We can see how “big men” get greedy and collapse entire systems by looking at the recent history of Egypt. When elites control an economy, they often use their power to create monopolies and block the entry of new people and firms. This was exactly how Egypt worked for three decades under Hosni Mubarak. The government and military owned vast swaths of the economy — by some estimates, as much as 40 percent. Even when they did “liberalize,” they privatized large parts of the economy right into the hands of Mubarak’s friends and those of his son Gamal. Big businessmen close to the regime, such as Ahmed Ezz (iron and steel), the Sawiris family (multimedia, beverages, and telecommunications), and Mohamed Nosseir (beverages and telecommunications) received not only protection from the state but also government contracts and large bank loans without needing to put up collateral. Together, these big businessmen were known as the “whales”. Their stranglehold on the economy created fabulous profits for regime insiders, but blocked opportunities for the vast mass of Egyptians to move out of poverty. Meanwhile, the Mubarak family accumulated a vast fortune estimated as high as $70 billion. This is starting to sound eerily familiar to the central banking system, isn’t it? Considering the families of today that appear to have the most influence in the central banks are worth exponentially more than the Mubarak family, we can easily ask the question: what exactly are they doing with all that power? Knowing human nature, it is likely they are not sitting on their hands. For example, the House of Rockefeller BIS is the most powerful bank in the world, acting as a global central bank for the 8 families who control the private central banks of almost all Western and developing nations. "The master planners devised the strategy of a merger - a Great Merger - among nations. But before such a merger can be consummated, and the United States becomes just another province in a New World Order, there must at least be the semblance of parity among the senior partners in the deal. How does one make the nations of the world more nearly equal? The Insiders determined that a two-prong approach was needed; use American money and know-how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living, to the meager subsistence level of the socialized nations of the world. The plan is not to bring the standard of living in less developed countries up to our level, but to bring ours down to meet theirs coming up... It is your standard of living which must be sacrificed on the altar of the New World Order”. - Gary Allen in his book The Rockefeller File The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with Deutsche Bank, BNP, Barclays and other European old money behemoths. Their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch. According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stock holders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation. So who then are the stockholders in these money center banks? This information is guarded much more closely. Queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies are given Freedom of Information Act status, but inevitably get denied on “national security” grounds. This is rather ironic, since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe. One important repository for the wealth of the global oligarchy that owns these bank holding companies is the U.S. Trust Corporation – founded in 1853 and now owned by the Bank of America. A recent U.S. Trust Corporate Director and Honorary Trustee was Walter Rothschild. Other directors included Daniel Davison of JP Morgan Chase, Richard Tucker of Exxon Mobil, Daniel Roberts of Citigroup and Marshall Schwartz of Morgan Stanley. J. W. McCallister, an oil industry insider with House of Saud connections, wrote in The Grim Reaper that information he acquired from Saudi bankers cited 80% ownership of the New York Federal Reserve Bank- by far the most powerful Fed branch- by just eight families, four of which reside in the US. WHO ARE THEY? They are the Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans and Kuhn Loebs of New York; the Rothschilds of Paris and London; the Warburgs of Hamburg; the Lazards of Paris; and the Israel Moses Seifs of Rome. CPA Thomas D. Schauf corroborates McCallister’s claims, adding that ten banks control all twelve Federal Reserve Bank branches. He names N.M. Rothschild of London, Rothschild Bank of Berlin, Warburg Bank of Hamburg, Warburg Bank of Amsterdam, Lehman Brothers of New York, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York, Israel Moses Seif Bank of Italy, Goldman Sachs of New York and JP Morgan Chase Bank of New York. Schauf lists William Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff and James Stillman as individuals who own large shares of the Fed. The Schiffs are insiders at Kuhn Loeb. The Stillmans are Citigroup insiders, who married into the Rockefeller clan at the turn of the century. Eustace Mullins came to the same conclusions in his book The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, in which he displays charts connecting the Fed and its member banks to the families of