by G. Edward Griffin
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Book Description
Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magicians' secrets are unveiled. We get a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, their pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A dry and boring subject? Just wait! You'll be hooked in five minutes. Reads like a detective story — which it really is. But it's all true. This book is about the most blatant scam of all history. It's all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Creature from Jekyll Island will change the way you view the world, politics, and money. Your world view will definitely change. You'll never trust a politician again — or a banker.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 awesome, 2008-08-15
this book was great. learn how the fed operates and the effects it has on our society. hard to put down.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A book about how the world works., 2008-07-20
This book explains how the world works from a political and economic perspective. It describes the ideological battle between individualism and collectivism, giving historical examples of where and how collectivists have succeeded in eroding personal liberties in favor of centralized control of society.
This is truly the most horrifying book I have ever read, yet it is my favorite book because it has alerted me to extremely important information that is taboo in school and in the main stream media.
What does this have to do with the Federal Reserve? The Federal Reserve is the greatest scam in history and you are the victim. Read this book to learn how it was created by powerful men to ensure their economic dominance, and how it has become an powerful tool for promoting world collectivism.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
The history of financial enslavement, 2008-07-18
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President
I sit before you tonight with a great deal of concern for the future of our nation. In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson passed into law the Federal Reserve, and once this banking cartel(part private bank backed by government) came into being it brought with it the seeds of misery and totalitarianism. Griffin will tell you a tale that reads better than any fiction novel about a private network of Central banks that plan to enslave the world through a one world currency and government. He documents everything he brings before the reader with congressional records, U.N. documents, and the words of the international bankers themselves. By the end of this book you will see the Federal Reserve for what it really is: A mechanism of our republics destruction, a mechanism of taxation via the hidden tax inflation, and one of the greatest threats to both our liberty and freedom. I can not put into words the impact this information has had on me. A well researched and thorough book not only of our Federal Reserve system, but of all the torment that has and will someday come with it; some of which you are starting to witness now. If you read only one book outside The Bible this year this should be it. 5 stars hands down....
"They may pass a law to issue paper money, but twenty laws will not make the people receive it. Paper money is founded upon fraud and knavery." George Mason in a letter to George Washington.
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either." Benjamin Franklin.
"For the love of money is the root for all kinds of evil.: 1 Timothy 6:10A
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Book about Money that Reads like a Thriller, 2008-07-06
There are few books on economics that can be called "page turners." G. Edward Griffin's book reads more like a mystery novel than an economic essay. It is wonderfully replete with historical facts about many of the players and about the actions that have led up to the present state of America and the World. Even if you don't agree with some of the author's conclusions -- and I don't -- this book is worth reading.
Some reviewers have complained that there are too many conspiracies in the book. Since the players are mostly bankers and politicians, the conspiracy theories are mostly believable. On the other hand, manipulation of public opinion (Public Relations) and manipulation of politicians (lobbies) are all too common and not restricted to money politics. I would not read too much into these conspiracy theories.
This book is wonderfully researched except where it is not. The author went to great lengths to get the story about the principal players. On the subject of money he relies heavily on John Kenneth Galbraith and his fascinating volume "Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went." But for the supposed downward moving standard of living in America there is no proof, no statistics, no references worth mentioning, just the opinion of the author. This is sad indeed because it undermines the author's thesis that the Fed is evil and that it causes hardship. It is easy to see that the average American is better off in 2008 than his counterpart was in 1913. The technological and medical advances of this century have more than made up for the damage caused by the Fed. I suppose it would be too hard a task to prove the evilness of the Fed if in reality life is better now than in 1913. One can even argue that certain bubbles have been beneficial because they have created and left behind useful infrastructure such as the railroad bubble which left us the roads and recently the telecommunications bubble which left us the optic fiber infrastructure. The big losers in these bubbles were the speculators who did not exit on time and the big winners were the users of these infrastructures, i.e. the common man. The 1929 bubble and tulipmania do not share this beneficence.
While I'm in agreement with the author on the need to curtail the Fed and the Congress, and while I agree that fractional reserve banking is a giant legalized Ponzi scheme, I do not agree with the return to a gold or silver standard. Prices are stable while the availability of money is in sync with the availability of products and services. The author states correctly that any amount of gold and silver will do because prices will adjust accordingly. What he fails to mention is that while the perceived advantage of these metals is their scarcity and constant level, the economy and the availability of goods and services is soaring, specially as the less developed nations finally take their place in the economic world. If the amount of gold and silver don't keep up with the availability of goods and services, the result must be deflation. Interestingly enough, in India people wear their money on their bodies in the form of silver ornaments. Maybe there is silver enough after all. This is another important area of research that is missing hence the conclusion that going back to a silver standard will be beneficial is not based on research but on ideological opinion.
But the above argument is incomplete because money is not a fixed amount of silver any more than a river is a fixed amount of water. If the river stops flowing it is no longer a river. For good reason money is called a circulating asset. Here is a good definition of circulating assets: "Accounts receivables, inventory, work in process, cash, etc., that are constantly flowing in and out of a firm in the normal course of its business, as cash is converted into goods and then back into cash." The faster money can change hands the less of it you need to match the availability of goods and services. It should be easy to see that in the 19th century when you had to physically exchange metal disks for merchandise the speed of money was a lot slower than in the 21st century when a click of the mouse can buy and sell the same merchandise at electronic speeds. We need a lot less metal for the same amount of goods and services now than before.
