THE FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF THE WORLD'S WEALTH
IS BETWEEN MERCHANTS AND ROYALTY

The very essence of the banking system.
To make us all slaves to debt.

Those who control the debt, control everything.

 

Introduction

Early Barter System: Before Banks People Trade

The name -  Lombard  - is  a member of a Germanic people who invaded northern Italy in the 6th century,

It is also a noun for money lender or banker; -- so called because the business of banking was first carried on in London by Lombards.

 

HISTORIC ORIGIN OF BANKS IN THE WORLD

Banking is not a story about Religion; that is only a subtext. It is not a story about Democracy or Politics. It is only a story about money and who has the power to steal more of it without anyone knowing who stole it.

5000 B.C. – 1100 Life Before Visa and Mastercard

1000

The primary basis for Venetian opulence was slavery. This slavery was practiced as a matter of course against Saracens, Mongols, Turks, and other non-Christians. In addition, it is conclusively documented that it was a matter of standard Venetian practice to sell Christians into slavery. This included Italians and Greeks, who were most highly valued as galley slaves. It included Germans and Russians, the latter being shipped in from Tana, the Venetian outpost at the mouth of the Don, in the farthest corner of the Sea of Azov. At a later time, black Africans were added to the list and rapidly became a fad among the nobility of the republic.

1300

100 – 1463 1381 The Start of the Middle Class 

Supply and Demand. When the plague killed off so many "serfs" in 1381, it gave the ones who were left around the power to negotiate with the 1%, the Lord of the Manor. The peasants revolted against serfdom and bondage. They used their collective power to demand a proper wage and the right to farm which created the Middle Class - - the 99%.

[See China Curriculum] The Plague reached Europe across the Silk Road. An epidemic of plague that reached East Africa was probably spread by the voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He who led a fleet of 300 ships to Africa in 1409.

The Cross and the Doublecross

 

1400 USUARY

1462 Mount of Piety

A mount of piety was an institutional pawnbroker run as a charity in Europe from the later Middle Ages times to the 20th century.

The purpose of the Monte di Pietà was to combat usury.

The people in need would then be able to come to the Monte di Pietà and give an item of value in exchange for a monetary loan. The term of the loan would last the course of a year and would only be worth about two-thirds of the borrower’s item value. A pre-determined interest rate would be applied to the loan and these profits were used to pay the expenses of operating the Monte di Pietà.

If the item was believed to be the legal property of the borrower, two assistants called scrivani collected the pawn from the borrower. After examining and recording details about the condition of the object, it would them be passed to assessors who would evaluate the item’s value. The massaro would then make three copies of a numbered receipt that identified the owner’s name, the type of object being pawned, the condition of the object, the object’s value, the amount of the loan and the date. Generally, the loan would not exceed two thirds of the object’s value. The three receipts would be given to the owner or borrower, another would be kept in the massaro’s record book and one receipt would be attached to the item. The monetary funds would then be supplied by the cashier to the borrower. This employee had the duty of keeping their own records of the money collected, loaned and the interest on each loan. If a borrower wanted to regain his pawned item, he would have to return the receipt to the massaro. The cashier would then calculate the interest that was earned on the item and the borrower would have to pay the interest in order to redeem their pawn. This interest collection provided one of the sources of revenue for the daily functions, operations, and salaries of the Monte di Pietà.
The Monte di Pietà accumulated capital from members of the patrician class, middle class, corporate groups, guilds, fines resulting from lawsuits and Communed ordered resources. PDF

1472

OF THE 1%
BY THE 1%
FOR THE 1%

In 1472 the Republic founded the Monte dei Paschi, a bank that is still active today and is the oldest surviving bank in the world.
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. (MPS) is the oldest surviving bank in the world. Founded in 1472 by the Magistrate of the city state of Siena, Italy, as a mount of piety, it has been operating ever since.

2015  Santander Bank comfortably passed a recent bank stress test, and that the cash-call might herald a big acquisition. Shares in Italy's Monte Paschi bank jumped 8% on the news.  Monte Paschi, the world's oldest bank with roots dating back to 1472, is looking for a buyer after a poor showing in the stress tests. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30726537

The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. Perhaps the most famous Italian bank was the Medici bank, established by Giovanni Medici in 1397. The oldest bank still in existence is Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472.  It is followed by Berenberg Bank of Hamburg (1590). The development of banking spread from northern Italy throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and in the 16th century the position of the Medicis was eventually taken over by the Fuggers and the Welsers.