Rothschild, Warburg, Rockefeller and the others. One may also notice that these families are tightly connected to an overall bloodline of 13 families. CHASING J. P. MORGAN The control that these banking families exert over the global economy cannot be overstated and is quite intentionally shrouded in secrecy. Their corporate media arm is quick to discredit any information exposing this private central banking cartel as a “conspiracy theory”. Yet the facts remain. The Federal Reserve Bank was born in 1913, the same year US banking scion J. Pierpont Morgan died and the Rockefeller Foundation was formed. The House of Morgan presided over American finance from the corner of Wall Street and Broad, acting as quasi-US central bank since 1838, when George Peabody founded it in London. Peabody was a business associate of the Rothschilds. In 1952 Fed researcher Eustace Mullins put forth the supposition that the Morgans were nothing more than Rothschild agents. Mullins wrote that the Rothschilds, “…preferred to operate anonymously in the US behind the facade of J.P. Morgan & Company”. Author Gabriel Kolko stated, “Morgan’s activities in 1895-1896 in selling US gold bonds in Europe were based on an alliance with the House of Rothschild”. The Morgan financial octopus wrapped its tentacles quickly around the globe. Morgan Grenfell operated in London. Morgan et Ce ruled Paris. The Rothschild’s Lambert cousins set up Drexel & Company in Philadelphia. The House of Morgan catered to the Astors, DuPonts, Guggenheims, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. It financed the launch of AT&T, General Motors, General Electric and DuPont. Like the London-based Rothschild and Barings banks, Morgan became part of the power structure in many countries. By 1890 the House of Morgan was lending to Egypt’s central bank, financing Russian railroads, floating Brazilian provincial government bonds and funding Argentine public works projects. A recession in 1893 enhanced Morgan’s power. That year Morgan saved the US government from a bank panic, forming a syndicate to prop up government reserves with a shipment of $62 million worth of Rothschild gold. Morgan was the driving force behind Western expansion in the US, financing and controlling West-bound railroads through voting trusts. In 1879 Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Morgan-financed New York Central Railroad gave preferential shipping rates to John D. Rockefeller’s budding Standard Oil monopoly, cementing the Rockefeller/Morgan relationship. The House of Morgan now fell under Rothschild and Rockefeller family control. A New York Herald headline read, “Railroad Kings Form Gigantic Trust”. J. Pierpont Morgan, who once stated, “Competition is a sin”, now opined gleefully, “Think of it. All competing railroad traffic west of St. Louis placed in the control of about thirty men”. Morgan and Edward Harriman’s banker Kuhn Loeb held a monopoly over the railroads, while banking dynasties Lehman, Goldman Sachs and Lazard joined the Rockefellers in controlling the US industrial base. In 1903 Banker’s Trust was set up by the Eight Families. Benjamin Strong of Banker’s Trust was the first Governor of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The 1913 creation of the Fed fused the power of the Eight Families to the military and diplomatic might of the US government. If their overseas loans went unpaid, the oligarchs could now deploy US Marines to collect the debts. Morgan, Chase and Citibank formed an international lending syndicate. The House of Morgan was cozy with the British House of Windsor and the Italian House of Savoy. The Kuhn Loebs, Warburgs, Lehmans, Lazards, Israel Moses Seifs and Goldman Sachs also had close ties to European royalty. By 1895 Morgan controlled the flow of gold in and out of the US. The first American wave of mergers was in its infancy and was being promoted by the bankers. In 1897 there were sixty-nine industrial mergers. By 1899 there were twelve-hundred. In 1904 John Moody – founder of Moody’s Investor Services – said it was impossible to talk of Rockefeller and Morgan interests as separate. Public distrust of the combine spread. Many considered them traitors working for European old money. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie’s US Steel and Edward Harriman’s railroads were all financed by banker Jacob Schiff at Kuhn Loeb, who worked closely with the European Rothschilds. Several Western states banned the bankers. Populist preacher William Jennings Bryan was thrice the Democratic nominee for President from 1896 -1908. The central theme of his anti-imperialist campaign was that America was falling into a trap of “financial servitude to British capital”. Teddy Roosevelt defeated Bryan in 1908, but was forced by this spreading populist wildfire to enact the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. He then went after the Standard Oil Trust. In 1912 the Pujo hearings were held, addressing concentration of power on Wall Street. That same year Mrs. Edward Harriman sold her substantial shares in New York’s Guaranty Trust Bank to J.P. Morgan, creating Morgan Guaranty Trust. Judge Louis Brandeis convinced President Woodrow Wilson to call for