G. Edward Griffin on Ron Paul’s HR 1207, Ending the Fed, and Returning to the Gold Standard

G. Edward Griffin, author of “The Creature from Jekyll Island“, joins Gary Franchi on the latest edition of the Reality Report to discuss the creation of the Federal Reserve, HR 1207, competing currencies and fields questions from the viewers.

Transcript

Gary Franchi: Hello, Gary Franchi here for another edition of the Reality Report on Freedom.TV. The state of the economy seems to be mentioned everywhere. Grocery stores have often highly advertised priced cuts, auto companies are offering to sell your car, and then provide you the chance to give it back with no strings if you lose your jobs, even fastfood outlets are offering economic slump meal deals. Will all this really help the economy? Will this solve the problem?

Understanding the root of the problem is essential to solving it. Several years ago, a book was published by a man who has been exposing the power brokers in Washington for decades. That book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, the man, G. Edward Griffin and he joins us now. But before we discuss with him the problems and solutions regarding the Federal Reserve system, let’s take a quick break.

— BREAK —

Gary Franchi: Welcome back to the Reality Report. Joining us now to discuss that creature, the Federal Reserve, is author and filmmaker, G. Edward Griffin.

Ed Griffin, welcome to the Reality Report. It’s a pleasure to have you here. I want to talk to you about a lot of things are going on in the economy and I want to talk to you as well about the Federal Reserve. You know, it’s a big topic right now because the dollar is dropping, because of the bailouts, because they’re popping money into the system, and we have a lot of people who are now learning about the Federal Reserve.

They are learning about it because the Fed is pumping money into the system. You know, they want to know where all these money is coming from. I’d like to give our viewers a brief overview of the Fed; how it came into being and I’d also like to ask you what inspired you to begin looking into the Federal Reserve system?

G. Edward Griffin: Okay, Gary. That’s a long, boring story. I would just try to make it a short, boring story about how I got involved. It was one of those evolutionary things where some years ago I was active in producing a series of video documentaries and I decided that a good topic would be inflation; what’s the cause of inflation and what to do about it.

So that started me to research on that topic and, of course, right away that leads you to the Federal Reserve system, which is the engine of inflation. So I started to gather my research material. I got whatever books were already written on the topic and I did some library research and dug in some old newspapers and that sort of things, and I filled up a boxful of research paper and no, I never did produce the documentary. I got sidetracked on something else and that box of research just sat there in my closet for quite a while.

Then some years later, a lady who was the president of a local activist group in the Los Angeles area asked me if I would come to her group and give a speech on taxes. I said, “I didn’t know much about taxes except they were too high and I was against them, but what else can I say? But however, I can perhaps say something intelligent on that hidden tax called inflation. Would you be interested in that?”

And she said, “Oh, sure.”

So then what I did was I cobbled together a talk on that topic and it was well received and they encouraged me to put it on the road, which I did and that grew into an all-day seminar called “A Crash Course on Money”, and I was really having a good time putting that seminar on and then finally one day I looked in the mirror and I looked at myself and said, “You know, Edward. You don’t really know enough about the real markets out there. You know about inflation and the banking system, but people were asking me what to do with their money.”

They thought because I knew about the Federal Reserve, that I was, you know, a kind of a person that could tell them how to protect themselves from inflation and what kind of investments to make and all that sort of thing, which I was not qualified to do. So I stopped the seminars and I enrolled in a school. That was the College for Financial Planning in Denver and I attended that for a couple of years and I got my certificate, not because I wanted to be a financial planner, which I didn’t and am not, but I got my certificate to be one, and my goal was just to learn about the real markets and what investments were and so forth.

So and then I started to do research for the book and that took seven more years and so as you can see it was a long story. Finally, I finished the book in 1994 and it’s been kind of an amazing carriage ride ever since then because I thought that nobody really was that interested in reading about Federal Reserve system, but to my amazement, the book had sold very well and it’s been selling even better of late now that we’ve got this financial meltdown. We’re now at 24th printing of the book. Every time we print it, I update it somewhat and try to, you know, bring the statistics up to date and replace the old names with the new names, but the story doesn’t change.

So that’s the story behind it, and so what is the story about what the Fed is? What I discovered, Gary and you know it so well, is that the Federal Reserve system is not what it appears to be at all. It’s one of the greatest, what shall I say is, it’s an impostor that you could ever imagine. It pretends to be a government agency. It pretends to be an institution of public spirited servants who were defending the economy of the American people and trying to stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar and all of those things, when it is none of those things.

In fact, what I discovered is that the Federal Reserve system, instead of being a government agency is really a cartel. It’s a cartel just like a banana cartel or an oil cartel or a sugar cartel. It happens to be a banking cartel and the purpose of any cartel, regardless of what its public pronouncements are, the purpose of any cartel is to expand and enhance the benefit of the members of the cartel. And so the Federal Reserve chairman and the boards of all these Federal Reserve system banks around the country, they have one primary objective and that’s to enhance the benefit of the banks.

It wouldn’t go over too well if they said that in their public pronouncements and so they say other things. They say, “Well, we raised interest rates today because we want to put a lid on inflation because inflation is bad for you, folks.”

Now, they said that always they’re doing it for us, you see, and nevertheless, that’s wonderful. I’m glad we’ve got these wise and benevolent leaders doing all that for us, but when in reality, if the chairman said, “Well, we raised interest rates today because we taught we could get away with it and enhance the profits of the banks”, that wouldn’t go over too good.

