the false prophets were he is not I'm
sorry not in in the he's in the the
false prophets are in the they're in the
eighth circle I think they're in the
first bowl gia he does not put them with
the false prophets he puts him
with the schismatic so now the
schismatic SAR the Eastern Churches and
this is in essence acknowledging that
these are believers but they saw schism
was actually because it created violence
and rupture in society it's also not a
disease of fraud and this is pointed out
by the commentators in Dante that he
puts him here because the the the fraud
is in their own misperception of the
world this is this is how he does it and
I also want to say that these people
that he puts here are not the people and
that's why people say oh he put his
enemies in hell and he was just cruel
and just know these are personifications
he is personifying the idea of schism
and that was something very close to a
deeply divided world between christians
and muslims who were fighting then as
unfortunately we are now so but then he
puts the falsifiers
alright now what's interesting to me
he's got the counterfeiters and the
alchemist and and and and the people
that the coin i want to look at this was
110 years ago when the earl lectures
were founded look at what the dollar the
purchasing power of the dollar was
alright because what you could buy you
see is it has diminished to the point so
for instance my grandfather who sold
bubblegum as a ten year old boy in in
San Francisco down on Market Street in
1906 he used to sell it I think for a
penny little packages of bubble gum so
all you have to do is look at how much
that package cost today and in those
days it was organic right so so you'd
even have to like double the price to
get the organic bubble gum but just look
at the purchasing power of the dollar
that has been declining and then our
debt 56 trillion and this is it's
actually higher than this now but this
is the current liabilities and unfounded
promises okay we only have about 15
trillion dollar
in circulation and this is what we owe
in liabilities Social Security met a cow
all these things okay I mean this is a
real crises so our current national
debts at about 12 trillion right and our
budget was close to two trillion so now
most of this again we're going a large
portion is going to defense and another
portion is going to interest on the
national debt now this is old wine in a
new bottle so because in the old days
you had gangsters and the thing about
gangsters is that they would just go in
and usually have like they would cover
and they'd go in and rob the bank now
they get on the boards it's much more
clever series and this is not
exaggeration there's a book called the
best way to rob a bank is to own one
and this is what these people have been
doing and it's really quite stunning now
I just look at this statement Wall
Street with its vast banks in New York
City and associated banks and all other
large cities suggested that there was a
prospect of most disastrous panic that
the world and and that had known unless
Congress gave them emergency currency
neither could these great swivel-chair
operators of Wall Street exploit the
commerce that would follow between the
war nations and our country has a great
profiteering game unless Uncle Sam came
to their aid and financially that is
would give them more currency okay
instead of aiding the people as the
Congress as the government should have
done Congress immediately passed and
emergency currency Act to Furness the
banks that the speculators controlled
all the money they should need till they
could operate the Federal Reserve Act
the speculators received from Uncle Sam
nearly four hundred million dollars okay
that would be about four hundred billion
today under the provisions of the
emergency currency act and when the
Federal Reserve Act really got to
operating they had nearly four hundred
million at one time under that act and
they could get as much more as they
wanted
that's congressman Charles Lindbergh
senior who was this the father of
Charles Lindbergh who flew across the
Atlantic he was a congressman that was
opposed to the Federal Reserve but my
point is is that it's the same game too
big to fail this is how it's all fear
and this is one of the things that the
the the panders and the seducers they
use fear and desire to trick people and
and and to get what they want now it is
an old maxim and a very sound one that
that he who dances should always pay the
fiddler now sir in the present case of
any gentleman whose money is a burden to
them choose to lead off a dance I am
decidedly opposed to the people's money
being used to pay the fiddler no one can
doubt that the examination proposed by
this resolution must cost the state some
ten or twelve thousand dollars a lot of
money in 1837 and all this to settle a
question in which the people have no
interest in about which they care
nothing these capitalists generally act
harmoniously and in concert to fleece
the people and now that they have got
into a quarrel with themselves we are
called upon to appropriate the people's
money to settle the quarrel because they