an end to interlocking board directorates. In 1914 the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was passed. Jack Morgan – J. Pierpont’s son and successor – responded by calling on Morgan clients Remington and Winchester to increase arms production. He argued that the US needed to enter WWI. Goaded by the Carnegie Foundation and other oligarchy fronts, Wilson accommodated. As Charles Tansill wrote in America Goes to War, “Even before the clash of arms, the French firm of Rothschild Freres cabled to Morgan & Company in New York suggesting the flotation of a loan of $100 million, a substantial part of which was to be left in the US to pay for French purchases of American goods”. The House of Morgan financed half the US war effort, while receiving commissions for lining up contractors like GE, Du Pont, US Steel, Kennecott and ASARCO. All were Morgan clients. Morgan also financed the British Boer War in South Africa and the Franco-Prussian War. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference was presided over by Morgan, which led both German and Allied reconstruction efforts. In the 1930’s populism resurfaced in America after Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bank and others profited from the Crash of 1929. The Great Depression, “was no accident. It was a carefully contrived occurrence…The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so they might emerge as rulers of us all”. - House Banking Committee Chairman Louis McFadden (D-NY) Sen. Gerald Nye (D-ND) chaired a munitions investigation in 1936. Nye concluded that the House of Morgan had plunged the US into WWI to protect loans and create a booming arms industry. Nye later produced a document titled The Next War, which cynically referred to “the old goddess of democracy trick”, through which Japan could be used to lure the US into WWII. In 1937 Interior Secretary Harold Ickes warned of the influence of “America’s 60 Families”. Historian Ferdinand Lundberg later penned a book of the exact same title. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas decried, “Morgan influence…the most pernicious one in industry and finance today”. Jack Morgan responded by nudging the US towards WWII. Morgan had close relations with the Iwasaki and Dan families – Japan’s two wealthiest clans – who have owned Mitsubishi and Mitsui, respectively, since the companies emerged from 17th Century shogunates. When Japan invaded Manchuria, slaughtering Chinese peasants at Nanking, Morgan downplayed the incident. Morgan also had close relations with Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, while German Nazi Dr. Hjalmer Schacht was a Morgan Bank liaison during WWII. After the war, Morgan representatives met with Schacht at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. ROC-A-FELLAS The House of Rockefeller BIS is the most powerful bank in the world, a global central bank for the Eight Families who control the private central banks of almost all Western and developing nations. The first President of BIS was Rockefeller banker Gates McGarrah- an official at Chase Manhattan and the Federal Reserve. McGarrah was the grandfather of former CIA director Richard Helms. The Rockefellers- like the Morgans- had close ties to London. The Rockefellers and Morgans were just errand boys for the European Rothschilds. BIS is owned by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of Italy, Bank of Canada, Swiss National Bank, Nederlandsche Bank, Bundesbank and Bank of France. BIS was part of a plan, “to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole…to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements”. - Historian Carroll Quigley wrote in his book Tragedy and Hope The US government had a historical distrust of BIS, lobbying unsuccessfully for its demise at the 1944 post-WWII Bretton Woods Conference. Instead the Eight Families’ power was exacerbated, with the Bretton Woods creation of the IMF and the World Bank. The US Federal Reserve only took shares in BIS in September 1994. BIS holds at least 10% of monetary reserves for at least 80 of the world’s central banks, the IMF and other multilateral institutions. It serves as financial agent for international agreements, collects information on the global economy and serves as lender of last resort to prevent global financial collapse. BIS promotes an agenda of monopoly capitalist fascism. It gave a bridge loan to Hungary in the 1990’s to ensure privatization of that country’s economy. It served as conduit for Eight Families funding of Adolf Hitler - led by the Warburg’s J. Henry Schroeder and Mendelsohn Bank of Amsterdam. Many researchers assert that BIS is at the nadir of global drug money laundering. It is no coincidence that BIS is headquartered in Switzerland, favorite hiding place for the wealth of the global aristocracy and headquarters for the P-2 Italian Freemason’s Alpina Lodge and Nazi International. Other institutions which the Eight Families control include the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference and the World Trade Organization. If one looks closely, a swastika can be found “hidden” in the design on the floor of this Rockefeller owned plaza between 50th