 

1487 – 1557 FUGGERS - the definition of old money

MULTI NATIONAL BANKS

A multinational enterprise (MNE) is defined as any firm with plants extending across national boundaries. A multinational bank (MNB) is a bank with cross-border representative offices, cross-border branches (legally dependent) and subsidiaries (legally independent). Multinational banks are not unique to the post-war period.

From the 13th to the 16th centuries, the merchant banks of the Medici and Fugger families had branches located throughout Europe, to finance foreign trade.

In the 19th century, NMBs were associated with the colonial powers, including Britain and, later on, Belgium, Germany and Japan. The well known colonial MNBs include the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), Founded in 1865 by business interests in Hong Kong Specializing in the China Trade.

​Those special interests were by the profiteers in the China Opium, tea and silk trade. 

By the 1870's, branches of the bank had been established throughout the Pacific basin. In 1992 the colonial tables were turned when HSBC acquired one of Britian's major clearing banks, the Midland Bank, and HSBC moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to London before Hong Kong returned to China in 1997.

Today the Fugger families have branches located throughout Europe. 

MNBs include the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), in Hong Kong specializing in the ´China trade of tea, opium and silk. All the families listed are connected with the House of Guelphs, one of the original Black Nobility families of Venice, from which the House of Windsor and thus the present Queen of England, Elizabeth II, descends. The Guelphs are so intertwined with the German aristocracy through the House of Hanover that it would take several pages to mention all their connections. All (almost) European royal houses originate from the House of Hanover and thus from the House of Guelph — the Black Nobility.

The Hohenzollerns were the 15th dynasty to rule Germany and were related by marriage to all the others.

Etymology of Junk 

"Chinese sailing ship," 1610s, from Port. junco, from Malay jong "ship, large boat" (13c.), probably from Javanese djong.

Etymology of Junk Bond
Junk "worthless stuff," mid-14c., junke "old cable or rope" (nautical), of uncertain origin, perhaps from O.Fr. junc "rush," from L. juncus "rush, reed." Nautical use extended to "old refuse from boats and ships" (1842), then to "old or discarded articles of any kind" (1884). The verb meaning "to throw away as trash, to scrap" is from 1916. Junk food is from 1971; junk art is from 1966; junk mail first attested 1954.

Etymology of Junker "young German noble," 1550s, from Ger. Junker, from O.H.G. juncherro, lit. "young lord," from junc "young" + herro "lord." Pejorative sense of "reactionary younger member of the Prussian aristocracy" (1865) dates from Bismarck's domestic policy.

 

1487 Germany

The Fuggers, a German banking dynasty make their first loan to the Archduke of Habsburg, taking as security an interest in silver and copper mines in the Tirol. This was the beginning of an extensive family involvement in mining and precious metals.

1491 Germany

The Fuggers make a loan to Maximilian.

1515 France

Paris's Jean Gerson and Tubingen's Conrad Summenhardt, Gabriel Biel and John Eck argued that usury occurred only when the lender intended to oppress the borrower. Eck, supported by the Fugger banking family, became famous for his book Tractates contractu quinque de centum, defending five percent as a harmless and therefore legal rate of interest as long as the loan was for a bona fide business opportunity. For these nominalists, the proper measure of usury was the intent of the borrower and lender. If they were in charity with one another, the loan was licit.

1519 Germany

One of the largest Fugger projects is the loan of 533,000 florins to Charles, the grandson of Maximillian. Charles raised a total of 852,000 florins which was spent bribing the seven electors who elected the candidate as Charles V.

1525 Germany

The Fuggers are granted the revenues from the Spanish orders of knighthood together with the profits from mercury and silver mines.

1532 South America 

The marauding Spaniards discovered an empire rich in gold, the Incan Empire, along the gold-bearing Andes mountain range--rich in gold, perhaps the richest on earth.

1536 France 

John Calvin halts the ban on usury.

