Upcoming: Government Shutdowns, Debt Ceiling Crises.

[Coyote]

Simply not true, the debt ceiling is about paying for money already spent. Not future spending

Agree. It is about money to pay the bills that Congress already authorized to be spent. The debt ceiling is not place for these standoffs that are becoming routine, it should be during the appropriations process.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I was kinda hoping you would explain yourself. Not even a link?

I don't really do links when it comes to discussions like this.

I just share my opinion based on my own understandng of economic theory and monetary policy.

Now....I do have a long-assed scratch pad in my documents folder explaining how it works that I keep around and add to once in a while. I can copypasta the thing for you if you want. It's kind of long, though. I've shared it before when I didn't feel like typing a whole lot and the discussion came up.

That's actually why I took the time to type it all out, honestly. I just got tired of repeating myself all of the time. Don't you ever get to the point that you get tired of repeating yourself all of the time? I know I do.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Here's how it works. There's probably still some typos in there, though, sorry.

The politicians aren't running on the idea of spending less. They instead say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.'

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Nope. So to provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. It's a piece of paper with numbers printed on it that says loan me a trillion dollars today and I promise that over a ten year period I will pay you back that trillion dollars. Plus interest. But...Treasury bonds happen to be our national debt. The Treasury then holds a bond auction. And the world's largest banks show up and compete to buy part of our national debt and make a profit on it by earning interest. As we move through this process, the big banks are there taking a cut every step of the way. This is not by chance, which I'll explain.

Through a shell game called open market operations, the banks get to sell some of those bonds to the Federal Reserve, at a profit. How does the Federal Reserve pay the bonds? I'll tell you how. The Federal Reserve opens its 'checkbook' and writes bad, bogus, counterfeit checks that should bounce because they're drawn on an account that always has nothing in it. They're creating 'currency''. Which is different than ''money''. I'll get to that later. Of course, when you or I write a check, the money has to be in there. Right? To steal a quote from the Boston Federal Reserve's ''Putting it Simply", they say that ''When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating ''money.” The Federal Reserve then hands those checks to the banks and at this point ''currency'' springs into existence. The banks then take that ''currency'' and buy more bonds at the next Treasury auction. You see?

Now. What is a check? A check is also an IOU. When you write a check, you're making a note that says here's my IOU for cash, all you have to do is go to the bank and pick it up. This particular process is very important to understand, because we're gonna come back to this later to explain how this affects you and I.

So. let's recap what we have so far. The politicians say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. Again, this is called deficit spending.'The Treasury issues IOU bonds. The banks then buys those IOU bonds with ''currency.'' The Federal Reserve then writes IOU checks and hands them to the banks in exchange for the Treasury's IOU Bonds. Thus ''currency'' is created. What's really happening here is that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are just swapping IOUs using the banks as middle men and, presto, ''currency'' magically comes into existence. This process repeats over and over and over and over and over again, enriching the banks and indebting the public by raising the national debt. The end result is that there is a build-up of bond at the Federal Reserve and 'currency' at the Treasury. This process is where all paper ''currency'' comes from. The Federal Reserve and the government incorrectly call it ''base money'' because they don't know the difference between ''money'' and ''currency.'' It's correctly called ''base currency'' because it is not ''money.'' It is ''currency.''

''Money'' has to be a store of value and maintain its purchasing power over long periods of time.' But the base currency that is piling up as a consequence of the process which I've explained is nothing more than a receipt for a claim check on an IOU bond. So it's really nothing but a supply of numbers. So, then the Treasury now deposits the newly created ''currency'' into the various branches of the government and the politicians who were claiming they were going to give you more free stuff than his opponent would says, ''hey thanks for that.'' Then the government does some deficit spending on public works, social programs, and, of course, wars, to include paying weapons manufacturers and contractors, along with the soldiers' pays. The government employees, contractors, and soldiers then deposit their pay in the banks.

Now. When they deposit this ''currency'' into the bank, they're not actually depositing it into an account to be held safely in trust to them. Instead, you're actually loaning the bank your ''currency'' and they can do pretty much whatever they please with it to include gambling in the stock market, and loaning it out at a profit, of course. This is where the process of ''currency'' really gets cranking. This is where fractional reserve lending comes into play. Now, what does that mean? It means precisely what it says. It means that the banks reserve only a fraction of your deposit and they loan the rest out. Though rates vary, I'll use a 10% ratio here to explain the process. If you deposit 100 'dollars' into your account, the bank legally takes 90 'dollars' of it out and loans it out without telling you. The bank must hold 10 'dollars' of your deposit in reserve just in case you want some of it. These reserves are called 'vault cash.' Now, why does your bank account still say that you have 100 'dollars' if they stole 90 of it? It's because the bank left IOUs that it created called 'bank credit' in its place. That's why. To reference the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, they say that "Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU." End quote. These are nothing but numbers that the banks type into their computers. And even though these 'bank credit' IOU numbers are very different from 'base currency' numbers, because they only exist in computers, they are still 'currency.' So now there is 190 dollars in existence. Created out of the 100 dollars deposited. You see?

Of course, the reason people take out loans from the bank is to buy something. So the borrower takes the 90 'dollars' that the bank loaned to him from your account and he pays the seller of the item. Then the seller deposits that money into his account and his bank loans out 90% of that 'currency' and leaves 'bank credits' in its place. So now theres' 271 'dollars' in existence from the original 90. This process repeats and repeats and repeats until it's under a 10% reserve ratio and all backed by 100 'dollars' of 'vault cash." Of course, some rates of deposits are only 3%. Some are 0%. The result is the expansion of the 'currency' supply by the banks. Of course, 'currency' is not 'money.'

So. let's recap that part. When 'currency' is deposited into the banks, the banks get to lend it out and then it gets redeposited and lent out again, over and over and over again creating 'bank credit' all along the way. This is where the vast supply of our 'currency' comes from. In fact around 96% of all 'currency' that is created is created by the banking system.