While the book does not say it explicitly, Griffin is in favor of unfettered competition and in an ideal world it would be an ideal system. But capitalists hate competition and they use all sorts of mechanism to reduce it, many of them perfectly legal such as brand names. John D. Rockefeller hated competition and anyone who dared compete would get "a good sweating." In practice this means that in addition to a government dedicated to protecting "life, liberty and property" it must also regulate commerce to some extent to protect the weak from the strong unless you are perfectly happy to let some sectors of society starve. While I do not think that people have the right to be fed and clothed, they do have the right to be protected from abuse by the wealthy.
Griffin comes out in favor of private insurance in place of government sponsored FDIC. Had his time machine lingered in 2008 he would have seen that the private insurance of bonds turned out to be a total fiasco, witness the state AMBAC, MBIA and the other insurers find themselves in. The fiasco had nothing to do with insurance being public or private but with the fact the risk was poorly estimated. The bond insurers relied on the bond rating agencies (Standard & Poors, Moody's, Fitch and Duff & Phelps) who are paid by the bond issuers. Do you see the conflict of interest? The only collective benefit of private insurance is that the tax payer might not be saddled with the losses.
At the end of the day it is not fiat money that is evil but the people who manipulate it to their own advantage as is shown page after page in Griffin's book. Proposing a gold or a silver standard does not go to the root of the problem, it simply aims to erect barriers that the evil money changers supposedly cannot overcome. A gold or a silver standard is not the solution, at best it is a palliative.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Good history; Bad speculation, 2008-06-19
I believe all those things that were already within my knowledge and are recited here. I have no doubt that all money in the banking system is created out of loans. I know many examples of western countries maintaining a war only because paper money was available to them. I buy the argument that we are incapable of exercising monetary self-discipline in a paper system.
But there is a huge amount of other new information and Mr Griffin's problem is data overload. Getting a sufficiency of his argument into my mind to establish the case he is making means this book cannot be read, even chapter by chapter. More or less every paragraph requires deliberation and, as the subject matter really requires a revolutionary response, its not a pleasant read.
Its hardly surprising that Wikipedia has shot itself in the foot in trashing Mr Griffin - they simply could not handle the volume of data he supplies.
In linking-up the history of the Fed, Mr Griffin has exposed himself to the accusation of being a conspiracy-theorist - its implicit in his hostile Wikipedia bio mentioned earlier. Real life is not like that. In my experience something happens and people recognise it creates an opportunity and take it. Its not precisely an endless conspiracy rather than an endless awareness of opportunity and, as money is our own creation, it is unsurprising that we recognise the chances that change offers. Perhaps Wikipedia Editors will think about that too.
Mr Griffin is single-track in seeing monetary policy defining all government policy. Perhaps he is right - he has certainly amassed considerable persuasive data. He restates the old British misunderstanding of equality, the British principles argument in the wars with revolutionary France and Napoleon, which is, I think, unsupportable. His causes of WWI are too narrowly focused for my liking. And he asserts that several politicians publicly opposed the moneymen whilst actually supporting them - that is hard to swallow. These aspects may permit his critics to query his commitment to the whole truth.
What he does make clear is that in any system of government, decisions are ultimately made and packaged by very few people and democracy has no remedy for that - one ultimately trusts that power-holders are `fit and proper' chaps. We might reasonably call back the aristocracy to power - at least they were tutored to it and published the principles that defined their actions.
This is one of those books that is likely to be hooted away by the pundits until historians throw it back at us decades later when the system it describes has unravelled. There is unlikely to be a world-ranking authority endorsing it. The economist Ron Paul promoted it but his Presidential campaign failure has diminished the value of that endorsement.
We should try to be more straight-forward with knowledge, particularly unpleasant knowledge such as this book abounds in. There are no heroes here, excepting President Jackson. In their absence we have amusing writing - Chapter 22 is headed "The Creature swallows Congress."
I guess Mr Griffin has spent a huge amount of his time in preparing this work. There is much factual reporting that may be readily corroborated. He has ordered the information he has gleaned and provided summaries at end of each chapter. Its worth a couple of PhDs (history and economics) in my estimation.
I wish Mr Griffin had not written the last two chapters - his pessimistic and realistic prophecies for the future - or at least contained them in an Afterword somewhat separate from the rest of the book. Any forecast of the future is bound to be wrong - we are incompetent at it. By incorporating these speculations in the work I think he overstepped himself.
Nevertheless, I think Mr Griffin's work requires a response from central bank governors and Treasury Secretaries. It is an indictment of our monetary system and they should defend themselves. I should like to hear what the operators of our monetary system have to say. I hope they will not say the subject is too complicated for little people. Such a reply or the absence of any response will tend to reinforce my belief that Mr Griffin has got it right in broad terms.
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