1545 France

John Calvin's letter on usury made it clear that when Christ said "lend hoping for nothing in return," He meant that we should help the poor freely. Following the rule of equity, we should judge people by their circumstances, not by legal definitions. Humanist that he was, Calvin knew there were two Hebrew words translated as "usury." One, neshek, meant "to bite"; the other, tarbit, meant "to take legitimate increase." Based on these distinctions, Calvin argued that only "biting" loans were forbidden. Thus, one could lend at interest to business people who would make a profit using the money. To the working poor one could lend without interest, but expect the loan to be repaid. To the impoverished one should give without expecting repayment.

1557 Spain

The crown's first bankruptcy.

In This Picturesque Village, the Rent Hasn't Been Raised Since 1520. Tenants in German Enclave Pray Daily For Good Fortune and the Souls of Bankers
Jakob Fugger Bankrolled King of Spain. By the early 16th century, he had become the chief financial backer of the Habsburg family, whose members sat on thrones across Europe. He bankrolled the election of Spain's King Charles V as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519. The connections were good for business. The wheeler-dealer from once-sleepy Augsburg was reputed to be the richest man in Europe. Jakob the Rich hailed from a weaver-turned-merchant family that was already wealthy by the time he was born in 1459. He built an even bigger fortune running a silver-mining operation and a major trade route to Venice. He also turned to investment banking and was wildly successful, securing the Vatican as a client and financing a trade expedition to India.

1605: Reference item: Victor von Klarwill, (Ed.), The Fugger News-Letters, Being a Selection of Unpublished Letters from the Correspondents of the House of Fugger during the Years 1568-1605. (Authorized translation by Pauline de Chary) New York/London, GP Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1925.

1565 – 1668 London Starts an Exchange

1694 – 1757 The Tally Stick Gets Whacked

1744 The Origin of the Rothschild Family

1763 – 1785 Benjamin Franklin Rats Us Out In England

"The Bank of Venice was the first banking establishment in Europe. It was founded in 1171, and subsisted till the subversion of the republic in 1797. It was a deposit bank only, and issued no notes.

The Bank of Amsterdam was established in the year 1609, and that of Hamburg in 1619; they were deposit banks only, and issued no notes.

The Bank of England was incorporated in the year 1694 and was the first bank which ever issued notes or bills to circulate as money in the transactions of trade and commerce.

The Bank of Scotland was established in 1695, with a capital of but 100,000 pounds, which was raised to 200,000 sterling in the year 1744, and in 1804 to 1,500,000 pounds.

The original capital of the Bank of England was but 1,200,000 sterling, consisting of a loan of that amount to the government.

These two were the only banks (if we except some private companies and bankers in London) that ever issued notes for a circulating medium, or money, and as a substitute for coin, prior to the eighteenth century. The credit of the notes of the Bank of England was at first so poor, that the bank became involved in difficulties in 1696, and was compelled to suspend payment of its notes in coin. So the notes fell in value, and passed at a heavy discount. The amount in circulation February 28th, 1700, was but 938,240, and in August of the same year only 781,430."
---Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, August 1850, pages 170-171.

1787 – 1798 Jeremy Bentham Defends Usury

1800 – 1810 Napoleon Was Not a Fan of The Bank of France

1811 – 1814 Jefferson Kills the Bank of the United States

1815 – 1816 Napoleon Escapes and Rothschild Makes a Killing

1816 John Tyler 10th President of the United States

In 1816 CE, Jefferson wrote to John Tyler, 10th President of the United States, 1841 - 1845

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and the 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 Government, to whom it properly belongs."

Tyler's Presidency was rarely taken seriously in his time. He was usually referred to as the "Acting President" or "His Ascendancy" by opponents. Further, Tyler quickly found himself at odds with his former political supporters. Harrison had been expected to adhere closely to Whig Party policies and work closely with Whig leaders, particularly Henry Clay. Tyler shocked Congressional Whigs by vetoing virtually their entire agenda, twice vetoing Clay's legislation for a national banking act following the Panic of 1837 and leaving the government deadlocked. Tyler was officially expelled from the Whig Party in 1841, a few months after taking office, and became known as "the man without a party." The entire cabinet he had inherited from Harrison resigned in September, aside from Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, who remained to finalize the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842, demonstrating his independence from Clay.
For two years, Tyler struggled with the Whigs, but when he nominated John C. Calhoun as Secretary of State, to 'reform' the Democrats, the gravitational swing of the Whigs to identify with "the North" and the Democrats as the party of "the South," led the way to the sectional party politics of the next decade. Tyler was the first president to have a veto overridden by Congress, when both houses overrode a veto on a bill relating to revenue cutters and steamers on Tyler's last full day in office; March 3, 1845.