Now. At first, massive amounts of 'currency' spewing into society might sound like a fun idea. At least until you remember that the prices of every day goods and services act as a sponge on an expanding 'currency' supply. The more 'currency' we have, the more prices will rise. This is where 'inflation' comes from. The true definition of inflation is an expansion of the currency supply. Rising prices are merely the symptom. Our entire 'currency' supply is nothing but a few dollars whipped up in this scam where the Treasury and the Federal Reserve swap glorified IOUs and a bunch of numbers that the banks just type into their computers. That's it. That's our entire currency supply. It's a set of numbers. Some of them printed and most oft hem typed. There is nothing else.

But...we work for some of that 'currency' supply. True wealth is your time. Which we trade away hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year, for numbers that somebody printed on pieces of paper and punched into bank computers. We are what gives the 'currency' its value. Here comes the bad part. We work hard so that we can save some of that 'currency' so that we can pay the 'tax' collector in the United States known as the IRS. They then turn it over to the Treasury so that the Treasury can pay the principal plus interest on that bond that the Federal Reserve bought with a check which is drawn on an account that has nothing in it.

Now. Let's recap that part, too, because this is where the system begins to rob the poor, middle class and seniors on a massive scale. Much of our taxes are not used on schools, roads, and public services. They're used to pay interest on bonds that the federal reserve bought with a check which was drawn on an account that has nothing in it. Here, the Federal Reserve is committing fraud. Recall that before the establishment of the Federal Reserve, there was no need for personal income tax. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and in that very same year, the constitution was amended to allow income tax via the 16th amendment by an unconstitutionl act of Congress. Do you really think that this was just a coincidence? Ask yourself how much income tax you've paid over your lifetime and realize that much of it has been siphoned away by those who own the system. We'll get to them after we learn the mumbo jumbo of the 'debt ceiling' delusion.

The debt ceiling delusion is based on a paradox. Meaning there was interest due on that bond, and there was interest due on every one of those loans that the banks made. That means that there is interest due on every dollar in existence. Let's ask a question. If you borrow the very first dollar in existence and you promise to pay it back plus another dollar's worth of interest, where do you get the second dollar to pay the interest? The answer is that you have to borrow that dollar into existence and promise to pay it back with interest as well. So, now there are 2 dollars in existence, but you now owe 4. And so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. It keeps happening over and over and over again. The result is that there is never enough 'currency' to pay the debt. There is always more debt in the system than there is 'currency' in existence to pay the debt. Therefore the entire system is impossible. It is finite. It will come to an end one day. Right now the dollar is 98% down from 1913. 98%. What would happen if the government stopped borrowing to do deficit spending? Are the payments on those Treasury bonds going to stop? What would happen if the public stopped borrowing and going deeper into debt? Are your house and car payments going to stop? No. They're not. There is a payment due every month on the principal plus the interest on every dollar in existence and those payments do not stop. If we stop borrowing, then no new 'currency' is created to replace the 'currency' that we used to make those payments. Whether you're making a payment on a loan or paying a tax to make a payment on a Treasury bond, the portion of the payment that goes to pay off the principal extinguishes that portion of the debt. BUT...the debt also extinguishes the 'currency.' When currency and debt meet, they destroy each other. If we just pay off the principal only, all of the loans and Treasury bonds that exist, the entire 'currency' supply vanishes. So, if we don't go deeper into debt every year, the whole thing goes into a deflationary collapse under the weight of those payments.

People always talk about balancing the budget, bringing down the debt, and living within our means. But they don't understand that this is deflationary. It is impossible to do under our current monetary system without collapsing the entire economy. This is why any talk of a debt ceiling is not only ridiculous, it's delusional. The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt just to continue. And that's why politicians will always kick the can down the road and raise the so-called debt ceiling over and over again until the whole system finally collapses under its own weight. In other words, they don't want it to collapse under their watch. The founding fathers of the United States knew the dangers of central banking and they fought to free themselves from this very thing. The Revolutionary War started out as a tax revolt. But now we must pay tax just to have a monetary system. Having just suffered through the hyper-inflation of the continental dollar, which was printed into oblivion to fund the Revolutionary War, they understood the dangers of a debt based monetary system. So to protect future generations from institutional theft and out of control government, they wrote in the constitution that only gold and silver can be 'money' for the simple fact that you can't print it. Personally, I don't care what it is, but we need a competing currency if we're to survive. Our current system is not only unconstitutional, but it robs us of the liberty and prosperity that our forefathers fought and died for. And we're all feeling the effects of ignoring the constitution right now. By forcing more currency into circulation our purchasing power is diluted. Inflation is a slow, insidious stealth tax that is simply the result of this debt based monetary system.

This system empowers those who create the currency and receive it first because they get to spend it into circulation before it has an effect on the economy. They're stealing purchasing power from the poor, middle class, and seniors, and transferring it to the banks and the government every hour of every day of every week of every year. And the people at the top know it. To quote the Federal Reserve itself, ''The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money." This is a fraud. It is a pyramid scheme. It is a ponzi scheme. It is a scam. Our entire monetary policy is nothing more than a form of legalized theft.

Of course, the Federal Reserve is not Federal. It has stock holders. There is no federal agency that has stock holders. Now, what is a stock holder? A share of stock represents a share of ownership in a corporation. So, the stock holders are the owners of the corporation. Therefore, the Federal Reserve is a private corporation with owners. For reference, you may check their site. It specifically states that the stock holders receive an annual dividend of not more than 6%. Now, we know that the stock in the Federal Reserve was originally issued to the largest banks in the United States. With mergers and acquisitions through the years, you can't actually trace who owns the stock in the Federal Reserve. That's a very closely guarded secret. The best guess would be that they are those primary dealers. The banks that get to make a profit by selling part of our national debt, those bonds, to the Federal Reserve who buys them with a check that is drawn from an account with nothing in it. Then we pay tax to pay the principal and the interest on those bonds so that the Federal Reserve can pay the banks not more than a 6% dividend. This is purposely complex and very few understand it. And that's okay. It's why people who do understand it take the time to explain it. Our system is Keynesian. And to quote Keynes, himself, "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." Presented correctly, however, anyone can understand the system regardless of the complexity of it.


