Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United
By Thom Hartmann A...
Americans have always been skeptical of corporate power. In fact, this country was founded by a revolt against the biggest corporation of its day - the British East India Company.
You know how conservatives are always going on about how the Boston Tea Party was an example of America’s anti-government roots?
Well, the Boston Tea Party was actually an anti-corporate protest, not some 18th century version of an Americans for Tax Reform rally.
When the good citizens of Boston threw chest upon chest of East India tea into the freezing winter water of Boston Harbor, they were protesting a law -- the Tea Act of 1773 -- that was their era’s version of the bank bailout.
The Tea Act gave the British East India Company total control over the North American tea trade, exempted it from having to pay taxes on exported tea, and gave it a refund on any tea it was unable to sell.
It was the largest corporate tax cut in the history of the world, and set up the East India Company to pull a Wal-Mart and put all the small, local tea shops across America out of business.
Not surprisingly, this really angered the American colonists, and so they took action, setting off a chain of events that eventually resulted in our independence from Great Britain.
So skepticism of corporate power is in our blood.
It’s what the American Revolution, or at least the event that sparked it, was all about, which makes the latest polling about money in politics anything but surprising.
According to Bloomberg Politics, a full 78 percent of Americans think we should overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that opened up our election process to floods of corporate money.
This isn’t, by the way, a situation where a bunch of Democrats are tipping the scales.
Money in politics often gets painted in the media as “liberal” or “progressive” issue, but this new Bloomberg poll shows that all Americans of all political persuasions overwhelmingly oppose Citizens United.
Eighty-three percent of Democrats want to overturn it, as do 80 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of self-declared independents.
In other words, wanting to get money out of politics is about as mainstream as the Super Bowl, blue jeans, and FM radio classic rock.
Which, again, isn’t all that surprising.
This country’s changed a lot since 1776, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that the American people, regardless of their political party, really don’t like it when corporate special interests take over their government or their election process.
But one thing that has changed since 1776 is the media, which is now concentrated in the hands of a few giant transnational corporations.
And that ever-more-concentrated corporate media really doesn’t want to discuss Citizens United or the public’s overwhelming desire to overturn it.
In fact, even though our TV networks have spent hours breaking down every single Donald Trump poll, they’ve so far completely ignored that amazing Bloomberg study on opposition to Citizens United.
And I mean completely ignored.
As Media Matters pointed out the other day, “[T]he major networks' evening news programs… aired no coverage of the Bloomberg poll between September 28 and October 2. The ABC, FOX and NBC October 4 Sunday shows also failed to report on the poll's results.”
Maybe there’s a good justifiable, journalistic reason for this.
Maybe the fact that Americans hate Citizens United is so obvious that the mainstream media didn’t think it was worth reporting on.
But I doubt it.
The big open secret about Citizens United is that the mainstream corporate media likes it.
More money in politics means more money spent on elections ads, which, of course, means more money for the corporations that run the major news networks.
That’s why the media isn’t covering Citizens United - because doing so would cut into their bottom line.
It really is that simple.
But luckily, the American people are figuring out what’s up.
If the rise of Bernie Sanders is any indication, they’re more than ready to take part in another political revolution against corporate power - just like the one that founded this country 239 years ago.
The mainstream media ignores what the people want - at its own peril.
Comments
#2
I'm sure most of those small tea shops, at least in the Boston area, were supplied through John Hancock's black market. He was smuggling Dutch Tea among other things, which ticked off the British because of revenue loss, revenue needed to pay for the recent "final" French and Indian war.
Being undercut by the East India Company motivated Hancock to finance most of the early protests in Boston, which helped ignite the revolution. So indeed it was an anti East India Company sentiment with Hancock as the key player.
#3
Thanks, Thom! Sure, Citizens United is terrible! But let's not waste an amendment on revoking it, if we leave "corporate personhood" in place! Reducing the money in elections by itself does nothing to eliminate corporate constitutional rights as persons that allow them to "get their way" in case after case in the courts; and the influence of money in elections was not much less befoe 2010. Let's focus on getting rid of Corporate Personhood - and money as speech! www.MovetoAmend.org is the only initiative that's focusing on both!
#4
Amazing how the history books are modified in order to protect the ruling elites. Even Thom, who should know better, has been suckered in by their version of history.
