The redemption movement consists of supporters of an American conspiracy theory. Redemption theory involves claims that when the U.S. government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so that it could borrow money. Other theories claim this happened in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. The movement also asserts that common citizens can gain access to funds in secret accounts using obscure procedures and regulations.
According to the theory, the government created a fictitious person (or "straw man") corresponding to each newborn citizen with bank accounts initially holding $630,000. The theory further holds that through obscure procedures under the Uniform Commercial Code, a citizen can "reclaim" the straw man and write checks against its accounts.
There have been many well-publicized convictions of citizens attempting to take advantage of this theory. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regards the instructors and promoters of Redemption schemes as fraudsters while the Internal Revenue Service has included the "straw man" claim in its list of frivolous positions that may result in the imposition of a $5,000 penalty when used as the basis for an inaccurate tax return.
Read more about Redemption Movement: Redemption Theory, Legal Status, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words redemption and/or movement:
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities—a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces—a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)