If we look closely at what history reveals to us with regard to the conquest of nations, we will discover that the most frequent method employed is war. Because the vanquished most usually despise the victors, they will resist and eventually attempt to displace their captors. In order to maintain control over his reluctant subjects, the conqueror must impose a great deal of force, which is quite expensive and often fails.

Another method of subduing a nation is by introducing a religion which facilitates the aims of the conquering nation. The vanquished are thus persuaded into thinking that they are under obligation to give a portion of their wage (tithe) and their obedience to their "victors" as an act of "submission to God." This is a risky and unstable form of conquest, as it is always vulnerable to exposure or forceful overthrow. Present day religion lacks the military means to defend itself should its proponents lose faith. Things have changed since the missionary days of the British East India Company.

The most complete, effective and long lasting form of conquest, and the form to which our attention is directed in this treatise, is "economic conquest". This form of conquest occurs when entire nations are obliged to pledge a "tribute" to the convening authority, with no visible evidence of force, coercion or persuasion, so the vanquished have no idea at all that they have been defeated and are held captive. This "tribute" is collected from these "captives" in the form of taxes upon their earnings, their property and the goods they purchase, and also in the form of "legal" debts which they are convinced they are paying for the welfare of themselves and for others, or to protect society from some enemy, real or imagined. Thus, they view their conquerors as "benefactors" and "defenders".

This method of conquest is inflicted "gradually" and often remains imposed the longest, since it does not need to threaten politics or religion, our most traditional social placebos, with any military force which might intimidate or arouse the victims. The people suffer no losses of their most cherished freedoms of speech, of assembly, or to move about. They are free to practice their religious rites and ceremonies and to participate in the election of their captors "agents". Without any realization of their true circumstances, they are a subdued and conquered people, and the institutions within the bureaucracy of their society are used to "gradually" and "increasingly" transfer their wealth and their property into the hands of their captors, thus making the conquest complete.

At the turn of the last century, the average American wage earner paid only nominal excises and suffered only small debts. At the present time, taking into consideration all forms of taxation, licenses, permits, fees, duties, excises, etc., the average American can anticipate paying the government some sixty-four percent of his earnings in "tributes". As if this is not bad enough, current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projections for the year 1997 indicate that there will be a need for a forty-five percent increase in taxes to meet government obligations by that year. Even then it will not meet what is required to service the national "debt". In view of such a hopeless financial debacle, would it not seem apparent that we are, in fact, a conquered nation?

In order to better understand our "actual" circumstances let us re-examine some facts, this time with some accompanying figures, for the benefit of those whose minds are more receptive to statistical summaries than to abstract ideas.

When discussing the process by which money comes into existence, economists utilize the term "create", because it means the making of something which did not previously exist.

To enhance our understanding of this process, we can see that timber mills fabricate boards and lumber from trees, workers construct homes and buildings from this lumber; steel mills extract and refine metals out of ores from the earth, and factories manufacture automobiles and appliances from steel, copper, glass and other materials.

Yet, for all their admirable efforts, they did not "create" something out of nothing. In fact, they only transformed materials that already existed into a more useful and, therefore, more valuable form.

This is NOT the case with money. With respect to money, almost exclusively, man has "created" something, to which he arbitrarily "assigns" value, out of nothing. (The exception to this would be certain forms of fine art which, of course, lack the stable or constant value required of a viable medium of exchange and measure of value.) A tiny piece of paper, with minuscule or no value, is printed in such a way that it suddenly has the value of a piece of lumber or a sheet of metal. By manipulating and varying the ciphers or numerals which appear on this worthless piece of paper, it can purchase the entire automobile or even the house. Its "value" has been "created" in the truest sense of the word.

We begin to see that money is very cheap to make and whoever "creates" it on behalf of a nation is able to "profit" on a unbelievable scale. If an auto manufacturer can sell its cars for one or two percent above the cost to manufacture, it is thought to be good business. Builders work hard and consider themselves doing well if they can squeeze a five percent profit over their cost to do the building. The money "creators", however, have no limits on their profits, as an investment of a few pennies on their part will print a one dollar bill or a ten thousand dollar bill.

