Historical quotes on banking.

The following historical quotes about banking are being handed out to all those coming to the meeting on banking in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) on 6th Feb 2016.


"The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing." -
William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England in 1694, then a privately owned bank.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” - Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motors.

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.

"The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." - The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.

"I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people." Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924.

"The banks do create money. They have been doing it for a long time, but they didn't realise it, and they did not admit it. Very few did. You will find it in all sorts of documents, financial textbooks, etc. But in the intervening years, and we must be perfectly frank about these things, there has been a development of thought, until today I doubt very much whether you would get many prominent bankers to attempt to deny that banks create it." H W White, Chairman of the Associated Banks of New Zealand, to the New Zealand Monetary Commission, 1955.

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." - Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." - Thomas Jefferson, US President 1801-9.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, 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 in the debate over The Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809).

"The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. By adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity." Abraham Lincoln, US President 1861-5. He created government issue money during the American Civil War and was assassinated.

"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilisation." Otto von Bismark (1815-1898), German Chancellor, after the Lincoln assassination.

"That this House considers that the continued issue of all the means of exchange - be they coin, bank-notes or credit, largely passed on by cheques - by private firms as an interest-bearing debt against the public should cease forthwith; that the Sovereign power and duty of issuing money in all forms should be returned to the Crown, then to be put into circulation free of all debt and interest obligations..." Captain Henry Kerby MP, in an Early Day Motion tabled in 1964.

"... our whole monetary system is dishonest, as it is debt-based... We did not vote for it. It grew upon us gradually but markedly since 1971 when the commodity-based system was abandoned." - The Earl of Caithness, in a speech to the House of Lords, 1997.