"You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families.  That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!  Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!" —President Jackson, explaining his unwillingness to allow the Second Bank of the United States to continue, in a quote that could easily describe President Trump's mindset with respect to today's Federal Reserve

Big-League Betrayal: Assisted by President Wilson, a Banking Cartel Ascends to Power

In 1913, President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, effectively resurrecting the Second Bank of the United States abolished by President Jackson, once again giving a banking cartel power to make or break the economy as well as to bribe officeholders.  Wilson's realization of the extent of the reinstituted corruption prompted him to lament, "I have unwittingly ruined my country.  A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.  Our system of credit is concentrated.  The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men."

The "few men" referred to by Wilson were the newly empowered banker-racketeers, whose power to blackmail politicians by setting interest rates and other important banking norms was alarming.  Along with their financial clout to dictate the narratives they wished to see printed by the newspapers, the central bankers had become de facto oligarchs with power to rule the hearts and minds of Washington decision-makers.  Author G. Edward Griffin writes that "Wall Street control over important segments of the media was considerable."  What was true then is still true today: secret dealings with bankers have become a mainstay for seekers of power.  Barack Obama allowed the bankers at Citibank to choose his cabinet, and Hillary Clinton gave clandestine speeches to bankers during her presidential run.  It is the lamentably lawful racketeers of the globalist system of finance and credit who want power concentrated in their hands alone.

In the Nick of Time

On July 13, 2015, Thomas Herold, in "Why the Value of FIAT Money Will Always Go to Zero," explained that "[t]he US government is guilty of every action that makes fiat money worthless. ... Current policy is only increasing these effects."  The precarious situation described made the electoral choice of sound money proponent Donald Trump of paramount importance.

Trump took office in 2017, hoping to restore an economy whose dollar had lost 96% of its value since the establishment of the Fed.  The overprinting of paper currency, accelerated by the decoupling of the dollar from gold altogether (courtesy of President Nixon in 1971), had worked to ease the dollar down the road to eventual worthlessness and economic destruction.  Thus, it was a timely occurrence that Donald Trump — a negotiator, Twitter troll, and extremely stable genius — was elected president.

Working Hard to Set the Stage for a New Economy

Trump has worked unceasingly to pull the economy back from the precipice of doom, before the Fed's fiat money system fails.  Trump will need to radically restructure the banking system into one backed by real money, rather than fiat currency that can be printed ad infinitum.  Already having been put on life support, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the economy was still teetering on the brink, with low growth and low opportunity, right up until Trump's election.

The necessary changes will not happen without pain, since any major shift in economic policy will bring both winners and losers.  Trump's challenge is to transition the economy with the least amount of pain possible.  To bolster the nation's economic health, ahead of instituting a sound money system, Trump has cut taxes to spur hiring, incentivized the transfer of offshore wealth into American banks, and deregulated business to restore manufacturing and increase energy production.  Trump has also expanded foreign markets for farm goods and is negotiating important reciprocal trade deals with other countries.  The economic shift appears to be on track for sometime after the 2020 election.

The transitional economy must be able to withstand the shock, when the shift to sound money occurs, because ceasing the printing of money out of thin air will put a halt to unrestrained spending.  Budgets will have to be reined in once the money supply becomes tied to actual wealth creation.

Constitutional Money

In contrast to fiat currency, backed only by the promise to pay, sound money — or commodity money — offers a system whereby every dollar printed would be backed by precious metal.  This means that dollars may be converted to gold or silver.  Thus, the printing of currency can increase only if the amount of wealth in the economy increases.  Globalist central planners will no longer devalue the dollar by overprinting.  Congress will need to provide a plan that creates money constitutionally, in accordance with its power (in Article I, Section 8, Clause Five of the Constitution) to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin."

Rickards on Gold

For gold to back the dollar, its price would need to rise.  Gold expert Jim Rickards was asked where the price of gold might go, upon conversion of the economy to a gold standard, to which he replied: "The answer's $10,000 [per ounce] now if you have 40 percent backing [of M1] — and over $50,000 [per ounce] if you have 100 percent backing of M2 [a measure of the money supply that includes savings deposits, mutual funds, etc.], which is a broader money supply. ... But even on the modest assumptions of M1 [real cash only] using 40 percent backing, gold would have to be $10,000 an ounce to support the money supply."  Gold is important, according to Rickards, because the people have confidence in gold.  If Trump's vetting of gold-bug Judy Shelton for the Fed is any indication, Trump is moving toward a gold standard.

Change Is the Only Choice

If fiat money continues, the dollar will ultimately collapse, and that would be the sin of the Federal Reserve.  However, Trump has enlisted gold advocates, such as Judy Shelton, to advise him.  Like President Jackson, whose portrait hangs in Trump's Oval Office, Trump prefers the acceptable scope of difficulties posed by restructuring to the unacceptable range of problems that that would flow from inaction.  So it appears that sound money is on the way, for anything else would be the sin of Donald Trump.

Paul Dowling has written about the Constitution, as well as articles for American Thinker, Godfather Politics, and Eagle Rising.  His blog is Conservative Notions.