[Spin City]

It's been going downhill since the early 1800's but it started picking up speed in 1913 with the introduction of the Federal Reserve Act which put America's monetary policy squarely in the hands of a banking cartel called the Federal Reserve (which is neither Federal nor in possesion of any reserves). The Cartel (The Fed) has five objectives:

1) Stop competition from other banks.

2) Obtain a franchise to create money out of nothing (the fiat money in your wallets right now) for the purpose of lending.

3) Get control of all the reserves in all banks (AKA the Fed's prime rate) so that the more reckless ones wound not expose the banking industry to currency drains and bank runs.

4) Get the taxpayer to pick up the tab for cartel's invevitable losses (disquised by the acronym "FDIC").

5) Convice members of congress that dealing with the cartel is in their best interest. This is an easy argument since fiat money (money created on demand from nothing) makes it childishly simple for congress to raise vast amounts of money without the unpopular task of raising taxes-- where do you think the 100s of billions of dollars spent on recent wars comes from. Ultimately the taxpayer picks up the tab by means of a hidden tax called "inflation" as ever increasing amounts of money flood the market. Think about it for a while and you'll realize that government has an ingenious way of transfering your personal wealth into their coffers and you don't even know you've been taxed. No one even complains until it takes a wheel barrow full of cash to buy gallon of milk.

That's certainly not our country's only problem, but it's a big one.

SC