It was in 1824 CE that a United States Supreme Court precedent was set which would eventually place the American government under the control of foreign bankers over 100 years later –

The state of Georgia, by giving to the bank the capacity to sue and be sued, voluntarily strips itself of its sovereign character, so far as respects the transactions of the bank, and waives all the privileges of that character. As a member of a corporation, a government never exercises its sovereignty. It acts merely as a corporator, and exercises no other power in the management of the affairs of the corporation, than are expressly given by the incorporating act. The government of the Union held shares in the old Bank of the United States; but the privileges of the government were not imported by that circumstance to the bank. The United States was not a party to suits brought by or against the bank in the sense of the constitution. So with respect to the present bank. Suits brought by or against it are not understood to be brought by or against the United States. The government, by becoming a corporator, lays down its sovereignty, so far as respects the transactions of the corporation, and exercises no power or privilege which is not derived from the charter.
The Bank of the United States v. The Planters' Bank of Georgia, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 904, 907-908, 6 L.Ed 244 (1824).

1817 – 1819 Seminole Indians Get The Shaft

1820 – 1824 Missionaries Rampage and Nearly Destroy Hawaii

1828 – 1832 The US Elects a General

1836 – 1837 Biddle Makes A Threat

1838 – 1848 Navy Lands, Muka Set Ablaze

 

1850 – 1857 US National Debt $63,452,773, Those Were the Days My Friend

1860 – 1861 Wars Cost Money, US National Debt $64,842,287

1862 US Prints $450,000,000 Interest Free "Green-backs"

1863 – 1865 National Banking Act of 1863

1864 THE WALL STREET BANKSTERS

The Wall Street Banksters

The Bankers Trust
The Chase National Bank
The Equitable Life Assurance Society
The Farmers Loan and Trust
The Guaranty Trust
The Morgan Guaranty Trust
The Mutual Life Insurance Company
The National City Bank
The New York Life Insurance Company
The United States Trust Company of New York

Investment bankers 

wielded “powerful and baleful political influence in the 19^th centuries: in particular, the Rothschilds in Western Europe, and Philadelphia Banker and Civil War financier Jay Cooke and the House of Morgan in the United States. By the late nineteenth century, the Morgans took the lead in trying to pressure the U.S. government to cartelize industries they were interested in – first railroads and then manufacturing: to protect these industries from the winds of free competition, and to use the power of government to enable these industries to restrict production and raise prices.” Wall Street was always just a bunch of British financial bloodsuckers who hated the United States. 

Insurance Industry

The insurance industry was created in the 18th century to support merchant sailing ships. Back then, insurers collected small premiums and paid out occasional large sums when there were losses at sea. That’s the way insurance was designed to work. That old insurance model is inappropriate to healthcare. Premiums for health insurance are huge. Families are paying as much for health insurance as they pay for shelter.

N.Y. Guaranty and Indemnity Co., 1892-93

Oliver Harriman (1820-1904) began his business career in the dry goods commission house of McCurdy, Aldrich & Spencer, with the father of Richard A. McCurdy. When they retired, he formed (Boston Brahmin) Low, Harriman & Co., with James Low (~1809-1898) as the senior partner. He married Low's daughter, Laura. Besides the Guaranty Trust, he was a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company [between 1879 and 1900] and the Bank of America. He was survived by five sons and three daughters. His oldest daughter, Emeline, married William Earl Dodge, the son of William E. Dodge Jr., and grandson of William E. Dodge of Phelps, Dodge & Co. His second daughter, Anne, married William K. Vanderbilt in 1903. His daughter, Lillie, married William R. Travers Jr., then Frederick C. Havemeyer, an heir of the Sugar Trust. His sons were James Low Harriman; Oliver Harriman Jr., who married Grace Carley of Louisville; J. Borden Harriman, who married Florence Jaffray Hurst, Joseph Harriman, and Herbert M. Harriman. Oliver Harriman was the uncle of Edward H. Harriman, who joined the board circa 1899. (Death of Oliver Harriman. New York Times, Mar. 13, 1904. p. 7) The United States Trust Co. was an executor of his will. (Oliver Harriman's Estate $20,000,000. New York Times, Apr. 10, 1904.) Harriman was on the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society until 1889. (Distributing the Bible. New York Times, May 10, 1889 p. 5.) Oliver Harriman's son, James Low Harriman, married Elizabeth Templeton Bishop, whose father, Heber Reginald Bishop, was a founder of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. (Mrs. J.L. Harriman Dies In Baltimore. New York Times, Mar 6, 1934.)