According to William H. Ferkler, Manager of Public Affairs at the Department of Treasury, Bureau of Engraving & Printing in Washington, D.C.: "As we have advised, the Federal Reserve is currently paying the Bureau approximately twenty-three dollars for each one-thousand notes printed. This does include the cost of printing, paper, ink, labor, etc. Therefore, ten thousand notes of any denomination, including the one-hundred dollar note, would cost the Federal Reserve two-hundred and thirty dollars. In addition, the Federal Reserve must secure a pledge of collateral equal to the face value of the notes."

I am sorry, my fellow Americans, but this is stupid beyond imagining. Read my lips....S-T-U-P-I-D!!! A far less complex and much more concise way of putting it would be to state: The American people are subsidizing their own gradual descent into absolute slavery.

It would seem that we have been overwhelmed by our own cleverness, blinded by our own clarity, in that we have become an unwitting, but willing, participant in our own conquest.

Let us go on and reveal how this has happened. To a civilized and efficiently functioning society an "adequate" supply of money is absolutely essential. Mankind could do without many other things, but curtail the money supply and industry and commerce would come to a grinding halt. Farms would revert to simple, self-sustaining units, enterprise and employment which required the labor of more than one man or one family would not be attended to, all shipping and mass movements of goods would cease, all surplus food stocks would rapidly dwindle away, hungry people, who otherwise would be civilized, would kill and plunder in order to survive, and all forms of government, other than the family unit or tribal clan, would perish. In other words, mankind would, for the most part, be faced with the same conditions we described in installment two of this treatise.

For those who may be inclined to think that this is an over-statement, think again. As Mr. Henry Ford stated in the vignette preceding our previous installment, money is the life-blood of civilized society and the means of all commercial trading of goods, with the exception of simple barter.

Mr. Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, also had the following to say in reference to the Federal Reserve scam: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Money is the gauge and the mechanism by which one set of goods is sold and another is purchased. Eliminate money, or even curtail the supply below that which is required to facilitate the present levels of trade and commerce, and the outcome will be devastating. For confirmation of this, we need only to quickly review the stock market "Crash of 1929" and the "depression" that followed during the "Thirties". Although it is historically recorded, there are few who are aware of Sir Winston Churchill's clandestine visit to all of America's major banking and financial families in the weeks prior to and during the market collapse. How could such a seemingly innocuous and innocent diplomatic visit so catastrophically affect a "foreign" nation’s entire economy? To find out, we must examine the "real" purpose of this visit which involved the most illustrious names in American finance at that time, Rockefeller, Morgan, Chase, Baruch, Hearst, to name just a few.

To put it briefly and simply, Great Britain was in dire economic straits and desperately needed gold to maintain her solvency in the European "field" and thus her ambitious empire. The Americans, who possessed an abundance of the precious metal, required a means of testing the viability of their absolute control over the nation’s economy and were also preparing to shift from the gold standard to a purely "fiat", fractional reserve banking and currency system. (See Addendum *authors note)

In timely fashion, Mr. Churchill appeared, with hat in hand, on behalf of Great Britain, so what could the good bankers of America with all the gold do, but generously bail Sir Winston’s faltering economy out. And thus, with every shipment of the precious metal, which backed our currency, that departed our shores for the "mother country", our money supply began to disappear. These gold shipments, and the "controlled shrinking" of the domestic money supply, went on for several weeks until finally, in October, you guessed it....the "Crash of 29!" However, Sir Winston was happy, the British Imperialists were happy, the American financial elite and a few fortunately select insiders were happy, while the American wage earners and investors were left desperately holding the bag to the tune of an estimated thirty billion dollars lost in the final week. What eventually happened to all the gold is another story.

For those Americans who may be interested and concerned about our present economic circumstances, the "Crash of '29" was a mere game of marbles compared with what the "Power Elite" have scripted for us in the next rapidly approaching episode in their on-going saga of (false) hope and (assured) tragedy for mankind.

The above cameo is vastly oversimplified, of course, but it will provide the reader with some idea of the corruption in our money system and how easily the American citizen is manipulated and victimized at the behest of this system. From what we have learned to understand from the above information, we can recognize the critical necessity for maintaining a supply of money in circulation to adequately indemnify or "cover" the amount of "real" wealth which has been "assigned" and/or "pledged" to back it. If there is a failure to do this, either by mismanagement or by shrewd design, it will inevitably lead to calamitous victimization of a nation’s people.

