The Money Makers

Continued from: The History of Money By Unimoman – June 13, 2012

By Unimoman – June 13, 2012

One thing has been stable and that is the growing fortune of:

The Rothschilds (1743)

Moses Amschel Bauer was a goldsmith who opened a counting house in Frankfurt Germany in 1743. Over the door of his establishment he proudly mounted a Roman eagle on a red shield which people would forevermore associate with the Red Shield Firm pronounced in German as “Rothschild”.

When Bauer’s son Mayer Amschel Bauer inherited the business he changed his name to Rothschild. He recognises the significance of the red hexagram and sign signifying 666 hanging over the entrance door (”Rot,” is German for, “Red,” “Schild,” is German for, “Sign”). This sign is a red hexagram (which geometrically and numerically translates into the number 666) which under Rothschild instruction will end up on the Israeli flag some two centuries later.

He found that loaning money to individuals was the basis of what the business was all about but the real profitable was to be made by loaning money to governments and Kings. This of course meant bigger amounts, but they were always secured from public taxes.

Once firmly ensconced at the helm of the business, he set his sights on the world by training his five sons in the art of money creation, before sending them out to the major financial centres of the world to create and dominate their central banking systems.

The American Revolution (1764 – 1781)

By the mid 1700’s Britain was at its height of power, but was also heavily in debt. Since the creation of the Bank of England, they had suffered four costly wars and the total debt now stood at £140,000,000, (which in those days was a lot of money). In order to make their interest payments to the bank, the British government set about a programme to try to raise revenues from their American colonies, largely through an extensive programme of taxation.

There was a shortage of material for minting coins in the colonies, so the colonialists began to print their own paper money, which they called Colonial Script. This provided a very successful means of exchange and also gave the colonies a sense of identity. Colonial Script was money provided to help the exchange of goods. It was debt free currency not backed by gold or silver.

During a visit to Britain in 1763, The Bank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklin replied: “That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one.”

In America all that was needed was the people’s confidence in the currency, and they could be free of borrowing debts. This would mean that they would be free of the Bank of England.

In Response the world’s most powerful independent bank used its influence on the British parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764. The passing of this act meant that it was now illegal for the colonies to print their own money, and would force them to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold.

Benjamin Franklin

“In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed.”

By the time the war began on 19th April 1775 much of the gold and silver had been taken by British taxation. They were left with no other choice but to print money to finance the war.

“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War.” Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography

What is interesting here is that Colonial Script was actually working so well, it became a threat to the established economic system of the time. The idea of issuing money as Franklin put it “in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry” and not charging any interest, was not causing any problems or inflation. This unfortunately was alien to the Bank of England which only issued money for the sake of making a profit for its shareholder’s.

The Bank of North America (1781-1785)

When arms dealer, Robert Morris suggested he be allowed to set up a Bank of England style central bank in the US in 1781, the proposal was vey attractive to the impoverished American Government, desperate for money. The $400,000 he proposed to deposit, to allow him to loan out many times that through fractional reserve banking, would have been like a God send to the colonialists. Yet none of the then politicians made a fuss when Morris couldn’t raise the deposit, and instead suggested he might use some gold, which had been loaned to America from France.

When the proposal was accepted, he simply used fractional reserve banking, and with the banks growing fortune he loaned to himself, and his friends the money to buy up all the remaining shares. The bank then began to loan out money multiplied by this new amount to eager politicians, who were probably too drunk with the new ‘power cash’ to notice or care how it was done.

The scam lasted five years. In 1785 the value of American money dropped like a lead balloon. The banks charter didn’t get renewed. The shareholders walking off with the interest however did not go wholly unnoticed by the governor.

“The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will… They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by (the power of) government, keep them in their proper spheres.” Governor Morris

FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES (1791-1811)

Well, it worked once before, it will work again. It would take six years. There are a lot of new hungry politicians. Let’s give it a try. So there it was, in 1791, the First Bank of the United States (BUS). Not only deceptively named to sound official, but also to take attention away from the real first bank which had been shut down.

Its initials however gave a clear indication that Americans were once again being taken for a ride. And true to its British model, the name of the investors was never revealed. Having gotten away with it a second time, some of them probably wished Mayer Amschel Rothschild had chosen a different time to make his pronouncement from his private central bank in Frankfurt.

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

Not to worry, no one was listening, the American government borrowed 8.2 million dollars from the bank in the first 5 years and prices rose by 72%. This time round the money changers had learned their lesson; they had a guaranteed twenty year charter. The president, who could see an ever increasing debt, with no chance of ever paying back, had this to say:

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution – taking from the federal government their power of borrowing.” Thomas Jefferson, 1798

The independent press of the time, who had not been bought off yet, called the scam “a great swindle, a vulture, a viper, and a cobra.”

As with the real first bank; the government had been the only depositor to put up any real money, with the remainder being raised from loans the investors made to each other, using the ruse of fractional reserve banking. When time came for renewal of the charter, the bankers were warning of bad times ahead if they didn’t get what they wanted. The charter was not renewed.

Five months later Britain had attacked America and started the war of 1812.

Ciao for now, Unimoman

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