[processing please hold]

I think they work together,

That's my belief, they are a hand-n-glove partnership.

but the system is sufficiently obscured so that its hard to tell.

I also believe that is why it's so obscured, to make it harder to draw a connection between them.

It sort of an interesting aspect of our current monetary system that if the National Debt were paid off there would be virtually no more "money."

Has our National Debt ever been paid off? If so, I don't recall what century.

[canuck_conservative]

Has our National Debt ever been paid off? If so, I don't recall what century.

IIRC, President Andrew Jackson managed to pay off the US's war debts in th 1830s - much to the annoyance of the bankers at the time, who wanted the government to stay in debt (and thus under their control).

He also got rid of the infamous Bank of The United States, the predecessor to the Federal Reserve, with the famous line "You are a den of thieves, and I will cast you out". Jackson correctly recognised the threat that comes with putting a nation's money supply in the hands of private bankers - and for that reason, he's one of my American heroes.