuance of greenbacks, notes or dollars “for the purpose of meeting maturing Federal obligations to repay sums borrowed by the United States and for purchasing United States bonds and other interest-bearing obligations of the United States.”(20) The act limits the number of notes acceptable for repayment that approximates the appropriation described in the NIRA: 3 billion dollars.

You may not agree with how FDR spent the money, but Section 43 of the AAA offers us an important history lesson: that’s our money, not the bank's.

The socioeconomic climate that preceded the stock market crash of 1929 closely resembled today’s economy, which is why the Fed increased rates. The stock market is little more than a state-sponsored slush fund for compulsive gamblers, and the gamblers were dashing the government’s tax revenue on hookers and blow, so FDR bypassed the central bank. The parallels between the U.S. economy prior to the Great Depression and the Great Unraveling of 2020 are apparent, but at least the flappers had an ozone layer.

Then: The top .1 percent of wealthiest Americans in 1929 claimed an aggregate income equal to that of the bottom 42 percent.(21)

Now: In 2010, nearly a quarter of all income was netted by the wealthiest 1 percent.(22)

Then: Between 1920 and 1929, per capita disposable income for all Americans rose by 9 percent while the top 1 percent of income recipients enjoyed a 75 percent increase.(23)

Now: Between 1979 and 2007, the average income for the top 1 percent grew by 275 percent. During the same time period, the middle 60 percent of Americans saw their incomes grow just under 40 percent, and the bottom quintile saw their incomes grow only by 18 percent.(24)

Then: Nearly 80 percent of the nation’s families (some 21.5 million households) had no savings while 24,000 families at the top (the .1 percent) held 34 percent of all savings.(25)

Now: In 2007, the top 1 percent owned only 5 percent of the nation’s private debt while the bottom 90 percent owned 73 percent of the nation’s private debt.(26)

Then: The top .05 percent of Americans in 1929 owned 32.4 percent of all net wealth.(27)

Now: 1 percent of Americans own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent of Americans own only 8 percent of total investments.(28)

Then: In 1929, 200 corporations controlled nearly half of all American industry, representing 49 percent of all corporate wealth and 22 percent of all national wealth.(29)

Now: In 2014, 18 firms held 36 percent of the $1.53 trillion in cash and short-term investments held by U.S. corporations.(30)

The 1929 stock market crash was preceded by what is commonly referred to as a modest recession in 1927, an event that may have been precipitated by a drop in the discount rate to 3.5 percent, which spurred rampant land speculation in Florida and California the same rate Milton Friedman claims stymied investments and crippled banks in post-depression America. (It appears interest rates fixed by the Fed affect our economy only minimally.) The rich pricks of the Roaring Twenties advised their brokers to borrow from their assets to buy land so they could leverage more assets to buy more land, and these practices went unchecked until a real estate bubble ballooned, then burst, prompting America’s decadent class to experience a momentary bout of self-reflection. In the wake of this modest recession, insubstantial economic superstructures that trade abstract financial products(31) like forwards, futures, options and debt (nothing of tangible value) dominated Wall Street and moved money from land to securities and derivatives (the aforementioned abstract market products).

Some of these stocks represented shares in actual companies, but that number shrank drastically between 1919 and 1928, when 1,200 mergers eliminated over 6,000 independent enterprises and only 200 corporations controlled nearly half of all American industry. The $81 billion in assets held by these corporations represented 49 percent of all corporate wealth and 22 percent of all national wealth.(32) Eighty percent of Americans held no savings and couldn’t share in the fruits of their labor, so banks issued credit. Between 1925 and 1929, the amount of installment credit outstanding in the United States doubled from $1.38 billion to $3 billion. dollars.(33) Your average factory worker in the mid-1920s was able to drive his Model-T to work, but when he came home, his wife split a can of beans among their three kids and made gravy with half a cup of flour and yesterday’s bacon grease.

The causes, consequences and politics of the Great Depression can be debated ad nauseam, but there was no deflation. Any contraction in the money supply was offset by the injection of 3.3 billion dollars into the economy after Congress passed the NIRA in 1933. Inflation, deflation, these market descriptors have been embellished, recontextualized and divorced from their primary and original function. Inflation, an increase in the money supply, lowers the value of the dollar and increases prices. Deflation, a decrease in the money supply, increases the value of the dollar and lowers prices.

