[b-kandor]

for you ivox: link it's a fun read

some debunking of fed. reserve conspiracy theories - worth reading
federal reserve

For me taxation systems don't matter (except for all the waste) - but what does matter is where is all the money going. The rich/ poor gap get's demonstrably bigger every year. The mechanisms in place to allow for the extraction/relocation of wealth are well documented. You can only run a country like this for so long before everything starts falling apart.

quote from worldwatch institute:

"Of all high-income nations, the United States has the most unequal distribution of income, with over 30 percent of income in the hands of the richest 10 percentand only 1.8 percent going to the poorest 10 percent. "

[ivox3]

A clipped part of a review:

The plot is unsummarizable. A dozen or two bewildered characters, of all degrees from sympathetic to make-you-cringe, blunder through a vaguely-familiar 20th century booby-trapped with Chicago gangsters, golden submarines, Cthulhian interstellar demons, boys from Brazil, coups-d’etat in tiny island nations, Jungian archetypes, Crowleyan magick,the Sacred Chao, the Law of Fives, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, an attack on the Pentagon (which must've seemed downright eerie to Wilson on 9/11), and (naturally) the final truth about That Day in Dallas.

...wow.



Hey, ... all I said is that it's privately owned, ...as to what exactly happens on a daily basis ---- I surely have no clue.

[glypticmax]

Interesting, but not compelling.

Lots of holes.............
For example.

Yes, the Federal Reserve banks are privately owned, but they are controlled by the publically-appointed Board of Governors

The author fails to point out that the list of the potential Board of Governors is supplied by the banks that own the Federal Reserve. So the Board of Governors is pre-selected to only include individuals of which the member banks approve.
The fact their bought and paid for Congress appoints a Board of Governors from a furnished list is not very comforting.
90% of all elected officials in the US are those that collect the most money to campaign.
And where does most of the money come from?
I may not know, but I bet the politicians do.

[Hybaj]

Who said this is not really happening...

Of course it's happening. With a populated planet like earth you have to have such a not so freedom friendly matrix to keep things running. The time has proven that the matrix few years ago had its climax and was actually quite amusing. If you have the pill you can have a blast. And that's what is this all about. People cannot be equal because they are not equally powerfull, wise, good looking, funny and etc. Life is just a crossroad of egoistic wishes in time and space. At the moment we have just one earth to share.

Te current matrix is about to change into something completly boring. A 100% controled society is something completly boring and restricted. And that's no fun...

Imagine this...just a single free energy device would distribute power over the unequal folks of this earth. How would it end up???

[superbad]

I've never understood this business about there being no law authorizing income tax. Here is the text of the 16th amendment to the constitution, ratified in 1913 (the same year as the Federal Reserve!):

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Apart from a period when it was used to pay for the Civil War, and a few brief periods in between, prior to 1913 all US government revenue came from property taxes, excise taxes, and duties. There are still some states that don't have income tax, and who get most of their money from sales tax.

Now that cash is being swiftly replaced with debit and credit cards, a national sales tax probably makes more sense than it once did, as it would be much harder to dodge. It would have the added benefit (to us, anyway, if not the government) of being more transparent.

The reason many of these tax protesters never get sent to jail is that income tax is pretty much based on the honor system in this country. Very few tax returns get audited, and unless you're stupid, it is very easy to get away with not paying. Depending on what you do and how you get paid, you can pretty much just not file taxes, and nobody will ever notice.