In fact the revolutionary war was fought over their inalienable right to public Money Creation NOT some mickey-mouse tax on tea. The colonies were prospering thanks to the Colonial gov't providing its own publicly owned currency. The private English Banksters of the day could not allow that, so they had the British gov't ban their currency. This resulted in mass unemployment, people had no jobs, merchants could not sell their products with insufficient currency in the hands of the people to buy those products. So who would give a damn about a tax on tea when you have no money to even buy tea, never mind pay a tax on that.
Essentially the American Colonies faced the same brutal attack by private Banksters that Greece has had to do when the criminal Banksters cut-off their supply of Euros, and even forced the once-proud social democratic PM, Alexis Tsipras to capitulate like a beaten dog. Now he is no more than a little puppy, licking at the boots of the rulling Bankster elites.
The true cause of the American Revolution, not mentioned in our corrupted school version of history:
Benjamin Franklin, Colonial srip was very successful:
“There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”
“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
Soon afterward, the English bankers demanded that the King and Parliament pass a law that prohibited the colonies from using their scrip money. Only gold and silver could be used which would be provided by the English bankers. This began the plague of debt based money in the colonies that had cursed the English working class.
The first law was passed in 1751, and then a harsher law was passed in 1763. Franklin claimed that within one year, the colonies were filled with unemployment and beggars, just like in England, because there was not enough money to pay for the goods and work. The money supply had been cut in half.
"..While visiting England, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was asked how he accounted for the prosperous condition of the Colonies. His reply was: "That is simple. It is only because in the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called 'Colonial Scrip' - and we issue it in the proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry."
"..Soon that information was brought to the ROTHSCHILD's bank which coerced the English Parliament to pass a Bill providing that no Colony could issue its own money. Franklin said, "Within one year from that date the streets of the Colonies were filled with the unemployed."
".. Franklin later said that this was the original cause of the Revolutionary War. In his own language: "The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the Colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction."
This opinion was confirmed by great statesmen of his era:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson
History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance. - James Madison
“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.” - John Adams
English historian, John Twells, wrote about the money of the colonies, the colonial Scrip:
“It was the monetary system under which America’s Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.
In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins. Consider now the consequences: this restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and assets its rights.”
Peter Cooper, industrialist and statesman wrote:
“After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and Stamp Act.”
http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/hidden-history-according-benjamin-fr...
http://www.freedom-school.com/money/famous-quotes-on-money.html
"...According to a July 5th article titled "Greece - The One Biggest Lie You're Being Told By The Media," the country did not fail on its own. It was made to fail:
[T]he banks wrecked the Greek government, and then deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt . . . while revenue-generating public assets were sold off to oligarchs and international corporations..."
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31912-grexit-or-jubilee-how-greek-deb...
The best video on the subject:
97% owned - Economic Truth Documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo
No honest, rational government would ever allow abdicating the right to create a nation's currency over to a bunch of worthless screwup greed-crazed parasites who produce nothing, unless they were in fear of retribution, mostly from bad press and no funding or cushy jobs & speaking engagements post-government but at the extreme, assassination.
"..The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity..".
Abraham Lincoln
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
It was Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild (1840-1915) who once said:
"...“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”
What was true of the British Empire is equally true of the US Empire, controlled remotely by the London based Elite through the Federal Reserve System. Judged by its consequences, the Federal Reserve System is the greatest con job in human history...."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-really-controls-the-world/5445239
The Banker's Manifest, 1934:
"Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.
"When, through process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers.
"These truths are well known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance.
"It is thus, by discrete action, we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished."
Montagu Norman, Governor of The Bank Of England, addressing the United States Bankers' Association, NYC 1924
"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented ... Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with a flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again ... if you want to continue to be slaves of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit."
Sir Josiah Stamp, Head Of The Bank of England, 1781
Emanuel Josephson stated in the Rockefeller Internationalist:
"They (the Rockefellers) control most of the important newspapers, magazines, and book publishing houses in the country, including the Curtis Publications, the Hearst Publications, Time, the New York Times, the Associated Press and many others."