Let us now review one of the pronouncements made in our previous installment against the manner in which "fiat" money is introduced into circulation by the private banks which are all controlled by the Federal Reserve System, only this time we will use actual figures to clarify what we mean.

Let us say, for the sake of example, a citizen approached a Banker for the purpose of borrowing the sum of sixty thousand dollars toward the purchase of a home or a small farm. The Loan Officer requires the borrower to agree to repay the amount of the loan (principal) plus an added interest (usury). (See Addendum *authors note) If the interest rate is set at fourteen percent for a loan period of thirty years, the borrower is actually agreeing to pay back a sum of seven hundred and ten dollars and ninety two cents per month for a total amount of two hundred and fifty five thousand, nine hundred and thirty one dollars and twenty one cents over the thirty-year loan period. The Loan Officer then requires the borrower to sign over his ownership rights to the property in question, to the Banker, should the party default in making the required payments they have agreed upon. Once the property ownership rights have been securely attached by the Bank, the Loan Officer then issues the borrower a sixty thousand dollar check or a sixty-thousand dollar deposit slip crediting the borrower’s checking account for that amount. The reader should keep in mind that the Bank has simply "created" this amount "out of thin air" and has nothing more than the Federal Reserve System’s private sanction or decree to back it, yet the "property" (real wealth) in question is now "owned" by the Bank until said loan is completely repaid, principal and interest combined. The borrower is then able to write a check against his own account to the seller of the home or farm, or to the builder, sub-contractors, etc.,who in their turn write and disburse more checks and, "voila", sixty thousand dollars in "magic" checkbook money suddenly becomes "money in circulation". This is known as "fractional reserve banking".

It is at this point that the unspoken and unseen mystery begins, and herein lies the malignant defect in a usurious money system. The only "value", or new money that is created and issued into circulation, is the amount of the loan, the amount which is actually borrowed, sixty thousand dollars, which is called the "principal", and not the debt created, which is, of course, the "principal" and the "interest" added together.

It is critically important that the reader understand that the money needed to pay the "interest" on the "principal" loan is NOT created and, therefore, NOT added to the "money in circulation". What this means is that the borrower (and anyone else who might follow him in subsequent mortgages on this property) must "earn" and remove from circulation by pouring it "gradually" back into the Bank coffers, a grand total of two hundred and fifty five thousand, nine hundred and thirty one dollars, more than FOUR TIMES the amount originally borrowed. (By the way, all loan contracts require that the "interest" be repaid on a diminishing scale BEFORE the "principal" is significantly affected. In this manner, any potential subsequent mortgagees are encumbered with equally outrageous terms.) Quite simply put, the average home buyer or builder is forced to pay for FOUR homes in order to get ONE.

Every new borrower who enters into such a "covenant with the Devil" sets the same process into motion. Every borrower adds a comparatively small sum to the overall money supply, but he creates a comparatively huge debt because of this exorbitant interest obligation that requires, over a period of time, to deduct a much larger sum than is even available in the money supply. This huge debt is then reflected back to us on the "deficit screen" projected by our leaders and the media.

It becomes clear that there is no way that ALL the debtors can repay the money-lenders. As the interest and the principle on these millions of loans are slowly repaid, so does the money supply disappear and we find that we are submerging into a "deficit" condition. "No problem!"...you might think..."Just have the `Fed' print more money!" "Oh, they do!"...and, in so doing, our trusted Congress further pledges to Them, more and more of YOUR earnings, property and assets to back it and at the same time infecting our economy with that other nasty disease called "inflation".

"Not smart...., my fellow Americans....! Not smart at all!!!"

