In the course of preparing a new article on Mobile and Manufactured Home Living News (MHLivingNews) linked among the headlines in review below, the topic of homelessness as a result of inflationary trends sparked the connection with Thomas Jefferson attributed remarks in addressing the concerns of a couple asking for advice on renting vs. buying.
Monticello is the name of a website dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, it is also the name of his famous home in Jefferson’s beloved Virginia.
The attributed quotation to Jefferson has been deemed at least partially inaccurate or “spurious.” But a closer look on what Monticello provides on the topic of this Jefferson credited remarks reveals that it is based upon actual written comments by Jefferson. Here is a common and longer version of those thoughts.
Quotation: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Here is a common variation, again, per Monticello.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”
Don’t look for this to be a hot-button topic, per se, in the 2024 election cycle. More precisely, while inflation is perhaps the hottest concern in the U.S.A. presently, it would not be a surprise if few if any politicians of any party raises this subject. It is not an easy topic is one reason for that, but in fairness, the Texas GOP did boldly tackle this issue in a wide-ranging report previously provided on MHLivingNews.
Foundational Principles
For whatever their flaws and weaknesses, the founders of this republic exhibited a good grasp of the proper role and limitations of government. They understood and discussed thorny issues like what money is and how it functions in society, and on what could keep the citizens of what became the United States of America freer than the nations of England or others in Europe or ‘the old world.’ By contrast, when was the last time that someone in politics besides former Congressman Ron Paul or his son Senator Rand Paul, M.D., discussed the money system or the Federal Reserve in the U.S.?
That said, back to Monticello on what Jefferson did or didn’t say. The first know reference found to the remarks above are in 1933.
Comments: This quotation is often cited as being in an 1802 letter to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, and/or “later published in The Debate Over the Recharter of the Bank Bill (1809).”
The first part of the quotation (“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered”) has not been found anywhere in Thomas Jefferson’s writings, to Albert Gallatin or otherwise. It is identified in Respectfully Quoted as spurious, and the editor further points out that the words “inflation” and “deflation” are not documented until after Jefferson’s lifetime.[2]
The second part of the quotation (“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies”) is a slight misquotation of a statement Jefferson made in a letter to John Taylor in 1816. He wrote, “And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale”[3]
The third part of this quotation (“The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs”) may be a misquotation of Jefferson’s comment to John Wayles Eppes in 1813, “Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.”[4]
This first known occurrence in print of the spurious first part with the two other quotations is in 1948, although the spurious portion actually appears after the two other quotations.[5]
Lastly, we have not found a record of any publication called The Debate Over the Recharter of the Bank Bill. There was certainly debate over the recharter of the National Bank leading up to its expiration in 1811, but a search of Congressional documents of that period yields none of the verbiage discussed above.”
That said, we will pivot back shortly to the longer version of those remarks, at least partially grounded in the remarks by Jefferson. But first, consider what Henry Ford purportedly said in the statement previously shared on MHProNews. “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
AncientHistory said via Reddit the following on the above, attributed to Henry Ford Sr.
That particular quote first appeared in The American Mercury in 1957 in an article How Internationalists Gain Power, and it is important to remember that the entire passage is prefaced with “It was Henry Ford, Sr. who said in substance” (emphasis mine) – that is, the quote was abridged or paraphrased – the quote also appeared in The Federal Reserve Hoax by Wickliffe B. Vennard in 1959.
So…Ford probably didn’t say exactly that quote; if he did he was probably talking about “sound money.” In his book My Life and Work 179:
The people are naturally conservative. They are more conservative than the financiers. Those who believe that the people are so easily led that they would permit the printing presses to run off money like milk tickets do not understand them. It is the innate conservation of the people that has kept our money good in spite of the fantastic tricks which financiers play-and which they cover up with high technical terms.
The people are on the side of sound money. They are so unalterably on the side of sound money that it is a serious question how they would regard the system under which they live, if they once knew what the initiate can do with it.
In context, this is from before the Great Depression – and in that period in American economic history after the introduction of the greenbacks but before the complete abandonment of the gold standard. …”
That noted, let’s pivot back to the paraphrase of the remarks attributed to Jefferson.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Note the timeframe this appeared: 1933, per Monticello. That too was during the Depression era, which the Federal Reserve website says ran from 1929 until 1941. Then recall that the Federal Reserve system was supposed to prevent such recessions and depressions, that is part of how the legislation was sold to the American public.
Part of a response from Bing AI to an MHProNews inquiry said this.
“The Federal Reserve System was established in the United States in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson1. The Federal Reserve Act was passed to address the issue of banking panics that had occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Act created a central banking system that would be responsible for regulating the money supply, stabilizing prices, and preventing financial crises12.”