Low, Harriman & Co. was an agent for the Borden Mills in Fall River, Mass., a town controlled by the Borden and Durfee families, and George B. Durfee was a partner until 1867. James C. Atwater and T.M. Prentiss were partners, with Prentiss leaving in 1862. John W. Bigelow was a partner from 1866, and James Low's son, Joseph T. Low, joined them in 1867. (Classified Ad 11. New York Times, Jul. 14, 1862 p. 7; Copartnership Notices. New York Times, Jan. 4, 1867 p. 6.)

The Contest
for the
North American
Continent

 

History of Banking

Jay Cooke,  was the U.S. government's principal banker at that time. Cooke was not Wall Street. He sold U.S. bonds to the public; that's how they financed the Civil War, not Wall Street. Intriguingly, President Grant's involvement with the Northern Pacific Railroad preceded Jay Cooke's by nearly five years!

Grant was one of the original incorporators of the railroad when it was underwritten with public land grants by the United States Congress on July 2, 1864, while he was directing the Union armies from City Point, Virginia during the Civil War.16 (William B. Ogden, who encouraged Cooke to subvert the Canadian Pacific in his letter of June 17, 1871, was also one of the railroads original incorporators, as was Jay Cooke's brother, Henry.) The Northern Pacific was given just more than a dozen years to complete its construction. When for financial reasons the railroad was compelled to reorganize in 1866 and seek a Congressional extension of its charter, Grant, ever accommodating and now the first "General of the Army" since George Washington, provided a letter of endorsement praising the railroads value and aspirations.Demonstratively representative of what Grant was sanctioning are excerpts from two of the Northern Pacific's own promotional pamphlets, published in 1865 and 1867 for this very purpose. Herein lies the seeds of what was to be another mainstay of Grants foreign policy toward Canada over the extent of his terms in office:

"Puget Sound is marked out by nature for a great commercial entreprise. The northern route [that is the Northern Pacific's route] will give it to the United States, with all its grand elements of naval strength. An abandonment of the northern route will give it to Great Britain, which already has a rapidly increasing commerce and a large naval station in those waters."18

And again:

"The revenue to our government from this source alone [the British Northwest] would be very great indeed, and a road would not then be attempted to be built by England, and the whole country would soon become so Americanized (as already half the miners in that country are Americans) that they would in short time be asking for annexation to the United States."19

To assume that Jay Cooke's mere perpetuation of this longtime plan of continental expansion and annexation proceeded without President Grants knowledge and favor, (the details of which had constantly been forwarded to his secretary of state Hamilton Fish and assistant secretary J. C. Bancroft-Davis see corporations are people, would be to deny these irrefutably documented facts, and also the very historical purpose of the Northern Pacific Railroad!  It is thus patently obvious that the only reason Grant instructed Fish to abandon his plans for annexation through the Alabama Claims, in November of 1870, was because he fully expected annexation to be achieved in a much easier fashion through Jay Cooke's Northern Pacific scheme. Keeping the economic screws turned tight on the squirming Canadians wouldn't hurt either. To this same scheme Grant lent the resources of the state department. In fact, Grant frankly admits in his Memoirs that due to his negative experiences in the Mexican War of 1846, commercial investment and mercantile manipulation were his preferred methods of territorial expansion.21 Cleverly justified military conquest was reserved for those cases where aggressive capitalism had failed. http://www.dickshovel.com/two2.html

1866 – 1872 America Starts Its Contractions

1873 – 1876 Europe Has a "Long Depression" While Carnegie Starts a Steel Company

1877 – 1884 Mr. Buel Writes a Memo

1886 – 1889 The Court Case That Changed Business History

1890 – 1892 Sherman Antitrust Act Takes Aim

1893 A Feeble But Friendly and Confiding People Are Overthrown

1894 – 1895 Pullman Strike Is Crushed By Federal Troops

1896 – 1898 William Jennings Bryan Wants Free Silver

1900 – 1908 It's The Turn Of The Century

1910 – 1912 Jekyll Island

1913 – 1915 The Federal Reserve Comes To Life or The US Gets a Central Bank

1917 – 1919 The Soviets Get a Five-Year Plan

1920 – 1923 Beginning of the Age of "Technological Unemployment"

