The Bankruptcy of The United States
United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303

Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:

"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11.. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner’s report that will lead to our demise.

It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. H.J.R. 192, 73rd Congress m session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution To Suspend The Gold Standard and Abrogate The Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.

The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers. With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government for the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part: "The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States?’

Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America, that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be "money" in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or "currency." Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not "money." A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not "money?’ The federal United States government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money, -gold and silver coin.

It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any "money." Most Americans have not been paid any "money" for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now, do you understand why you are "bankrupt," along with the rest of the country?

Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). when ever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs.

Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-Bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.

There is a fundamental difference between "paying" and "discharging" a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common law is valid unless it involves an exchange of "good & valuable consideration." Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity or justice because they have so much wealth already.

Their lust is for power and control. Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.

The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a "Canon Law Trust" as their model, adding stock and naming it a "Joint Stock Trust." The U.S. Congress had passed a law making it illegal for any legal "person" to duplicate a "Joint Stock Trust" in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post-facto (to 1870), although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution. [1:9:3]

The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums are the same.

Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it.) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principle.

Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913)

"Hypothecated" all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, -in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a "beneficiary" of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their "subjects," the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.

In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit "money substitute" it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their "economic slaves", the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.

Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another.

This has been going on for over eighty years without the "informed knowledge" of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough. Now it’s easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt.

Why don’t more people own their properties outright?

Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid? Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?

We are reaping what has been sown, and the results of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life. Few of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.

America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit and its reputation for courage, vision and human rights. This is an undeclared economic war, bankruptcy, and economic slavery of the most corrupt order! Wake up America! Take back your Country."


Image: United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303

Aw man, b_i, how did you find a Traficant piece that didn't have this line:

My brother, the economist major scoffs at a return to the gold standard as being a recepie for killing means for economic growth. What say ye?

LOL. It was like trying to find a Kucinich that doesn't end in "they tried to take me lucky charms!"

i'd say your brother probably goes to an ivy league institution.

the gold standard did not and would not kill growth. i wouldn't say it stunted growth between the late 1600s to 1913. under a gold standard, growth (at least growth as we currently measure it) is less robust. this is as much of a function of the way in which we calculate "growth" as it is a reflection of the gold standard's effectiveness. people don't realize that between 1700 and 1913, the general price level was stable. that is, $5.00 in 1700 was worth $5.00 in 1913. the price stability, combined with gradual growth, made for rising living standards. today, we grow anywhere between 3-8% per annum. however, under fractional-reserve banking and fiat money, annual inflation eats away at growth. bernanke often talks of his 2% inflation target. inflation must be subtracted from nominal growth to get a more accurate picture of things. 5% growth w/ 4% inflation is not better than 1.5% growth and no inflation.

history is littered with failed fiat currencies. every fiat currency ever has failed. every one of them. france's experience led to the french revolution. the temptation is too great for politicians to inflate their way out of a crisis, or to simply print money to finance colassally stupid nation-building exercises while cutting taxes. because a tax hike is too direct and politically unpalatable to finance gov't expenditure, they prefer a more subtle route - the printing press. this is precisely what worries me when entitlement programs come due in the next thirty to fourty years. taxes will never be raised and benefits will never be cut so long as the gov't has access to the printing press. we'll simply inflate our way out of it. this chart is pretty ugly.

having said all that, there is little consensus among economists on optimal monetary policy. there are many issues on which nearly all economists agree (free trade: good, price and wage controls: bad, etc.), but money is not one of them. many modern, mainstream (keynesian) economists regard the gold standard as little more than an anachronistic relic. i disagree and have not yet met a convincing arguement for our current fractional-reserve, fiat money system.

The one problem that I see with a gold standard is that wouldn't it become impractical at some point? I mean, there's only so much gold a gov't can collect--how could you sustain the ability for a person to exchange their money for its worth in gold?

I guess if you represented money over a wider array of commodities (silver, platinum, etc.), I could see it being more sustainable, though. Is there any huge difference between this and a pure gold standard?

Also, a counterargument I hear often against the gold standard is that the people who want it should just go ahead and spend their fiat money on gold. How would you rebut?

when i say "gold standard," it's simply shorthand for competing currencies. that is, let the market determine what should function as the medium of exchange. before gov'ts were granted a legal monopoly on money, it happened that gold and silver were the media of choice. should any commodity prove incapable of functioning as the medium of exchange, competing currencies should have the flexibility to assume the role of primary medium of exchange.

tethering ourselves to any one currency, be it fiat pieces of paper or gold, is a fundamentally flawed approach.


yes. as noted above, limiting ourselves to only one medium of exchange introduces countless complications.

and w/o going too far into the weeds, all this waxing on and on about gold standards is pointless unless we adopt 100% reserve banking. we currently employ a fractional-reserve system that makes 90+% of all dollars in circulation a liability. that is, these dollars were loaned into existence and are debt. this "good-faith" system is functionally insolvent and operates concurrently only on our collective faith in banks' reserves and reluctance to w/draw deposits.


in a word, taxes. buying gold, or any commodity, requires that i pay taxes. i'm not spending $1.08 for one dollar's worth of purchasing power.

You sort of make an argument for it below, that 90% of the money in circulation is debt, thus it would be near impossible to change at this point.

Plus, if people actually lost something of real value, like gold coins instead fiat paper money, they would probably be a lot less likely to support social services that enforce our social contract.

If there were a large enough economic meltdown it might be doable, eh?

pointing out the flaws in the current system is not the same as arguing for its continuation, even tacitly. and yes, the change would be quite difficult, especially because few no foreign nations are clamoring for a return to the gold standard. but my larger point is that a return to some kind of commodity backed money, whether endorsed by the gov't or not, is inevitable. whether we convert now, voluntarily, or are forced to at some point in the future is the relevant question.


i would argue that people are losing things of value now (see crisis, subprime mortgage). and they're losing these things because they were purchased with money they didn't have from a bank whose deposits didn't exist. the housing crisis (and the coming of government insolvency) is precisely what will happen to the economy at large once we reach the inflationary tipping point.

i have never signed this "social contract" of which you speak. does it mean that i get to enjoy the spoils of someone else's work?


FTFY