wanted money over a stock collapse that
happened and this is an old game now I
want to talk about America's great fairy
tale you see every culture has to have
some really profound fairy tale and and
ours is the Wizard of Oz now The Wizard
of Oz about the time the Earl lectures
were being initiated there was a
character named William Jennings Bryan
in fact a hundred and ten years ago he
would have just found out that he lost
the 1900 election for president he ran
on the anti-imperialism platform he was
an he was a pacifist they called him a
coward they considered him a coward he
was a pacifist
he was also pro farming and and our
farmers people have no idea how much our
farmers have suffered in this country
really the suicide rate is the highest
amongst farmers I mean these are people
tied to the land and when the lands
taken away from them and and they're
forced into this agribusiness Gresham's
dynamic which is that the cheaters drive
out the honest people now I just want to
look at this fairy tale because bomb was
was basically given us an allegory at
this time when he was writing this the
great debate in the United States was
over finance reform and
this Dorothea represents um the American
the good American from Kansas good
Midwest state she's on a farm and BOM
describes her her you know her aunt and
her uncle never smile it's a barren farm
because it's drought and then basically
she meets she goes to this land she
lands on the Wicked Witch of the East
Wall Street and she and and the
munchkins the little factory workers are
freed and they're really happy and then
the Good Witch of the North which is
where all the support for the populace
were come down and she gives her the
silver slippers which turned into ruby
slippers in the film but in the book
they're silver slippers and then she's
told to go to Oz because she wants to
get back to Kansas follow the yellow
brick road they were on the gold
standard in 1873 this country removed
the silver standard and they demonetised
silver which created an incredible
burden on farmers because gold was rich
people's money silver was poor people's
money and it was made illegal for people
to use and that's Bryan's famous the
cross of gold don't crucify us on a
cross of gold so the yellow brick road
leads that emerald forests the green
backs because the currency was tied to
the gold and and in the book they all
wear emerald glasses that have a string
connected to a gold belt and the
Scarecrow represents the kind of simple
farmers that were intelligent but not
educated and they needed a brain with
the thoughts I III could be thinking I'd
be another Lincoln if I only had a brain
and then the Tin Man is the industrial
factory workers who are dehumanized
by industry and and this is why the Tin
Man in the book says that he used to be
a real human being that was cutting the
wood but he would cut himself and and
the the tin makers would put him back
together until he became completely tin
but now he's lost his heart because this
is the alienation the dehumanization
that happens in factory workers and then
the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings
Bryant who was called a coward and and
needed the courage and the
power to do this they wanted to restore
bimetallism this was Hamilton's original
vision of this country to have a
bi-metal economy under a gold standard
the amount of credit the and by the way
at the end when she kills the Wicked
Witch of the the West which is where all
the farmers were being held it's the
yellow Wilkie's who are the the the
Chinese workers on the the railroad and
the winget monkeys who were the Native
Americans he was actually quite racist
towards Native Americans but they talked
about how we used to live on the land
and in the forest until these evil
people came and took us over and but how
does she kill the Wicked Witch liquidity
because because that's what they needed
they needed a cash infusion and and she
kind of dissolves into thin air right
what does she say
now I want you to really think about
this I'm coming to a close I know that
because I have to come to an end here
under a gold standard the amount of
credit that an economy can support is
determined by the economy's tangible
assets since every credit instrument is
ultimately a claim on some tangible
asset but government bonds are not
backed by tangible wealth only by the
government's promise to pay out of
future tax revenues and cannot easily be
absorbed by financial markets a large
volume of new government bonds can be
sold to the public only at progressively
higher interest rates thus government
deficient spending deficits spending
under a gold standard is severely
limited the abandonment of the gold
standard made it possible for the
welfare status to use the banking system
as a means to unlimited credit they have
created paper reserves in the form of
government bonds which through a complex
series of steps the banks accept in
place of tangible assets and treat as if
they were an actual deposit this is just
on a ledger in the in the Federal
Reserve as the equivalent of what was
formerly gold the holder of a government
bond or of a bank deposit created by
