[John S Mosby]

Excellent post. FReepers here take note— 1913 is also the year that the Federal Reserve Bank (a Private Bank then and now, for bankers to bank with each other and “guide” the economy. Something they know very little about and have dutifully screwed up many time. Jekyll Island 1913 Senator Aldrich (Rockefeller’s man),, and they got this “chartered” to them by Congress (giving up Congress’s Constitutional responsibility to manage US Currency!).

Income Tax, and Federal Reserve Bank- the same year and then hand in hand ever since bringing our American Republic down every single time through 2 World Wars and the Cold War and several “recessions” following the Great Depression which they caused right after forming JP Morgan’s club. This is the reality. And don’t forget Bretton Woods, after WWII. The very last people one would ask for business solutions to maintain the great wealth of the USA, created by our Citizens.

[Pontiac]

It was a simple little thing, with rather large consequences for the republic. Prior to the income tax being instituted, the United States government managed to fund itself with various excise taxes, and duties on imports. Afterwards, such taxes pale into insignificance to the revenue generated by the income tax.

The power of the Federal government to borrow money in concert with the power of the Federal Reserve to Create money out of whole cloth exceeds the taxing power of the Internal Revenue Service by far.

As long as foreign entities hold US Dollars in reserve the US government's deficit spending allows the US Government to in essence tax the entire world.

I can not imagine that any country in the world is not paying tribute to the Empire of the United States.

[pierrem15]

Somwhat inaccurate: in 1913, the Federal Reserve didn't guide the economy: it functioned as what it was to setup to be, a reserve bank to provide liquidity to other banks to help deal with financial panics. Basically it just institutionalized J.P. Morgan's and other bankers' private actions did during the Panic of 1907. The value of the currency was still set by Congress, which set the ratio of the dollar to gold.

The Federal Reserve only acquired control of the currency and the economy after Nixon took the US off the Bretton Woods gold exchange mechanism in 1971. With no exchange rate to control inflation and set the value of the currency, inflation took off and the only way to restore value of the currency was raising interest rates, which reduced the ratio of currency to goods.

That's how Greenspan and the Fed acquired control of the US economy and have run it mainly for the profit of the banks and investment houses ever since.