A Hero Forgotten

In seeking wisdom on the current financial crisis, one need only turn back to our post American Revolution days to the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It was Jefferson, far more than any of our other founding fathers, who recognized the evils of monetary monopoly on the people's liberty's. The Hamilton vs. Jefferson debates live in infamy, but Jefferson's warnings have gone on ignored; Hamilton has for now won the day, and depressions are the consequence.

Jefferson Monetary Quotables:

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

-Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, July 21, 1816

That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied. --Thomas Jefferson to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817. ME 15:113

Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us. --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:276

The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals... it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted. --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:430

The Danger of Paper Money

Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence. --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

The Limits On Contracting Debt

The sentence in bold red could not be any more relevant than today. with untold tens of trillions in bail outs, unfunded liabilities and off balance sheet wars and other items, there is sadly no way future generations will pick up the tab. Furthermore, phony wealth is evaporating in the trillions for households and tens of trillions for financial institutions, all to the detriment of the taxpayer and the benefit to Wall Street.

Sadly, few fight the good fight, here is a brief list:

Ron Paul
Lew Rockwell and The Ludwig Von Mises Institute
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Gerald Celente
GATA
Peter Schiff
Mark Levitt
Alex Smith (although, he takes it to extremes even beyond Schiff, but a good organizer)
The Cato Institute

I'm sure I missed plenty of worthy individuals.