So. Cliff notes for the tldr folks.

Step1: The politicians say, hey, vote for me and I'll make sure you get more free stuff than my opponent says he'll get for you. The government creates glorified IOUs via Treasury Bonds. To provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. These bonds increase our national debt and put the public on the hook to pay it back.

Step2: IOUs are swapped to create 'currency.' The Treasury sells the bonds to the banks. The banks then turn around and sell our national debt at a profit to the Federal Reserve, which they likely own. Again, the share holders receive annually a 6% or less dividend. From the Fed's own webpage. The Federal Reserve then opens its checkbook which is from an account without a penny in it and buys those IOU with their own IOW in the form of the check from an account with 0 balance.They give those checks to the banks and 'currency' is created out of thin air. Then the whole process repeats over and over and over again. This results in a build-up of bonds at the Federal Reserve and a build-up of currency at the Treasury which is really just a supply of numbers. The Treasury then deposits the numbers into the various branches of the government and then we get to step 3.

Step 3: The government spends the numbers on promises, public works, social programs, and yes, wars. Unconstitutional, undeclared, imperialist military occupation all over the world. Then government employees soldiers, military contractors, weapons manufacturers, and everybody else deposit their pay into the banks. Then we get to step 4.

Step 4: The banks multiply the numbers by magically creating more IOU through fractional reserve lending where they steal a portion of everyone's deposit and lend it out. That 'currency' gets redeposited and then a portion is stolen again. And the process repeats over andover and over again, magnifying the currency supply exponentially. Then we the people work for some of those numbers. Which brings us to step 5 where our numbers are taxed.

Step 5: We pay tax to the IRS who then turns out numbers over to theTreasury so the Treasury can pay the principal plus the interest on bonds that were purchased by the Federal Reserve with a check from nothing. Then we get to step 6. The debt ceiling delusion.

Step 6: The debt ceiling delusion.The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt and will eventually collapse under its own weight because politicians and pundits always kick the can down the road so it doesn't happen on their watch. And finally, we get to step 7. Secret owners take their cut.

Step 7: The world's largest banks make a profit selling our national debt to the Federal Reserve. They make a profit when the Federal Reserve pays them interest on the reserves held at the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve pays them not more than a 6% dividend on their ownership of the Federal Reserve.

This system funnels wealth from the working population to the government and the banking sector. It is the cause of the artificial booms and busts of modern economies and it causes great disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor, middle class, and seniors. The working class. We're debt slaves. Recall that bond is the root word of bondage. Whenever a government issues a bond, it is a promise to make us pay tax in the future.

I'll leave you with a great quote from a letter from George Washington, written to James Madison on the topic. He said, and correctly so, ''No generation has the right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." By stealing from prosperity from tomorrow so that we can spend it today, we enslave ourselves and future generations.

This system relies in the public being ignorant to its function.

 

[Jessica-stormlover]

There's nothing wrong with being a humane society that helps its poor, old and disabled. It is the right thing to do.

Maybe we should stop going to war so much and handing out free money to third world crap holes instead?

 

[Natural Citizen]

There's nothing wrong with being a humane society that helps its poor, old and disabled. It is the right thing to do.

At the state level it's perfectly constitutional.

Problem is the feds always wanna stick their noses in eveything. And many states are content to let them.

 

[task0778]

Simply not true, the debt ceiling is about paying for money already spent. Not future spending

I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the debt ceiling is not extended then the gov't cannot spend money above the incoming revenue. Meaning that no more debt can be created. So, we are not talking about money already spent, but future spending. What you're talking about is money that has been appropriated, like the recent Omnibus Spending Bill last month, but obviously not spent yet. Otherwise we wouldn't be looking at a gov't shutdown and a default on our debt.

 

[blackhawk]

We see this same movie every few years no matter which party controls what and it always ends the same way.

 

[task0778]

Here's how it works. There's probably still some typos in there, though, sorry.

The politicians aren't running on the idea of spending less. They instead say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.'

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Nope. So to provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. It's a piece of paper with numbers printed on it that says loan me a trillion dollars today and I promise that over a ten year period I will pay you back that trillion dollars. Plus interest. But...Treasury bonds happen to be our national debt. The Treasury then holds a bond auction. And the world's largest banks show up and compete to buy part of our national debt and make a profit on it by earning interest. As we move through this process, the big banks are there taking a cut every step of the way. This is not by chance, which I'll explain.

Through a shell game called open market operations, the banks get to sell some of those bonds to the Federal Reserve, at a profit. How does the Federal Reserve pay the bonds? I'll tell you how. The Federal Reserve opens its 'checkbook' and writes bad, bogus, counterfeit checks that should bounce because they're drawn on an account that always has nothing in it. They're creating 'currency''. Which is different than ''money''. I'll get to that later. Of course, when you or I write a check, the money has to be in there. Right? To steal a quote from the Boston Federal Reserve's ''Putting it Simply", they say that ''When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating ''money.” The Federal Reserve then hands those checks to the banks and at this point ''currency'' springs into existence. The banks then take that ''currency'' and buy more bonds at the next Treasury auction. You see?

Now. What is a check? A check is also an IOU. When you write a check, you're making a note that says here's my IOU for cash, all you have to do is go to the bank and pick it up. This particular process is very important to understand, because we're gonna come back to this later to explain how this affects you and I.

So. let's recap what we have so far. The politicians say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. Again, this is called deficit spending.'The Treasury issues IOU bonds. The banks then buys those IOU bonds with ''currency.'' The Federal Reserve then writes IOU checks and hands them to the banks in exchange for the Treasury's IOU Bonds. Thus ''currency'' is created. What's really happening here is that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are just swapping IOUs using the banks as middle men and, presto, ''currency'' magically comes into existence. This process repeats over and over and over and over and over again, enriching the banks and indebting the public by raising the national debt. The end result is that there is a build-up of bond at the Federal Reserve and 'currency' at the Treasury. This process is where all paper ''currency'' comes from. The Federal Reserve and the government incorrectly call it ''base money'' because they don't know the difference between ''money'' and ''currency.'' It's correctly called ''base currency'' because it is not ''money.'' It is ''currency.''

