The ebola virus, someone told me its from the bat, I dont know; as I child I did not understand how it is that in the last days, we are are to be afflicted with diseases of the beasts of the field; now, I sort of, do; AIDS, from the chimpanzee, in which it produces no symptoms; swine and bird flu; stuff like that; now, I see. I was going to tell you the part of the bedtime story that involves money; how it ends up in sort of a money mark of sorts; with which people buy and sell stuff. The world economy models itself after the U.S. economy; the first time the U.S. economy collapsed, so did the entire worlds economy; in the future, the entire wealth of the world shall be made worthless, in one hour; this was never before possible. In the U.S. we have a privately owned central bank; today, its known as the Federal Reserve Bank, or Fed, for short. Its function, oddly enough has to do with slavery; the concept of slavery; where one person, the servant, is indebted to his master, unless and until he pays his debt, at which point he becomes free, or a freedman. Up until relatively recently, slavery was common; the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews, the Romans enslaved, indiscriminately, the U.S. enslaved black folks for a while, and the Chinese still use slave labor; the point being, until now, slavery was common. Your mothers favorite movie is Gone with the Wind, and she used to tell me everything in life could be compared to that movie; I never thought of thinking that way, but shes right; but to me, its the comic strip Peanuts; everything in life can be compared to something in Peanuts; I, myself, am Pigpen; remember when they cleaned Pigpen up, and in the very next fame, he was Pigpen, again? and, the psychiatrist, Lucy, is in, but only after you dropped your nickel into her can? Thats me, Pigpen; or from Catcher in the Rye, what Holden Caulfield called a secret slob. My mind wanders on many things all the time, to the detriment of any task at hand; my environment reflects this state of mind, sort of; Im never where my body is, Im always somewhere else, could be anywhere; attention deficit; if you ever wondered what it is we are thinking about when we sort of space out; now you know; could be anything. Eli Whitney was sitting on his front porch, in the American South, watching a cat approach his chicken coop, attempting to grab one of his chickens through the chicken wire, unsuccessfully, each time ending up with a cat fist full of feathers, only, and no chicken; this gave him the idea of a cotton gin; its a machine that very efficiently removes the seeds from the cotton boll, leaving the cotton fiber, only; before, it had to be done by hand. Now; massive amounts of cotton could be processed which in turn led to a massive increase in the demand for the labor needed to pick such massive amounts of cotton. Europe became addicted to cotton; a sort of breathable fiber,durable and inexpensive, you could make clothes out of it; king cotton; and so the French tried to help the Confederacy, but they couldnt break the Union sea blockade; the character Rhett Butler, did; becoming rich, gunrunning, guns from Europe to the Confederacy. Eli Whitney then moved up North, where he had another idea; it was called mass production involving something called division of labor. Using mass production, the North was able to manufacture rifles, the parts of which were interchangeable on the battlefield (before, each weapon was handmade by a single craftsman, and unique; the parts werent interchangeable); and they began to rifle the barrel, which spins the projectile like a football, making it aerodynamic, and accurate to several hundred yards; much of the Southerners were armed with smooth bore shotguns, or the blunderbuss, accurate to thirty yards or so; a tremendous disadvantage. To me, Eli Whitney, more than any other single individual, unintentionally caused the South to lose that war; inadvertently increasing the demand for slave labor while at the same time creating the means by which it was done in, by use of force. Abraham Lincoln issued something called the Emancipation Proclamation, emancipating, or setting free, the black slaves; the thing was, he did so while the Union was in the process of losing the war. It was done in order to demonstrate the Unions continued dominion over the South; passing a law which could not, at that time, be enforced; and would not be enforced until the end of the war. The end of slavery in the U.S. created a massive problem; a shortage of cheap labor. Something had to be done, and it was; it was called the Second Bank of the U.S.; which was abolished by Andrew Jackson, but re-emerged, after him, under a different name; the U.S.Federal Reserve. It has twelve districts and many member banks. Its function is to create debt; or, indebtedness; a state of indebtedness. This indebtedness created a new type of slave; the wage slave; it means someone who works for less than a living wage with no benefits; and comprises most of the people now on earth. Before, the slave, if he had a good master, was well treated; but sometimes there were bad men who were masters, who mistreated their slaves; but in those times a slave was worth a thousand dollars or so, the equivalent (by one of many measures of equivalency); of about thirty two million dollars, today; in contrast, poor white trash was absolutely worthless; or, trash. Today, if you work, you probably do so because of debt; before, this kind of debt didnt exist, widespread as it is today; perhaps you have a home mortgage or car note; whatever; youre sort of debt