This blog is a part of The Matrix Series. See the overview here:
Banksters paradise part 5/7
Read part 1 here.
If “only power that is hidden is power that endures” let the sun shine and illuminate everything.
The Money Power Seeks to Create a World System of Financial Control in Private Hands Able to Dominate Every Nation on Earth
In addition to these pragmatic goals, the powers of financial capitalism had another
far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private
hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world
as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of
the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings
and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements
in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks
which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank, in the hands of men like
Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal
Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the
Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to
manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country,
and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business
world.
International Bankers Seek and Make Agreements on All the Major Financial Problems of the World
In each country the power of the central bank rested largely on its control of credit and
money supply. In the world as a whole the power of the central bankers rested very
largely on their control of loans and of gold flows. In the ... system, these central bankers
were able to mobilize resources to assist each other through the B.I.S., where payments
between central banks could be made by bookkeeping adjustments between the accounts
which the central banks of the world kept there. The B.I.S. as a private institution was
owned by the seven chief central banks and was operated by the heads of these, who
together formed its governing board. Each of these kept a substantial deposit at the B.I.S.,
and periodically settled payments among themselves (and thus between the major
countries of the world) by bookkeeping in order to avoid shipments of gold. They made
agreements on all the major financial problems of the world, as well as on many of the
economic and political problems, especially in reference to loans, payments, and the
economic future of the chief areas of the globe.
The Bank for International Settlements Becomes the Mechanism for Allowing the Three Financial Centers of the World to Act As One
The B.I.S. is generally regarded as the apex of the structure of financial capitalism
whose remote origins go back to the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 and the
Bank of France in 1803. As a matter of fact its establishment in 1929 was rather an
indication that the centralized world financial system of 1914 was in decline. It was set
up rather to remedy the decline of London as the world's financial center by providing a
mechanism by which a world with three chief financial centers in London, New York,
and Paris could still operate as one. The B.I.S. was a ... effort to cope with the problems
arising from the growth of a number of centers. It was intended to be the world cartel of
ever-growing national financial powers by assembling the nominal heads of these
national financial centers.
Montagu Norman Was the Commander-in-Chief of the World System of Banking Control
The commander in chief of the world system of banking control was Montagu
Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, who was built up by the private bankers to a
position where he was regarded as an oracle in all matters of government and business. In
government the power of the Bank of England was a considerable restriction on political
action as early as 1819 but an effort to break this power by a modification of the bank's
charter in 1844 failed. In 1852, Gladstone, then chancellor of the Exchequer and later
prime minister, declared, "The hinge of the whole situation was this: the government
itself was not to be a substantive power in matters of Finance, but was to leave the Money
Power supreme and unquestioned."
The Currency Dictator of Europe
This power of the Bank of England and of its governor was admitted by most qualified
observers. In January, 1924, Reginald McKenna, who had been chancellor of the
Exchequer in 1915-1916, as chairman of the board of the Midland Bank told its
stockholders: "I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can,
and do, create money.... And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of
Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people." In that
same year, Sir Drummond Fraser, vice-president of the Institute of Bankers, stated, "The
Governor of the Bank of England must be the autocrat who dictates the terms upon which
alone the Government can obtain borrowed money." On September 26, 1921, The
Financial Times wrote, "Half a dozen men at the top of the Big Five Banks could upset
the whole fabric of government finance by refraining from renewing Treasury Bills."
Vincent Vickers, who had been a director of the bank for nine years, said, "Since 1919
the monetary policy of the Government has been the policy of the Bank of England and
the policy of the Bank of England has been the policy of Mr. Montagu Norman." On
November Il, 1927, the Wall Street Journal called Mr. Norman "the currency dictator of
Europe." This fact was admitted by Mr. Norman himself before the court of the bank on
March 21, 1930, and before the Macmillan Committee five days later.
Montagu Norman's position may be gathered from the fact that his predecessors in the
governorship, almost a hundred of them, had served two-year terms, increased rarely, in
time of crisis, to three or even four years. But Norman held the position for twenty-four
years (1920-1944), during which he became the chief architect of the liquidation of
Britain's global preeminence.
