It is characteristic of the primitive conditions on this backward planet that virtually nobody knows any of the basic facts about how the human race is actually governed. For instance–
1. Governments are not as nearly important as most people think. Since we live in a post-barter economy–a money economy–those who control the money supply effectively control the planet. Governments gave up all attempt to coin or control money in the 19th century, mostly because they did not trust one another, i.e. no nation had faith that the coinage or currency of another nation was really worth what it claimed to be worth. The great international Banks stepped into this vacuum and, by demonstrating more fiscal rectitude than governments had in the past, became the creators of money in the modern world.
After the banks had control, they no longer needed to be quite so prim in their fiscal rectitude. Nobody could challenge them.
This means that governments cannot do anything–good or ill, wise or foolish–unless the banks first lend them the money for the project. The power is in the banks. The governments survive on permission of the banks. If the banks cut off their credit, governments die. Any government that resists has its credit cut off and dies.
Buckminster Fuller: In the modern world, banks act and governments only re-act to the situations the bankers have ordained.
In other words, as soon as the great multi-national banks had control of the money supply, they saw that they could manipulate cash and credit to maximize profits. While these financiers quite sanely and legally maximize profits, the rest of us are at their mercy; but we never elected them to this position of power, and, by and large, we do not even know who they are.
2. In the present decade, it costs nearly a billion dollars to run for the Presidency, 20 million for the Senate, 5 million and up for the House. This means that the USA–strongest country in the West–is not only ‘owned’ (in the trillion dollar debt to) the banks, but also governed by people who are either (a) millionaires or (b) heavily in debt to millionairPost too long. Click here to view the full text.