“I freed a thousand slaves.  I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” – Harriet Tubman

By Glen Reaux

The title of this article, “Slavery With A Smile, America’s Economy” is a very serious assertion  about how the American economy is enslaving you, especially if you are a retired or working class American.  It may lead one to believe that, this is just another conspiracy piece filled with lies, innuendos and unproven allegations.  However, this two-part investigate report is just the opposite.  We at Xplicit News ask that you do not take this article on face-value.  Instead, we want you to investigate our claims and post any discrepancies, untruths or misleading statements in the comments section of this article.  We want you, our readers to hold us accountable for what we write.  Unlike many politicians and right-wing media sources, we live by the integrity of our articles.  With your help, we hope to set a new and higher standard for journalism by holding guilty parties responsible, not being afraid to call a lie a lie and by speaking truth to the powers that be.

PART I – THE AMERICAN DREAM

An ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved is what we commonly refer to as the “The American Dream.”  To put it in other terms, the Founding Fathers stated “Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness” which is a direct quote from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.  But does this founding ideal of the American Society really exist in today’s America?  The answer is that it does, but only for the one percent (1%).  Anyone else who believes otherwise is living in a dream and it’s not the “American Dream.”  Unless you are a member of the 1% or one of their familiars, the American economy is a nightmare that has evolved, possibly by design into a system of economic slavery.  This system would strike terror into the hearts of our Founding Fathers and anyone else that has been able to see behind the curtain of the Wizard and really take a long and hard look at the machinery.  One person in particular that proclaimed “Give me liberty or give me death”, Patrick Henry would be leading a new revolution today.

In the America of the 21st century, people are so overcome by the elements or conditions of this economy that not unlike the Black slaves of our history, they cannot get enough relief to allow themselves the ability to understand who they are, how they got here, what the future holds for them or how they can change the inevitable outcome of their futures as laid out for them by their slave masters.  In essence, the economic design of the American Dream is so covert, insidious and oppressive that it can only be described as “slavery with a smile.”

The American people are so out of touch with reality that every time there is an economic crisis (The Great Depression, The 2008 Great Recession), which by no means was caused by every-day people, their response is like that of a slave when speaking to his physically ill slave owner, “Whatsa matter Massa, we sick!”  This is the legacy that Black people have suffered from in this country.  And now, this ignorance and oppression has crossed over and infected the rest of America’s people.  By design, American slavery was an inhumane condition suffered upon a specific class of people purely for the economic benefit of the elite class.  Is this much different from what corporate-America and the elite are doing today?  As a mother, father, sister, brother or friend you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to ask these simple questions.

1. Why is the American Dream so hard to attain and keep?
2. Why is higher education so hard to get?
3. Why can’t I get healthcare?
4. With my economic condition the way that it is, why are elected officials always smiling?

These are the very same questions that slaves asked every day of their lives, but in a less sophisticated manner.   And every day of your life, you are asking the same questions.  There is only one answer to these questions and it’s very simple.  As long as the slaves broke their backs in the field, danced and entertained themselves, did not ask questions, praised God and accepted the status quo, Massa always smiled.  Does this sound familiar?  A former slave, political activist and abolitionist, the great Harriet Tubman once said: “I freed a thousand slaves.  I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” 

Are you a slave and don’t even know it?  Just be honest with yourself.  Take a moment and think about it.  If you are having trouble, you can borrow some advice from my grandfather, “Free your mind and your  ass will follow.”  Now take a deep breath and say woosah, woosah, woosah.

Now that you have freed your mind and opened your eyes, you must venture to look behind the curtain.  Like in the Wizard of Oz, behind the curtain, the Wizard is an older White gentleman pushing buttons, pulling levers, flipping switches, shifting gears, blowing smoke and speaking in a thunderous voice, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”  It is obvious that the Wizard is an avatar in the form of our elected officials.  Currently, our real-life Wizard is Donald Trump.  Point-of-fact, on July 24, 2018, in a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their national convention, our very own Wizard stated: “This country is doing better than it’s ever done before, economically.”  He continued with, “But it’s all working out. Just remember: What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”  This is proof positive that like the Wizard of Oz, our politicians lie to us, deceive us, patronize us, placate us and make us feel like we are living in the Emerald City, the greatest place in the world.  The great machinery behind the curtain was invented by, constructed, maintained and owned by the 1% and corporate-America which we will refer to as the Evil Empire with an agenda not dissimilar from that of the Evil Empire in Star Wars.