and 51st Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1938, the building is part of Rockefeller Center, which was built in the Art Deco style (a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I). It is easy to presume this was done intentionally considering the connections of the Rockefeller family. Bretton Woods was a boon to the Eight Families. The IMF and World Bank were central to this unifying of countries. In 1944 the first World Bank bonds were floated by Morgan Stanley and First Boston. The French Lazard family became more involved in House of Morgan interests. Lazard Freres- France’s biggest investment bank- is owned by the Lazard and David-Weill families- old Genoese banking scions represented by Michelle Davive. A recent Chairman and CEO of Citigroup was Sanford Weill. In 1968 Morgan Guaranty launched Euro-Clear, a Brussels-based bank clearing system for Eurodollar securities. It was the first such automated endeavor, some calling Euro-Clear “The Beast of Brussels” as it can automate the wills of the central bankers. Brussels serves as headquarters for the new European Central Bank and for NATO. In 1973 Morgan officials met secretly in Bermuda to illegally resurrect the old House of Morgan, twenty years before Glass Steagal Act was repealed. Morgan and the Rockefellers provided the financial backing for Merrill Lynch, boosting it into the Big 5 of US investment banking. Merrill is now part of Bank of America. John D. Rockefeller used his oil wealth to acquire Equitable Trust, which had gobbled up several large banks and corporations by the 1920’s. The Great Depression helped consolidate Rockefeller’s power. His Chase Bank merged with Kuhn Loeb’s Manhattan Bank to form Chase Manhattan, cementing a long-time family relationship. The Kuhn-Loeb’s had financed – along with Rothschilds – Rockefeller’s quest to become king of the oil patch. National City Bank of Cleveland provided John D. with the money needed to embark upon his monopolization of the US oil industry. The bank was identified in Congressional hearings as being one of three Rothschild-owned banks in the US during the 1870’s, when Rockefeller first incorporated as Standard Oil of Ohio. Here we see ultra-famous celebrities like Jay Z throwing up his patented hand sign for Roc-A-Fella Records - the label Jay Z, Damon Dash, and Biggs Burke started. It is a play on the name of David Rockefeller and symbolically represents both of their aspirations to become wealthy and the overall respect Jay Z has for families like the Rockefellers. The sign itself is supposed to be a diamond, while eerily replicating imagery used to depict the “all seeing eye”. It is safe to assume this represents the hierarchal “rise to the top of the pyramid” … rap game or not. One Rockefeller Standard Oil partner was Edward Harkness, whose family came to control Chemical Bank. Another was James Stillman, whose family controlled Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Both banks have merged under the JP Morgan Chase umbrella. Two of James Stillman’s daughters married two of William Rockefeller’s sons. The two families control a big chunk of Citigroup as well. In the insurance business, the Rockefellers control Metropolitan Life, Equitable Life, Prudential and New York Life. Rockefeller banks control 25% of all assets of the 50 largest US commercial banks and 30% of all assets of the 50 largest insurance companies. Insurance companies - the first in the US being launched by Freemasons through their Woodman’s of America - play a key role in the Bermuda drug money shuffle. Companies under Rockefeller control include Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco, Marathon Oil, Freeport McMoran, Quaker Oats, ASARCO, United, Delta, Northwest, ITT, International Harvester, Xerox, Boeing, Westinghouse, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, International Paper, Pfizer, Motorola, Monsanto, Union Carbide and General Foods. The Rockefeller Foundation has close financial ties to both Ford and Carnegie Foundations. Other family philanthropic endeavors include Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, General Education Board, Rockefeller University and the University of Chicago- which churns out a steady stream of far right economists as apologists for international capital, including Milton Friedman. “If the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) raises the hackles of the conspiracy theorists, the Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world”. – David Rockefeller in his book Memoirs The family owns 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the national Christmas tree is lighted every year, and Rockefeller Center. The main Rockefeller family home is a hulking complex in upstate New York known as Pocantico Hills. They also own a 32-room 5th Avenue duplex in Manhattan, a mansion in Washington, DC, Monte Sacro Ranch in Venezuela, coffee plantations in Ecuador, several farms in Brazil, an estate at Seal Harbor, Maine and resorts in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. David Rockefeller was instrumental in the construction of the original World Trade Center towers. Some claim they were originally built with the intent to later be destroyed. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? On a typical weekday 50,000 people worked in the Rockefeller supported World Trade Center with another 200,000 passing through as visitors. The complex was so large that it had its own zip code: 10048. The towers offered expansive views from the observation deck atop the South Tower and the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the North Tower. The Twin Towers became known worldwide, appearing in numerous movies and television shows as well as on postcards and other merchandise, and became seen as a New York icon, in the same league as the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty. The World Trade Center was often compared to Rockefeller Center; which David Rockefeller's brother Nelson had developed in midtown Manhattan. The Dulles and Rockefeller families are cousins. Allen Dulles helped create the CIA as he was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence and its longest-serving director to date. Brother John Foster Dulles presided over the phony Goldman Sachs trusts before the 1929 stock market crash and helped his brother overthrow governments in Iran and Guatemala. Both were Skull & Bones, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) insiders and 33rd Degree Masons. The Rockefellers were instrumental in forming the depopulation-oriented Club of Rome at their family estate in Bellagio, Italy. Their Pocantico Hills estate gave birth to the Trilateral Commission. The family is a major funder of the eugenics movement which spawned Hitler, human cloning and the current DNA obsession in US scientific circles. John Rockefeller Jr. headed the Population Council until his death. His namesake son is a Senator from West Virginia. Brother Winthrop Rockefeller was Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas and remains the most powerful man in that state. In an October 1975 interview with Playboy magazine, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller- who was also Governor of New York- articulated his family’s patronizing worldview, “I am a great believer in planning- economic, social, political, military, total world planning”. But of all the Rockefeller brothers, it is Trilateral Commission (TC) founder and Chase Manhattan Chairman David who has spearheaded the family’s fascist agenda on a global scale. He defended the Shah of Iran, the South African apartheid regime and the Chilean Pinochet junta. He was the biggest financier of the CFR, the TC and (during the Vietnam War) the Committee for an Effective and Durable Peace in Asia - a contract bonanza for those who made their living off the conflict. Nixon asked him to be Secretary of Treasury, but Rockefeller declined the job, knowing his power was much greater at the helm of Chase. Author Gary Allen writes in The Rockefeller File that in 1973, “David Rockefeller met with twenty-seven heads of state, including the rulers of Russia and Red China”. Following the 1975 Nugan Hand Bank/CIA coup against Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, his British Crown-appointed successor Malcolm Fraser sped to the U.S., where he met with President Gerald Ford after conferring with David Rockefeller. “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure--one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it”. – David Rockefeller in his book Memoirs MONEY CAN’T LIE It is quite clear that those at the very top of the food chain are making moves to increase their influence and power over you and me and have been doing so for many generations. We have been able to briefly study a few key players who are hot topics for many conspiracy theorists and grab some quick facts to begin painting a picture of an overall agenda that actually makes sense, simply by tracking the money. As we said earlier in the first chapter… money can’t lie. It is clear that our leaders are certain they are the best men and women for the job, regardless of the people’s opinions. But, do the people even really care anymore? A unified system of peace may be what they promote, but what will it take to get to that point? Will mankind be robbed of its freedoms if the world truly becomes united under a single system… if it isn’t already? While most people work to provide for their families, the ones who built the system those same families depend on hide in the background shoveling tremendous amounts of money in various directions to push messages to the same families they already control. With this level of power, it is easy to imagine how one might consider civilization to be their grand experiment and therefore make alliances with powerful people and nations to forward self-seeking agendas of absolute control. Some of these power players may truly believe they are trying to make the world a better place… considering themselves to be the best possible rulers of that “better” place, of course. Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton A BRIEF HISTORY OF CORRUPTION Is this where the sabotage ends, or is there a longer history behind it all to help us understand how and why this could even happen in the first place? It has gotten to the point to where most people understand they are at a disadvantage due to a broken system, but don’t really bother understanding the details. Some even see these families and leaders of governments and central banks as being wholly beneficial to the world, making it a better place. The battle is now going to be a battle over mankind’s consciousness and overarching desires. This battle will arrive at your doorstep in the form of news articles, music, movies, sports teams, fraternities, religions, and essentially anything that you consume, psychologically or physiologically. But really, what is that primal motivating force that is causing so much dissension and has been since the beginning of mankind? Before discussing that force in detail, let’s review a few examples from the history of governments that have collapsed, and see if we can find a common thread. In the 4th century, the Roman Empire was in decay when Diocletian became emperor. The economy was in disarray from a series of costly wars and previous emperor’s building projects that left Rome near collapse. With Rome’s currency worthless, Diocletian introduced a new system of coinage. At many times in history countries have risked economic turmoil to artificially increase the value of their currency. The issue with Diocletian’s new money, however, was that it did the opposite. There was more gold in the coins than the face value stamped on them; the denomination on the coin lowered its value. In response to this insane idea most citizens melted the coins to make use of their higher scrap value. The result was rapid inflation within the Empire. Diocletian increased problems by placing a price ceiling on most goods to counter the inflation. Diocletian’s policies caused so much confusion that many Roman territories simply refused to follow the emperor’s edicts. As matters worsened, Diocletian became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily leave the throne. His highly flawed economic policies weakened the cohesion of the empire and the status of emperor in addition to further damaging Rome’s ailing economy. In the 15th century, the Medici family was one of the leading families of Renaissance Italy. They controlled the politics of Florence; served as popes and assisted the rise of Leonardo DaVinci. The source of the family’s wealth was rooted in the banking worldwide banking system they had founded in the late fourteenth century. Under the leadership of Cosimo de’ Medici, the bank rapidly expanded and found itself overstretched by the time of his death. At the same time as the Medici were stretched to the limit the Pazzi and Salviaiti banking families attempted to replace them as rulers of Florence. On April 26, 1478, two members of the Medici family were assaulted at Mass in Florence. Despite the failure of the plot, the Medici were unable to reassert complete control. The Medici bank was characterized by its dangerously low cash reserves, usually around 10% of assets. As the Pazzi Conspiracy and various wars reduced the competitiveness of the bank, it approached insolvency. As a result, Lorenzo de’ Medici taxed the citizens of Florence in the name of military defense to a near tyrannical level. Finally, in 1494 the bank collapsed due to this corruption, faulty investments, and incompetent management. After the bank collapsed, millions were lost from the Florentine economy and it took years for a complete recovery. Since the company had also defrauded the account of Charles VIII of France that paid for dowries the crisis had worldwide implications. In the 17th century, following Columbus’s discovery of the New World, Spain began the search for gold in the New World. For decades the rich resources of the Americas made Spain one of the wealthiest nations on earth and allowed it to create a great empire. By the second half of the sixteenth century, however, the Spanish had increased mining to unprecedented levels. Rather counter intuitively this influx of wealth nearly destroyed Spain. The high levels of freshly minted gold and silver in Europe drove down the value of money and lead to hyper-inflation across Europe. Combined with the wars that Spain fought to protect its empire, the inflation damaged the economy beyond repair. Instead of reaping great wealth, Spain ended up defaulting on its debt several times. This economic turmoil pushed the Spanish Empire into decline and allowed the British to begin creating an empire of their own. In the year 1621, there was no way to insure effective taxation so the states of the Holy Roman Empire began to mint money to raise revenue for the Thirty Years Wars. To do this the empire removed coinage from circulation, melted them down and mixed them with lower value metals. The name of the crisis refers to the scales used to weigh the money before it was melted down. These debased coins were then spent in foreign territories, to limit the economic damage that might occur to the empire. Eventually, the debased coins returned to territories of the Holy Roman Empire in the form of duties and taxes. As the public became aware of the practice there were riots, soldiers refused to accept the debased coinage as pay, and seditious pamphlets were