Increased prices are only a problem when wages stagnate and a disproportionate percentage of the population is deprived of their share of stimulus, which is exactly what happened in 2008, after the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and in 2020, after COVID19 devastated humankind worldwide. A depreciated dollar attracts investments from abroad and could actually benefit the wage worker. In a wage economy, deflation favors equality over profit. When the money supply decreases, the currency appreciates. Purchasing power increases, and investors are less inclined to gamble their money on legalized stock market fraud.

Deflation places responsibility and control squarely on the shoulders of the wage worker, and absolute deflation would reduce all incomes to a penny per day, across the board. Standard forms of commerce would all but disappear. Every day, every American would be allotted one “favor,” and the quality of our lives would hinge on the scope and character of our decisions, but this is all hypothetical.

Currency, deflation, inflation and the institutions designed to regulate them don’t exist in the a priori, abstract environment that produced them. Economies are real institutions that facilitate real interactions between real people whose actions have real consequences. Deflation should benefit the wage worker, but when Wall Street titans greased the palms of nineteenth-century American politicians to demonetize silver, the American dollar deflated precipitously. In response, employers fired employees and cut wages. It’s difficult for workers to secure economic independence when the government that professes to serve the people refuses to write laws to protect them.

If the money supply were to contract today and the price of the dollar were to rise (deflation), the only way corporations could maintain rising profits is with massive layoffs or a decrease in the minimum wage. Any decrease in the minimum wage would be followed by mass unrest, and unless companies want to replace qualified employees with unskilled labor, layoffs may prove unprofitable. The owners, financiers and speculators who owe power and privilege to the macabre sideshow they call a “society,” dread deflation. It threatens an economic model predicated on the assumption of their own unabated wealth creation, so it’s no coincidence the dollar has been in a state of constant inflation since the Federal Reserve was created. If American companies conducted mass layoffs to lower wages, the unemployed could conceivably cobble together a new economy, which is the last thing America’s bankers, corporate executives and career politicians want.

That’s why they’ve ensured it won’t happen.

In late nineteenth-century America, Capitalists price-gouged shipping rates, hoarded coin and called in loans while the value of the dollar was high, resulting in numerous small business failures. Even in today’s postmodern economy, which relies on wage slavery, hourly workers would be screwed out of their fair share in a deflationary spiral because the powers-that-be could buy off a politician here, run an ad campaign there and, ultimately, write the rules to a game they’re sure to win. Poverty isn’t unfortunate; poverty is unnatural, man-made and designed for export. Inflation and deflation are simple yardsticks for a tool intended to serve as a medium of exchange, but in the words of the 1912 Progressive Party nominee for Governor of Connecticut Willard Fisher, “the sufficiency or insufficiency of the supply of money cannot be determined without taking account of the expansion of commerce.”(34)

Ultimately, the value of the American dollar matters little or not at all. The method of redistributing money to facilitate the flow of commerce matters. If we remove money from the economy, we must ask ourselves, “Where did the money come from, how will people in positions of authority react when it’s gone, and where did it go?” It comes from the pockets of the poor so people in positions of authority can further debase them to maintain a stranglehold on power as they stash the money they stole in a family “trust.”

Remember the old maxim, “money doesn’t grow on trees?” That’s a lie: money does grow on trees, the American dollar is OUR money, and the Mint should stop giving the Fed OUR money. We shouldn’t be borrowing OUR money from OURselves. It’s a crime against the people perpetrated by OUR government.

The 1876 Presidential nominee of the Greenback Party, The Honorable Peter Cooper, LL.D., tells us we’re being used meanly.

