Federal Reserve System Issues and Interviews in The Film
The film examines the Federal Reserve System, including its genesis and functions. The film asserts that the Federal Reserve System is a system of privately held, for profit corporations, not a government agency, and that it was commissioned to print fiat money on behalf of the federal government, at a fee ultimately paid for by the personal income tax (through service on bond interest). The film also refers to the fact that the United States dollar is not backed by gold, and states that this means the dollar has no real backing other than future income tax payments. Consequently, the film states that Federal Reserve Notes represent debt instead of wealth.
The film argues that the Federal Reserve System operates by manipulation of what is sometimes referred to as the business cycle of economic expansion and retraction by putting new notes into circulation to increase the ease of obtaining credit, which devalues the currency, then compounds inflation by increasing interest (prime) rates. The movie argues that this manipulation is responsible for a 96% devaluation of American currency, since it was made possible to increasingly sever the link with gold backing by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The film says that this process of creating new money and adding it to the money supply is known as debasement and is a cause of inflation. In this way, the film concludes that the Federal Reserve System simultaneously controls the supply of money and its value.
The central thesis of the film may be that this monetary policy is the strongest form of governance that has ever existed, and is central to the unconstitutional, global power ambitions of the interests that supposedly control the Federal Reserve System.
The film also asserts that the private interests it claims are controlling the Federal Reserve System have been present for generations. The film proposes that most Americans are kept ignorant of how the Federal Reserve operates through actions of corrupt politicians and an increasingly centralized media. By using what the film calls legalistic and economic "mumbo-jumbo” terms such as 'monetizing the debt' or ‘adjusting monetary policy for increased fluidity of credit’, these interests, according to the film, conceal the true actions of the Fed behind veils of legitimacy. Interviews are made with several organizations and elected legislators, who support these views.
An argument made in the film is that there is no reason why the Federal Reserve System should have a monopoly on the U.S. money supply. The film asserts that "America got along just fine before the Federal Reserve came into existence." This leads the film to the question of why the Federal Reserve System was created.
The film contends that the U.S. Congress has no control or oversight over the Fed, and hence has no control over the value of U.S. money. The film argues that Congressional control over the value of money is required by Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. The phrase in question (clause 5) states that the United States Congress shall have the power "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin..."
The film includes a call to action to abolish the Federal Reserve. In 2007, the Boston Globe stated that Congressman Ron Paul, "says he doesn't agree with all the film's arguments, but he says the film had 'a huge impact' on the support his campaign is drawing", a reference to Paul's presidential bid in 2007 and 2008.
Read more about this topic: America: Freedom To Fascism
Famous quotes containing the words federal, reserve, system, issues, interviews and/or film:
“Goodbye, boys; I’m under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don’t surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We now come to the grand law of the system in which we are placed, as it has been developed by the experience of our race, and that, in one word, is SACRIFICE!”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“The “universal moments” of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in society: a facing through one’s children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one’s own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“If the justices would only retire when they have become burdens to the court itself, or when they recognize themselves that their faculties have become impaired, I would grieve sincerely when they passed away, and you would not feel like such a hypocrite as you do when you are going through the formality of sending telegrams of condolence and giving out interviews for propriety’s sake.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)