MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR February 10-16

 

FEBRUARY 10

1808 – STATE OF OHIO GRANTS CHARTER TO BANK OF MARIETTA
This was the first bank chartered by the State of Ohio – and one of the earliest of any kind in the state. Once the charter or license was granted, the bank’s directors and stockholders (as with all banks) were provided the incredible privilege not available to farmers, artisans, or workers of any kind – the license to print money. Their paper bills were deemed legitimate by the state government by agreeing to accept them in payment of certain fees, etc.
The legal contradictions between bankers and farmers of that time (as well as today?) is summarized by author Jason Goodwin: “There seemed to be one set of laws for bankers, and another set for everyone else. For subsistence farmers working dawn till dusk the sums involved seemed obscene, and the principles of banking defied common sense. Armed with a charter, a banker could print money on demand to manufacture, out of thin air, a substance other people would pay him to possess. Yet he didn’t own it to begin with: it wasn’t anything but a promise, written on paper, to pay gold on demand—and he didn’t have the gold.”

FEBRUARY 11

1847 – BIRTH OF THOMAS EDISON, US INVENTOR
“If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good… If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency… instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people’s credit in interest-bearing bonds?”

2004 – RON PAUL, US CONGRESSMAN, SPEAKING TO THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
He referred to the Federal Reserve by stating, “maybe there’s too much power in the hands of those who control monetary policy?  The power to create the financial bubbles.  The power to maybe bring the bubble about. The power to change the value of the stock market within minutes.  That to me is just an ominous power and challenges the whole concept of freedom and liberty and sound money.”

2005 – PUBLICATION OF “DEATH BY BANKING” BY FINANCIAL COMMENTATOR
HANS SCHICHT
“Year after year the Banker’s slice of the world’s asset baskets has been growing and growing. The Banker has become almighty. Through a network of anonymous financial spider webbing only a handful of global King Bankers own and control it all. Big Brother has come to us in the striped suit of the Banker.
“Everybody, people, enterprise, State and foreign countries, all have become slaves chained to the Banker’s credit ropes. And on top of being robbed, all slaves are “dutifully” paying their “legal” tribute in the form of interest to the same Banker, who is continuing stealing their assets. If prime ministers and presidents would only be blessed with the most basic knowledge of the perversity of banking, they would not go onto their knees to the Central Banker and ask His Highness for loans, loan extensions or plead not to increase interest rates!”

FEBRUARY 12

1791 – BIRTH OF PETER COOPER, US INDUSTRIALIST, PHILANTHROPIST (FOUNDED COOPER UNION) AND GREENBACK CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT
“The substitution of greenbacks for National bank notes would have the bounty now paid to banks, which, being invested as a sinking fund, would in less than thirty years pay off the whole debt of the country.”

1809 – BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.”
Under Lincoln’s administration, the US Government issued 450 million “Greenbacks” – interest and inflation free money. They weren’t government bill, bonds or any other debt-bearing note. They were actual US money.
“The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity.”

1873 – COINAGE ACT PASSED BY CONGRESS (THE “CRIME OF ‘73”)
The Coinage Act removed silver as a form of currency (“demonetized) – leaving gold as the major form of US currency. The public didn’t realize at first what happened. With silver no longer a form of money, the overall amount of currency dramatically declined, causing the prices farmers received for their produce to drop (deflation) but the cost of their debts rise. Thousand of famers lost their land. Those who held silver also suffered. This was one of the sparks of the rise of the farmer-led US Populist movement.

Greg Howard – Candidate for Congress 6th District

Long time Meigs County, Ohio resident Greg Howard, today filed his petition to run for the United States Congress in Ohio’s 6^th district.  Howard said he decided to run to press for an overhaul in our economy; an economy that presently fails to provide for full employment at a living wage.

The seat is currently held by Republican Bill Johnson, whom Howard criticizes as blocking economic reforms which would help average Americans.   Howard emphasized: “I will push for a substantial increase in the minimum wage and the retraining of unemployed workers.”  He said it is also critical, “to extend unemployment compensation for the long-term unemployed

Beyond the immediate, Greg Howard supports an amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish corporate constitutional rights.  He calls the Citizen United decision an “abomination.”  Howard describes corporations as valuable economic tools, but adds “they should not be allowed to dominate our political life.”

