Since 1913, the currency of the United States has been owned and managed by a private corporation of international bankers known as the “Federal Reserve System.”
This group prints “Federal Reserve Notes” and loans them out to the United States Treasury. American taxpayers then pay interest to the Federal Reserve banking families for the rights to use their money.
The Federal Reserve banking families can therefore print as much money as they want — and give it to whomever they want, secretly, with no oversight or input from the United States government.
In an interview, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan admits that the Federal Reserve is an independent agency whose decisions cannot be overruled by any element of the legitimate United States government.
”REPORTER: What is the proper relationship… what should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the Fed and a president of the United States?
GREENSPAN: Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency. And that means basically that, uh, there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take.
So long as that is in place, and there is no evidence that the administration, the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don’t frankly matter. I’ve had very good relationships with presidents.”
26 TRILLION DOLLARS OF FRAUD
Thanks to heroic efforts of Congressman Ron Paul, former Congressman Alan Grayson and Congressman Bernie Sanders to audit the Federal Reserve, we now know that the Federal Reserve secretly lent out 26 trillion dollars’ worth of American money from 2007 to 2010 — much of it to foreign banks.
Twenty Six TRILLION Dollars.
This is a very difficult number to comprehend — but we do now have a way to wrap our minds around it. At his website demonocracy.info, Los Angeles-based 3D designer Oto Godfrey has created an incredibly powerful series of images to help us actually visualize this much money — in stacks of 100-dollar bills.
Before you see it, try to stop for a minute and think what it will look like. How many stacks do you think there are? How big do you think they will be?
WHAT DOES 26 TRILLION DOLLARS ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE?
100 Dollars
Ten Thousand Dollars
One Million Dollars
One Hundred Million Dollars
One Billion Dollars
One Trillion Dollars
One Trillion Dollars
Fifteen Trillion Dollars
CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON SPELLS IT OUT
Fifteen trillion dollars — or one year’s worth of the US National Debt — is a stack of money that is longer and wider than a football field… and over 2/3rds the height of the Statue of Liberty.
If you add another 11 Trillion to get our total of 26 Trillion, that same stack will now be taller than the Statue of Liberty.
This monstrous mass of paper would look as if a gigantic Borg Cube had completely invaded an entire football stadium — past the ceiling.
Here is a small part of the letter where Congressman Alan Grayson reveals how he found this number, in the newly-audited Federal Reserve balance sheets, to John Hively — “The World’s Most Accurate Economic Forecaster Since 1989”.
CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON: I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m dramatizing or amplifying what this GAO report says, so I’m just going to list some of my favorite parts, by page number.
Page 131 – The total lending for the Fed’s “broad-based emergency programs” was $16,115,000,000,000. That’s right, more than $16 trillion. The four largest recipients, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, received more than a trillion dollars each.
The 5th largest recipient was Barclays PLC. The 8th was the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, PLC. The 9th was Deutsche Bank AG. The 10th was UBS AG. These four institutions each got between a quarter of a trillion and a trillion dollars. None of them is an American bank.
Page 205 – Separate and apart from these “broad-based emergency program” loans were another $10,057,000,000,000 in “currency swaps.” In the “currency swaps,” the Fed handed dollars to foreign central banks, no strings attached, to fund bailouts in other countries….
These currency swaps and the “broad-based emergency program” loans, together, totaled more than $26 trillion. That’s almost $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.
That’s an amount equal to more than seven years of federal spending — on the military, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, and everything else. And around twice America’s total GNP….
If the Fed had extended $26 trillion in credit to the American people instead of Wall Street, would there be 24 million Americans today who can’t find a full-time job?
TWENTY SIX TRILLION DOLLARS? HOW CAN IT BE POSSIBLE?
Does this upset you? Or have you become so numb that you just want to click away and look at hot models – or read about celebrities? “I don’t want to hear this $#!+. My life is bad enough as it is.”
26 Trillion is a gigantic number. Seemingly unimaginable.
This is a documented, proven fact. Isn’t it strange that you’ve hardly heard anything about this in the mainstream media?
That should be your first clue. Knowledge is power. Instead of feeling sick, angry, paranoid, sad or depressed, be aware that once you know the truth, nothing can stop us.
There will be losses. However, once a “critical mass” of people possess sensitive information, there is simply no possible way to stop it from spreading.
Most people can’t even comprehend such a vast amount of money as 26 Trillion dollars in practical terms – but we’ll get to that.
The results of the audit were first published on the morning of July 21, 2011.
At first, the most obvious number that jumped out from the report was “only” 16 trillion. You have to add in the ten trillion in “currency swaps” to reach the full 26-trillion-dollar mark.