The Elements of Economics, by J.L. Carmichael
John Moody wrote:
"Seven men on Wall Street now control a great share of the fundamental industry and resources of the United States. Three of the seven men, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, George F. Baker, head of the First National Bank of New York belong to the so-called Morgan group; four of them, John D. and William Rockefeller, James Stillman, head of the National City Bank, and Jacob H. Schiff on the private banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb Company, to the so-called Standard Oil City Bank group...the central machine of capital extends its control over the United States...The process is not only economically logical; it is now practically automatic."
Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins
"...Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it..."
Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
"...So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes...."
Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)
Consider the 1961 statement of US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) before media personnel:
"...The word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths and secret proceedings. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. It depends on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published, its mistakes are buried, not headlined, and its dissenters are silenced, not praised, no expenditure is questioned, no secret revealed… I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people.”
Secret societies, secret oaths, secret proceedings, infiltration, subversion, intimidation – these are the words used by JFK!
"....President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Col. Edward House: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centres has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” It may be recalled that Andrew Jackson, US President from 1829-1837, was so enraged by the tactics of bankers (Rothschilds) that he said:
“You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.”
Interlocking Structure of Elite Control
In his book Big Oil and Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network, Dean Henderson states: “My queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies were given Freedom of Information Act status, before being denied on ‘national security’ grounds. This is ironic since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe.” This is, on the face of it, quite astonishing but it goes to show the US government works not for the people but for the Elite. It also shows that secrecy is paramount in Elite affairs. No media outlet will raise this issue because the Elite owns the media. Secrecy is essential for Elite control – if the world finds out the truth about the wealth, thought, ideology and activities of the Elite there would be a worldwide revolt against it. Henderson further states:
The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with other European and old money behemoths. But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch. According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stockholders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation.
It is well known that in 2009, of the top 100 largest economic entities of the world, 44 were corporations. The wealth of these families, which are among the top 10% shareholders in each of these, is far in excess of national economies. In fact, total global GDP is around 70 trillion dollars. The Rothschild family wealth alone is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. So is the case with the Rockefellers who were helped and provided money all along by the Rothschilds. The US has an annual GDP in the range of 14-15 trillion dollars. This pales into insignificance before the wealth of these trillionaires. With the US government and most European countries in debt to the Elite, there should be absolutely no doubt as to who owns the world and who controls it. To quote Eustace Mullins from his book The World Order:
The Elites rule the US through their Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Federal Reserve System with no serious challenges to their power. Expensive ‘political campaigns’ are routinely conducted, with carefully screened candidates who are pledged to the program of the World Order. Should they deviate from the program, they would have an ‘accident’, be framed on a sex charge, or indicted in some financial irregularity...."
#5
and for the same reason Bernie isn't covered.
#6
The only media we had before radio was newspapers. There were many newspaper publishers. Every city had a newspaper and they really were the guardians of democracy. Large wealthy local companies would buy the newspaper publishing companies and have the news printed to say what the company heads wanted it to say. George Hearst and his son, William Randolph Hearst did just that. The Hearsts used their newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, to promote their political and corporate agenda. So, what we see today in news is not new. We need to ask our political leaders to support, enact, and bring back legislation that makes the news givers truthful, fair, and servants of the general public.
#7
Dear Thom.. Knowing what we know today about our failed system I'm going to take a wild guess and bet the farm that it matter's nothing what the left or right think's or how we vote the Banking cartel that has long ago disgracefully corrupted our system and would never allow or take any chance that anything they have decided on could ever be over turned or repealed by the like's of voter's or some lowly politician . My god Thom are you blind just look at the damage they have already caused . Have any of you seen any meaningful legislation the put's an end to or does anything to help anyone but them ? I haven't and that's clearly because they will not allow it . Sure you can get up on your soap box and talk all that talk but at the end of the day Thom WE the people are no better off then we were a decade ago and that my friend is by no accident but rather careful design . So while we watch as the filthy rich get even more so we still have seen no Job's bill put forth that would even begin to start the ball to recovery rolling and unless your a naive child is again by no accident but careful design . Just take a good look at the teeth that have been so carefully removed from such agency's as the EPA the DEC or really any agency that act's as watch dog over any industry and that to is by no accident but careful design I think going back to the Powell Memorandum as it follow's it's direction to the letter just take a look and you will see like a smack in the face all the careful design I spoke of ..For Gods sake Thom these insane Petroleum cartel idiot's are using the atmospheric heater's to melt the ice for oil drilling . how much more insane are these people Thom ? Please tell Me you don't actually think that Climate change {Air pollution} is what you see those white chentrail's for do you ? They are spraying into our sky's what make the heater's effective because without the aluminum and other's they are useless , which is why the media is so vital and why they sre spraying non stop . We have been and are being systematically looted raped & plundered by the very same family's who have always done so ..just by a new generation of power drunken whore's
#8
So tell us, IRV, why were the founders so afraid of paper money, if it had made the colonies so prosperous?