While the analogies being used may appear to be simplistic or not applicable, especially since they are based in pop-culture and science fiction, they are in no way inaccurate.  There is an axiom that goes “truth is stranger than fiction.”  If you keep that in mind, you will find that the truth of our reality is actually stranger that the analogies that are being used.  In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s goal of getting back home to Kansas is not unlike our desires to attain the American Dream.  Her journey down the yellow brick road provides many of the same perils that we experience in our everyday lives.  When you examine the lives of the freedom fighters in Star Wars, they are fighting an oppressive Evil Empire that is trying to subjugate them and control every aspect of their lives.  These analogies based in fiction are representative of the realities in our American society. The only difference is that the American version of the Evil Empire is much more covert for now.  But given time, under the illusions of the mesmerizing, cultish and pathological Hitler want-to-be “lying Donald Trump”, things are sure to change and not for the better.  Fact, in 2018, Donald Trump averaged 15 lies a day for a grand total of 5,475 lies, an unprecedented feat for any conman.  America fasten your seat belts: “Were off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz…Because because because because because, because of the wonderful things he does.”

The American Evil Empire’s great machinery that is being operated by the Wizard is our capitalistic economy.  The buttons, switches, levers and gears that make up the machine are the laws, elected officials, government agencies, corporate financial institutions, lobbyist and the dreaded, U.S. Federal Reserve.  In the Star Wars movie franchise, the ultimate weapon of supremacy used to subjugate and conquer the people is the Death Star.  In America, the Death Star controls the money flow, sets interest rates, makes loans to banks, regulates financial institutions, determines the rate of inflation and prints the nation’s money.  The actions or in-actions of the Federal Reserve can cause the nation’s economy to expand or contract and can even cause recessions and depressions.  The fuel that powers the Death Star, America’s Federal Reserve System is unadulterated greed.

The Federal Reserve System aka The Fed is not a government agency owned and operated by the federal government.  It is about as close to being a government entity as FedEx.  It is a privately owned banking cartel consisting of member banks that are publicly traded companies and investors some of them foreign, whose only mandate is to make money for their stockholders.  Signed into law on December 23, 1913, by President Woodrow Wilson, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913^{1} took the power to regulate our economy and print money away from the U.S. Treasury and gave that power to a cartel of privately owned banks.  This was done under the auspices of establishing a National Central Banking System.  While the idea and need for a centralized banking system was not in doubt, placing the future of our country in the hands of a group of private investors, corporate-owned banks and profiteers has brought about our current economy which has evolved into an oppressive system of economic slavery.

While there are many conspiracy theories about who owns the Fed and the supposed evil men behind it.  This article will provide facts and sources to support our assertions.  The facts are frightful and we welcome you to research our documentation.  After which, it is up to you to draw your own conclusions.

The Fed sets interest rates and lends money that it prints out-of-thin-air to its member banks.  These banks, in turn, lend the money to you in the form of mortgages, car loans, business loans, student loans, credit cards and other forms of consumer and business debt.  Since the Fed is responsible for regulating banks and interest rates, they are directly responsible for the usury practices that are drowning the American people in debt.  Usury is the action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.  Since the current Fed rate is 2.5%, a credit card provider that charges interest rates of 10%-30% or higher is definitely committing an act of usury.  In biblical terms, usury is a sin.  And, prior to the Reagan era, there were federal laws that protected American citizens from the usury practices of the big banks which have now become legalized loan-sharks.

The prime interest rate is the interest charged by a bank to its most creditworthy customers.  These customers are almost always large corporations and the wealthy 1%.  As of March 19, 2019, that rate is 5.5%.  The disparity in interest rates between the average working class citizen and that of the 1% and corporations (The Evil Empire) is proof that an undue, oppressive economic burden is intentionally placed on the backs of those least able to shoulder that burden.  When a person has to labor to pay back the interest on a loan that is 4 times the value of the initial principal, then that is the very definition of economic slavery.  In essence, that person’s labor is being used to enrich the pockets of another and the laborer is not being paid.  That is slave labor.  In other instances, banks have practiced redlining which is the act of denying economically disadvantaged communities loans and other financial services due to their ethnic, racial or economic background.  Laws have been passed to prevent this behavior.  But, to this very day, it still persists because certain elements of the great machine refuse to enforce the laws.