''Money'' has to be a store of value and maintain its purchasing power over long periods of time.' But the base currency that is piling up as a consequence of the process which I've explained is nothing more than a receipt for a claim check on an IOU bond. So it's really nothing but a supply of numbers. So, then the Treasury now deposits the newly created ''currency'' into the various branches of the government and the politicians who were claiming they were going to give you more free stuff than his opponent would says, ''hey thanks for that.'' Then the government does some deficit spending on public works, social programs, and, of course, wars, to include paying weapons manufacturers and contractors, along with the soldiers' pays. The government employees, contractors, and soldiers then deposit their pay in the banks.

Now. When they deposit this ''currency'' into the bank, they're not actually depositing it into an account to be held safely in trust to them. Instead, you're actually loaning the bank your ''currency'' and they can do pretty much whatever they please with it to include gambling in the stock market, and loaning it out at a profit, of course. This is where the process of ''currency'' really gets cranking. This is where fractional reserve lending comes into play. Now, what does that mean? It means precisely what it says. It means that the banks reserve only a fraction of your deposit and they loan the rest out. Though rates vary, I'll use a 10% ratio here to explain the process. If you deposit 100 'dollars' into your account, the bank legally takes 90 'dollars' of it out and loans it out without telling you. The bank must hold 10 'dollars' of your deposit in reserve just in case you want some of it. These reserves are called 'vault cash.' Now, why does your bank account still say that you have 100 'dollars' if they stole 90 of it? It's because the bank left IOUs that it created called 'bank credit' in its place. That's why. To reference the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, they say that "Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU." End quote. These are nothing but numbers that the banks type into their computers. And even though these 'bank credit' IOU numbers are very different from 'base currency' numbers, because they only exist in computers, they are still 'currency.' So now there is 190 dollars in existence. Created out of the 100 dollars deposited. You see?

Of course, the reason people take out loans from the bank is to buy something. So the borrower takes the 90 'dollars' that the bank loaned to him from your account and he pays the seller of the item. Then the seller deposits that money into his account and his bank loans out 90% of that 'currency' and leaves 'bank credits' in its place. So now theres' 271 'dollars' in existence from the original 90. This process repeats and repeats and repeats until it's under a 10% reserve ratio and all backed by 100 'dollars' of 'vault cash." Of course, some rates of deposits are only 3%. Some are 0%. The result is the expansion of the 'currency' supply by the banks. Of course, 'currency' is not 'money.'

So. let's recap that part. When 'currency' is deposited into the banks, the banks get to lend it out and then it gets redeposited and lent out again, over and over and over again creating 'bank credit' all along the way. This is where the vast supply of our 'currency' comes from. In fact around 96% of all 'currency' that is created is created by the banking system.

Now. At first, massive amounts of 'currency' spewing into society might sound like a fun idea. At least until you remember that the prices of every day goods and services act as a sponge on an expanding 'currency' supply. The more 'currency' we have, the more prices will rise. This is where 'inflation' comes from. The true definition of inflation is an expansion of the currency supply. Rising prices are merely the symptom. Our entire 'currency' supply is nothing but a few dollars whipped up in this scam where the Treasury and the Federal Reserve swap glorified IOUs and a bunch of numbers that the banks just type into their computers. That's it. That's our entire currency supply. It's a set of numbers. Some of them printed and most oft hem typed. There is nothing else.

But...we work for some of that 'currency' supply. True wealth is your time. Which we trade away hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year, for numbers that somebody printed on pieces of paper and punched into bank computers. We are what gives the 'currency' its value. Here comes the bad part. We work hard so that we can save some of that 'currency' so that we can pay the 'tax' collector in the United States known as the IRS. They then turn it over to the Treasury so that the Treasury can pay the principal plus interest on that bond that the Federal Reserve bought with a check which is drawn on an account that has nothing in it.

Now. Let's recap that part, too, because this is where the system begins to rob the poor, middle class and seniors on a massive scale. Much of our taxes are not used on schools, roads, and public services. They're used to pay interest on bonds that the federal reserve bought with a check which was drawn on an account that has nothing in it. Here, the Federal Reserve is committing fraud. Recall that before the establishment of the Federal Reserve, there was no need for personal income tax. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and in that very same year, the constitution was amended to allow income tax via the 16th amendment by an unconstitutionl act of Congress. Do you really think that this was just a coincidence? Ask yourself how much income tax you've paid over your lifetime and realize that much of it has been siphoned away by those who own the system. We'll get to them after we learn the mumbo jumbo of the 'debt ceiling' delusion.

The debt ceiling delusion is based on a paradox. Meaning there was interest due on that bond, and there was interest due on every one of those loans that the banks made. That means that there is interest due on every dollar in existence. Let's ask a question. If you borrow the very first dollar in existence and you promise to pay it back plus another dollar's worth of interest, where do you get the second dollar to pay the interest? The answer is that you have to borrow that dollar into existence and promise to pay it back with interest as well. So, now there are 2 dollars in existence, but you now owe 4. And so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. It keeps happening over and over and over again. The result is that there is never enough 'currency' to pay the debt. There is always more debt in the system than there is 'currency' in existence to pay the debt. Therefore the entire system is impossible. It is finite. It will come to an end one day. Right now the dollar is 98% down from 1913. 98%. What would happen if the government stopped borrowing to do deficit spending? Are the payments on those Treasury bonds going to stop? What would happen if the public stopped borrowing and going deeper into debt? Are your house and car payments going to stop? No. They're not. There is a payment due every month on the principal plus the interest on every dollar in existence and those payments do not stop. If we stop borrowing, then no new 'currency' is created to replace the 'currency' that we used to make those payments. Whether you're making a payment on a loan or paying a tax to make a payment on a Treasury bond, the portion of the payment that goes to pay off the principal extinguishes that portion of the debt. BUT...the debt also extinguishes the 'currency.' When currency and debt meet, they destroy each other. If we just pay off the principal only, all of the loans and Treasury bonds that exist, the entire 'currency' supply vanishes. So, if we don't go deeper into debt every year, the whole thing goes into a deflationary collapse under the weight of those payments.