#9
In fact, RFord, cities used to have several newspapers, so there was competition. Somehow, with a larger population, we just don't seem to be able to maintain the same amount of industry. I wonder why that is.
#10
My comment is more appropriate for chat -- my chat isnt working right now. Today Tom implied that Hillary is aping Bernie by coming out against Citizens United. I dont think that is true--Hillary has been against Citizens United since she has been able to comment (she refrained from domestic politics when Secretary of State). She may be late to the game on some issues but not on Citizen's United---especially since she was the topic of the prohibited "speech" which came to the Court case.
#11
mathboy, gold & silver is paper money, unless you are talking gold & silver coins which were trivial in magnitude, not practical as a the main currency even during those early days of economic systems. All that gold meant is Banksters issue paper gold certificates, which are traded just like paper money, and are not backed up by gold. All that they are is promises to pay face value in current gold price in more paper money, as is done today. There is a lot more paper gold than real gold.
Today virtually all money is just 1 & 0's, digital entries in Bank accounts.
#12
Great article, Thom, but what you're not saying is that same media is supporting the takeover of 1-world Gov't necessitated by trade deals and financially supported by climate change alarm & the resultant push for regressive carbon taxes. NASA satellites show there has been no Earth warming since 1998, and the warming that did occur corresponds to solar radiation spikes, which are not sunspot cycle related CME's, BTW.
#13
Regarding the British and our colonial paper currency.......I'm not aware of any British ban on colonial paper currency, but I do know that colonial assemblies all issued notes valued in either English Pounds or Spanish milled dollars. These notes helped fill the void created by the British policy of not allowing precious metal coinage into the colonies. The British only allowed their copper coinage to circulate. Most of the silver and gold coinage in circulation came from the Spanish colonies in Mexico and South America.
Continental Congress joined in the printing of paper currency during the rev war to raise money for arms which lead to rapid inflation and severe devaluation.
The economic depression created by the war eventually lead to Shay's rebellion. By 1786 Creditors refused to accept paper money because it lacked sound backing .....problem was, Debtors had little or no access to gold and silver. Rather than face foreclosures Daniel Shays organized an army made up of farmers, "Debtors".....the rebellion was eventually put down, but it lead to the realization that we needed a strong central government, and thus the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
#14
"...Colonial Scrip was a paper fiat money as opposed to specie issued by the colonies in the pre-revolution era, up until 1775. It was an altogether different money from Continental currency; which was money issued during the American Revolution, that depreciated rapidly, to fund the war effort.
Conception
Colonial Scrip was not backed by gold or silver and therefore the Colonies could control its purchasing power. This was a revolutionary concept in economics, because the conventional European mercantilist system of money required governments to borrow from banks and pay interest for those loans, as gold and silver were the only regarded forms of money. This is known as the debt-based money system, where banknotes are “bills of debt.” Colonial Scrip, however, were “bills of credit” created by the government, based on the credit of that government, and this meant that there was no interest to pay for the introduction of money. This went a considerable way towards defraying the expense of the Colonial governments and in maintaining prosperity. The Governments charged low interest when it loaned out this paper money to its citizens, with land as collateral, and this interest income lowered the tax burden on the people, contributing to prosperity.
