The Banking Illusion by Andree Peterson

     Here is the bargain I have with the bank: They pretend to give me money that is backed by hard assets, and I pretend they really have assets. 

     They pretend to give me money they really don't have, and I pretend to believe they really have it. I drive to the food store and they accept what's in my hand. It works, for now, because we all are in the game. 

     The U.S. government needs money too, and they don't seem any more worried than I about whether it's real. They ring up the Federal Reserve and say, "Hey, we need $10 billion to run our affairs," and the Fed says, "Sure thing, we'll buy $10 billion of your bonds." So the government takes pieces of paper and writes the words "Treasury Bond" on them and gives the pieces to the Federal Reserve. 

     The Fed takes their own pieces of paper and draws impressive designs on them and sends them over to the U.S. government. Of course, today it's not done by paper but by computers and clicks. 

     Godfrey Bloom, a financial economist and former member of the European Parliament, said the whole banking system is a scam. "All the banks are broke. They're broke because we have a system called fractional reserve banking. Banks can lend money they don't actually have. We have something called quantitative easing, counterfeiting by any other name. 

     "The artificial printing of money, which if an ordinary person did, they'd go to prison. So when banks go broke through their own incompetence and chicanery, the taxpayer picks up the tab." 

     The nations' contracts with their citizens are broken. There is no money. But the attitude is like that of King Hezekiah, when the prophet told him disaster is in his future...not during Hezekiah's own time, precisely, but his children's and grandchildren's time. 

     Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah (39:8), "The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good, for he thought, 'There will be peace and security in my days.'" 

     Meanwhile, here I am with my certificate of deposit and money market account, conjured out of thin air. But I tend to them, because I need the money. 

WORLD magazine