People always talk about balancing the budget, bringing down the debt, and living within our means. But they don't understand that this is deflationary. It is impossible to do under our current monetary system without collapsing the entire economy. This is why any talk of a debt ceiling is not only ridiculous, it's delusional. The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt just to continue. And that's why politicians will always kick the can down the road and raise the so-called debt ceiling over and over again until the whole system finally collapses under its own weight. In other words, they don't want it to collapse under their watch. The founding fathers of the United States knew the dangers of central banking and they fought to free themselves from this very thing. The Revolutionary War started out as a tax revolt. But now we must pay tax just to have a monetary system. Having just suffered through the hyper-inflation of the continental dollar, which was printed into oblivion to fund the Revolutionary War, they understood the dangers of a debt based monetary system. So to protect future generations from institutional theft and out of control government, they wrote in the constitution that only gold and silver can be 'money' for the simple fact that you can't print it. Personally, I don't care what it is, but we need a competing currency if we're to survive. Our current system is not only unconstitutional, but it robs us of the liberty and prosperity that our forefathers fought and died for. And we're all feeling the effects of ignoring the constitution right now. By forcing more currency into circulation our purchasing power is diluted. Inflation is a slow, insidious stealth tax that is simply the result of this debt based monetary system.

This system empowers those who create the currency and receive it first because they get to spend it into circulation before it has an effect on the economy. They're stealing purchasing power from the poor, middle class, and seniors, and transferring it to the banks and the government every hour of every day of every week of every year. And the people at the top know it. To quote the Federal Reserve itself, ''The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money." This is a fraud. It is a pyramid scheme. It is a ponzi scheme. It is a scam. Our entire monetary policy is nothing more than a form of legalized theft.

Of course, the Federal Reserve is not Federal. It has stock holders. There is no federal agency that has stock holders. Now, what is a stock holder? A share of stock represents a share of ownership in a corporation. So, the stock holders are the owners of the corporation. Therefore, the Federal Reserve is a private corporation with owners. For reference, you may check their site. It specifically states that the stock holders receive an annual dividend of not more than 6%. Now, we know that the stock in the Federal Reserve was originally issued to the largest banks in the United States. With mergers and acquisitions through the years, you can't actually trace who owns the stock in the Federal Reserve. That's a very closely guarded secret. The best guess would be that they are those primary dealers. The banks that get to make a profit by selling part of our national debt, those bonds, to the Federal Reserve who buys them with a check that is drawn from an account with nothing in it. Then we pay tax to pay the principal and the interest on those bonds so that the Federal Reserve can pay the banks not more than a 6% dividend. This is purposely complex and very few understand it. And that's okay. It's why people who do understand it take the time to explain it. Our system is Keynesian. And to quote Keynes, himself, "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." Presented correctly, however, anyone can understand the system regardless of the complexity of it.


So. Cliff notes for the tldr folks.

Step1: The politicians say, hey, vote for me and I'll make sure you get more free stuff than my opponent says he'll get for you. The government creates glorified IOUs via Treasury Bonds. To provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. These bonds increase our national debt and put the public on the hook to pay it back.

Step2: IOUs are swapped to create 'currency.' The Treasury sells the bonds to the banks. The banks then turn around and sell our national debt at a profit to the Federal Reserve, which they likely own. Again, the share holders receive annually a 6% or less dividend. From the Fed's own webpage. The Federal Reserve then opens its checkbook which is from an account without a penny in it and buys those IOU with their own IOW in the form of the check from an account with 0 balance.They give those checks to the banks and 'currency' is created out of thin air. Then the whole process repeats over and over and over again. This results in a build-up of bonds at the Federal Reserve and a build-up of currency at the Treasury which is really just a supply of numbers. The Treasury then deposits the numbers into the various branches of the government and then we get to step 3.

Step 3: The government spends the numbers on promises, public works, social programs, and yes, wars. Unconstitutional, undeclared, imperialist military occupation all over the world. Then government employees soldiers, military contractors, weapons manufacturers, and everybody else deposit their pay into the banks. Then we get to step 4.

Step 4: The banks multiply the numbers by magically creating more IOU through fractional reserve lending where they steal a portion of everyone's deposit and lend it out. That 'currency' gets redeposited and then a portion is stolen again. And the process repeats over andover and over again, magnifying the currency supply exponentially. Then we the people work for some of those numbers. Which brings us to step 5 where our numbers are taxed.

Step 5: We pay tax to the IRS who then turns out numbers over to theTreasury so the Treasury can pay the principal plus the interest on bonds that were purchased by the Federal Reserve with a check from nothing. Then we get to step 6. The debt ceiling delusion.

Step 6: The debt ceiling delusion.The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt and will eventually collapse under its own weight because politicians and pundits always kick the can down the road so it doesn't happen on their watch. And finally, we get to step 7. Secret owners take their cut.

Step 7: The world's largest banks make a profit selling our national debt to the Federal Reserve. They make a profit when the Federal Reserve pays them interest on the reserves held at the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve pays them not more than a 6% dividend on their ownership of the Federal Reserve.

This system funnels wealth from the working population to the government and the banking sector. It is the cause of the artificial booms and busts of modern economies and it causes great disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor, middle class, and seniors. The working class. We're debt slaves. Recall that bond is the root word of bondage. Whenever a government issues a bond, it is a promise to make us pay tax in the future.

I'll leave you with a great quote from a letter from George Washington, written to James Madison on the topic. He said, and correctly so, ''No generation has the right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." By stealing from prosperity from tomorrow so that we can spend it today, we enslave ourselves and future generations.

This system relies in the public being ignorant to its function.

I appreciate the response. However, I see nothing at all in all this that tells us how a balanced budget would be deflationary. Or reducing the deficits. Or even paying down the debt. We know that inflation is when new money is created out of thin air and prices go up, right? So, say you stop creating all that new money and balance the budget. What happens? Inflation slows and eventually stops, cuz no more new money but that does not mean less money is in the economy. The same amount of money exists this month that existed last month, so I don't see where deflation enters the picture, relative to gov't spending. If gov't spending equals gov't revenue, that sounds like a wash to me.

