Grievance 44 - Manipulation

The U.S. Constitution failed to protect Americans from detrimental
monopoly control and manipulation of the nation's money supply by
private people meeting in a private boardroom and operating for private
financial gain. The system of out-of-public-view exclusivity was the
single most powerful element that could economically devastate the
nation and disrupt much of the world. Warnings of such control had been
heard since the birth of the nation, including from Thomas Jefferson.
Numerous researchers and authors probed the "Federal Reserve" Board's
heirarchical monopoy money system from the time of its legalization
under questionable circumstances in 1913. The fact that it was not a
public agency of the Federal government while holding immense economic
power, prompted former Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor William
Grieder to write the book "Secrets of the Temple" (1987);

"...it runs the country...the crucial
anomaly at the core of representative
democracy."

Board membership was closed to popular election.

Author G. Edward Griffin, in "The Creature from Jekyll Island" (1994),
alleged the Board's power even extended worldwide through the similarly
unelected Board's of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank,
which could control or manipulate foreign governments through granting,
or denying taxpayer-backed loans.

A single utterance from the private Board could influence the wealth and
financial status of every American with financial market swings up and
down, as well as the value of the money itself. In the 1990's, Board
Chairman Alan Greenspan projected the truth of the Board's power in
playing on the famous words of Harry Truman that the "buck stops here",
meaning the Presidency. On Greenspan's desk was a plaque;

"The buck STARTS here."

With legal power to dictate money supplies and interest rates, the Board
oversaw depreciation of the Dollar to less than ten cents over its first
80 years of operation to 1993. When it inflated the money supply by a
relatively low 0.2 percent per month, it falsely labeled it as "benign
inflation", a contradiction of words in view of the fact that any amount
of lost money value is not "promoting the well-being" of the people
at-large. While claiming "economic stability", Increasing the money
supply guaranteed continued loss of Dollar value, resulting in demands
for wage increases and other economic pressures.

Board members had potential conflicts of interest. Greenspan held at
least $2.4 million in short-term Treasury securities and $466,000 in
money market and credit union accounts at the end of 1997 while having
insider information and a "trigger finger" on policies that could bring
personal gain.

In the book "The Buck Starts Here" (1995), author David M. Jones told
how secret shifts in Board money policy could manipulate investors;

"...when the Fed is easing, or increasing
the availability of credt, interest rates on
short-term money market investments
such as Treasury bills and bank CD's
will decline immediately, and bond yields
will eventually follow suit. That's your
signal to turn toward long-term bonds
and stocks..."

Investors could only second-guess the Board in its private decisions and
followup actions, that affected the nation and much of the world, while
insiders could profit by acting early on them.

Any erroneous assessments by the Board could result in an economic
decline or "crash" which, in turn, could cause great hardship of the
people at-large and radical actions by the government, including the
closing of banks to prevent patrons from taking their money out of the
institutions. A deliberate policy of economic decline could also lead
to radical change in the makeup of government, and some researchers and
authors claimed money controllers and manipulators conspired to make it
occur in 1929. In any event, the Boardroom operates privately and the
public is uninformed about its deliberations until after the fact.

With an AUTHENTIC CONSTITUTION in harmony with the natural
Cosmic Lawsof the universe, and producing High Moral Values and
Democratic Ideals, competitive money and barter systems are created in
the marketplace of free exchange for a stable economy.