paper tzer's believes that he has a
valid claim on a real asset the law of
supply and demand is not to be conned as
the supply of money of claims increases
relative to the supply of tangible
assets in the economy prices must
eventually rise thus the earnings saved
by the productive members of society
lose value in terms of goods so if
you're saving money you're losing money
in this system when the economy's books
are finally balanced one finds that this
loss in value represents the goods
purchased by the government for welfare
or other purposes
really it's all defense spending but the
money proceeds and interests of the
government bonds financed by bank credit
expansion in the absence of the gold
standard there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through
inflation there's no safe store of value
if there were the government would have
to make it illegal as it was done in the
case of gold back in the 30s if everyone
decided for example to convert all his
bank deposits to silver or copper right
they'd lose their purchasing power so
the financial policy of the welfare
state requires that there be no way for
the owners of wealth to protect
themselves this is the shabby secret of
the welfare state as tirades against
gold deficit spending is a simply a
scheme for the confiscation of wealth
gold standards stand in the way of the
insidious process it stands as a
protector of property
if one grasp this one has no difficulty
in understanding the status antagonism
towards the gold standard that was Alan
Greenspan okay
that's true statement alan greenspan a
man who is furnished with arguments from
the mint will convince his antagonists
much sooner than any than one who draws
them from reason and philosophy gold is
a wonderful clearer of understanding it
dissipates every doubt and scruple in an
instant accommodates itself to the
meanest of capacities silences the loud
and clamors and brings over the most
obstinate and inflexible philip of
macedon was a man of most invincible
reason this way he refuted by it all the
wisdom of athens confounded their
Statesman's struck their orders dumb and
at length argued them out of all their
liberties that was addison again when
the freedom they wish for most was the
freedom from responsibility then Athens
ceased to be free and never was free
again that's one of our greatest
scholars on on the Greco tradition I'd
like to end with a poem by Robert Frost
because in the end for me the real two
sources of truth in this world are
revelation and poets and in the Islamic
tradition you can't separate the two
it's a prerequisite to comment on the
poor on that you have to master the
pre-islamic poets literally that is
agreed upon in Islamic tradition what
what poetry enables us the poets
penetrate and the poets are inspired and
and Dante was an inspired poet we can
look at the kind of there are many
things that we would object to but
ultimately Dante's vision is a vision of
every man and every woman's journey back
to God and in the end when Dante has the
beatific vision and and he sees it he's
he says and already my desire and my
will were made one turning by a wheel
yet at one speed the desire and the will
become one there's no more tension
between one's impulses and one's moral
rectitude and then he says
turned by the love that moved the
planets and the stars that love of God
Robert Frost wrote two poems about
economics and one of them he never
published it's called not it's called on
the inflation of the currency 1919 which
was when Wilson inflated the incurrence
he printed up a lot of money in order to
in order to pay for the war debts and he
said the pain of seeing 10 cents turned
to five we clutch with both hands
fiercely at the part we think we feel it
in the head the heart is someone cutting
us in two alive is somewhat at us
cutting us in half we cast a dangerous
look from where we lie up to the
enthroned it kings of earth and sky
they know what's best for them - well -
laughs that's about the bankers they've
convinced people that we need them
there are necessity they confiscate
wealth this misappropriation of wealth
is beyond belief in human history the
amount of money that's been taken out of
your homes people in this room the 401ks
that were destroyed and then he has
another poem and this is a warning to
America he says these words were cut in
stone for permanent these words so these
words I assume were so deeply met meant
they cut themselves in stone for
permanent like trouble in the brow above
the eyes and here's what's chiseled in
stone take care to sell your horse
before he dies the art of life is
passing losses on the city saying it was
Tessa Fong which may a little while by
war and trade have kept had have kept
from being caught with the decayed
infirm worn out and broken on its hands
but judging by what little of it stands
not even the ingenuities of debt could
save it from its law
is being met sand is thrusting in the
square of door across the tessellation
on the floor and only rests a serpent on
its chin content with contemplating
taking in until it can muster breath
inside a Hall inside a hall to rear