Norman Viewed Governments and Democracy As Threats to the Money Power
Norman was a strange man whose mental outlook was one of successfully suppressed
hysteria or even paranoia. He had no use for governments and feared democracy. Both of
these seemed to him to be threats to private banking, and thus to all that was proper and
precious in human life. Strong-willed, tireless, and ruthless, he viewed his life as a kind
of cloak-and-dagger struggle with the forces of ... [sound] money .... When he rebuilt the
Bank of England, he constructed it as a fortress prepared to defend itself against any
popular revolt, with the sacred gold reserves hidden in deep vaults below the level of
underground waters which could be released to cover them by pressing a button on the
governor's desk. For much of his life Norman rushed about the world by fast steamship,
covering tens of thousands of miles each year, often traveling incognito, concealed by a
black slouch hat and a long black cloak, under the assumed name of "Professor Skinner."
His embarkations and debarkations onto and off the fastest ocean liners of the day,
sometimes through the freight hatch, were about as unobserved as the somewhat similar
passages of Greta Garbo in the same years, and were carried out in a similarly "sincere"
effort at self-effacement.
Montagu Norman's Devoted Colleague in New York City
Norman had a devoted colleague in Benjamin Strong, the first governor of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York. Strong owed his career to the favor of the Morgan Bank,
especially of Henry P. Davison, who made him secretary of the Bankers Trust Company
of New York (in succession to Thomas W. Lamont) in 1904, used him as Morgan's agent
in the banking rearrangements following the crash of 1907, and made him vice-president
of the Bankers Trust (still in succession to Lamont) in 1909. He became governor of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York as the joint nominee of Morgan and of Kuhn, Loeb,
and Company in 1914. Two years later, Strong met Norman for the first time, and they at
once made an agreement to work in cooperation for the financial practices they both
revered.
These financial practices were explicitly stated many times in the voluminous
correspondence between these two men and in many conversations they had, both in their
work and at their leisure (they often spent their vacations together for weeks, usually in
the south of France).
Norman and Strong Seek to Operate Central Banks Free from Any Political Control
In the 1920's, they were determined to use the financial power of Britain and of the
United States to force all the major countries of the world to go on the gold standard and
to operate it through central banks free from all political control, with all questions of
international finance to be settled by agreements by such central banks without
interference from governments.
Norman and Strong Were Mere Agents of the Powerful Bankers Who Remained Behind the Scenes and Operated in Secret
It must not be felt that these heads of the world's chief central banks were themselves
substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians
and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised
them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial
powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called
"international" or "merchant" bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their
own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation
and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than
that of their agents in the central banks. This dominance of investment bankers was based
on their control over the flows of credit and investment funds in their own countries and
throughout the world. They could dominate the financial and industrial systems of their
own countries by their influence over the flow of current funds through bank loans, the
discount rate, and the re-discounting of commercial debts; they could dominate
governments by their control over current government loans and the play of the
international exchanges. Almost all of this power was exercised by the personal influence
and prestige of men who had demonstrated their ability in the past to bring off successful
financial coupe, to keep their word, to remain cool in a crisis, and to share their winning
opportunities with their associates. In this system the Rothschilds had been preeminent
during much of the nineteenth century, but, at the end of that century, they were being
replaced by J. P. Morgan whose central office was in New York, although it was always
operated as if it were in London (where it had, indeed, originated as George Peabody and
Company in 1838). Old J. P. Morgan died in 1913, but was succeeded by his son of the
same name (who had been trained in the London branch until 1901), while the chief
decisions in the firm were increasingly made by Thomas W. Lamont after 1924.
The Money Power Creates an Ingenious Plan to Create and Control Giant Monopolies
The efforts of financiers to separate ownership from control were aided by the great
capital demands of modern industry. Such demands for capital made necessary the
corporation form of business organization. This inevitably brings together the capital
owned by a large number of persons to create an enterprise controlled by a small number
of persons. The financiers did all they could to make the former number as large as
possible and the latter number as small as possible. The former was achieved by stock
splitting, issuing securities of low par value, and by high-pressure security salesmanship.
The latter was achieved by plural-voting stock, nonvoting stock, pyramiding of holding
companies, election of directors by cooptation, and similar techniques. The result of this
was that larger and larger aggregates of wealth fell into the control of smaller and smaller
groups of men.
- Carroll Quigley “Tragedy and Hope: A history of the world in our time” 1966, chapter 20.
Comments and thoughts
It should be pretty obvious by now that what is for the average joe a conspiracy theory, namely that world affairs are controlled or at least heavily directed by a tiny percentage, is in fact reality. In the last part we shall draw a line from Quigleys old book to more recent times and “A New International Economic Order”.. a technocracy.
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