The Fed has created a banking system that allows member banks to create money out-of-thin-air.  Which means that working class people are paying interest on money borrowed that never really existed.  The Fractional Reserve Banking System^{2} allows a bank to lend more money than it has in deposits.  This is explained in an in-house, operations booklet published by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank titled, “Modern Money Mechanics.”^{2} If a bank has 100 thousand dollars in deposits, it can lend up to 1 million dollars in loans.  This means that the bank literally created 900 thousand dollars from out of nowhere.  So the Reserve Require Ratio in this instance is 10%.  As of January 17, 2019, the Fed required that all banks with more than $124.2 million on deposit maintain a reserve of 10% of deposits.  Banks with more than $16.3 million up to $124.2 million must reserve 3% of all deposits^{3}.  This is all an elaborate accounting trick accomplished with a keystroke on a computer.  Imagine what you would say to your neighbor if that neighbor told you that, he would lend you $100 and you would have to pay back $300 and when you signed the contract he handed you $10.  This is basically the same thing.  Your neighbor’s $10 investment yields a 3000% return.  When dealing with home mortgages, a $200,000 loan at 5% results in the homeowner paying back over 30 years, a total of $386,510, nearly double the cost of the home.

Click to download pdf –> Fractional Reserve Banking System Diagram

Despite the mandate of the Federal Reserve which is to stabilize the economy, mint and control the money supply and regulate banks, the country has suffered tremendously.   In 1929, just 16 years after the creation of the Fed America was struck by the Great Depression^{4} which lasted for 10 years and was the worst economic period in the history of this nation.  According to a 2010 report,  US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions^{5}, published by the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, there have been 19 recessions since the 1913 creation of the Fed.  The most recent was the Great Recession of 2008 which many economists believe was actually a depression.  This means that on average, the country suffers a recession every 5 years.  In a June 2017 report^{6} to its clients, Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the country and a member bank of the Federal Reserve, Goldman stated that every recession (and depression) since World War II has been caused by the Fed.  When one examines the great transference of wealth in America the wealthiest 0.01% of the population owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%.^{7}  Sadly, the Fed has largely contributed to increasing the systemic inequality now ingrained in the financial and by extension, the political system^{7}.  The following document published by the FED explains how the banking system operates which includes its ability to make money out of thin air.

At the end of the 2008 Great Recession, Obama Administration Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner stated: “the question is not if there will be another great recession, but when.” This statement along with the Fed’s inability to do its job is proof that the Fed has failed in its mission.  Since failures of this magnitude are not tolerated in any segment of any society, one must question why the Fed is still in existence.  Unless the Death Star’s failures were not mistakes and some of the recessions were actually by design and a part of its mission.  This assertion, in reality, is the only thing that makes sense.  The fact remains that in a recession, the only losers are the poor and the middle-class. Their bank accounts dry-up, their retirement accounts dissolve,they loose their homes the divorce rate rises, families break apart and their health suffers.  The banks, large corporations and the 1% only get wealthier as wealth is transferred from the poor and middle-class to the elite as evidenced by the Great Recession bailout known as “too big to fail” which was corporate welfare and funded on the backs of the poor and middle-class.

The institution of the Federal Reserve, the elites Death Star is one element of economic slavery.  The usury interest rates, inflation and recessions that are created by the Fed are other factors.  Your elected officials are a part of the machinery behind the curtain that makes it possible for you to be enslaved economically.  With a smile on their faces, they created this Federal Reserve Death Star and they are coming for you.  Through the burden and oppression of economic slavery, “a target has been put on your back making it impossible to achieve an ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to you, allowing your highest aspirations and goals to be achieved.”  “The American Dream” is the carrot being dangled in front of your face and you are the mule towing the heavy load that will never get to eat the carrot.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “you are not in Kansas anymore.” Unfortunately, clicking your heels three times will not take you back home to be safe and sound and free from slavery.”  Kansas is just an illusion.

Slavery With A Smile, Part II Understanding The Wizard’s Great Machine, America’s Economy

https://www.gofundme.com/xplicit-news

Linked Sources and Documentation

1. Federal Reserve Act, pdf – Federal Reserve Act of 1913
2. Fractional Reserve Banking System, pdf – Fractional Reserve Banking System
3. https://www.thebalance.com/reserve-requirement-3305883
4. https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history
5. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions pdf –US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions – link: https://www.marketplace.org/2018/12/18/economy/history-us-recessions
6. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-24/goldman-finds-most-modern-recessions-were-caused-fed
7. https://www.thenation.com/article/inequality-wealth-rich-still-getting-richer/

Slavery With A Smile, America’s Economy Part II

Copyright © 2019, Glen Reaux, all rights reserved