Those links by Bing AI are to the Federal Reserve website. Wilson was a Democrat, and by several accounts, a well-known racist. As left-leaning PBS noted: “Woodrow Wilson’s record on race relations was not very good.” That went on to say: ” During his first term in office, the House passed a law making racial intermarriage a felony in the District of Columbia. His new Postmaster General also ordered that his Washington offices be segregated, with the Treasury and Navy soon doing the same. Suddenly, photographs were required of all applicants for federal jobs.” Then as more recently, blacks were hopeful that a Democrat was working in their best interest, but only later to find their hopes dashed. A contemporary Black leader W.E.B. Du Bois said of Wilson that he was “unfitted for largesse of view or depth of feeling about racial injustice.”
That noted, it wasn’t just minorities who are harmed by economic policies.
So, if “stabilizing prices, and preventing financial crises12” was the goal, in what sense has the Federal Reserve been successful? Who has benefited the most from the Federal Reserve System? If you ask Ford, or could ask Jefferson, odds are good that they would say that corporations and bankers have benefited, but that millions upon millions of Americans have not. Recall this remark from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Smith noted that if the slick lies (i.e.: often, paltering and posturing) are told to the public don’t seem to work, then this tactic is deployed. “When that doesn’t work and the citizenry remains skeptical, the tyrants go on the attack, accusing the public of [believing in a] “conspiracy theory.” This is meant to mock and shame free thinkers into silence – You don’t want to stand out, right? Why risk being ostracized from society? Why risk becoming a meme?”
Doesn’t Smith make some valid points?
For those who grasp how the economy, politics, and public policies actually work – vs. how they are ‘sold’ to the voting public – there are the limited group of benefiting insiders, and there are all the rest of us.
Are we faced with an era where renting could become so costly that large numbers will not be able to afford rents? Hundreds of thousands of homeless Americans, per HUD data, might say those times are already here. Then recall what the economic and political elites-packed World Economic Forum (WEF) was pitching not so long ago, until backlash apparently resulted in some who back the WEF into pulling various versions of this post. “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy. This is how our world could change by 2030.” That’s a direct quotation, see the below. MHProNews has screen captured it, to preserve the evidence for the record. It is still available on the WEF’s Facebook page, see that roughly 90 second propaganda video below.
We recently provided this important macro-insight about dystopian realities for manufactured housing pros to know.
Though the system may in several ways “be rigged,” the ability for we the people to push back against that rigged system still exists. Part of discerning the rigged system is to detect who may be making great sounding promises while delivering terrible results. Is life better now that 4 years ago under Trump? According to a growing array of public opinion polls, even from left-leaning publications, the public is steadily drifting into the Trump camp. That is true despite all the allegations and accusations.
In June 2022, well before the indictments that hit Trump, MHProNews published this report.
We ought to individually understand the big picture. The better informed we are, the more motivated we personally are to fix what has gone wrong, the more likely the troubles of our current era can be corrected. Additionally, for those who are in sales or sales management, understanding these issues can – when properly marketed and presented – could help you close more sales.
Don’t miss today’s postscript.
With no further adieu, here are the headlines for the week that was, from 11.26 to 12.3.2023.
What’s New on MHLivingNews
What’s New or Recent from Washington, D.C. based MHARR
What’s New on the Daily Business News section of MHProNews
Saturday 12.2.2023
Friday 12.1.2023.
Thursday 11.30.2023
Wednesday 11.29.2023
Tuesday 11.28.2023
Monday 11.27.2023
Sunday 11.26.2023.
Postscript
Consider the following quotable quotes.
- “Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.” – Gustave Flaubert.
- “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”― (GoodReads).
- “The only thing that is more expensive than education is ignorance.” — Benjamin Franklin (BestQuotations)
- “Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. The ordinary person today lives better than a king did a century ago but is ungrateful! – Gustave Flaubert (AZQuotes)
- “Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance.” — G. K. Chesterton (BestQuotations)
- “Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.” — Dr. Thomas Fuller (BestQuotations)
In “The danger ignorance of history poses to the future of a free society” Allan C. Brownfeld (goacta.org) said: “An April study reveals that 41 percent of those asked could not identify Auschwitz as a Nazi concentration or extermination camp. The ignorance of history in high schools, colleges and universities is dangerous to the future of a free society.” MHProNews has previously noted some simiarlities between the fascists of the 1930s and the fascists of our own days.
We noted earlier, and in prior reports, that the founders were routinely well informed on history, on the fundamentals of economics, had a sense of morality or religious subjects, and human nature. To recover the potential of American society, or to surpass the good that has previously been achieved, arguably requires a sufficient number of motivated individuals to learn about the root causes and practical cures for what has gone astray.
Every aspect of what is shared has potential value. But let’s close by recalling this fascinating Brandon Smith observation: “There will always be tyrants attempting to gain more and more power and those tyrants will always lie to the public, claiming they are good people with our best interests at heart.” This is hardly a secret. It is an example of the truth hiding in plain sight.
Programing Notice. There is a recent event that has oddly not been reported by others in MHVille. It involves significant controversial issues, so perhaps that is why? Whatever the case may be, MHProNews plans to report on that and several other developments that have, do, and/or will impact our profession. Stay tuned for that and more at your #1 source for Manufactured Home “Industry news, Tips, and Views Pros Can Use” © where for the sound investment in good reading you can get “Intelligence for Your MHLife.” © ###
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By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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