If crime is to be measured by the misery it produces, the act of taking from the people their money, and converting it into a national debt, must rank as one of the most unjust and cruel acts ever known to any civilized legislation . . . The claims of common humanity, with all that can move the manhood of the American citizen, demand of our government the return to the people of their currency. (35)

Debt, AKA “credit,” is the most relevant and likely cause of a deflationary crisis. The only way the rich can sustain inequality when their currencies are highly valued is by engaging in predatory business practices while extending credit to counterbalance their own excessive wealth concentration. The same rule applies when wages remain stagnant as the money supply expands and flows into the hands of a privileged few while the majority tread water in an ocean of high prices. The premise of our economy is debt, and an inflationary economy can absorb exponentially higher volumes of debt in the creation of a society deeply divided by class coupled with tumultuous upheaval. Debt is the engine of our murderous economy. Americans owe 44 trillion dollars in private debt today, more than double the U.S. gross domestic product.(36) We would have to work for two years without pay to settle those debts, and if we factor public debt into the equation, we collectively owe about 65 trillion dollars and counting.(37)

It’s no coincidence the curve for gross domestic product is nearly identical to the curve for debt. As private debt increases, a banking cartel named after Hamilton’s Federalist Party swaps out the bad assets of “too-big-to-fail” banks with injections of liquidity while pinching a steaming load of ass into the public portfolio. Meanwhile, the central government showers corporate America with tax breaks(38) and stimulus that they gamble away on frivolous and dangerous nonsense, and when the system shudders from the sheer volume of deceit, government scoops the losses out of our flesh.

Debt is evil in motion, and our predecessors were well aware of it. Numerous groups were excommunicated, exiled and denounced by prophets for the negotiation of loans at interest because this practice of usury is exploitative, unnatural and abusive. Aristotle called it “the most hated sort” of money-making, “for money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. This term ‘interest,’ . . . means the creation of money from money . . . Of all methods of acquiring wealth, this is the most unnatural.”(39) The rapacious business mogul and prolific dog killer,(40) Thomas Edison, summed it up neatly in a The New York Times article published on December 6, 1921.

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.(41)

Debt is the first, last and preferred weapon of aggression wielded by the enemies of freedom-loving people everywhere. No one with any sense of honor, civic duty or creative compassion would ever consider the prospect of building a business on debt, a euphemism for extortion. Debt is the rock that breaks the blade of democracy, and the stock market is its conduit. If the stock market is unstable, it’s because we fill it with unstable things. The stock market measures profits, but it conveniently neglects to trace the origin and destination of those profits. The stock market is the biggest circle-jerk in human history. When banks buy bonds at fire-sale rates, they gamble 90 percent of the deposits on stocks and more bonds.(42) If those funds were invested in local commerce, this practice of fractional banking might prove itself to be a useful tool in pursuit of the good life, but like the money slushing around the stock market, the origin and destination of those loans is privileged knowledge.

Debt proliferates debt in fortification of the grand hoax. The stock market is a rigged roulette wheel spinning the fortunes of inherited wealth and power. Market manipulation is ubiquitous. Hedge funds pump and dump, short and distort, fix prices, spread rumors and bribe congressmen. Banks that government considers “too big to fail” are the engines that power the stock market, and they received an annual 83 billion dollar subsidy from taxpayers equal to their profits for a period of ten years between 2008 and 2018,(43) the exact amount targeted by across-the-board budget cuts often referred to as “sequester,” or “austerity.”(44)

(1) Ford, Paul. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 5. New York City: Putnam Press, 1904. Pages 284 thru 289.

(2) 63rd Congress of The United States of America. Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Public Law 63-43. 23 Dec 1913.

(3) Bureau of the Fiscal Service. “Treasury Bulletin, March 2016.” Department of Treasury. Mar 2016.

(4) Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Board. Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities. 15 Apr 2016.

(5) Krugman, Paul. “Nobody Understands Debt.” The New York Times. 1 Jan 2012. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(6) United States Constitution. Article 1, Section 8.

(7) Alegretto, Sylvia. “The State of Working America’s Wealth, 2011.” Economic Policy Institute. 23 Mar 2011. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(8) Staff. “The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All.” Oxfam. 18 Jan 2013. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Leopold, Les. “5 Obscene Reasons Why Richest Americans grow Richer As Middle-Class Declines.” AlterNet. 28 Sep 2012. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(11) Figures are current as of Spring, 2016.

(12) Even if The Fed didn’t fix rates, creditors could price gauge for simple want of power in the absence of government oversight.

(13) Gongloff, Mark. “Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute.” Huffington Post. 6 Mar 2013. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(14) Friedman, Milton; Schwartz, Anna. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963.

(15) Staff. “Historical Statistics of the United States, colonial times to 1970, Part 1.” U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975. Page 137.
Lebergott, Stanley. “Labor Force, Employment, and Unemployment, 1929–39: Estimating Methods.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Apr 1948.