1924 – 1928 First Edition of "Social Credit" Published

1929 Herbert Hoover Is Inaugurated, Then The Shit Hits The Fan

1930 – 1931 Herr Hebecker Invents The Wara

1932 Herr Unterguggenberger Mayor of Worgl Decides To Do Something

1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt And The "First 100 Days"

1933 - 1971 GOLD

1934 – 1935 Sweden Follows a Keynesian Policy

1936 Top Tax Rate Raised To 79%

1937 – 1940 Roosevelt Balances The Budget, Recession Ensues

1941 – 1944 The Right To Issue Credit Money

1945 Federal Spending Slows, Slightly

1955

Sir William Wiseman, tenth baronet of Ulster, partner in Manhattan's Kuhn, Loeb & Co., created a private world bank, the first of its kind, named the Transoceanic Development Corp., Ltd. Sponsored by Kuhn, Loeb, First Boston Corp., and London's S. G. Warburg, the corporation has 27 participating firms famed in the banking world. Among them: Credit Suisse, Boston Brahmins' David and Laurence Rockefeller, Sal Oppenheim Jr. & Cie. (Cologne), N. M. Rothschild & Sons (London), Deutsche Bank Group (Frankfurt), Amsterdamsche Bank (Holland). The bank's purpose is to buy equity shares in foreign enterprises and furnish risk capital to businesses in countries other than the U.S. and Canada. In the whole field of international investment there are only two major financial groups: the World Bank and the (British) Commonwealth Development Finance Co., Ltd., both government institutions.

Transocean Bank & Trust Ltd

Tel: (345) 949-7493
Fax: (345) 949-7524

Address:
P.O. Box 1959, 3rd. Floor, Elizabethan Sq.
Grand Cayman KY1-1111, CAYMAN ISLANDS

 

1954 – 1967 Authority Is Given To Print Postage Stamps

1968 – 1974 Federal Reserve Notes Become A Fiat Currency

1975 – 1980 20% Of Foreign Exchange Transactions Are Speculative

1981 – 1984 The Gold Commission Finds That The US Government Owns No Gold

1985 – 1987 Jeb Bush and Armondo Codina Make No Payments and Keep Millions

1988 – 1989 Iran Air Shot Sown, Civilians Killed, American Commander Given Medal

1990 – 1992 Silverado Is a Victim of Sophisticated Schemes and Abuses

1993 – 1997 Charles Keating Admits To Banking Fraud

1998 – 1999 Long Term Capital Management Collapses

2000 – 2002 Iraq Prices Oil In Euros

2003 – 2005 Iraq Liberated, Iraqi Oil Priced In Dollars Again

2006 China Re-opens Its Oil Bourse

2007 The Year of Bankruptcies?

2011 Gold

Utah legislators want to see the dollar regain its former glory, back to the days when one could literally bank on it being "as good as gold."

To make that point, they've turned it around, and made gold as good as cash. Utah became the first state in the country this month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes. You can store your gold and silver coins in a vault, and Franco issues a debit-like card to make purchases backed by your holdings. Minnesota took a step closer to joining Utah in making gold and silver legal tender. If the actual precious metal in your $50 coin has a market value of $1,400, it still only has $50 dollars worth of purchasing power. A Republican lawmaker there introduced a bill that sets up a special committee to explore the option. North Carolina, Idaho and at least nine other states also have similar bills drafted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/utah-gold-standard-silver_n_865333.html
money.cnn.com/2011/03/29/news/economy/utah_gold_currency/

2011 The Title of Nobility Amendment

With the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment [called The Title of Nobility Amendment] and ratified 1865, the Confederate states sought readmission to the Union and to Congress. Under Article I, section 2 of the Constitution, a slave had been counted as 3/5ths of a person for purposes of representation. Because of the abolition of slavery, Southern states expected a substantial increase in their representation in the House of Representatives. The idea of "corporations are people" was slipped into the 14th amendment when at the same time they freed the slaves, ironically enslaving us all.