So anyway, the first thing I learned about the Federal Reserve System was shocking and that is it wasn’t what it appeared to be. It was a cartel and what they did is they wrote their own cartel agreement and then they brought the government into it. They influenced politicians, that’s another story as to how they did that, but they got the politicians to take their cartel agreement and enact it into law. They called the cartel agreement the Federal Reserve Act and now all of the banks and all the financial institutions have to comply with the cartel agreement or they go to jail.

So it’s just the opposite of what it appears to be. People think that the Federal Reserve System was created by the government as a means of controlling and regulating the banks, but in reality, the Federal Reserve System was created by the banks as a means of controlling and regulating the government and that’s the reality of today. I used to say that and people thought I was a wingnut of some kind, but now it’s out in the open and you can see it.

The banks are in trouble and so instead of helping the people, they’re fleecing the people, taking their money from them and giving it to the banks, all in the name, of course, of helping the people. So in a nutshell, that’s the story.

Gary Franchi: This is not the first Central Bank for the United States. There’s been a battle over this for years.

G. Edward Griffin: That’s right. We’ve had three of them.

Gary Franchi: Three, and this is the third one.

G. Edward Griffin: Yeah.

Gary Franchi: How do we get to this? I mean, those other banks, they disappeared. Their charters expired and we’re trying to do the same thing now with this Federal Reserve by introducing audits, abolishing the Board of Governors.

G. Edward Griffin: Well, excuse me. Excuse me, Gary. They didn’t just expire because they got tired and worn out. They expired because there was strong political opposition and Congress refused to renew their charters. It was a battle in both cases.

Gary Franchi: So now…

G. Edward Griffin: And these guys just don’t go away.

G. Edward Griffin: So now, we have this Federal Reserve, this Central Bank in its current formation. It doesn’t have a charter that could ever come for expiration? I mean, they must have… they obviously planned that out.

G. Edward Griffin: Right. All right. It doesn’t have an expiration date or a renewal date, but, of course, it can be rescinded at any time. Congress created the Federal Reserve through an act of Congress. Well, Congress can undo the act. They can just, you know, get rid of it. They can abolish it anytime they want to.

But, of course, of course, they don’t want to because most of these congressmen are so intimately connected with this system. They benefit from it. The key players in this whole financial structure are some of the biggest contributors to the campaign funds for these politicians and they’ve got little side [views].

Gary Franchi: Plus they have all the pork they pad into their bills. I mean, that pork could not otherwise be funded if there wasn’t a Federal Reserve to do so, am I right?

G. Edward Griffin: And that’s absolutely correct, yeah. And I’m not sure that many congressmen think about that, but they just know instinctively that they don’t want to touch the Federal Reserve System. It’s a big, powerful creature and they don’t want to do battle with it and they know that somehow they benefit from it.

Gary Franchi: So let’s go back to 1913. Who were the gentlemen that came together, I would like to call them the guilty party, who were these people who came together to create this creature?

G. Edward Griffin: Well, that’s a very interesting topic in itself. At the time that the Federal Reserve Act was passed into law in 1913, there was a lot of conversation in the press and in public discussions about the Money Trust. The Money Trust was kind of a code name that was used in those days to describe the consortium of big, powerful banks and insurance companies in New York that controlled the credit and the money flow of the nation, and the purpose of the Federal Reserve System supposedly was to break the grip of that group.

Well, the truth of the matter is that that’s exactly the group that wrote the Federal Reserve Act to make sure that their grip would never be broken and in fact, to make sure that their grip would be transferred into law, so that anybody trying to break their grip would go to jail as I mentioned a moment ago.

So who were these people? There were seven of them, Gary. The first one was Nelson Aldrich, he was a senator. He was the Republican whip in the Senate. He was probably the most powerful of the politicians at the time next to the President. He was the chairman of the National Monetary Commission, which is the committee of Congress that drafted the Federal Reserve Act. He was a business associate of JP Morgan. He was father-in-law to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He was tied up in all the financial dealings in New York and very intimately connected with them, a very wealthy person, and you can imagine he’s just the kind of guy who is going to break the grip of the Money Trust. He was number one.

Number two was Abraham Piatt Andrew. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury at that time, which doesn’t describe him too well because it makes him sound like he was a bureaucrat or a politician. His primary connection through family and business experience is banking. He really came from the banking family. He’s very close to Wall Street and that’s the reason he was Secretary of the Treasury.

The third person there was Frank Vanderlip who was president of the National City Bank of New York, which is the most powerful of all the banks at that time and he represented the financial interest of William Rockefeller and the international investment banking house of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company.

The fourth one there was Henry P. Davidson. He was the senior partner of the JP Morgan Company and Charles D. Norton was in that group and he was president of JP Morgan’s First National Bank of New York, another one of the giants.

The sixth person was Benjamin Strong. He was head of JP Morgan’s Bankers Trust and he eventually became the first head of Federal Reserve System.

And finally the seventh person and probably the most knowledgeable of the group in terms of central banking, which is an institution that came from Europe, was Paul Warburg. He was a co-partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Company. He was actually a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France, and throughout all this period, he maintained a very close relationship to his brother Max Warburg who was the head of the Warburg banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands.

So those were the seven people that went to Jekyll Island in 1910 in a highly secret environment there and hammered together all the essential features of what became the Federal Reserve Act and those seven men, according to estimates of the period, Gary, controlled either directly through their own wealth or through the institutions that they represented, they controlled about one-fourth of the wealth of the entire world at that time.

Gary Franchi: Wow.