distributed. The money eventually became so worthless children played with the coins in the streets. The resulting rise in prices also crippled the economies of many states within the empire. During the years of 1636-1637, Tulipmania occurred, holding the distinction of being the first officially recorded economic bubble. When the tulip flower was introduced to the Netherlands in the early 1600s it became instantly popular. In the first true “consumer craze” Dutch citizens simply had to have the latest tulip. Since tulips only grow at certain times of the year, the Dutch set up a future’s market. When tulips were not available consumers could purchase the rights to tulip bulbs when they became available. Soon speculators began playing the future’s market and drove the bulb prices to shocking levels. At the height of the bubble some bulbs sold for the equivalent of an average worker’s ten years salary. The bubble burst in 1637 and the value of tulip bulbs fell back to previous levels. Just like the stock market crash in 2008, investors saw their money erased. The bizarre flower driven financial collapse erased many fortunes and left many investors penniless. During the 17th and 18th centuries, several powerful trading companies drove the spread of the British Empire. Bermuda was colonized with the help of several of these companies. Once the colony was established the colonists were put to work making these companies money. The workers were paid in company credit instead of wages, similar to coal companies in the nineteenth century. When Daniel Tucker was appointed governor of Bermuda he abandoned the credit practiced and introduced his own coins minted from brass. With the monetary system only worth what Tucker declared it to be, the colonists overthrew the governor. Complete economic ruin was only prevented by the fact that Bermuda was an island and isolated. With no monetary system, the colonists resorted to using tobacco as a form of currency. During the years of 1719-1720, we see how the South Seas Bubble shows what can happen when speculators ignore several important limitations on their schemes. In the early eighteenth century, the British economy was suffering from government overspending. As a result, British investors were intrigued by the stories of plentiful gold in the Americas. To tap these riches, the South Seas Company was formed and the British monarchy granted it exclusive trading rights to South America. Despite the fact that Spain owned South America, making the British edict completely useless, investors flocked to the company. The company, despite its obvious limitations, attracted so many investors that nearly a year’s worth of Britain’s GDP was invested. The stock skyrocketed on the British exchange. The company even investigated investing in the British national debt. Confidence was so high the Chancellor of the Exchequer had an investment account worth several hundred thousand pounds with the company. At the end of 1720, the South Seas Company stock was worth roughly 37 million pounds. Of course Spain refused to allow British adventures to remove their gold and the stock crashed. The resulting shockwave crippled the English economy and left many investors completely penniless. An entire generation of wealth was erased from the British economy. During the years of 1716-1720, Britain was not the only country to catch the speculation bug in the first quarter. When Louis XIV died, the French economy was completely exhausted from financing the wars that the Sun King had waged across Europe. The treasurer didn’t even have enough gold to mint new coins. John Law, a French government economist, proposed creating a bank that would print paper money. The government circulated so much paper money that it was valued at five times the wealth of France. To deal with the issue before it destroyed the French economy, Law informed the French citizenry that the new colony of Louisiana was filled with gold and an excellent investment opportunity. He hoped that the investment would allow government to obtain more actual wealth to solve the problem of the worthless notes. When the promised mountains of gold failed to appear from Louisiana, the bubble burst in 1720 and shares were devalued. What followed was a bank run when the value of Law’s currency was halved and devastating inflation that crippled the French economy. In the 19th century, during the US Civil War, a major goal of the Confederate army was to secure diplomatic recognition from European nations. Since cotton was essential to the economies of England, France, and other nations, they cut off cotton exports to force recognition. The Union blockaded Confederate ports but was never able to efficiently limit Confederate blockade running until late in the war. Combined with this Union blockade the decision to cut off cotton exports virtually extinguished Confederate trade revenues. The two factors lead to rampant inflation that made Confederate currency virtually worthless. When the Civil War ended, the economy of the South was in complete ruins. In the 19th century, the Panic of 1893 was the worst economic crisis in America until the Great Depression. As railroads became the