As I see it, a balanced budget isn't necessarily deflationary, but could and probably would lead to an economic downturn. Maybe a recession or depression while the economy adjusts to the new dynamic of a less intrusive gov't. So, balancing the budget would have to be a long-term process that is done right. [Yeah, fat chance.]

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Do you think the GOP will try to be "for real" this time and shut it all down for 2-3 months?

Yes – if not longer.

And they’ll let the government default on its debt as well, risking economic collapse.

Republicans are incapable of sound, responsible governance, Republicans have contempt for sound, responsible governance – all they’re capable of is legislative domestic terrorism.

 

[westwall]

So the fallout from the GOP likely taking the House will be the debt ceiling and government shutdowns.

The investigations will go nowhere. Biden shouldn't take a page out of the Trump playbook and just not cooperate with the investigations but he probably will. Impeachment will likely take place. It will go nowhere. We're likely in for 2 years of simple stasis with midnight deals to raise the debt ceiling and a few weeklong government shutdowns.

A few questions to consider are these:

Do you think the GOP will try to be "for real" this time and shut it all down for 2-3 months? Do you think the debt ceiling will actually not be raised? Chaos is their brand...it's what they promise and, even if they don't, the margin that presumptive Speaker McCarthy (is thats his name) will not be able to simply steamroll the white-nationalist wing of his constituency because it may be 220-230 GOP majority; not the 240-250 they were hoping for.

Shut the government down. Do the working people a favor.

 

[Nostra]

Yes – if not longer.

And they’ll let the government default on its debt as well, risking economic collapse.

Republicans are incapable of sound, responsible governance, Republicans have contempt for sound, responsible governance – all they’re capable of is legislative domestic terrorism.

How many of the previous 22 government shutdowns has resulted in "default" on our debt and "economic collapse", Simp?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

How many of the previous 22 government shutdowns has resulted in "default" on our debt and "economic collapse", Simp?

Senate Democrats aren’t going to give into the demands of Republican domestic terrorists – and thankfully so.

And when Republicans crash the economy, the voters will blame the GOP alone.

 

[Jessica-stormlover]

crap like this is why Trump lost in 2020. People were tired of this kind of crap...

 

[Nostra]

Senate Democrats aren’t going to give into the demands of Republican domestic terrorists – and thankfully so.

And when Republicans crash the economy, the voters will blame the GOP alone.

Once again Simp, how many times did the economy crash during the previous 22 government shutdowns?

Zero sound about right?

 

[candycorn]

Shut the government down. Do the working people a favor.

I agree that the GOP should shut down the government. No other single act would ensure another 4 years of Biden/Harris more.

 

[candycorn]

Here's how it works. There's probably still some typos in there, though, sorry.

The politicians aren't running on the idea of spending less. They instead say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.'

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Nope. So to provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. It's a piece of paper with numbers printed on it that says loan me a trillion dollars today and I promise that over a ten year period I will pay you back that trillion dollars. Plus interest. But...Treasury bonds happen to be our national debt. The Treasury then holds a bond auction. And the world's largest banks show up and compete to buy part of our national debt and make a profit on it by earning interest. As we move through this process, the big banks are there taking a cut every step of the way. This is not by chance, which I'll explain.

Through a shell game called open market operations, the banks get to sell some of those bonds to the Federal Reserve, at a profit. How does the Federal Reserve pay the bonds? I'll tell you how. The Federal Reserve opens its 'checkbook' and writes bad, bogus, counterfeit checks that should bounce because they're drawn on an account that always has nothing in it. They're creating 'currency''. Which is different than ''money''. I'll get to that later. Of course, when you or I write a check, the money has to be in there. Right? To steal a quote from the Boston Federal Reserve's ''Putting it Simply", they say that ''When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating ''money.” The Federal Reserve then hands those checks to the banks and at this point ''currency'' springs into existence. The banks then take that ''currency'' and buy more bonds at the next Treasury auction. You see?

Now. What is a check? A check is also an IOU. When you write a check, you're making a note that says here's my IOU for cash, all you have to do is go to the bank and pick it up. This particular process is very important to understand, because we're gonna come back to this later to explain how this affects you and I.

So. let's recap what we have so far. The politicians say ''hey, vote for me because I'll make sure that the government provides you with more free stuff than my opponent say's he will.the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. Again, this is called deficit spending.'The Treasury issues IOU bonds. The banks then buys those IOU bonds with ''currency.'' The Federal Reserve then writes IOU checks and hands them to the banks in exchange for the Treasury's IOU Bonds. Thus ''currency'' is created. What's really happening here is that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are just swapping IOUs using the banks as middle men and, presto, ''currency'' magically comes into existence. This process repeats over and over and over and over and over again, enriching the banks and indebting the public by raising the national debt. The end result is that there is a build-up of bond at the Federal Reserve and 'currency' at the Treasury. This process is where all paper ''currency'' comes from. The Federal Reserve and the government incorrectly call it ''base money'' because they don't know the difference between ''money'' and ''currency.'' It's correctly called ''base currency'' because it is not ''money.'' It is ''currency.''

''Money'' has to be a store of value and maintain its purchasing power over long periods of time.' But the base currency that is piling up as a consequence of the process which I've explained is nothing more than a receipt for a claim check on an IOU bond. So it's really nothing but a supply of numbers. So, then the Treasury now deposits the newly created ''currency'' into the various branches of the government and the politicians who were claiming they were going to give you more free stuff than his opponent would says, ''hey thanks for that.'' Then the government does some deficit spending on public works, social programs, and, of course, wars, to include paying weapons manufacturers and contractors, along with the soldiers' pays. The government employees, contractors, and soldiers then deposit their pay in the banks.