G. Edward Griffin: So if there was ever a Money Trust, this was it, and the people of America have no idea that this institution called the Federal Reserve System, which we are told is a means of controlling the big, bad bankers and breaking the grip of the Money Trust was actually the creature of the Money Trust and still is so today.

Gary Franchi: So we have… I mean, we’re talking about the bankers creating something to control themselves, which they control, which is completely ludicrous. So now, we’ve got, you know, you see it. You see Goldman Sachs bankers coming and sitting in as treasury secretaries. You know, they recruit everybody from Wall Street to come and sit. It’s like everyone is going to get a turn as a Federal Reserve…

G. Edward Griffin: Man, it’s a big revolving door.

Gary Franchi: Yeah, it’s just a revolving door.

G. Edward Griffin: Yes.

Gary Franchi: It’s just a front and the Fed just continues, “Look, hey, you know what? You need some cash. Let’s pump it into the system for you.”

You know, they are all scratching each others’ backs. You know, they’re sitting in each other’s board of directors, and then there’s the congressional oversight. I mean, how much real congressional oversight is there at Federal Reserve?

G. Edward Griffin: There’s 0.000761 percent, if that, and it’s probably an overestimation. They have no oversight. They have no control whatsoever over this creature. You see, remember, as I said, this is a cartel. The Federal Reserve System is a cartel and its members are the banks, so the Federal Reserve System is owned by the banks and so it’s not surprising that the Federal Reserve System comes to the aid of its members, its member banks. That is its destiny. That’s why that creature was created and when people say, “I wonder why the Federal Reserve is doing this or why would they do that?” And they’re all indignant. They don’t understand what the nature of this creature is. They’ll never get it until they learn its history.

Gary Franchi: So if the Federal Reserve was non-existent, who would be printing the money, so to speak?

G. Edward Griffin: Well, it’s hard to say what these politicians would come up with. They might come up with some other institution just as bad. I mean, politicians generally like to have the government print the money and that could be good or bad depending on what kind of money they print. If they print money that’s backed by gold or silver, it’s an excellent monetary system, but if they print fiat money, which most politicians prefer to do because that gives them great flexibility and political power, then that’s just as bad as the Federal Reserve System.

So but without the Federal Reserve, I think the meaning of your question probably is, is there a better way and, of course, there is a better way than having the Federal Reserve creating our money in the name of the government.

The better way is to have a monetary system that is backed 100 percent by gold or silver or some other commodity, which has intrinsic value, which can be measured and which anybody can produce if they wish to represent the application of human effort to create it.

If you have your money backed by something that takes human effort to create it, now you’ve got a control on the supply of that money. Under those conditions, the supply of money will automatically expand at exactly the same rate that other goods and services expand because other goods and services all will take human effort, and so as long as people are free to choose what goods or services they wish to spend their human effort to create, they can produce shoes or belts or automobiles or gold or silver or at their choice.

It’s their option and so when the values of one as opposed to the other get out of whack a little bit and you can make a better living by mining gold than you can by producing shoes, well then you stop making shoes and you look for a way to get into gold mining and then the gold mining increases and the supply of gold increases and then all of a sudden its price comes back down to the value of shoes and then people go out of mining and back into shoes and so forth.

I’m trying to truncate this explanation, but wherever there has been a case in history where money was backed by something substantial or of intrinsic value like gold or silver, the purchasing power of the money has remained constant over thousands of years.

And the best example I can think of that is to remind people that back in ancient Rome, if a man had a one-ounce gold coin, he could take it to the shops and he could spend it and buy a very nice toga, a handcrafted belt and a pair of sandals. That’s the cost back 2,000 years ago.

Now, 2,000 years had passed, if a man has a gold coin, one ounce of gold, he can swap it for Federal Reserve notes and quickly run to the store before its value decreases and spend it on a very nice suit, a handcrafted belt and a pair of shoes. Its purchase power doesn’t change.

Gary Franchi: I’ve heard you use that analogy a lot and, you know, sometimes I wonder because I’ve gone into like a man’s warehouse and they have like, you know, a suit for $300 and the price, if an ounce of gold is $900, we’re talking about a suit that’s $300, but the price of that suit has gone down so much because of the outsourcing of the jobs and the globalization.

I mean, the suits are now being made in Indonesia for a dollar a day. You know, it’s an irony to this situation and I wanted to ask you as well before we start taking some questions from our viewers, we have… and if you want to go and if you want to ask your questions, go to auditthefed.com. There’s a form on the front page that you can fill out and our administrators will be taking your questions in the back end, so auditthefed.com, go in and submit your questions.

Now, we have Federal Reserve notes and the there’s Treasury notes, US notes, what is the difference between the two or the three I should say?

G. Edward Griffin: What’s the selection again, Gary?

Gary Franchi: Federal Reserve notes, US notes, and Treasury notes.

G. Edward Griffin: Well, the Federal Reserve note is very easy. They’re just pieces of paper with nothing behind them except the power to tax. The Federal Reserve notes, their value is backed by the Federal government, which means that it doesn’t preserve their value, but it means that if you have, let’s say, a government bond that’s to be paid in Federal Reserve notes and let’s say it’s a $1,000 bond and you are informed that it’s a good investment because no matter what, the Federal government is going to pay that because it’s backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, and that makes people feel kind of rosy, you know. Oh, that’s wonderful, the full faith and credit of the, what, the United States government. Where do they get the power to back anything and the answer is through taxation.

