“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs”.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1802

' Hey!! Someone out there is paying attention!!

Be careful - the people who own this country might disappear you if you articulate this kind of truth too well '

The "Federal Reserve" is neither Federal (it is private, owned by the people who own the rest of the country) nor a "Reserve", at least not in any public sense of the word - it is rather one of the instruments that the people who own this country use to gain ownership of more and more of it.

People are no longer "educated" in such a way as to be exposed to this kind of foundational truth from our nation's history. People are educated to be politically and economically naive but to have adequate skills to be useful to the people who own this country, to the point of making profits for the robber barons. The quality of education declines at their bidding. We used to have "Head Start", now we have "No Child Left Behind". Something's "screwed" up here..... (quoting George Carlin)

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Unfortunately such attention will garner you glazed stares by the naïve and uneducated, an impugning by the system’s myrmidons, and most recently culpability under provisions in the Patriot Act.  

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Jefferson survived financially on slave-labor and massive debt. He died leaving a crushing personal debt burden to his heirs.

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he would not recognize the US today as the country helped to found. We've only traded King George III for a cartel of Robber Barons, who today own this country, and hold even more sway over the quality of life of the people than the British did.

their constitutional duty of:

Article 1, Section 8 part (5) "to coin money regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and measures";

to the Federal Reserve Bank was a grave mistake.

What people do not realize is that issuance of credit, lines of credit, credit default swaps and other financial engineering methods is a de facto way of issing currency and is therein unconstitutional. I do not how our political leaders were bought in 1913, to have them establish the Federal Reserve Bank, but I do surmise President Jefferson's statement may become a prophecy fulfilled.

The US dollar has only been in xistence since 1913, and I am afraid it may soon run it's usefulness. Every paper currency on earth including here in America has become extinct i.e. The Continental, greenback, confederate dollar et al.

My prediction is that as long as the US Military remains number one we will be able to back the dollar bill with the full faith and credit of the United States.

...by the way excellent topic of conversation and very thoughtful quote from our founding fathers. Good post. Of course anything is better than Xfean's.

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Just because I criticize the status quo and attempt to raise some political consciousness.  I have never suggested that defeat is inevitable. However, hiding one's head in the sand is not a useful mechanism for political change....

This was the opening salvo of a return to power on the part of the robber barons of the 1880s/90s, a way to change the rules of the game to avoid the very messy very public issue of labor reform.

doom proclamations and rehashed communist and socialist dogma.

since I am after all not a communist. I would not have served 30 years in the US military if I were a defeatist. I have up to this point tried to raise a bit of consciousness, to help some folks see that there is no reality to the charade being played out. That does not mean that I don't stand for anything, that I don't have any ideas. After my career ended with wounds in Afghanistan. The US government was not interested in footing the bill for needed reconstructive surgeries. Since I am a dual citizen (US/EU), I had this work done in Germany at no cost to me. While I was in Iraq / Afghanistan, I saw a lot of good young men die or be maimed for lack of armor plate for their HMVVs or for their combat gear. Why? Because the people that are making a profit on the war did not want to cut into their profit margins to do so. Checked Haliburton profits lately?  Don't jump to the conclusion that I am bitter - I am not. I am now employed in the business of planning nasty little surprises for Al Qaida and the Taliban. But my experience as a dual citizen and in a career in special warfare has shaped my views of our society.

“Article 1, Section 8 part (5) "to coin money regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and measures" (U.S.  Constitution)

  Interesting how the original “Federal reserve notes” were redeemable in SILVER DOLLARS and it was so printed right on the face of the note.

Curious that our “currency” over the last 40+ years has only named “God” as the bank, and trustee.

Interesting also that “Income” was defined by Congress in 1909 as a gain or profit; but “Wages” were defined as an equal barter for time & labor in exchange for money.