propelled, people are; this was the solution to the elimination of the labor force, when slavery was abolished; or more accurately, was expanded to include white folks; this is the reason that the Second Bank of the U.S. was abolished by Andrew Jackson. The Fed serves many purposes, but its main function is to create debt; this debt is represented by pieces of paper called currency; or money; each bill of it represents a debt, from someone to someone else. The Fed also attempts to control the price of money, which is called prime rate, or prime interest rate; it does so in an attempt to keep the growth of GDP, Gross Domestic Product, the value of all goods and services, combined, within strict limits, about two percent or so; if too high, we call it inflation (the prime rate when Ronald Reagan took office, after Jimmy Carter, was 21%); if its too low, we call it recession, or depression; the line between the two is sort of fuzzy. The Fed also controls the money supply; the total amount of currency circulating at any given time; by the way, Federal Income Tax, the main purpose of it, is also to control the money supply; and not to raise money for the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government has many tools at its disposal which it can use to keep inflation in check; this is but one of them. If theres too much money chasing too few goods, we call it inflation (or hyperinflation, which has occurred only once, here; the devaluation of Confederate currency which occurred as the South was losing the war; the same thing happened in post World War I Germany,where workers were paid twice daily, at lunch and at the end of the day; because the German Mark was worth much less by each days end; in order to buy a loaf of bread required a basketful of Marks; thieves would steal the basket, and shake out the worthless currency, from it, stealing the basket, which was of some value; this hyperinflation was caused by very strict economic war reparations imposed upon Germany by the victorious Allies, creating a very unstable political and economic climate, during which arose a sort of savior, for the German people; Adolph Hitler). From this experience we came to understand, so that this was not repeated after World War II; the opposite was done, the Marshall Plan rebuilt Japan and Germany into the economic powerhouses they are today; we came to understand what the French government had learned by the French Revolution; in order to maintain political power, you must keep the price of staple goods, milk, bread, and today, gasoline, affordable to the masses; they have to be able to afford to live, otherwise bad things happen; from your point of view, if youre the person in power at the time; or, government; this is why, even today, in France, everyone is provided the necessities of life; if you want more than that, you have to work; this is called Socialism. All government is, or form of government, or politics; is how any given country decides to divide its own GDP among its citizenry; put another way, by whom owns the factors of production (factories and such); if the government owns the factors of production, we call it communism; if the factors of production are privately owned but work in conjunction with the government, hand in hand, this was called National Socialism, or NAZI; if the factors of production are privately owned, but are not government controlled, this is called capitalism. The best examples, today, of these three are, capitalism, the U.S.; socialism, France; communism, Cuba (China has become sort of a hybrid between communism and capitalism; a capitalistic economy under totalitarian rule; there is no name, yet, for this, because its never happened before). Next time Ill tell you the mechanics of exactly how this works; how a countrys central bank creates debt, for both individuals and nations, alike; debtor nations as opposed to creditor nations. When I was a child, the U.S. was a creditor nation; once we became a debtor nation, we never looked back; this tremendous trade imbalance, over time, created what is called the national debt, the sum of all annual trade deficits, all of them, combined; Ill explain what it is, who we owe this debt to, and what they are about to do about it; and how our government is preparing both itself, and you, for this eventuality (the Government keeps up with such as this, very closely); we end up having a bit of a conflict, over the issue, which is gold; I call this the first instability; its purpose is to make possible, the second, or, last, instability (of this Age; theres another one at the end of the next Age; in the bedtime story; a final rebellion). All of this money stuff ends up resulting, in the bedtime story, in a sort of money mark, by which people are able to buy, or sell; and, in the bedtime story, it is to be given to all, both rich and poor, great and small, but all, in the fores of their heads and/or the rights of their hands; and without it, you wont be able to buy or sell anything, or hold a job, whatever; in other words, an outlaw; same as in the first three hundred years of Christianity, Nero declaring Christians enemies of the State, and they were hunted all over the Roman Empire, and persecuted, or subject to tribulation, placed under great duress; whatever; this time has many names. It gets a tad bit technical, the next part is, kind of, you never were interested in boring stuff; you can skip it if you want; Im including it only because its part of the bedtime story; one of four parts, of it.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 06:57:18 +0000