Now. When they deposit this ''currency'' into the bank, they're not actually depositing it into an account to be held safely in trust to them. Instead, you're actually loaning the bank your ''currency'' and they can do pretty much whatever they please with it to include gambling in the stock market, and loaning it out at a profit, of course. This is where the process of ''currency'' really gets cranking. This is where fractional reserve lending comes into play. Now, what does that mean? It means precisely what it says. It means that the banks reserve only a fraction of your deposit and they loan the rest out. Though rates vary, I'll use a 10% ratio here to explain the process. If you deposit 100 'dollars' into your account, the bank legally takes 90 'dollars' of it out and loans it out without telling you. The bank must hold 10 'dollars' of your deposit in reserve just in case you want some of it. These reserves are called 'vault cash.' Now, why does your bank account still say that you have 100 'dollars' if they stole 90 of it? It's because the bank left IOUs that it created called 'bank credit' in its place. That's why. To reference the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, they say that "Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU." End quote. These are nothing but numbers that the banks type into their computers. And even though these 'bank credit' IOU numbers are very different from 'base currency' numbers, because they only exist in computers, they are still 'currency.' So now there is 190 dollars in existence. Created out of the 100 dollars deposited. You see?

Of course, the reason people take out loans from the bank is to buy something. So the borrower takes the 90 'dollars' that the bank loaned to him from your account and he pays the seller of the item. Then the seller deposits that money into his account and his bank loans out 90% of that 'currency' and leaves 'bank credits' in its place. So now theres' 271 'dollars' in existence from the original 90. This process repeats and repeats and repeats until it's under a 10% reserve ratio and all backed by 100 'dollars' of 'vault cash." Of course, some rates of deposits are only 3%. Some are 0%. The result is the expansion of the 'currency' supply by the banks. Of course, 'currency' is not 'money.'

So. let's recap that part. When 'currency' is deposited into the banks, the banks get to lend it out and then it gets redeposited and lent out again, over and over and over again creating 'bank credit' all along the way. This is where the vast supply of our 'currency' comes from. In fact around 96% of all 'currency' that is created is created by the banking system.

Now. At first, massive amounts of 'currency' spewing into society might sound like a fun idea. At least until you remember that the prices of every day goods and services act as a sponge on an expanding 'currency' supply. The more 'currency' we have, the more prices will rise. This is where 'inflation' comes from. The true definition of inflation is an expansion of the currency supply. Rising prices are merely the symptom. Our entire 'currency' supply is nothing but a few dollars whipped up in this scam where the Treasury and the Federal Reserve swap glorified IOUs and a bunch of numbers that the banks just type into their computers. That's it. That's our entire currency supply. It's a set of numbers. Some of them printed and most oft hem typed. There is nothing else.

But...we work for some of that 'currency' supply. True wealth is your time. Which we trade away hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year, for numbers that somebody printed on pieces of paper and punched into bank computers. We are what gives the 'currency' its value. Here comes the bad part. We work hard so that we can save some of that 'currency' so that we can pay the 'tax' collector in the United States known as the IRS. They then turn it over to the Treasury so that the Treasury can pay the principal plus interest on that bond that the Federal Reserve bought with a check which is drawn on an account that has nothing in it.

Now. Let's recap that part, too, because this is where the system begins to rob the poor, middle class and seniors on a massive scale. Much of our taxes are not used on schools, roads, and public services. They're used to pay interest on bonds that the federal reserve bought with a check which was drawn on an account that has nothing in it. Here, the Federal Reserve is committing fraud. Recall that before the establishment of the Federal Reserve, there was no need for personal income tax. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and in that very same year, the constitution was amended to allow income tax via the 16th amendment by an unconstitutionl act of Congress. Do you really think that this was just a coincidence? Ask yourself how much income tax you've paid over your lifetime and realize that much of it has been siphoned away by those who own the system. We'll get to them after we learn the mumbo jumbo of the 'debt ceiling' delusion.

The debt ceiling delusion is based on a paradox. Meaning there was interest due on that bond, and there was interest due on every one of those loans that the banks made. That means that there is interest due on every dollar in existence. Let's ask a question. If you borrow the very first dollar in existence and you promise to pay it back plus another dollar's worth of interest, where do you get the second dollar to pay the interest? The answer is that you have to borrow that dollar into existence and promise to pay it back with interest as well. So, now there are 2 dollars in existence, but you now owe 4. And so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. It keeps happening over and over and over again. The result is that there is never enough 'currency' to pay the debt. There is always more debt in the system than there is 'currency' in existence to pay the debt. Therefore the entire system is impossible. It is finite. It will come to an end one day. Right now the dollar is 98% down from 1913. 98%. What would happen if the government stopped borrowing to do deficit spending? Are the payments on those Treasury bonds going to stop? What would happen if the public stopped borrowing and going deeper into debt? Are your house and car payments going to stop? No. They're not. There is a payment due every month on the principal plus the interest on every dollar in existence and those payments do not stop. If we stop borrowing, then no new 'currency' is created to replace the 'currency' that we used to make those payments. Whether you're making a payment on a loan or paying a tax to make a payment on a Treasury bond, the portion of the payment that goes to pay off the principal extinguishes that portion of the debt. BUT...the debt also extinguishes the 'currency.' When currency and debt meet, they destroy each other. If we just pay off the principal only, all of the loans and Treasury bonds that exist, the entire 'currency' supply vanishes. So, if we don't go deeper into debt every year, the whole thing goes into a deflationary collapse under the weight of those payments.

People always talk about balancing the budget, bringing down the debt, and living within our means. But they don't understand that this is deflationary. It is impossible to do under our current monetary system without collapsing the entire economy. This is why any talk of a debt ceiling is not only ridiculous, it's delusional. The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt just to continue. And that's why politicians will always kick the can down the road and raise the so-called debt ceiling over and over again until the whole system finally collapses under its own weight. In other words, they don't want it to collapse under their watch. The founding fathers of the United States knew the dangers of central banking and they fought to free themselves from this very thing. The Revolutionary War started out as a tax revolt. But now we must pay tax just to have a monetary system. Having just suffered through the hyper-inflation of the continental dollar, which was printed into oblivion to fund the Revolutionary War, they understood the dangers of a debt based monetary system. So to protect future generations from institutional theft and out of control government, they wrote in the constitution that only gold and silver can be 'money' for the simple fact that you can't print it. Personally, I don't care what it is, but we need a competing currency if we're to survive. Our current system is not only unconstitutional, but it robs us of the liberty and prosperity that our forefathers fought and died for. And we're all feeling the effects of ignoring the constitution right now. By forcing more currency into circulation our purchasing power is diluted. Inflation is a slow, insidious stealth tax that is simply the result of this debt based monetary system.