So what people are really hearing is that when they buy these bonds, it’s a good investment supposedly because the government will pay that bond back if they have to take everything you have from taxes in order to do it, they will pay that bond back, by golly, so they’ll take it from you in order to pay you. That’s the only thing backing the Federal Reserve note; it’s the power to tax.

Gary Franchi: The US note now. I’m referring to like the Kennedy dollar that was produced after Executive Order 11110. What do you know about that?

G. Edward Griffin: Well, I know a little bit about that Executive Order and that’s another thing, but about the note itself, the US note is, I don’t believe as I get my numbers right, they’re not backed by gold or silver either because that would be a gold or silver certificate, so the US note is no different in its ability to pay you something of value than a Federal Reserve note. They’re both based on the power of taxation. The only difference is that there’s no interest paid to the banks on the creation of the US note, which is some difference, but it’s still not a good piece of money because it doesn’t have anything of value behind it.

Gary Franchi: Now, Ron Paul has got a bill out, I’m sure you know, HR 1207, which is going to audit the Federal Reserve. It’s already got about 71 co-sponsors and the numbers are increasing. It’s in committee. What can we expect out of an audit of the Federal Reserve? Has the Federal Reserve been audited in the past?

G. Edward Griffin: The Federal Reserve has never been externally audited. I’m sure they have their own internal audits all the time to make sure that the books are balanced, but it’s never been externally audited by any private group or certainly not by the government itself, which is a dead giveaway as to its total independence of the government.

If it were a government agency, they wouldn’t have to pass a law to audit it, you see. But it’s not a government agency. It’s never been audited. Okay, but I guess you know since you’ve read my book, if you’ve been a great fan of it and for that I’m greatly appreciative. But I guess, you know I’m not really one of those people that say we should audit the Fed and I’m not opposed to that, by the way. I think it’s a good move to raise public consciousness, but in my book I say, “The Federal Reserve does not need to be audited. It needs to be abolished. We don’t need to audit the Mafia. We need to get rid of it.”

You see, I don’t understand what this auditing is all about. If I think an audit what we can expect is that it will take two or three years and they’ll come up with an amazing conclusion that, “Oh, the Federal Reserve is not doing anything wrong. Its books are clean. We’ve found a little discrepancy there, a little discrepancy there, but wouldn’t you know the Federal Reserve is doing everything it’s supposed to do by law.” That’s what we’re going to find out and in the meantime, people are going to say, “Oh, we’re doing something.” It’s a feel good. It’s a feel good measure. It makes us feel like we’re doing something, but we’re not. We need to abolish the Fed.

Gary Franchi: Well, I agree with you a hundred percent. I believe that the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. I do though think that, you know, for the public, it’s hard for them to say, “Oh, my God. Abolish the Fed,” and they all get nervous and jittery and go back and watch American Idol and have microwave popcorn. I think that the “Audit the Fed” terminology is kind of a soft introduction. I believe to the general public, I think that’s why we’re seeing so many co-sponsors joining onto this bill. I’m wondering though, do you think that an audit would bring maybe a good first step to introducing transparency and then ultimately abolishing the Fed, do you think it’s a good first step?

G. Edward Griffin: Well, you know, I hate to sound negative on this because I want to support this movement. I want to support all the people that are up in arms about the Federal Reserve and I will support that in every way I can.

And I know Congressman Paul is behind this movement and, you know, I’m sure he has thought all of this through and I imagine he came to the same conclusion you just mentioned, that it’s a softer way of raising public awareness of the Fed and focusing on the Fed as an issue whereas previously nobody even talked about the Fed, so I’m all on board for that part of it.

But I just have to express my reservations and I think that that public is coming to the point rapidly now where they’re ready to hear this expression, “Abolish the Fed.” I notice when Congressman Paul was on a campaign trail and whenever the issue came up to abolish the Fed, the place went wild with cheers.

Gary Franchi: Oh, yes.

G. Edward Griffin: I don’t think you need to worry about softening it anymore, and besides, if the movement delays any kind of real solution or not only delays it but forestalls it and prevents it, then it could be a problem.

But anyway, having expressed those concerns and why I say don’t audit the Fed, abolish it, I’m still on board and I’ll help in any way I can.

Gary Franchi: All right and we’re going to jump to a quick break and when we return, we’re going to take some questions from the viewers, so we will be right back with Ed Griffin on the Reality Report.

— BREAK —

Gary Franchi: All right, welcome back to the Reality Report. We’re talking with Ed Griffin, the author of “The Creature from Jekyll Island”. We’re having a great discussion about the Federal Reserve, about its inception, where it’s going. We’re talking about the new bill that’s been introduced by Ron Paul with 71 co-sponsors, HR 1207 to audit the Fed.

Ed, let’s jump into some viewer questions. I know we’ve got a lot of people watching right now. We’ve got so many questions coming in. I will just go right into Britney. Britney in New York is asking, “How do you feel about purchasing gold and silver right now?”

G. Edward Griffin: I always feel good about purchasing gold and silver whether it’s now or last year or ten years ago, every time I have a little money left over that I don’t really need, I prefer to consider gold and silver as my savings account.

I don’t recommend that people buy gold and silver as an investment, but as insurance or a savings. It’s true that under some circumstances that you can do very well investing in gold and silver, you know, especially when the markets go up, but inevitably there’s a correction and the markets do come down.

But if you stand back for five years or longer and look at the charts on gold and silver, in spite of the ups and downs, you see a definite trend. It’s a pretty straight trend and it means that your purchasing power is being preserved.