Do we begin to sense that the terms "borrower", "victim" and "captive" are somewhat synonymous? Life cannot improve at the mercy of such a system. We are forced to sacrifice a decent "quality of life" at the expense of false hopes for improved "standard of living". Life can only become an increasing struggle as more and more must be borrowed by the citizens from the money-lenders each generation, even as more and more of the "real wealth" is transferred quietly to shadowy hands. It is sadly, but demonstrably true, that the money-lenders (Bankers), who produce virtually nothing of value, gradually, but with increasing tempo, disentitle the "real owners" and confiscate the land, buildings, assets, as well as the present and future earnings of an entire working population, thus effectively enslaving them in the process.

A biblical reference to the wise words of Solomon aptly describes the condition Americans are at present and is found in Proverbs 22:7, which informs us: "The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender." It would seem to us today, however, that such a cons-PIRACY is simply another acceptable and popular form of doing "busy-ness". The people cannot seem to wait to get chains and shackles on themselves.

For the reader who still harbors skepticism because of the apparent cushioning effect of the "long term" scenario described above, let us scale down our example somewhat and consider instead a small auto loan, say, for three years at twenty percent interest. In the first step the citizen borrows five thousand dollars and pays it into circulation (this money goes to the dealer, the factory, the steel mill, the miner, etc.) and in similar fashion as before, he signs a note agreeing to repay the Banker six thousand dollars. In the second step, the citizen then finds himself paying nearly one hundred and seventy dollars per month of his earnings to the Banker, so, once again, in the space of three years, he will REMOVE from circulation one thousand dollars more than he put INTO circulation.

Every single loan of "fractional reserve", "bank created" money, (credit) causes the same hopelessly continuing erosion of our economy. We should also be aware that this has occurred countless millions of times since the birth of the "Fed" in 1913 and it continues without restraint in the present. It does not take a genius to understand why America has plunged from being a prosperous, debt-free nation to an insecure, completely debt-ridden nation wherein almost every home, farm and enterprise is forced to pay a usurious tribute to some Banker.

This private usury-tribute to the bankers on personal, local, State and Federal debt will soon add up to the combined earnings of nearly fifty percent of all the working people in America, and it continues to rise unabated. Keep in mind the fact that this does not include the government-imposed taxes, fees, and excises that we mentioned earlier.

The eventual cost to the American citizen, then, is: EVERYTHING!

In the multitude of transactions like the ones previously described, little actual currency will change hands, nor is it necessary for it to do so. Almost ninety-five percent of all "cash" transactions in America are made by writing a check, so the banker is quite secure in "creating" the amount of the "loan", as it is spuriously called, by simply writing a check or deposit slip, not against actual "money", but rather against your PROMISE to repay it, backed, of course, by the bankers right to take possession of your property. The cost incurred by him to do this is paper, ink and a few dollars in salaries and office costs for each transaction. This is "check-kiting" on a scale that boggles the imagination. (For a fascinating insight into what can transpire should a citizen, who is "awake" and has the "courage of his convictions", decide to challenge the procedure we have previously described, return to Chapter Four, A BRIEF HISTORY OF ECONOMICS, Page 106, where an article entitled: SAVE YOUR HOME, by Martin A. Larson will be found. Re-read this article and the appendix to this same installment on pages 118 - 121.)

Let us now examine a few more figures here. In 1910, the Federal debt of the United States was only about one billion dollars, or about twelve dollars and forty cents per citizen, and local and State debts almost did not exist. After only six years under the disguised purloining and pillaging of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal debt, by 1920, had surged to twenty four billion dollars, or two hundred and twenty eight dollars per citizen, and the local and State liabilities were already swelling uncomfortably. The Federal debt soared beyond the one trillion dollar mark by the year 1981 and has continued to expand exponentially, since the bankers arbitrarily tripled the interest rates, and it recently surpassed six trillion dollars. Local and State debts now exceed the Federal debt, and, with personal and business debts, totals over twenty trillion dollars, or three times the value of all the land and buildings in America, thus our future assets and earnings of our children belong to them already, also.

To spell it out simply, if we Americans, whether personally in debt or not, signed over our country, America, in its entirety, to these diabolical money-lenders, we would still owe them two more Americas along with the first (plus their usury on top of this).

From a statistical perspective, the absolute ludicrousness of our economic circumstances indicates that some form of civil disobedience, revolution or renaissance is well and truly long overdue.