The currency was born when a lack of gold and silver in the Colonies made trade hard to conduct, and a barter system prevailed. One by one, the Colonies began to issue their own paper money to serve as a medium of exchange to make trade vibrant. The Governments could then retire excess notes out of circulation by taxing the people, helping some Colonies generally avoid inflation. Each Colony had its own currency and some were better managed than others. It was banned by English Parliament in the Currency Act after Benjamin Franklin had explained the benefits of this currency to the British Board of Trade. Outlawing the circulating medium caused a depression in the Colonies, and Franklin and many others believed it to be the true cause of the American Revolution...."
https://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com/fraud/colonial-scrip/
#15
Pennsylvania:
"....The Pennsylvania version of this currency was said to be the most effective, because they controlled the money supply and issued only enough notes so as to satisfy the demands of trade, preventing inflation. In 1938, Dr. Richard A. Lester, an economist at Princeton University, wrote that “The price level during the 52 years prior to the American Revolution and while Pennsylvania was on a paper standard was more stable than the American price level has been during any succeeding fifty-year period.” Pennsylvania established a “land bank” that allowed landowners to borrow Scrip with their land as collateral. They could borrow twice the value of their land, half of it representing actual land value, and the other half representing production potential of the land. The loan was to be retired over a set period of years, with the land onwership being restored to the citizen upon payment. When the loan was fully retired, another loan could be taken out.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin helped create the Pennsylvania Scrip, and in his autobiography he wrote of this currency:
"...The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident as never afterwards to be much disputed..."
Franklin believed the shutting down of this paper money by Parliament in 1764 was the principal cause of the American Revolution, as did many other prominent Americans. Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union College, Vice-President of the New York Board of Currency, US Presidential Candidate in 1876, and one-time colleague of Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin said in his 1883 book Ideas for a Science of Good Government:
"...After Franklin had explained…to the British Government as the real cause of prosperity, they immediately passed laws, forbidding the payment of taxes in that money. This produced such great inconvenience and misery to the people, that it was the principal cause of the Revolution. A far greater reason for a general uprising, than the Tea and Stamp Act, was the taking away of the paper money...."
Adam Smith wrote of the Pennsylvania currency in his famed 1776 work The Wealth of Nations:
"...The government of Pennsylvania, without amassing any [gold or silver], invented a method of lending, not money indeed, but what is equivalent to money to its subjects. [It advanced] to private people at interest, upon [land as collateral], paper bills of credit…made transferable from hand to hand like bank notes, and declared by act of assembly to be legal tender in all payments…[the system] went a considerable way toward defraying the annual expense…of that…government [low taxes]. [Pennsylvania’s] paper currency…is said never to have sunk below the value of gold and silver which was current in the colony before the…issue of paper money...."
#16
The British Currency Act of 1764:
"...The Meaning and Definition of the Currency Act: The Currency Act of 1764 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on September 1, 1764, that was designed to control the colonial currency system.
The act prohibited the issue of any new 'Bills of Credit' and the re-issue of existing currency by the American colonists in the 13 Colonies. The Currency Act is the name of several acts of Parliament that regulated paper money issued by the colonies of America..."
Effects of the Currency Act of 1764:
"...The colonies suffered a constant shortage of 'hard currency' (silver and gold) with which to conduct trade. There were no gold or silver mines in the American colonies. Silver and gold coins (hard currency) could only be obtained through trade as regulated by Great Britain. British Acts effectively stopped trade between the colonies with French, Dutch, and Spanish in the West Indies. Triangular Trade, coupled with the policy of Mercantilism, provided a “favorable balance of trade” for Great Britain but an "imbalance of trade" in the colonies resulting in a massive trade deficit. The trade deficit was a direct result of the British policy of Mercantilism and its use of the Triangular trade routes. The result of this caused the colonies to suffer a chronic shortage of funds. The Currency Act threatened to destabilize the entire colonial economy of New England, the Middle Colonies and the Southern colonies. The industrial areas in the North and agricultural areas in the South united against the Currency Act...."
http://www.landofthebrave.info/currency-act.htm
This is all very similar to what we are experiencing today, the unbelievable corruption and stupidity of allowing private banks to create, control and distribute our money supply - the incredible idiocy of using a debt money system. So like the colonies, massive unemployment results, with some 60 million real unemployed in America, EU countries suffering under the yoke of the Euro debt currency have upwards of 50% youth unemployment. People who want to work, willing to work, ample resources and tools able to produce goods & services wanted and needed by the people, but the shackles of the private debt currency prevent what would naturally occur. Poverty in the midst of Plenty.
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