So I think that holding gold and silver is an excellent idea, but not as an investment, but as insurance to preserve the purchasing power of your savings.

Gary Franchi: Okay, Neal Shackle in Cheska is asking, “Isn’t it true that the American government does not own gold, but rather the owners of the Federal Reserve own on the gold?” So I’m assuming he’s speaking about the private bankers that the gold was transferred to their ownership.

G. Edward Griffin: Yes. Well, Gary, I believe that’s true, although the information that the government puts out is very conflicting at times and very vague. It hard to nail it down. I don’t think that the government holds much of a stockpile of gold at all. Obviously, they do hold some, at least up until very recently they were producing gold coins, so they had that little stockpile, maybe a couple hundred pounds of it or something, but now they’ve even stopped doing that, so I don’t think the government holds any meaningful supply of gold anywhere, certainly not in Fort Knox or any place else.

Yes, I believe that most of the gold that is held in the banking system, at least, is held in the vaults of the members of the Federal Reserve cartel.

Gary Franchi: So we’re not sure what is in Fort Knox?

G. Edward Griffin: I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that.

Gary Franchi: We’re not sure how much gold is in Fort Knox. I mean, could those vaults be empty or could the wealth had been transferred via paper to another owner?

G. Edward Griffin: Yeah, both of those are possible. Yeah, the vault could be full, but it may not belong to the government. But the fact that they won’t let anybody in to examine those vaults is a kind of a clue I think. Why not let the press in? Why not let the representatives of significant organizations in to verify that the gold is there, but they won’t do that, so that to me is a clue that it’s not there.

Gary Franchi: I’ve got a question here from Brad in Tampa, Florida. Brad is asking and I’ve heard this raised before, perhaps you can shed some light. “Is there a provision of the Federal Reserve Act that allows Congress to buy back the shares in the Federal Reserve Corporation at a pre-determined price?”

G. Edward Griffin: I’ve heard that. I cannot recall a provision that allows that specifically, but I’m sure that it’s possible for the Congress when you say to “buy back”. That’s the phrase that throws me. I don’t think Congress ever put any money into it, so how would they buy it back. Well, I think what this is all referring to is that it’s possible for Congress to abolish the Fed and then if the Fed were terminated for any reason, all of the banks that are part of this structure have put in a small amount of money, each of them as their share of the stock which they purchased.

It’s just a modicum amount. It’s just to go through the motions of showing some kind of a cash investment in the system and I think that would be returned to the banks at the same amount that was stated when they purchased it, so I think that’s what that’s referring to. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, whether Congress would buy it back. It shouldn’t have to buy it back. Congress shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Congress shouldn’t have it. Congress doesn’t want it. Why would they buy it?

You know, I think it’s a question that’s based on some misunderstanding of the nature of the Fed.

Gary Franchi: Let’s see, we’ve got Jeff in Houston asking, “Mr. Griffin, how did you confirm the information in your book, ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island?’”

G. Edward Griffin: That broke up just a second there, Gary. How do I confirm the information is what the question was?

Gary Franchi: Yeah, how did you confirm and verify the facts in your book, The Creature from Jekyll Island”?

G. Edward Griffin: Okay, well, the facts in the book are referenced, all of the important ones that anyone who might have any problem believing, and there are a lot of those in there because it’s so off the wall compared to what they teach in school, all of those facts are referenced to my sources and you’ll find that there are many, many footnotes, thousands of them I suppose, and they go to original documents.

I don’t reference other people who are simply expressing an editorial view. I go to the original documents themselves, to the books and papers of the people participating in the events, which I’m describing, and in many cases, they boasts of what they’re doing. So all I can say is if anybody wants to follow the research trail that I have, and I hope there are many people like that, that they will take those footnotes seriously.

It’s now easy, much easier to run those references down on the Internet than it was back in the 1990s when I was writing the book. In those days, you had to go to the library in many cases and go through microfilm and check out books and have inter-branch loans from one branch to another because a lot of those books were out of print and there weren’t many copies of them around.

So anyway, to make this short, just go to the Internet and check some of those references out and you can see that everything in there is 100 percent accurate.

Gary Franchi: Brian in Denver asks, “Do you believe hyperinflation will come to America, and if so, when might this happen? If not, why?”

G. Edward Griffin: Well, I totally believe that hyperinflation is coming to America because hyperinflation of the money supply is inevitable. I mean, these guys in Congress are authorizing the Federal Reserve System and they don’t need to authorize it by the way, but they’re going through the motions.

The Federal Reserve System is creating money like they’re insane. It used to be when they created a million dollars, everybody gasped, and then they started creating billions of dollars and everybody gasped.

Now, they’re creating trillions of dollars at the stroke of a pen. I don’t know how you can breathe with those numbers and so…

Gary Franchi: What comes after trillion? You know…

G. Edward Griffin: I don’t know. I’ve heard the word. I’d forgotten what it was, but, you know, when you reach trillions, you’re talking about wipeout. The economy cannot survive that kind of stress, so it hasn’t hit yet.

They’re voting the money. They’re authorizing the money. Some of it is already getting into the system, but most of it is still in the pipeline and it takes a little while for that to get into the system. It’ll go first into the economy through the pockets of the financial institutions and the large corporations getting these bailouts and they’ll spend it and it will hit into the economy and the first thing you know, the price of milk will go up and the price of bread will go up. Gasoline will go back up again and yes, the short answer to the question, I think that hyperinflation in America is inevitable. As to when, I don’t know because it’s hard to say how long it’s going to take these guys to spend that money back into the economy and, of course, at the same time…

Gary Franchi: Let me ask you this. I don’t mean interrupting you, but we’re talking about injecting trillions of dollars into the system, that’s what they’re doing and because of fractional reserve banking, doesn’t that just grow even more exponentially after it hits the market and gets re-loaned out?