The bankers, however, are far too diabolical and cunning to simply demand title to everything, as yet. Obviously they must leave our citizens with some "illusion of ownership", by virtue of "possession" or occupancy, so that they and their children will compliantly continue to toil and pay "tribute" and commit their earnings to an ever-increasing debt syndrome. This invisible condition, in which we are held "captive", is otherwise referred to as the "establishment". The term "establishment" more correctly describes the victorious and invasive occupying forces of the "central banking system".("Power Elite", "High Cabal", etc. - In America, the Federal Reserve System.)

As Thomas Jefferson has pointed out, we have been subdued and defeated by a force more powerful than a uniformed, highly trained standing army, and the weapons they have used against us are our own weaknesses and ignorance. Not a shot had to be fired, nor a threat had to be made. We have willingly and unwittingly played right into their hands, and now we are paying and must go on paying, the price which they will continue to exact from us, legally and contractually with our consent,....unless...UNLESS!, our citizens are willing to exercise a bit of their God-gifted intelligence, imagination and determination. We will not delve into this possibility, however, until we have made a more thorough statistical analysis of our predicament.

For the moment it is sufficient that the reader be made aware there is such a possibility and it will be discussed at length in a future treatise.

Our purpose here is to study our present reality, the history of how we got into the state we are in, and the mental "paradigm" to which we are conditioned, and which determines our obedience and ensures the cohesiveness and perpetuity the "establishment" requires to maintain itself and its perpetrators. Only when we are "clear" on this can we move on to freeing ourselves from it, should we choose this as the wise and appropriate course of action. Once we actually take it upon ourselves to "think" and ponder on these things which hold such powerful sway over our daily lives, then we begin to realize we have been gambling the entire time, that we haven't really understood the rules of the game and that the "dealer" has "stacked the deck" against us.

Assuming we are able to see that we really are mere "gamblers", let us use this in our next analogy. We must attempt to understand the truth that a slow, continual removal of money from the supply in circulation will, inevitably, transfer all the "real" wealth in the nation to the lender who is the recipient of all compensatory indebtedness premiums. Let us imagine ourselves engaged in a game of "poker" or "dice", wherein the players must purchase their "chips" (which are the game's medium of exchange) from a "banker/dealer" who does not risk any chips of his own in the game, but, rather, he simply scrutinizes the playing table and, every hour or so, reaches into the "pot" and removes ten or fifteen percent of all the chips on the table for his "services" as "banker/dealer", since the players originally got their chips from him at the start of the game. As the game progresses, the amount of chips in the hands of the individual players will rise and fall in accordance with his good or bad "luck" as circumstances dictate. However, the TOTAL number of chips available to play the game (carry on commerce) will decrease as time passes. As the game gets lower and lower on chips, some of the players will run out. If they wish to continue playing, they must then buy or borrow more chips from the "banker/dealer".

In the poker or dice game of "real-life", the "banker/dealer" will only agree to sell (lend) them more chips if the player signs a "mortgage" whereby, in the event he is unable to make scheduled payments of a specific amount toward the repayment of all the chips he borrowed, plus some extra ones (interest), on time, whether he wins or loses (profits or not), he will relinquish his ownership rights to some real property, such as an auto, home, farm or business, etc.

It does not take a genius to figure out that no matter how skillfully one plays, ultimately the banker will end up with all of his original chips which he loaned out, and, except for a few of the very best players, the remainder, if they keep playing long enough will surely be forced to relinquish their homes, farms and businesses, maybe even their autos and other valuables and even the shirts off their backs. Looking realistically at the analogy just used, the "real-life" scenario is, of course, considerably worse than any poker game, since a poker player is not "forced" to go into debt, and he may quit whenever he chooses and keep what he still has.

In "real-life", even if we stay personally out of the clutches of the bankers, the local, State and Federal governments borrow billions of dollars in our name, pledging what is ours, squander it, then confiscate our earnings to pay back these unscrupulous bankers with interest. We are "forced", without our consent, to play the game, and no one can avoid participating, except by death, and our children must continue to pay after we are gone. If we are unable to pay, our property is seized by the government agents and turned over to the bankers. The bankers risk absolutely nothing in this game, they simply collect their percentage on a continuing basis and ultimately "win the entire pot" as well.