JUST HOW BIG IS IT?
Let’s stick with the initial figure of 16 trillion for now, as there are very few articles on this subject – and most of them quote that number.
This next article from Unelected.org clearly reveals the scope of the outrage:
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The results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100-year history were posted on Senator Sanders’ webpage: sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news
What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations, and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland.
From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments.
The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned — and it was loaned out at 0% interest.
Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious.
The American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.
PUTTING IT IN PERSPECTIVE
So how much could this figure of 16 trillion dollars have done if it were redirected into the United States economy, on behalf of the people — rather than rewarding the banks and financial institutions who started all this mess in the first place?
Let’s continue with the article from Unelected.org and find out:
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To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that the GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is “only” $14.5 trillion.
The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is “only” $3.5 trillion.
Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.
In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed — and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie — considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars.
As it turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.
IT’S VERY DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND THE DEPTH OF THE FRAUD
The initial figure of 16 trillion that jumped out of the Federal Reserve audit is more money than all the goods and services produced by every single person in the United States — for any given year.
It is greater than the entire amount of debt ever racked up by the United States in its 235-year history as well.
The 2010 Census estimated there are 114,825,428 households in the US. Sixteen trillion dollars in secret bailouts adds up to 139 thousand and 342 dollars per household.
The full figure of 26 trillion adds up to nearly a quarter million dollars per household – $226,430.68 to be exact.
When you put it in those terms, the full weight of the theft becomes nothing short ofstaggering.
Imagine if your family had a quarter million dollars saved — and then someone robbed you. What if the thief then told everyone what he did – but no one cared enough to do anything?
That’s what just happened to every single family in the United States of America.
Every single adult in the United States who was unemployed or on public assistance could have been given a job – so they can lead a happy, fulfilling and prosperous life – with plenty of money to spare.
A vast public works program could easily have been created to stimulate the economy – so that the money would become an investment, not a one-time gift.
WHAT COULD US HAVE DONE?
- We could have built high-speed bullet trains to make it easier and faster than flying to travel through congested urban areas — such as the East Coast megalopolis — and other corridors between nearby cities.
- We could have restored our archaic, battered fleet of passenger airliners, (which still have ashtrays in the bathrooms,) with all new jets – and bigger, more comfortable seats.
- We could have restored our crumbling roads and bridges – increasing comfort, safety and gas mileage.
- We could have transformed the inner cities with massive construction and refurbishing projects, and dramatically improved public transportation – making it easier for people to work.
- We could have massively upgraded the nation’s fiber-optic capabilities – bringing our Internet access up to speed with most of the rest of the developed world.
- We could have completely modernized public schools with enough computers for every kid.
- We could have trained or hired teachers to educate our children in the skills and software needed to be competitive in today’s evolving workforce – including touch typing, word processing, spreadsheet, Photoshop, web design, video editing, motion graphics, computer animation and music sequencing.
- We could have noticed the enormous popularity of Guitar Hero and RockBand and built sound-proofed music studios in schools, where kids earn lessons and studio time on real musical instruments as an incentive for good grades. If they sign a record deal, a figure such as 25 percent of their advance would be paid back to help finance the school.
- We could have boldly invested in clean energy technologies to heal the environment – as China is now doing, to the tune of half a trillion dollars.
And, as Foster Gamble revealed in his groundbreaking independent film Thrive, we could have ended poverty and environmental destruction for as little as 200 billion dollars a year. Instead of doing any of this, the “one percent” continued to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous — while the poor sank ever deeper into the Next Great Depression, as economist Paul Krugman recently called it.
CONGRESSMAN BERNIE SANDERS STRIPS AWAY THE LIES
Congressman Bernie Sanders revealed that in addition to handing out 16 trillion dollars, (not counting the ten trillion in “currency swaps” Congressman Grayson pointed out), the Federal Reserve also owns the financial agencies they are supposed to be regulating:
rep-bernie-sanders/the-veil-of-secrecy
The GAO [audit] also revealed that many of the people who serve as directors of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks come from the exact same financial institutions that the Fed is in charge of regulating.
Further, the GAO found that at least 18 current and former Fed board members were affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.
In other words, the people “regulating” the banks were the exact same people who were being “regulated.” Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse!…
For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed….
Getting this type of disclosure was not easy. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve fought it every step of the way.
But, as difficult as it was to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, it will be even harder to reform the Fed so that it serves the needs of all Americans, and not just Wall Street. But, that is exactly what we have to do.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA ATTEMPTS TO LIE ABOUT THE REAL SIZE OF THE BAILOUTS
So far, we’ve seen that the Federal Reserve secretly created 26 trillion dollars, without US government approval. This adds up to nearly a quarter million dollars per household in America. This money was then handed out to financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank.