G. Edward Griffin: Well, yes, it can. It definitely can, Gary, and a trillion here can be 9 trillion by the time the bank loans it again. However, we have to remember that a lot of that money, especially in the banking system, is replacing the same amount of money that just went out of existence because the loans were bad.

You know, when a bank has to write a loan off of its books, that money literally goes out of existence. You see, that’s the other side of the coin. It’s easy for them to create money out of nothing and when they write the loan off, the money goes back into nothing.

So there was a lot of money disappearing from the economy and a lot of this bailout money that they’re putting into the hands of the banks is designed primarily to replace the amount of money that has been going out of existence, so the actual growth in the money supply may not be as large as you would think. Because the tendency is to say, “Well, this is all fresh money that they’re creating”, but it’s not, they’re replacing a lot of old money.

But nevertheless, the rate at which they’re doing that is just tremendous and my opinion is that there’s no way to avoid hyperinflation because these guys aren’t done yet. They’re just getting revved up.

Gary Franchi: Yeah, they’re just waking up in the morning. Now, let me ask you this. We’ve got a question here about transitioning back to a gold or silver standard. This comes from Bruce in Massapequa, “And in my opinion, I think that transitioning back, if we transition out of the gold standard, phased it out, we can phase it back in, what are your thoughts on that?”

G. Edward Griffin: Well, absolutely, and yeah, I’ve made that clear in my book and everywhere I speak on the topic. It’s the only salvation. If we want to have a sound economy and a sound monetary system, we’ve got to base it on gold or silver and, yeah, it can be done. It will take a little bit of transition time, but I don’t think it will take as long as most people think.

Once there is a real money out there based on gold or silver, it will become very much in demand and the preference will be, “Well, I’d rather transact in this gold dollar or silver dollar than I want to in the Federal Reserve dollar and so the Federal Reserve dollars will be discounted and then the next week they’ll be discounted more and the following week, they’ll be discounted even more.

Until finally, they’ll become just as worthless as they really are, and the nation will gradually have swung over to the new gold or silver dollar and those will expand quite rapidly in quantity as gold and silver mining picks up and as people take their old hoards of gold and silver and turn it in and convert it into money so forth. It can be done and must be done and I don’t think it will be a very difficult transition.

Gary Franchi: Here’s a question. This is relating to the IRS and it’s a question that I’ve asked in the past. This comes from Roger in Minneapolis. He says, “Are not the Federal Reserve and the IRS bed partners and does not one work hand in hand with the other?”

G. Edward Griffin: I believe the answer to that is yes, I don’t think they’re official partners. They’re different institutions. They were both created, by the way, by the same people, you know the same group that I mentioned before, not all of them, but the primary ones, Aldrich in particular as I recall, not only introduced the Federal Reserve Act, but was the key mover behind the income tax, so they do work hand in hand.

The income tax was designed primarily to, not to raise revenue and this comes as a shock to people. The income tax is not there to raise money for the government expenditures. The income tax is there to control the people. It’s to do some social engineering. It’s to redistribute wealth. It’s to give the politicians the power to reward their friends and punish their enemies economically by giving them special loopholes or special penalties.

If the income tax were abolished today, the government would have just as much money as it always has had and needs, simply by using the Federal Reserve System to create it out of thin air, and the tax would go from the income tax to the inflation tax.

Gary Franchi: Right.

G. Edward Griffin: And so the purpose of the IRS is not to raise revenue, but to control the people and I think that was part of the plan by those who drafted both the Federal Reserve and the income tax.

Gary Franchi: Well, Dr. Gene in Indianapolis is asking, “By stopping the Fed, wouldn’t this also stop the IRS?”

G. Edward Griffin: Let me think about that for a minute. I don’t see why it would. Maybe there’s some connection I can’t think of, but if they stop the Fed and return to a sound monetary system, I don’t see any reason that the IRS could not continue, but it would be collecting real money instead of funny money.

Gary Franchi: Let’s see, well, there are so many questions here. So many people submitting and I hate to say it, but we’re not going to be able to get to all of these questions. I mean, I’ve got 38 questions I still haven’t even looked at yet and I dare to hit refresh. Okay now, 44 questions have just filled my queue.

Let’s go down here and take a look at… okay, Marvin in North Virginia is asking, “Can the states and commonwealths coin their own money under the current system, bypassing the Fed?”

G. Edward Griffin: Yes, yeah, there’s nothing prohibiting a state from issuing its own money if it wishes to provide it and the money is backed by something of value. The states are prohibited from issuing bills of credit, according to the Constitution, that means money based on credit or loans or promises, they’re not allowed to do that, but there’s nothing stopping a state from issuing money backed by gold or silver. I think it would be a wonderful idea.

Gary Franchi: I believe there is a move for that going on in the country. But let’s jump across to… we’ve got a question being submitted from the United Kingdom, Steve Saxton in Scotland is asking, “Is the Bank of England the same as the Fed, and if so, in what ways?”

G. Edward Griffin: The Federal Reserve System was based upon the Bank of England. Then Bank of England is perhaps the granddaddy of all the central banks of the world, and one of the purposes of Max Warburg, one of the functions of Max Warburg at this meeting where they created the Federal Reserve System on Jekyll Island was to explain to the American bankers how the Bank of England and other central banks in Europe worked.