against the inscription on the wall
we're this country's money is being
destroyed really it's being destroyed
before our eyes and it's being destroyed
because of debt and debt is something
that is incredibly overwhelming for
people poor people have suffered the
most in this crises and until we take
the responsibility of understanding at a
deeper level the economics of the system
how it works we can't change anything it
was attempted William Jennings Bryan
attempted to do it a hundred and ten
years ago and there's a lot of people
now talking about this now whether we're
able to do it or not I don't know but
this system which is a global system now
and Ussery if you if you study how usery
works more interest on usury is going
out of the third-world countries than
aid going in this is just it's it's a
disgusting game and and it really should
end but whether we can end it or not is
is to be seen thank you very much
[Applause]
okay will now take questions from the
audience just just raise your hand if
you like ask the question thank you you
have continued a PSR tradition of
expanding our minds a lot of us own
homes I own a home isn't it fair for
there to be some interest charged on a
loan you know that's an argument that
was Calvin's argument Calvin
John Calvin was the French he was
originally Roman Catholic and then he
gets in trouble in the Inquisition moves
to Switzerland
the bankers actually erected a statue
for him because he's the first one that
legalizes usury in in in Christianity
but he did it by the idea of interest
and interest was originally a between
time if you delayed payment even by
church doctrine you could be charged in
the same way that they charge on credit
cards today if you're delayed that was a
reasoning what interest meant but what
Calvin did is he distinguished between
interest and usury and saw usury as
unjust or exorbitant at that time
anything higher than 12% would have been
considered usury Justinian the roman
emperor considered it 6% anything over
6% most people don't realize that a lot
of people in these pay day things are
paying sometimes 50% interest what the
bankers did is that they studied all of
the states and their interest laws and
they found out that Delaware and North
Dakota did not have interest law caps
and so they they put their operation
city cores in North Dakota not in New
York because there's usury laws in New
York huh
South Dakota sorry yeah South Dakota now
what's interesting is that
in smiley versus Citicorp smiley it's a
case that went to the Supreme Court
because they kept changing the rates on
on his his thing and so he actually
tried to see if he could put an end to
it and and the Supreme Court ruled
against smiley for Citicorp which ended
caps on these they used to charge five
dollars for a late fee now their shows
like $35 $40 the poorer you are the more
they charge even John Calvin who
accepted interest did not accept it for
poor people and what you have to
understand is the people that suffer
most are the poor people because they
get the worst rates and this is usury
you see most of you are probably in the
700s in your FICO score which is what
Fair Isaac that's the company that
determines it great Fair Isaac now one
of the things they don't tell you is
that anytime you miss a payment the
reason it suddenly drops is because they
want to raise your interest rates the
system's rigged against you but one of
the things that they have special files
for celebrities judges wealthy people
they don't do it to them because they
don't want these people to get angry and
make advocates the number one complaints
given to the Fair Business Bureau in the
United States is again is against credit
cards number one complaint people are
suffering out there most people don't
understand compound interest they don't
understand how if you pay the minimum
payment if we paid them the national
debt if we started paying it one dollar
a day it would take two hundred eighty
eight thousand years to finally pay it
off and in reality you could never pay
it off because of the nature of interest
so the point here is is you know
obviously companies have to make money
and things like that
renting money is in in the Islamic
tradition it's absolutely forbidden but
usury has always been even in the Muslim
world there's never been a society that
has been completely freed of interest
but there should be at least just rates
just rates and the people that suffer
most again are the poor people and and
we we should
advocates for these people because these
payday loans and people think these are
pawn brokers and schemers most of these
inner-city payday loans are owned by
Wells Fargo Bank of America seriously
it's just like it's it's like Disney you
know Disney has touchstone for their
racy films because they didn't want to
taint the name of Disney this is a very
sophisticated system and what you have
to realize is it's not that you know
they're all evil and is us and them this
is people that are afflicted with states
of being that are very unhealthy they're
not well and and part of what what what
you know just laws are to regulate
people from their own bad nature