Neal Ross is a well prepared, informed, elloquent writer, in my opinion, that wrote the most easy to understand explanation of a complicated subject that not many voters, or many politicians, even know about...it started in 1913 and can be reversed in 2013, 100 years later...this subject is about the Holy Grail!
Hold onto your eyelids, try not to doze off, or let your eyes become glazed and your brain freeze over. I have extracted an excerpt from a blog by Neal Ross that offers the whats and whys from U.S. historical facts to explain our current economic mess in less than a ten minute read. I would enjoy reading comments from my readers about this blog.

Albert Einstein once said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” Even if Einstein had never discovered the Theory of Relativity, that statement alone shows that he was wise beyond his years.
Putting aside those who were born with learning disorders, I see a  lot of stupid people running around in this country. I am sure that  statement is not going to make me many friends, but after I am finished,  I hope you will at least understand why I said it.
The reason I say I see a lot of stupid people can be best explained by a quote I read in Wikipedia, “Stupidity  is distinct from irrationality because stupidity denotes an  incapability or [an] unwillingness to properly consider the relevant  information.” In other words, stupidity can be defined as willful ignorance.
However bad willful ignorance may be, there is something that I  despise even more, that being apathy. I can understand how people might  be unwilling to consider relevant information which contradicts their  personal beliefs. But to be apathetic, to not care at all is the trait  which I find the most despicable, and I see just as many apathetic  people as I do those who refuse to listen to a differing viewpoint.  Helen Keller once said, “Science may have found a cure for most  evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy  of human beings.”
 The 99% voters?... HmnnIf people were merely ignorant, [uninformed], it would be a simple  matter to provide them with information to educate them. However, when  people don’t care to learn, or refuse to accept the facts, then we end  up with a society filled with people who are easily manipulated, and  controlled, by their government.
The 99% voters?... HmnnIf people were merely ignorant, [uninformed], it would be a simple  matter to provide them with information to educate them. However, when  people don’t care to learn, or refuse to accept the facts, then we end  up with a society filled with people who are easily manipulated, and  controlled, by their government.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tax which will be paid for the  purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will  be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we  leave the people in ignorance.”
Not enough people in this country understand the  Occupy Wall St. Posterconcept of a limited  government and individual liberty. To them the idea that government  does not exist to solve all the nations problems is completely foreign  to them. The same goes for the idea that under our system of government,  people were to be free to do as they please, as long as their actions  did not deny others the ability to do the same.
Occupy Wall St. Posterconcept of a limited  government and individual liberty. To them the idea that government  does not exist to solve all the nations problems is completely foreign  to them. The same goes for the idea that under our system of government,  people were to be free to do as they please, as long as their actions  did not deny others the ability to do the same.
There is a flip side to having that amount of freedom. Along with it  comes the responsibility of accepting the consequences of your actions.  So, if you decide to drink yourself into a stupor every night, that is  perfectly fine. But when your drinking causes you to lose your job, or  your liver fails and you end up in the hospital, you have no right to  blame society, or expect them to accept the responsibility for your poor  choices.
That is why, as George Bernard Shaw once said, “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends  most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels  that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at  the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” H. L. Mencken.
Our nation was to be a nation based on law. There was to be a certain  hierarchy  among these laws; with local laws being at the bottom, which  was to be superseded by state law, followed by federal law, all of which  could only be enacted according to what was contained within the  Constitution.
among these laws; with local laws being at the bottom, which  was to be superseded by state law, followed by federal law, all of which  could only be enacted according to what was contained within the  Constitution.
It is important to remember that the very purpose of government was  not to give, but to protect our God-given rights. That is the purpose  for the Bill of Rights, certain rights our founders believed were of  such great importance that they be protected by Constitutional  Amendments.
As former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson once said, “The  very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from  the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the  reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal  principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty,  and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and  assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote;  they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
It is because of the ignorance, and the apathy, of so many Americans  that our system of government has gone from being one of limited powers  with respect for individual rights, to one of overreaching powers and  continued infringements upon our rights.
Okay, lets take a moment to look at one instance of governmental abuse of powers.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution outlines the specific powers granted to Congress. One of these powers is, “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.”
In 1792 the Congress passed an act establishing a mint, and  regulating the Coins of the United States, known as the Coinage Act of  1792. This act established a U.S. Mint and the corresponding values of  coins to be used as currency in the United States.
 In 1873 Congress passed the fourth Coinage Act, which de-monetized  silver, placing us upon the gold standard. For those of you unfamiliar  with the term, the gold standard was a monetary standard under which the  basic unit of currency is defined by a stated quantity of gold.
In 1873 Congress passed the fourth Coinage Act, which de-monetized  silver, placing us upon the gold standard. For those of you unfamiliar  with the term, the gold standard was a monetary standard under which the  basic unit of currency is defined by a stated quantity of gold.
Paper money was introduced to be used as an alternative to heavy  bulky coins. However, they were always redeemable in the corresponding  amount of gold or silver.
If you look, for example, at a 1928 $100 bill you will see that it states, “Redeemable in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank.”
In 1913 Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which gave its power  to coin our nations money to a group of bankers. Although the President  nominates the Chairman of the FED, the banks themselves are not  beholden to Congress, they have never been audited, and they, of their  own admission, were responsible for the crash of 1929 which led to the  Great Depression.
One of the heads of these banking dynasties which control the Federal  Reserve Bank was  Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812) who was a German banker. He was the founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty that became the most successful business family in history and is ranked number seven in the world. Rothschild once said, “Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812) who was a German banker. He was the founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty that became the most successful business family in history and is ranked number seven in the world. Rothschild once said, “Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws.”
These bankers knew that if they controlled a nations money supply, they controlled the nation. H. L. Birum Sr. once said, “The  Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful  crime against civilization. Why? Because they “create” the money made  out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their “Federal  Reserve Notes” and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation  whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National  Banks, etc.”
However, as long as our nations currency was tied to gold, the FED  could only print as much money as we had in gold to back it up. If you  look over the course of our nation’s history, there were few periods of  sustained inflation. These usually followed periods of war, but our  country returned to normal after a short time afterwards.
 However, when FDR took us off the gold standard that gave the FED the  green light to print as much money as they wish. It also gave Congress  the ability to ask for unlimited amounts of money to fund projects, as  they could borrow now, pay later with no regards as to how much gold  there was to back up their spending.
However, when FDR took us off the gold standard that gave the FED the  green light to print as much money as they wish. It also gave Congress  the ability to ask for unlimited amounts of money to fund projects, as  they could borrow now, pay later with no regards as to how much gold  there was to back up their spending.
Since then inflation has been on the rise, the price of gold has  quadrupled, and the buying power of the dollar has steadily diminished.
Even Alan Greenspan had this to say about the gold standard, “In  the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings  from confiscation through inflation." … This is the shabby secret of the  welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a  scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this  insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one  grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’  antagonism toward the gold standard.”

