Quotes about Monetary system

It will be asked how will the two masses of Continental and of State money have cost the people of the United States seventy-two millions of dollars, when they are to be redeemed now with about six million? I answer that the difference, being sixty-six millions, has been lost on the paper bills separately by the successive holders of them. Every one, through whose hands a bill passed, lost on that bill what it lost in value during the time it was in his hands. This was a real tax on him; and in this way the people of the United States actually contributed those sixty-six millions of dollars during the war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive of all because the most unequal of all.

The prevailing monetary policies of the Fed determine whether money is easy or tight, that is, whether the monetization of government debt will be sufficient to provide private borrowers with the amounts of money needed to pay what they owe to the banks, or whether it will fall short. These actions by the Fed are largely responsible for the business cycle and periodic rounds of inflation and recession. Through the various mechanisms under its control—interest rates on loans it makes to banks, purchase or sale of government securities, and setting bank reserve requirements—the Fed has the power to decide whose interests will be favored and whose will be harmed.

Fiat money and sustainable society are not compatible.

Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave.

If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is.

It is well enough that people or the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system for it they did, I believe that there would be a revolution before morning.