My latest in the American Thinker:
Donald Trump is not the first president to face down a deep-state cabal, that is, an unelected oligarchy of shadowy figures who wielded enormous power while being unaccountable to the American public. The first was President Andrew Jackson, who faced down the Bank of the United States in the 1820s and 1830s; then as now, the deep state has apparently included a significant financial element. Trump’s top economic aide Lawrence Kudlow said it last October: “I don’t want to get into a lot of Fed bashing,” but “their models are highly flawed. The deep state board staff, of course, has not been very helpful — oops, did I say that?”
Yes, he did. And whatever the actual role of the Federal Reserve in the coup attempt against Trump, there is no doubt that some have been sounding warnings about it since at least 1931 – people in a position to know.
As Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster explains, the Federal Reserve was established in December 1913, during the “progressive” Woodrow Wilson administration. But the Fed was just a new version of the same Bank of the United States that Jackson fought: a private corporation that kept the public treasury. Its foes argued that it was dangerous to turn power over the public funds to an oligarchy of private financiers, since the possibility for corruption, and for a de facto second government developed by buying favors until large enough to challenge the government of the United States, was immense.
Yet as far as Wilson was concerned, that was by design. Late in the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the Knickerbocker Trust Company was failing, leading to a significant economic downturn, the Panic of 1907. Banking baron J. P. Morgan stepped in to aid banks that were failing and thus minimize the crisis. Wilson, at that time the president of Princeton University, showed a taste for authoritarian government, writing: “All this trouble could be averted if we appointed a committee of six or seven public-spirited men like J. P. Morgan to handle the affairs of our country.”
In establishing the Federal Reserve System, the nation went a long way toward doing just that….
There is much more. Read the rest here.
curious says
Excellent article.
Most Americans imagine, based on fake news platitudes, that the Federal Reserve has a “dual mandate” to promote full employment and stabilize prices. That is a sham. If you look at the first 100 years of its history, 1913-2013, unemployment doubled and inflation destroyed 97% of the value of the USD. During that time, there were several recessions and a persistent depression. As we saw in the alphabet soupt of bailouts (by whatever names) around 2010, the purpose of the Fed is to protect a certain oligarchs at the expense of everyone else and to the detriment of the republic.
Diane Harvey says
Federal Reserve Bank
Three words, three lies.
It’s not federal. It’s privately owned by a powerful consortium
It has no reserves. It “creates” money out of nothing. Nothing becomes money because the elitists tell us it’s so.
And it’s not a bank.
1913.
Politically speaking, 1913 was the worst year in the nation’s history,
Four disastrous events,
February 3, 1913 – the 16th Am (income tax) became part of the Constitution
March 3, 1913 – Democrat Wilson became president; Wilson the internationalist made the hard break from Americanism (government’s sole role being to protect natural rights), and set America on the pattern of endless world wars with America as the world’s policeman
April 8, 1913 – the 17th Am (direct election of federal senators) became part of the Constitution
December 23, 1913 – the bill creating the Federal Reserve became law; signed by Wilson the internationalist
curious says
+1
The 16th Amendment and the Fed became a back door to federal taxation of capital.
The federal government had already the power to tax labor income, but had been prohibited from taxing capital without apportionment. The Federal Reserve created imaginary “reserves” out of thin air to increase the money supply, stoking chronic inflation. At the same time, the 16th Amendment enabled the taxation of capital “gains” that were not real gains. The combined effects enabled the federal government to tax capital.
Wilson did a lot wrong. He ran up huge deficits, increasing dramatically the national debt. To involve the USA in WWI, censored American media, promoted proganda, and initiated conscription even without a declaration of war. He was also a segregationist.
One of the few good things he did was unintentional. He was persuaded to support women’s suffrage at the state level, as a compromise, even though he opposed it at the federal level. He seemed somehow not even to realize that suffrage at the state level would result inevitably in suffrage at the federal level.
BTW, you might like “Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis” or “The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble”
https://www.amazon.com/New-Empire-Debt-Financial-Bubble/dp/0470483261
They are nearly identical except the original was written before the 2010 crisis and the “New” version was written after.
mortimer says
The Fed is a secret oligarchy that is baffling.
The Deep State is controlling information and must be frustrated that it hasn’t taken down all independent media.
Don Ameche says
Very Good article . I’m wondering what Robert Spencer thinks of Calvin Coolidge. I always thought he was one of America’s best presidents.
Lorensacho says
If the Post Office was part of the deep state it isn’t anymore thanks to Trump who has saved us from timely mail delivery.
Seeking Deliverance says
Hogwash. You blame PoTUS Trump did the ineptitude and fiscal incompetence of the U.S. Post Office? Either you’re joking of plainly the most ignorant person in the western world. Put away your CNN, MSNBC, ABC (et cetera) Marxist propaganda sources and step into reality where logic and deductive reasoning remain supreme.
Lastly, Andrew Jackson was a slaver and murderous racist let alone the founder of the most criminal (murderous, seditious and treasonous) political party in all of western history… the U.S. Democratic Party. Fact.