This system empowers those who create the currency and receive it first because they get to spend it into circulation before it has an effect on the economy. They're stealing purchasing power from the poor, middle class, and seniors, and transferring it to the banks and the government every hour of every day of every week of every year. And the people at the top know it. To quote the Federal Reserve itself, ''The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money." This is a fraud. It is a pyramid scheme. It is a ponzi scheme. It is a scam. Our entire monetary policy is nothing more than a form of legalized theft.

Of course, the Federal Reserve is not Federal. It has stock holders. There is no federal agency that has stock holders. Now, what is a stock holder? A share of stock represents a share of ownership in a corporation. So, the stock holders are the owners of the corporation. Therefore, the Federal Reserve is a private corporation with owners. For reference, you may check their site. It specifically states that the stock holders receive an annual dividend of not more than 6%. Now, we know that the stock in the Federal Reserve was originally issued to the largest banks in the United States. With mergers and acquisitions through the years, you can't actually trace who owns the stock in the Federal Reserve. That's a very closely guarded secret. The best guess would be that they are those primary dealers. The banks that get to make a profit by selling part of our national debt, those bonds, to the Federal Reserve who buys them with a check that is drawn from an account with nothing in it. Then we pay tax to pay the principal and the interest on those bonds so that the Federal Reserve can pay the banks not more than a 6% dividend. This is purposely complex and very few understand it. And that's okay. It's why people who do understand it take the time to explain it. Our system is Keynesian. And to quote Keynes, himself, "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." Presented correctly, however, anyone can understand the system regardless of the complexity of it.


So. Cliff notes for the tldr folks.

Step1: The politicians say, hey, vote for me and I'll make sure you get more free stuff than my opponent says he'll get for you. The government creates glorified IOUs via Treasury Bonds. To provide all of that supposed free stuff that they ran on, the politicians vote for the country to spend more than its income. This is called deficit spending. To pay for that deficit spending the Treasury borrows currency by issuing a bond. A bond is an IOU. These bonds increase our national debt and put the public on the hook to pay it back.

Step2: IOUs are swapped to create 'currency.' The Treasury sells the bonds to the banks. The banks then turn around and sell our national debt at a profit to the Federal Reserve, which they likely own. Again, the share holders receive annually a 6% or less dividend. From the Fed's own webpage. The Federal Reserve then opens its checkbook which is from an account without a penny in it and buys those IOU with their own IOW in the form of the check from an account with 0 balance.They give those checks to the banks and 'currency' is created out of thin air. Then the whole process repeats over and over and over again. This results in a build-up of bonds at the Federal Reserve and a build-up of currency at the Treasury which is really just a supply of numbers. The Treasury then deposits the numbers into the various branches of the government and then we get to step 3.

Step 3: The government spends the numbers on promises, public works, social programs, and yes, wars. Unconstitutional, undeclared, imperialist military occupation all over the world. Then government employees soldiers, military contractors, weapons manufacturers, and everybody else deposit their pay into the banks. Then we get to step 4.

Step 4: The banks multiply the numbers by magically creating more IOU through fractional reserve lending where they steal a portion of everyone's deposit and lend it out. That 'currency' gets redeposited and then a portion is stolen again. And the process repeats over andover and over again, magnifying the currency supply exponentially. Then we the people work for some of those numbers. Which brings us to step 5 where our numbers are taxed.

Step 5: We pay tax to the IRS who then turns out numbers over to theTreasury so the Treasury can pay the principal plus the interest on bonds that were purchased by the Federal Reserve with a check from nothing. Then we get to step 6. The debt ceiling delusion.

Step 6: The debt ceiling delusion.The system is designed to require ever-increasing levels of debt and will eventually collapse under its own weight because politicians and pundits always kick the can down the road so it doesn't happen on their watch. And finally, we get to step 7. Secret owners take their cut.

Step 7: The world's largest banks make a profit selling our national debt to the Federal Reserve. They make a profit when the Federal Reserve pays them interest on the reserves held at the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve pays them not more than a 6% dividend on their ownership of the Federal Reserve.

This system funnels wealth from the working population to the government and the banking sector. It is the cause of the artificial booms and busts of modern economies and it causes great disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor, middle class, and seniors. The working class. We're debt slaves. Recall that bond is the root word of bondage. Whenever a government issues a bond, it is a promise to make us pay tax in the future.

I'll leave you with a great quote from a letter from George Washington, written to James Madison on the topic. He said, and correctly so, ''No generation has the right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence." By stealing from prosperity from tomorrow so that we can spend it today, we enslave ourselves and future generations.

This system relies in the public being ignorant to its function.

Can you give some examples of GOP candidates promising to spend more than their Democratic party opponents? If you can't, I'd submit that you're not correct in your assessment.

 

[candycorn]

Senate Democrats aren’t going to give into the demands of Republican domestic terrorists – and thankfully so.

And when Republicans crash the economy, the voters will blame the GOP alone.

That has been the case in the past. There is no reason that should change this go round.

 

[westwall]

I agree that the GOP should shut down the government. No other single act would ensure another 4 years of Biden/Harris more.

The last time the government shut down nothing bad happened. It was a shock. So now the normal people WANT it to happen.

But permanently.

 

[candycorn]

The last time the government shut down nothing bad happened. It was a shock. So now the normal people WANT it to happen.

But permanently.

Folks like you are completely abnormal.

 

[westwall]

Folks like you are completely abnormal.

Yeah, it's refreshing to not be a mindless drone.

Something you will never experience.