 Fed Chairman Ben BernankeOur government spends, and spends, and spends, all of which is spent  by borrowed money, created out of thin air, by the banks. All this debt  is passed on to us, the people by way of our taxes, which do not even  begin to pay the interest upon our national debt.
Fed Chairman Ben BernankeOur government spends, and spends, and spends, all of which is spent  by borrowed money, created out of thin air, by the banks. All this debt  is passed on to us, the people by way of our taxes, which do not even  begin to pay the interest upon our national debt.
The banks want us in debt, they want our country in debt. That is how  they earn money, from the interest they make off of loans. Allow me to  prove my point.
I moved into my home in 1992, prior to the housing bubble. I took out  a 6.5% loan upon $87,500. Now, if you add six and a half percent to the  initial balance of $87,500, you come up with $93.,187.
My loan was a 30 year loan, and my payment was roughly $800 a month.  Now, let’s do some math. Eight hundred times twelve equals $9,600 per  year. Now multiply that by the period of the loan and you get, $288,000.
Now subtract the money I borrowed, and you end up with $200,500 in  interest payments. I understand why they put up such a fight when I  wanted to pay off my home after only 5 years of interest payments. That  is a lot of cash for them to lose out on.
 Well, that is the scheme employed by the people who print, regulate,  and control our nations currency. Now we are expecting these same people  to solve our nation’s monetary problems when they are the ones who  created them in the first place?
Well, that is the scheme employed by the people who print, regulate,  and control our nations currency. Now we are expecting these same people  to solve our nation’s monetary problems when they are the ones who  created them in the first place?
Like I said in the beginning, there are a lot of stupid people running around in this country. It may sound trite, and old fashioned, but there are three things  that I owe my allegiance to. First of all I owe my allegiance to my God,  secondly, to my country, and lastly to my family. Everything else is  trivial, including what others think of me.
So, if you choose to remain uneducated as to what is going on in this  country, if you choose to disregard the facts because they contradict  what you believe in, fine, so be it. My priorities have already been  explained. I still give a shit, just not about you. But as Anton La Vey  once said, “It‘s too bad that stupidity isn‘t painful.”
Live your life in such a way that when  your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says “OH  SHIT!!…. HE’S AWAKE!!”
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?“
~ The Author ~
  Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal
        
  
          
  
         
  
       
    
  
don't think Disney was really going for realism here. And since the Soviets were allies of America at the time, it wouldn't make sense for the propoganda to be against them.
smith123 in reply to smith123 (Show the comment)
True, but I think the point of the cartoon was to more or less exaggerate the way of life in Germany at the time in order to make people support the Allies. The idea of working "like slaves" might've come from the fact that Hitler put a lot of Germans to work, but that was actually a good thing for the German people and the economy, since before the Nazis there was rampant inflation and unemployment. (Of course, the regime was horrid, but not necessarily in the ways the cartoon says it was.)
smith123 in reply to brady3198 (Show the comment)