Recently by Michael McKay: Austrian Economics and Anarcho-Capitalism: Peace, Prosperity and Freedom
In case you missed it, on July 21st 2011 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a 266 page partial audit of the Federal Reserve (FED).
Here is the punch line: The Federal Reserve secretly kept the Phony-Fiat-Money-System afloat by “lending” out $16 Trillion Dollars to various corporations and banks, many of which were foreign, non-U.S. entities like The Bank of Scotland, UBS (Switzerland), Deutche Bank (Germany) and Societe Generale SA (France) between December 1, 2007 through July 21, 2010 (read this as: Created-Out-Of-Thin-Air and had refused to tell us). The details are on page 133 which you can read here.
How big is $16 Trillion Dollars? Well, to get a basic idea please review this excellent presentation. Here are some other ways to try to get your head around this astounding number:
The entire U.S. GDP is $14.8 Trillion Dollars. That is what everybody: you, me, everybody, including all Government spent in 2010.
The entire U.S. Debt over the past 200 years is $14.5 Trillion Dollars. It used to take time to dig a whole this deep….no more!
To think about it with a bit more personal impact let’s just pretend that you can carry a backpack with one million pounds in it. Now make that backpack 16 Million times more heavy!
Still beyond the imagination? Try this: 16 Trillion inches equals a bit more than 250 Million miles. That would be 10,000 trips around the planet Earth, nearly 1400 trips to the Moon or nearly three trips to the Sun.
But why should you care? After all, what is a few – even many – additional Trillion Dollars when the US has already admitted to counterfeiting so many Trillions by whacking on the ZERO Key of their Money-Creating-Computer like a drunken monkey on a piano?
Well, for one thing, most Americans still have the quaint idea that we are supposed to know, or be able to find out, what our Governing Entities are up to. For many years the FED has gotten a free ride with the public a) not really knowing what the heck it is or does, and b) why we should even care. But as Dr. Gary North has brilliantly pointed out, here, those “Free Ride” days of Mass Stupification are over. The toothpaste of knowledge is out of the tube, and there is no way to put us all back to sleep. Heck, even Newt Gingrich at the Republican Presidential Debate in Ames, Iowa on August 11th 2011 called for the full Audit of the Fed!
Audit the Fed has gone, or is quickly going, mainstream and Ron Paul is quite correct in pointing out that this deeply needed national conversation, for which he has been the lone voice in Washington DC for decades, is coming “Our Way” as he said in his speech at the Iowa Straw Poll last Saturday.
The last full audit of the FED was completed under the Eisenhower Administration in 1953, almost sixty years ago. The last time anyone from the US Congress was allowed (because even Congress must seek permission) to just take a look-see at the Gold in Ft. Knox was in 1974 (read about that here). Even though the 2011 audit was not in the same depth that a complete audit would be this newly issued GAO Report is still a historic document the Main Stream Press should have put on every front page but, alas, has been totally ignored (OK, so I did find one Press Article of it in the Guatemala Times…here).
Here is the big reason you should note, understand and tell others about this news item: it sends the most important signal yet as to how bad things are likely to become. Those of us who have been following this for some time and who understand Austrian Business Cycle Theory have been yelling from the roof tops that we are facing hyper-inflation, social disorder and greater political oppression.
And that is just putting it, well, nicely. We were bracing for a Category 4 Hurricane and now we should brace for a Category 16 – if there was such a thing (please note that a Cat 5 is the highest measure used and is classified as “catastrophic”).
I fear – now – it will be much worse than we even could have imagined: The Tidal Wave that was going to crush the u2018shoreline’ may actually submerge the Whole Mainland. Think of Atlantis, the mythic continent and its civilization, sinking beneath the waves.
For us today it really is hard to imagine what it feels like when the money dies, the middle class is literally wiped out and violence between Neighbor and Neighbor becomes commonplace. Everyone should buy and read Adam Ferguson’s book to understand how this can and does happen; read this book today.
Man, it is depressing to see this coming and I know that most of us have the reaction to “look away.” As I write this I feel the nausea that many of you may be feeling right now.
But please do not look away.
Tell others and do not sugarcoat it. Learn more. Listen to Lew Rockwell’s podcasts, subscribe to Mises Daily. Start a blog or a study group. If you don’t have time then send money to these fine organizations. In whatever way you can, please Stand Up For Freedom and Rally the Spread of Knowledge. You are not helpless unless you follow the FED’s lead and take the Suicide Pill of sticking your head in the sand.