dominant mode of transportation in the United States, speculators invested heavily in the technology. Many railroads simply overextended themselves and could not cover their expenses with revenues. In 1893, the giant Philadelphia and Reading Railroad collapsed under its own weight and declared bankruptcy. At the same time as the railroads began to feel the damage of their mistakes, the silver market was rocked. The 1880s witnessed the discovery of several silver mines and the resulting production drove the value of silver down. The US Government sought to deal with the crisis by buying silver in attempt to artificially increase its value. Once the government stopped purchasing silver the crisis reached its full height. The resulting depression lasted until 1900 and witnessed the collapse of 16,000 businesses and 17%-19% unemployment at its peak. In the 20th century, the greatest inflation in the history of Germany occurred with the outbreak of WWI. When the war began, the German governments increased the money supply in order to cover the soaring costs, initially of the war itself, and afterwards, of the heavy reparations that the Allies had imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. One means of increasing the supply of money was the issue of war bonds purchased by many citizens. At the same time, it was decided to cut the linkage between the German mark and the price of gold, a connection that existed at the time in most advanced nations. The result was an expanding gap between the value of gold-based currency (the gold mark, which was actually in use until the end of the days of the German Empire) and paper currency, which could be printed in almost unlimited quantities. Flooding the market with printed money rapidly lowered its value, so that the prices rose disproportionately, while the real wage of salaried workers fell sharply. At the same time, loans and debts lost their value by the same proportion. This was precisely the goal of the German government after the end of the war: to lessen the burden of the reparations and to demonstrate the weakness of the German economy to the allies. This situation took its toll on the daily life of most citizens. The rise in prices that the consumer was required to pay was not matched by a rise in wages. Since wages rose more gradually, it was more difficult to keep up with the high prices. On payday, employees hurried to reach the stores before the exchange rate of the mark vis-à-vis the dollar which was usually even lower than it had been a few days earlier. Prices rose to absurd sums: at the end of the period of hyper-inflation, in the fall of 1923, a loaf of bread cost many billions and to send a single postcard from Munich to Prague required stamps worth 36 billion marks. Here we see a photo of children stacking this now-worthless money. In Germany’s situation, the central bank ceased investing in the design of bills and in their printed elements since it was not worthwhile to produce counterfeit bills, all of the graphic markings that were meant to serve as obstacles to counterfeiting, and some bills were even only one-sided. Often, a denomination – higher than the specified original bills – was overlaid onto existing bills that had not yet entered the money cycle. There are photographs depicting children who had cut out kites from galley sheets of bills that had become obsolete. In November 1923, the inflation reached a peak: one dollar was worth 4,200 billion German marks. It was clear to all that this trend could not go on. Eventually, a change of government in Germany brought an end to the inflation, after it had achieved one of its main goals: reduction of the debts that were burdening the German coffers. From November 15, 1923, the currency was replaced: instead of the worthless Papiermark, the Central Bank of Germany presented the new mark (Rentermark). In the international arena, the German government reached an understanding with the Allies in the framework of the Dawes Plan, according to which German reparations were adjusted to the country's economic ability. Following this, the German economy recuperated over the coming years, but millions of citizens lost their capital, which had been deposited in savings plans. It is not hard to see a common thread here. When nations form, however that might happen, those with money get in on the action first, further securing their family’s position of power generations down the line when the country becomes more successful. Countries are investments for the elite. Those that are in power, typically stay in power, as long as they maintain secrecy about the extent of their reach so the citizens they manipulate don’t attempt to limit their power. Why riot if there’s no direction to point your finger? When things go bad, due to bad planning and continuous pride of the “royals,” entire countries collapse and leave their citizens in the dirt. From our brief historical review, this is a common occurrence for many reasons, because there are tons of ways to “rig” the system when you have the power to pull the strings. Studying the histories of other collapsed nations will yield the same discoveries. History always repeats itself.