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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Over the last 100 years, the Federal Reserve has created bubbles and burst them, enslaved us with debt, and destroyed our purchasing power through inflation. | |
| Yes, it's been a wonderful lie for the bankers. | |
| There are striking parallels in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life to the lies and tricks that real bankers used to create the Federal Reserve. | |
| Human nature doesn't change, and the greedy elite of 1913 and 2013 look and act a lot like Potter, the banker in the movie. | |
| And many Americans are left like George Bailey, staring into the abyss as their dreams collapse and they face financial ruin. | |
| Do we live in a country that looks a lot more like Pottersville than Bedford Falls? | |
| What does Frank Capra's film show us about how we got here and how we can get out? | |
| When the Federal Reserve was created two days before Christmas 100 years ago, it was a culmination of six years of fraud, fear, and manipulation. | |
| I've never really seen one, but that's got all the earmarks of being a run. | |
| The panic of 1907 was used to shape public support for the Fed. | |
| The panic was triggered by rumors that two major banks were about to become insolvent, just as we see in the movie. | |
| George, there is a rumor around town that you've closed your doors. | |
| Is that true? | |
| I am going all out to help in this crisis. | |
| I have just guaranteed the bank sufficient funds to meet their needs. | |
| They will close up for a week and then reopen. | |
| Just took over the bank. | |
| I may lose a fortune, but I am willing to guarantee your people, too. | |
| Just tell them to bring their shares over here, and I will pay 50 cents on the dollar. | |
| Boy, you never miss a trick, do you, Potter? | |
| Unfortunately, J.P. | |
| Morgan got away with the deception, and was able to shut down competitors and snapped up assets at fire sale prices. | |
| Now, take during the Depression, for instance. | |
| You and I were the only ones that kept our heads. | |
| You saved a billion long, You saved all the rest. | |
| Yes, well, most people say you stole all the rest. | |
| The envious ones, eh, there, George? | |
| The suckers! | |
| Charles Lindbergh Sr. | |
| warned people at the time of the creation of the Federal Reserve that it would not stop boom and bust cycles, but would actually create them in order to benefit its private owners. | |
| Here's what he said. | |
| To cause high prices, all the Federal Reserve Board will do will be to lower the rediscount | |
| rate, producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market. | |
| Then, when businessmen are adjusted to these conditions, it can check prosperity in mid-career | |
| by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest. | |
| It can cause a pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth, or | |
| cause violent fluctuations by greater rate variation. | |
| And in either case, it will possess inside information as to the financial conditions | |
| and advanced knowledge of the coming change, either up or down. | |
| This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privileged class by any government that ever existed. | |
| The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money. | |
| They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage, and they know when to stop panic. | |
| Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control the finance. | |
| As we see in the movie, not all lending institutions have the same motivations. | |
| Now you take this loan here to Ernie Bishop, you know, that fellow that sits around all day on his brains in his taxi, | |
| you know. | |
| I happen to know the bank turned down this loan. | |
| But he comes here, and we're building him a house worth $5,000! | |
| Why? | |
| Well, I handled that, Mr. Potter. | |
| You have all the papers there, his salary, insurance. | |
| I can personally vouch for his character. | |
| Friend of yours? | |
| Yes, sir. | |
| You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. | |
| What does that get us? | |
| A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. | |
| As a former FDIC chair said, all too often the large banks use their models and their algorithms, and if you don't fit in their boxes, you don't get the loan. | |
| And Dodd-Frank legislation is tying the hands of small lenders, shutting out buyers, and shutting down lenders. | |
| Today there are fewer lenders than at any time the government has kept records. | |
| 10,000 banks disappeared between 1984 and 2011. | |
| This town needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling the potter. | |
| In the movie, George gets to see what happens to the small town if Potter didn't have competition from credit unions and smaller lenders. | |
| If it hadn't been for you... Yeah, if it hadn't been for me, everybody would be a lot better off. | |
| My wife and my kids and my friends and my... Look, little fella, why don't you go off and haunt somebody else? | |
| Yeah, so you still think killing yourself would make everyone feel happier, eh? | |
| Well, I don't know. | |
| I guess you're right. | |
| I suppose it would have been better if I'd never been born at all. | |
| The only businesses thriving are vice. | |
| People are angry. | |
| The town is filled with signs like, keep moving, keep off the grass. | |
| Bert the cop actually shoots at George when he's running away and is no threat to anyone. | |
| Stand back! | |
| Everyone is a renter. | |
| No one has a stake. | |
| Now, you're Arnie Bishop and you live in Bailey Park with your wife and kids. | |
| Look, bud, what's the idea? | |
| I live in a shack in Pottersville. | |
| My wife ran away three years ago and took the kid and I ain't never seen you before in my life, see? | |
| Private property and everyone having a stake is the antidote to Pottersville. | |
| Here, you're all businessmen here. | |
| Doesn't make them better citizens, doesn't make them better customers. | |
| But whether it's the Trans-Pacific Partnership or a global carbon tax, the global elite don't see you as a stakeholder. | |
| They want to turn us all into serfs and treat us like cattle. | |
| Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. | |
| Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? | |
| Anyway, my father didn't think so. | |
| People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. | |
| Well, in my book, he died a much richer man than you'll ever be. | |
| I'm not interested in your book. | |
| I'm talking about the building and loans. | |
| I know very well what you're talking about. | |
| You're talking about something you can't get your fingers on. | |
| Speaking of riches, do you find the salary amounts amusing when Potter tries to buy George off? | |
| Let's look at your side. | |
| Young man, 27, 28, married, making, say, 40 a week. | |
| 28, married, making say 40 a week. | |
| 45. | |
| George, I'll start you out at $20,000 a year. | |
| $20,000 a year. | |
| $20,000 a year? | |
| You wouldn't mind living in the nicest house in town? | |
| Buying your wife a lot of fine clothes? | |
| A couple of business trips to New York a year? | |
| Maybe once in a while Europe? | |
| You wouldn't mind that, would you, Jones? | |
| Would I? | |
| Even if George had saved a lot of his $20,000 salary, would it have bought much a couple of decades later? | |
| By even the government's very conservative estimate of inflation, the dollar has lost 90% of its value since 1947, when the movie was made. | |
| The Fed's deliberate inflation is devastating to anyone trying to accumulate wealth through hard work and saving. | |
| So what is the answer to all the George Baileys out there a hundred years after the government gave control of our money supply to private bankers like Potter? | |
| Well, Potter had more money than he could spend. | |
| But would any of you want to be Potter? | |
| You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. | |
| Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. | |
| In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider. | |
| George Bailey finally sees how rich his own life is, as he sees the fruits of relationship, honesty, and compassion. | |
| Hey! | |
| Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter! | |
| Happy New Year to you! | |
| In jail! | |
| Go on home, they're waiting for you! | |
| And if the public can awaken to the lies of the Federal Reserve, if it could even be audited... Well, hello, Mr. Bank Examiner! | |
| It would be a huge step to breaking the chains that enslave all of us. | |
| But ultimately, it is God that changes minds and changes hearts. | |
| God hates oppression. | |
| And we can, and should, confidently pray that he will stop it. | |
| I owe everything to George Bailey. | |
| Help him, dear father. | |
| Joseph, Jesus, and Mary Help my friend, Mr. Bailey. | |
| Help my son, George, tonight. | |
| He never thinks about himself, God. | |
| That's why he's in trouble. | |
| George is a good guy. | |
| Give him a break, God. | |
| I love him, dear Lord. | |
| Watch over him tonight. | |
| Please, God. | |
| Something's the matter with Daddy. | |
| Please bring Daddy back. | |
| Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. |
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