In the gambling centers such as Las Vegas, the "games" are rigged to assure that the "returns" are always well above the losses and the profits are in the millions. In a central banking system, such as the Federal Reserve, the "games" are also rigged, except here they never have anything to lose, everything to gain, and the profits are in the mega-billions.

The bankers, in recent years, have also begun playing with real "cards" as well. "Credit cards" are enthusiastically touted as a major convenience and an essential boon to trade and commerce. In truth, they are an ingenious and cunning means by which the bankers are able to squeeze two percent to five percent out of every retailer’s product sales and up to twenty percent in interest per annum from the buyer in the same transaction.

Yes, my fellow Americans, the deck of "cards", with which we play the game of life financially, is definitely "stacked" against us. The analogy you have just read is a simplified but graphic schematic which describes the mechanism behind the term "capitalism". In other words this is how it "really" works.

Keep smiling, however, there are even more hidden amusements in the "game". Keeping our mind focussed on the "poker game" analogy, let us return once again to 1930 and circumstances in the "real world".

America, at that time, was certainly not lacking industrial capability, skilled and willing labor, fertile agricultural land or enterprising farm families. Our nation had already established an extensive, modern and extremely efficient, transport system with its railroads, highway networks and our oceanic and inland waterways. The systems for communication, utilizing radio, telephone, teletype and well-run government postal service between the many regions and localities, were, probably, the best anywhere in the world. No wars had devastated the cities or ravaged the country-side, no disease, plague or pestilence had enfeebled the people of the country, no famine had undermined or weakened the health of the masses. Only one single factor nearly destroyed this previously powerful nation: it lacked an adequate supply of money to carry on trade and commerce.

Bankers, the only source of new money and credit in the 1930's, deliberately refused loans to industries, stores and farming enterprises. Payments on loans already in effect were mercilessly demanded on time, however, and, of course, the money supply rapidly disappeared from circulation.

Let us not forget the mysterious visit to America's banking elite before and during the market "Crash of '29", by the eminent British Statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, and the subsequent and rather sudden transfer of American gold to the British coffers. (Gold being the "stuff" of which our currency system was faithfully backed at that time.) Goods were available to be purchased, there was plenty of work to be done, but the shortage of money literally paralyzed our entire country. Was this a "test run" for what is yet to come?

In the wake of this treacherous maneuver, coordinated and executed in collusion with another government, the American people were plunged helplessly into a "depression" which was controlled by a few unbelievably greedy bankers who very smoothly, quietly and "legally" took possession of hundreds of thousands of homes, farms and business properties with an absolute minimum of inconvenience to themselves.

The victims of course, were informed quite sympathetically, no doubt, that "times are difficult", and, "sorry, but money is in very short supply", a problem which, of course, Congress is constitutionally empowered to remedy, when, and as might be needed, to avert such economic hardship. Being ignorant of how the American constitutional system is supposed to function, these people were easily and cruelly plundered and robbed by private "capitalists" of all their earnings, their savings and their property. This, of course, could not have happened were these goldsmith "bankers" governed by Christian/Islamic laws which forbade usury.

No Problem!! A mere ten or fifteen years of struggle and sacrifice to get the country back on its feet and re-establish the "same" system of enslavement all over again; World War II to bolster prosperity, then an era of fear of nuclear annihilation, then Korea, Vietnam, prosperity, more fear... and eventually, we arrive in the present where we discover that we are rapidly approaching the identical tragic scenario once again.

This time, however, the "Power Elite" have added a new, and exceedingly dangerous, twist which will require even greater caution and increased discrimination on the part of us, the American people, indeed, the people of the entire world.

It will be very interesting and enlightening to learn whether we are capable of choosing the "attitude" and "path" which is appropriate to our "survival". We shall see.

- END -

ADDENDUM

* Some of the informative material in this installment, though paraphrased somewhat appears here only as a result of the dedicated and concerned researches of another great American patriot Pastor Sheldon Emry. May he rest in peace.

* For a more complete explanation of this shift from the gold standard to a purely "fiat", fractional reserve banking and currency system read the book, THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD, by author/researcher Pat Riott.