| On St. Patrick's Day, people of all national origins raise | | | | money created as accounting-entry loans without |
| a glass and declare, "Today we're all a bit Irish!" This | | | | even incurring the cost of a printing press. Except for |
| may be truer than we know. The Irish were driven | | | | coins, the entire U.S. money supply is now created as |
| to America by debt, and they are leading the | | | | a debt to private bankers. Banks create the principal |
| Western world in household debt today. The London | | | | but not the interest necessary to pay back their |
| Daily Telegraph reported on March 13, 2008 that | | | | loans, so more money is always owed back than |
| household debt in Ireland has reached 190 percent of | | | | was put into the money supply in the first place. |
| disposable income, the highest in the developed | | | | More loans must therefore continually be taken out |
| world; and that the Irish banking system is suffering | | | | to cover the interest, spiraling the economy into |
| such acute strains from the downturn in the housing | | | | increasing levels of debt and inflation, in a futile |
| market that it may have to nationalize its banks. The | | | | attempt to repay principal and interest on a debt |
| same may soon be happening in the United States, | | | | that is actually impossible to repay. The result is "debt |
| and for much the same reasons. | | | | peonage," and it has systematically reduced the |
| DEBT DRIVES THE IRISH TO AMERICA | | | | people to working for the company store, bound to |
| A short review of the history of the Irish in North | | | | their corporate masters for the food, shelter and |
| America reveals that few were here before 1845, | | | | health care formerly provided by slave owners under |
| when a disease struck the potato crops of Ireland, | | | | the old physical-slave system. |
| wiping out the chief or only source of food for many | | | | THE COLONIAL ALTERNATIVE: THE |
| poor farmers. Famine continued for the next five | | | | PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEM OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S |
| years, killing over 2.5 million people. "God put the blight | | | | DAY |
| on the potatoes," complained the Irish farmers, "but | | | | This is not the only way to run an economy. Until |
| England put the hunger upon Ireland." Farmers who | | | | 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed, |
| were heavily in debt were shipped to England to pay | | | | the European system of debt peonage competed |
| the rent owed to their landlords. Impoverished Irish | | | | with what was called "the American system" - |
| immigrants saved what little money they could to | | | | debt-free government-issued dollars generated by |
| send family members across the Atlantic, traveling on | | | | provincial governments to pay their expenses. This |
| overcrowded ships on which many died of disease or | | | | "greenback" system was not actually used in the |
| hunger on the way. When they arrived, the Irish men | | | | United States after the American colonies became a |
| had to fight - often physically - to get labor jobs | | | | nation, except during the Civil War; but the "American |
| involving long hours and low pay; while the women | | | | system" flourished for decades in colonial America. |
| worked mainly as servants (called "Brigets") to | | | | Paper money was issued by local provincial |
| upper-class families. Despite their very low wages, | | | | governments not only to pay their own expenses |
| they managed to send a bit of money back to their | | | | but as commercial loans. The most effective and |
| families, until other family members had enough to | | | | efficient of these government-issued money |
| buy the ship tickets to America. In the American | | | | systems was in Pennsylvania, where a publicly-owned |
| South (mainly New Orleans), the Irish lived in swamp | | | | bank issued paper notes and lent them to farmers. |
| land infested with disease. Here, Irish men were | | | | Since this money returned to the government, it did |
| looked upon as actually lower than slaves. As one | | | | not inflate the money supply; and since the |
| historian put it, if a plantation owner lost a slave, he | | | | government issued and spent an additional sum of |
| lost an investment; if he lost a laborer, he could | | | | money on public works, enough money was kept in |
| always get another. Because the Irish workers were | | | | the system to pay the interest on the loans and |
| plentiful and expendable, they were often sent in to | | | | prevent the debt spiral afflicting the private banking |
| do dangerous jobs for which the slave-owners were | | | | system. The Pennsylvania system worked so well |
| reluctant to send their valuable slaves. | | | | that it completely funded the provincial government |
| DEBT SLAVERY REPLACES PHYSICAL SLAVERY | | | | without taxes or inflation. |
| This form of "debt slavery" or "debt peonage" was | | | | Benjamin Franklin and others maintained that the chief |
| not just an accidental development of history. It was | | | | reason for the American Revolution was that |
| a deliberately-planned alternative to the slave | | | | Parliament forbade the colonies from issuing their |
| arrangement in which owners were responsible for | | | | own money. Paper money issued by the |
| the feeding and care of a dependent population, and | | | | Revolutionary government got the colonists through |
| it is still with us today. | | | | the Revolutionary War, but the British heavily |
| Although European financiers were in favor of an | | | | counterfeited this money as a deliberate war tactic, |
| American Civil War that would return the United | | | | and by the end of the war it had been inflated so |
| States to its colonial status, they admitted privately | | | | much that it was nearly worthless. Fear of inflation |
| that they were not necessarily interested in | | | | led the Continental Congress to completely omit |
| preserving slavery. They preferred "the European | | | | paper money from the Constitution, which does not |
| plan": capital could exploit labor by controlling the | | | | say who can issue paper money or under what |
| money supply, while letting the laborers feed | | | | circumstances. The private banks filled the breach, |
| themselves. In July 1862, this ploy was revealed in a | | | | and by 1913 the United States had the same private |
| notorious document called the Hazard Circular, which | | | | central banking system that England had. |
| was circulated by British banking interests among | | | | Today, the pyramid scheme of lending 10 dollars and |
| their American banking counterparts. It said: | | | | requiring 11 back has resulted in the very inflationary |
| "Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power | | | | spiral the Founding Fathers feared. The money supply |
| and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my | | | | is inflated with more and more debt, shrinking the |
| European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the | | | | value of the dollars paid to workers and propelling |
| owning of labor and carries with it the care of the | | | | larger and larger portions of the population into debt |
| laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is | | | | peonage. If the government were to issue its own |
| that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. | | | | money rather than borrowing from banks that issued |
| This can be done by controlling the money. The great | | | | it, and if this money were used to pay for real goods |
| debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the | | | | and services (roads and bridges, sustainable energy |
| war, must be used as a means to control the volume | | | | development, health services, and the like), demand |
| of money. To accomplish this, the bonds | | | | and supply would remain in balance and inflation would |
| [government debt to the bankers] must be used as | | | | not result. A government with a properly designed |
| a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the | | | | and monitored system of publicly-issued money could |
| greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any | | | | fund itself without taxes, inflation or debt. |
| length of time, as we cannot control that." | | | | Publicly-owned banks are also called "national" banks |
| A system of "debt peonage" is inextricably linked to | | | | or "nationalized" banks - the very thing that threatens |
| a banking system in which money is issued privately | | | | the private banking system in Ireland today. We |
| by bankers and lent to the government rather than | | | | have come full circle: a system of national banks is |
| being issued as "greenbacks" by the government | | | | what used to be called "the American system." This |
| itself Today the "European plan" has evolved into the | | | | may be what we actually need - a public banking |
| private central banking system, and it has come to | | | | system operating for the benefit of the public. The |
| dominate the economies of the world. A private | | | | private European system of debt peonage has failed. |
| central bank creates money simply by printing it or | | | | Today, we the modern-day Irish of all persuasions |
| entering it as an accounting entry, then lends it to | | | | can raise a glass to the possibility of being freed |
| the federal government in exchange for government | | | | from the debt peonage that has kept us |
| bonds or debt. Private commercial banks create | | | | wage-slaves for most of our national history. |
| many more dollars in the same way, advancing | | | | |