Howard is a member of the Meigs County Democratic Central Committee, comes from a family of union pipefitters and has a B.S. in civil engineering from Ohio State.  He has had extensive experience as a construction engineer on large projects, including power, petro chem. and hazardous materials remediation in several states.  He and his wife, Geraldine Howard, currently operate Gibson Ridge Farm, a certified organic farm.  They also manufacture and market the Gibson Ridge Portable Egg Washer.  They attend the Albany Baptist Church.

On others issues, Howard said he “opposes the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) because I believes that, like NAFTA, it will result in shipping American jobs overseas.”  He said he would work to eliminate the special exemptions to the Clean Air and Water Act for shale oil and gas extraction that were written into the Energy Act of 2005.

Howard intends to push for monetary reform.  He points out that the current federal reserve system of money creation, as credit, by private banks has pushed governments, businesses and the great majority of citizens deeply into debt.  “It is time to end the uncontrolled creation of money, most of which flows to Wall Street instead of Main Street,” said Howard.  “It is bizarre and tragic that the government, which is constitutionally charged with the duty to create money, instead borrows from banks to which it gave away the privilege of money creation, and then pays the banks interest on this money from taxpayer pockets.”

It is time to have money created as a public asset, rather than as public debt.  Monetary reform can pave the way to job-creating investment in the nation’s infrastructure, and could ultimately result in the balancing of the federal budget and the paying off of the national debt.  It would also rein in the ’too big to fail, too big to jail‘ Wall Street banks, whose business practices put us into the economic slump that are we are in currently.

Gregory Howard
41329 Gibson Road, Albany, Ohio 45710
(740) 698-3330

MONETARY HISTORY CALENDAR February 3 – 9

FEBRUARY 3

1690 – FIRST PAPER CURRENCY IN BRITISH COLONIES ISSUED
Massachusetts becomes the first British colony to issue paper money. The money was used to facilitate economic transactions in the absence of British money.

1913 – RATIFICATION OF THE 16TH AMENDMENT, ESTABLISHMENT OF THE US FEDERAL INCOME TAX
The income tax provides a guaranteed and consistent source of income for the payment of any federal government function, including payment of interest on national debt. It was ratified earlier in the same year as passage of the Federal Reserve Act which turned over the nation’s money power to a private central bank. Many economists believe the dollar holds its value better than the Euro in times of economic crisis since US interest payments from debt can be covered by US income taxes. There is no equivalent European income tax to cover Euro debts. This provides investors greater confidence in the dollar over the Euro.

1924 – DEATH OF WOODROW WILSON, 28TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND SIGNER OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men, who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. (1911)
[Note: Despite such misgivings, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act two years later]

FEBRUARY 4

2005 – STATEMENT OF HANS SCHICHT, AUTHOR
“The fact that the Banker is allowed to extend credit several times his own capital base and that the Banking Cartels, the Central Banks, are licensed to issue fresh paper money in exchange for treasury paper, have provided them with free lunch for eternity. Thanks to the stupidity and corruption of the legislators. And thanks to the great pundits and journalists, that never understood the crux of fiat money and thus never managed to explain the blatant, ongoing legalized robbery of the people by means of the financial fiat system!

“For over 150 years this robbery has been going on, recently increasing hyperbolically and building to an ultimate crisis. Year after year the Banker’s slice of the world’s asset baskets has been growing and growing. The Banker has become almighty. Through a network of anonymous financial spider webbing only a handful of global King Bankers own and control it all. Big Brother has come to us in the striped suit of the Banker.” (from “The Death of Banking and Macro Politics” February 4, 2005)

FEBRUARY 6

1756 – BIRTH OF AARON BURR, POLITICIAN, BUSINESSPERSON, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Burr and others convinced New York City council to charter the Manhattan Corporation in 1799. Its purpose was to raise dams and divert water throughout the city in response to the outbreak of yellow fever. A provision of the charter allowing the company to divert its excess capital in any activity “not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” This vague clause enabled the company to engage in banking activities. Alexander Hamilton (who later Burr killed in a famous duel) said, “He (Burr) has latterly, by a trick, established a bank — a perfect monster in its principles, but a very convenient instrument of profit and influence.” The Manhattan Corporation was the predecessor of what is now the J.P. Morgan Chase bank – one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S.