(16) Friedman insists that an increase in the discount rate from 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent during FDR’s first term as President deflated the U.S. economy and exacerbated the financial crisis.

Friedman, Milton; Schwartz, Anna . . .

(17) 73rd Congress of The United States of America. National Industrial Recovery Act. Public Law 73-67, Section 220. 16 Jun 1933.

(18) The percentage increase of the average wage between 1933 and 2016 is 2040 percent, whereas the percentage increase of U.S. GDP over the same span of time is 1755. The average between these two figures (2040 and 1755) is 1898. One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight percent of 3.3 billion is 62.6 trillion. U.S. GDP in 2016 was in the ballpark of 16.7 trillion, or a third of 50.1 trillion dollars. The average rate of inflation would yield a much smaller numerical result, but the cost of goods and services may not be the best standard by which to measure inflation. The price of goods and services may be tempered by increasing supply, outsourcing labor and automating production.

(19) Thomas, Elmer, Senator. “Congressional Record, March 23, 1933.” 73rd Congress, United States Senate. Pages 785 thru 786.

(20) 73rd Congress of The United States of America. Agricultural Adjustment Act. Public Law 73-10, Section 43. 12 May 1933.

(21) McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929 - 1941. New York: Random House, 1993. Pages 38 thru 39.

(22) Kristof, Nicholas. “Our Banana Republic.” The New York Times. 6 Nov 2010. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(23) McElvaine . . . Pages 38 thru 39.

(24) Congressional Budget Office. Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007. Oct 2011. Page 9.

(25) McElvaine . . . Pages 38 thru 39.

(26) Wolff, Edward. The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class. New York: New York University, 2012.

(27) McElvaine . . . Pages 38 thru 39.

(28) Jilani, Zaid. “How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent Of Americans.” Think Progress. 3 Oct 2011. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(29) McElvaine . . . Page 37.

(30) Needham, Vicki. “Report: 18 firms hold a third of US wealth.” The Hill. 9 Aug 2014. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(31) Described as “investment trusts” at the time, they’ve also been called “money trusts,” “banking syndicates,” “monopolies” and “cartels.”

(32) McElvaine . . . Page 37.

(33) Ibid . . . Pages 38, 41.

(34) Fisher, Willard. “Coin and His Critics - review of Harvey's Coin and Laughlin's Facts about Money. 1896.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Vol. 10, No. 2, Jan 1896. Page 193.

(35) Cooper, Peter, Hon. LL.D. Ideas for a Science of Good Government. New York, 1883.

(36) World Bank. 2020. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(37) Ibid.

(38) Staff. “Trump’s Proposed Tax Overhaul Would Give Billions to Trump & Cabinet While Sparking Global ‘Tax War’” Democracy Now. 23 Oct 2017. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

Picchi, Aimee. “America's richest 400 families now pay a lower tax rate than the middle class.” CBS. 17 Oct 2019. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.

(39) Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Jowett, Benjamin. New York: Dover Publications, 2000. Book 1, Chapter 10, Section 5. Page 46.

(40) Some of us may not realize how Thomas Edison promoted direct current to oust his competitor, George Westinghouse, who purchased and sold Nikola Tesla’s alternating current. In a heavily marketed sideshow act, Thomas Edison would electrocute a dog with direct current while ensuring that the wattage was set to a negligible level, then he would electrocute the same dog with alternating current, but he would crank up the power and fry the animal to cinders in front of Americans from coast to coast.

(41) Staff. “Ford Sees Wealth in Muscle Shaols.” The New York Times. 5 Dec 1951.

(42) Mankiw, Gregory. “Part VI: Money and Prices in the Long Run: The Money Multiplier.” Principles of Macroeconomics, Fifth Edition. Cengage Learning, 2008.

(43) 111th Congress of The United States of America. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Public Law 111–5. 25 Oct 1978.

(44) Staff. “Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion a Year?” Bloomberg. 17 Feb 2009. Website verified on 27 Jul 2021.
Eskow, Richard. “Lords of Disorder: Billions for Wall Street, Sacrifice for Everyone Else.” Huffington Post. 28 Apr 2013.