It feels very surreal to see mainstream media journalists say the entire bailout added up to nothing more than 1.2 trillion dollars. Then they tried to say “this is what a central bank is supposed to do.”
Add up the emergency loans the Federal Reserve distributed to banks between 2007 and 2009 — when the American economy lurched closer to collapse than anyone had previously thought possible — and it’s an impressive picture.
Bloomberg News made available the fullest version yet of its data on Fed emergency lending, a subject the news organization has written about numerous times in the past year. The Bloomberg release includes records of about 50,000 transactions the Fed made through seven different financial mechanisms.
At their peak, these seven programs represented $1.2 trillion in loans to banks and financial institutions — the high-water mark of a massive, systemic bailout whose details the country’s central banking authority has not always seemed eager to divulge….
Even as critics have accused the Fed of being less than forthcoming, few people claim that the central bank did the wrong thing by stepping in to backstop a financial system that seemed to be on the verge of imploding.
“In the middle of the financial crisis, this is what you need. This is what a central bank is supposed to do,” said James Wilcox, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wilcox compared the financial crisis to a forest fire — except, he said, “forest fires are more predictable in the path they’re going to take.”
The Huffington Post featured the genuine figures earlier — which made this all the stranger.
The utterly fake figures of 1.2 trillion and 7.7 trillion were both refuted on December 13th, 2011 by economist L. Randall Wray, who said the actual number is a full-on 29 Trillion dollars.
Economist-Fed-Exposure-Trillion
The true total of Federal Reserve emergency lending to Wall Street is not $1.2 trillion, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke contends, nor the $7.7 trillion figure reported by Bloomberg News, which Bernanke publicly contests.The real number, argues economist L. Randall Wray, is a staggering $29 trillion.Wray writes that Bernanke’s recent defense of the lower figure is “misleading” and that the chairman’s claim that Fed bailouts do not constitute a form of spending is plain wrong.
WAS THE 26-TO-29 TRILLION DOLLARS ENOUGH TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM?
There is simply no justifiable explanation for why this much money was needed. It had nothing to do with securing the assets of ordinary Americans, as we will see.
However, let’s ask this question first: Was this enough money to rescue these institutions and restore them to full health? Or, did it merely keep them on life support a little longer?
THEY ARE IN WAY OVER THEIR HEADS
The answer is shocking. The 26 trillion dollars was nothing more than a sudden gasp of air for companies that are still drowning in debt.
Thanks to deregulation, such as the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, these institutions were allowed to hold one dollar in the bank, but then spend like they had 5, 10, 30 or even 100 dollars.
To put it in perspective, if you had ten thousand dollars in your checking account, you would suddenly become a millionaire if you could leverage it at the “100X” point in one single “trade”.
These financial institutions have manipulated and abused this system to do casino gambling, on a global scale — to the tune of hundreds of trillions of dollars.
It’s a very complex discussion, but when you see the term “derivatives”, this is what it means.
THE 600-TRILLION-DOLLAR TIME BOMB
Incredibly, just four financial institutions have gambled 600 trillion dollars’ worth of money they don’t even have – so this bailout was still not even close to being enough to protect them.
Even if they had all the money in the world at their disposal, they’d still need ten times more to bail themselves out:
derivatives-the-600-trillion-time-bomb-thats-set-to-explode
In 2009, five banks held 80% of derivatives in America. Now, just four banks hold a staggering 95.9% of U.S. derivatives, according to a recent report from the Office of the Currency Comptroller.The four banks in question: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).Derivatives played a crucial role in bringing down the global economy [in 2008], so you would think that the world’s top policymakers would have reined these things in by now — but they haven’t.
Instead of attacking the problem, regulators have let it spiral out of control, and the result is a $600 trillion time bomb called the derivatives market….
The world’s gross domestic product (GDP) is only about $65 trillion, or roughly 10.83% of the worldwide value of the global derivatives market, according to The Economist.
So there is literally not enough money on the planet to backstop the banks trading these things if they run into trouble.
WHAT DOES 600 TRILLION DOLLARS LOOK LIKE?
Oto Godfrey has not created a graphic description of 600 Trillion dollars — yet. However, he did create an image of the total amount of unfunded liabilities in the United States — the total amount that will be needed, in the coming years, to pay all the bills.
That comes out in excess of 126.2 (Oct 2013) Trillion dollars. Remember — the amount that has already been created by the derivatives swindle is at least five or six times this much.
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