So they consciously copied the Bank of England when they created the Federal Reserve System. In what way, well the basic arrangement is that it’s a cartel. They created a cartel of the largest banks and they passed a law in which the potty politicians were convinced to give this group of banks the power, the monopoly power, to create the nation’s money and they gave them the right to do it out of thin air.

It’s an amazing scam when you think about it, but that was all started and perfected by the Bank of England.

Gary Franchi: We’ve go another question here from, let’s see, Abe in Ventura. He’s asking, “In your opinion, what is the #1 most effective and powerful action that we can take to end the Fed?”

G. Edward Griffin: I have to think about that for a minute. The #1 most powerful action we can take to end the Fed. Well, okay. I don’t know how to answer that question. I think, Abe, perhaps I’m misreading the question, but it sounds as though Abe wants a magic bullet. Maybe not, I apologize.

Gary Franchi: We all want the magic bullet to end the Fed.

G. Edward Griffin: Yeah, yeah. If I’m misunderstanding that, Abe, I apologize, but I know there’s a great temptation to say, “What can we do to end the Fed?”

One thing, don’t confuse it with two or three or five things. We want to do it now. We want to do it in the next election. It can’t be done that way. There’s no one thing that’s going to do it and it certainly is not going to be done by the next election.

But the most important thing in a series of steps that will end the Fed is to educate the public as to the nature of the Fed, so that they can then bring about political pressure on these politicians, or better yet replace these politicians that are there with new ones who understand the Fed and they’re not cowed by it.

So I think the most important single and first step we can do is to spread the word about the nature of the Fed like you’re trying to do, Gary.

Gary Franchi: Yeah, I agree. I think winning in the court of public opinion will provide the groundswell of support that is needed to put the pressure on the legislative officials to get rid of the Federal Reserve System, so as you’re watching this video, I would like to ask you, the viewer, to please forward this link to your friends, to your family to help them to understand what we’re talking about here and why it is so important to end the Federal Reserve System.

And we’ve go so many questions here. It’s overwhelming to go through, even with our administrators, they have to go through it and take the pertinent questions to us. This is amazing. Let’s see here, we have… let’s go down to… “Does the Fed pay taxes on its profits?” This comes from again, Marvin in North Virginia.

G. Edward Griffin: Does the Fed pay taxes on its profits? I presume by that, you’re talking about the Federal Reserve System and the answer to that would be no because the Fed does not make profits. We have to remember again what the Fed is. The Federal Reserve System is a cartel. It’s not a profit-making organization as such. It doesn’t make profit. It’s not designed to keep profit and distribute profit to its stockholders, for example.

All the banks themselves are stockholders, but that’s kind of a meaningless minority thing. There is no profit in the Fed. The Fed is a regulatory body. It controls the banks by the banks. The banks themselves are controlling themselves. The profit in the system doesn’t come from the Federal Reserve, it comes from the banks. Remember the banks are the masters here. The profit is in the banks.

The banks have the ability to make or create money out of nothing and to multiply their deposits by at least 9. They can loan out this money that was created out of nothing. They loan it and collect interest on nothing and yes, they do pay taxes on that side of it.

But the Federal Reserve itself, if it loans money to the Federal government, which is all it’s allowed to do, and it receives interest on that, well, it takes that interest and uses that money to pay its own expenses and whatever is left over, it returns to the treasury of the government.

Gary Franchi: Right.

G. Edward Griffin: So the Fed itself is non-profit organization, but don’t forget, wouldn’t it be nice if the banana cartel could get all the taxpayers to pay its overhead and its expenses and then whatever is left over it will return to the government? That’s basically what it is.

In other words, let me rehash. The Federal Reserve System is not an entity like a bank. It does loan money to the government, but that’s its only commercial activity and whatever money it makes on that activity, it uses to pay its overhead and returns the surplus back to the government, but the real action is not there. The real action is out on Main Street where the member banks have these big buildings and there are millions of people going in there borrowing money that’s created out of nothing and paying interest on it. That’s where the action is.

Gary Franchi: Here’s a question coming in from Charles in Jamaica, New York. He’s asking, “Do you think that we will see a collapse in the US economy and the initiation of martial law in the United States by the end of this year?”

G. Edward Griffin: Well, there are three questions wrapped in there. Do I think there’s going to be a collapse? Will it be coupled with martial law? And will it be by the end of this year?

I think an economic collapse is inevitable if we continue down the path we are now following and I’ve seen no evidence of that the people in Washington have any intention of changing that path. In fact, they’re the ones who are leading it and so, yeah, I think there’s going to be an economic collapse. The word ‘collapse’ perhaps needs to be defined, but I think things are going to get worse to the point where most people who are suffering under those conditions are going to define it as a collapse.

Now, the other thing is, you know, will there be martial law? I know that the government thinks there will be because they’re planning for it. They’re making all kinds of almost frantic preparations. They’re equipping police forces. They’re assigning military forces to the United States. They’re training their troops on how to administer martial law. They’re funding it. They’re setting up prison camps to take care of dissident citizens. They’re spending a lot of time and money preparing for martial law.

So I’ll answer the question by saying they think there’s going to be martial law because they think there’s going to be a lot of civil disorder and this might sound a little paranoid, but I think they’re probably planning to trigger it themselves to make sure it happens, because that would give them an excuse to have martial law and there will be a lot of good people that are going to be sucked into that and they’ll think we’re fighting for freedom and they won’t be, they’ll just be fighting for a chance to go a prison camp.

And then finally, the thing is will it be done by the end of this year? I haven’t the foggiest idea on that. Let’s hope it never happens.

Gary Franchi: Ed, about a global currency. I’m curious, you know, because we hear echoes of this coming out of China or Russia, the G-20 meetings. People are losing faith in the dollar because of the reckless policies of the Federal Reserve System. Do you think that we will be moving towards a regional currency such has been proposed like the amero or will we just be jumping headlong into a global currency or… I personally think this whole economic system is being designed to collapse for an excuse to go into these global or regional currencies. Do you think we’re going to see this in the near future?

G. Edward Griffin: Yes, I think it’s going to be in the very near future. Of course, that’s what the whole purpose of the G-20 meetings are all about. They’re trying to explore ways to make this happen. They’re trying to get the convergence of their national policies, so that it’s all harmonious and so they’re discussing it intensively right now, and we also know that this is a plan that’s been on the books for many, many years, I would say decades. We know that the people who are doing the strategies for this have that in mind.

So there’s no question as to what is happening or that the people in charge want it to happen, but the question is how fast will it happen. Another question is, as you phrase it, will it go directly to a global currency or will it be phased in through certain regional currencies, and the other question is how fast?

I think that the plan is to go at it through regional currencies, although I don’t have any inside track on that. I think it will be easier ot sell to the people of the world as regional currencies to lead them toward the global currency perhaps another decade or two down the line, and let’s hope it never happens, Gary, but that depends on us to a large extent. As long as we sit by and just watch it happen and don’t do anything meaningful to reverse it and don’t do anything meaningful to replace the players, to replace those congressmen and those senators with real Americans… as long as we just sit there and watch it and say, “Tut, tut. I wonder how long it’s going to take,” and then it’s probably going to happen sooner than any of us want.

Gary Franchi: Ed, I want to take a look at the last, you know… I mean, let me rephrase this. You have been fighting the New World Order for many, many years and your hindsight, looking back at the progression and the speed of things that are taking place right now, would you say that the plans for the New World Order are now accelerating at an increased rate?

G. Edward Griffin: No doubt about it. I think they’re running for the finish line right now. I think they want to tie this all up with the absolute loss of national sovereignty within the next few years. That’s my opinion and I’d like to say something I’ve said before and it’s so true today still, and that is there will be no date, no particular point in history where you can say, “On this date, the New World Order was ushered in.”

To a very large extent, Gary, we’re already in it. We’ve been in it for a long, long time. What they’re really doing is just building the walls a little bit at a time with the passage of each day and we’re in it. We will never be able to say, “Gee, it started on this date.”

That’s all I wanted to say is that the New World Order is here and yes, I’ve been fighting it for a long time. If there was to be a date that historians might want to put on the arrival of this monster, I suppose it would be the date on which all of the nations of the world surrendered control over their money and over their military because those are the two legs on which national sovereignty stands.

If you’ve got a strong military and a strong money system, you’re a sovereign nation. If you don’t have those things, you’re nothing. You’re just a territory that is controlled by someone who does have strong money or a strong military.

So we’re very close to the surrender of our money right now. I suppose that would be a date that historians might choose for the crossover point. Let’s hope it doesn’t get there.

Gary Franchi: All right. Ed, I want to keep you on the line for just a minute. I’m going to close out the show, but I want to come back to you in just a second, so but I want to thank you for joining us on this very special live edition hour-long Reality Report and we hope to have you back again soon and next time we can talk more about steps that are being taken and how the success of this movement is in ending the Federal Reserve, so stick around.

G. Edward Griffin: Well, you’re very welcome, Gary. Yeah, I’ll hang on and do I have a chance to plug the “Unfiltered News” to your dear viewers?

Gary Franchi: Oh, please. Absolutely.

G. Edward Griffin: Okay. Yeah, I would like to invite everybody who is not already a subscriber to our free new service to do so. It’s called “Unfiltered News” and I personally put it out every week. Today is my day, tonight I’ll be working on it probably all night, but it’s free. So just come to RealityZone website. That’s RealityZone.com and on the front page, you’ll see a picture of a little guy holding up a newspaper, to click on him, you’ll get to a place where you can sign up for free and you’ll get unfiltered news delivered to your e-mail box every Friday.

And if you don’t like it, you can unsubscribe, no problem, but I’d be very surprised that you don’t like it.

Gary Franchi: All right, Ed. Thank you for joining us. As Griffin has stated in the past, it will take some time to turn this system around and we must be vigilant stewards of freedom, dedicated to the fight to ensure that the system and our Republic is restored.

I urge you to explore Griffin’s organization, FreedomForce International at FreedomForce.org and a recent video he produced called an “An Idea Whose Time Has Come”, an absolutely required viewing.

Understanding the root of the problem to end the Federal Reserve System and return America to a sound monetary system based on the gold standard is the solution. With the economy, as it is, you must take this window of opportunity to practice your duty as an American and share this interview with everybody that you know.

The longer we sit in darkness and allow ignorance and complacency to rule our lives, the faster we move to becoming serfs toiling on the master’s land. I leave you with the words of Thomas Jefferson, “The people cannot be all and always well informed. The past, which is wrong, will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceived. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to public liberty.”

Please help us spread the message of free and independent media by posting this video on your favorite blogs and forums. For the Reality Report on Freedom.TV, I’m Gary Franchi and remember, I am not here to make you a follower, I am here to make you a leader among the people. Good night.

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