The Underworld of Banksters

The financial industry is but one of many industries in the modern world. Besides whatever their stated purposes may be, every one of their modus operandi can be “unmasked” to reveal some degree and form of wrongdoing and harm done, as I did once in a very cursory way.1
One of those industries, the financial industry, is comprised of numerous sectors such as the insurance industry, for instance. I have written about how it along with its government ally are financially soaking the public.2 This present article burrows into another sector, what I call the industry’s “underworld of banksters.” A bankster is a bank or banker that relies on illegal or unethical wrongdoing in their financial dealings. The wrongdoing to be found in their underworld is monumental and incalculable in size and harm done.
Hijacking a Public Domain

Permit me to issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.
— Mayer Amschel Rothschild3

Mayer Amschel Rothschild was a German banker and the “founding father of international finance” that grew into the Rothschild banking dynasty that still exists today in full force, with ownership or control of banks in over 150 countries.4 In 2005 he was ranked seventh on the Forbes’ magazine list of “The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time.”5
Forbes, naturally, did not characterize him as a bankster of the financial underworld, but we can judge whether that is so just from the above quote. In its first clause he says he would like to privatize what should be in the public domain, namely, the exchange of money for goods and services, an exchange essential to any society’s existence. In its second clause he is saying exactly what would be expected of a bankster.
Bankrolling Wars
All wars are banksters’ wars!
The Rothschild banking dynasty has bankrolled “war operations for the past several centuries.”6  And they bankrolled both sides!7  And why not? Why would they care so long as they profited from the bloodshed? Mayer Rothschild’s wife reportedly quipped on her deathbed “If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”8 Such was the power of her five sons sent by their father to establish banks in five countries. I don’t think there is any evidence to show that they did not want wars.
The banksters do not wait for wars to just happen, they help get them started and then bankroll them for munificent profits. For instance, President Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the U.S. out of WWI, but the Morgan Bank, then the most powerful bank, nudged him into declaring war and then promptly bankrolled over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces.9  Behind US involvement in more recent wars was the banksters’ intention of enfolding all countries into a Western, private central banking powerhouse.10
Woodrow Wilson was hardly the only captive U.S. president. A knowledgeable insider once examined archives of U.S. presidents for over a century and discovered that banksters were “in constant communication with the White House — not just about financial and economic policy, and by extension trade policy, but also about aspects of World War I, or World War II, or the Cold War.”10 U.S. presidents obviously listen when the banksters come calling!
Besides its full war operations, declared or undeclared, the U.S. government officially approves millions of dollars to fund terrorist groups.11 It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the banksters unofficially milk the fund. Successfully suing them on behalf of families of U.S. military members slain by the funded terrorists seems to be an insurmountable hurdle, especially when the banksters being sued were a conduit to other banks that did the funding. But indirect funding should be irrelevant, as one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit observed; “Does it matter whether a particular bank was the physical conduit of the transfers to the terror apparatus, or is it enough that they were in a conspiracy which made that possible, and that they were, as a legal matter, deliberately indifferent to that result?”12  Well, Mr. Lawyer, you are dealing with the banksters, whether first hand or second hand.
Banksters are also profiting from and preparing for the ultimate war, a nuclear blowout. PAX recently issued a report on its findings from January 2014 through October 2017 that showed “329 banks, insurance companies, pension funds and asset managers from 24 countries that invest significantly in the top 20 nuclear weapon producers.”13  If blowback gets the banksters nuked that would be poetic justice, but it is not something to wish for since the fallout would engulf everyone else as well.
Arranging Assassinations
Befitting Mafia hit men, banksters have been suspected of arranging the assassinations of several U.S. presidents, a member of Congress and a Justice, all of whom dared defy the banksters: Andrew Jackson (attempt failed), Zaccary Taylor, James Buchannan (survived arsenic poisoning), Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Louis T. McFadden (a member of the House of Representatives in the twenties and thirties), Justice Martin V. Mahoney, and John F. Kennedy.14
Banksters are cunning enough to arrange for perfect murders, ones that will never be solved in a court of law. Each of the assassinated had with their policy decisions angered the banksters, a strong enough reason to suspect their complicity in the murders. In each case the banksters undoubtedly had foils with their own grievances against their targets do the assassinating. This account obviously amounts to conspiracy theorizing, yet there may be some truth to it. For instance, one author claims in his book that “persuasive evidence suggested that Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been hired for the job by Judah Benjamin, Treasurer of the Confederacy. Judah Benjamin was a close associate of Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), British Prime Minister and an intimate of the London Rothschilds.15  As time rolls on and with more digging the theory may start looking more like reality.
Bankrupting America
When America Suffers, the Banksters Thrive
There have been three major economic calamities in America’s history. The first and third were geographically widespread in scope. The first is known as the Great Depression that occurred from 1929 to 1939. The third that started around 2008 and has never ended is generally referred to as The Second Great Depression, although I named it Economic Katrina after the second, a localized calamity, Hurricane Katrina, that devastated the New Orleans area in 2005.16 The banksters, of course, were behind all three of these calamities.
The Great Depression
Poor Americans were devastated by this economic meltdown. Unemployment soared. Home foreclosures soared. Homelessness soared. The suicide rate soared. Repossessions soared. I was a little boy in the second half of this meltdown and recall how my parents struggled to make ends meet. Since my father held onto his job, my mother’s job was given to someone without a job. Yet, as a lower middle-class family, we fared much better than did millions of Americans.
So too, needless to say, did the wealthy, and that included, of course, the banksters, not to be confused with the thousands of small bankers whose banks folded. The mysteriously poisoned Congressman Louis McFadden had contended shortly before his death that the Great Depression “was no accident. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so they might emerge as rulers of us all.”17
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was reportedly the costliest natural disaster to hit America. To Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, hurricane Katrina was an example of how commercial interests such as the banksters swoop down in an “orchestrated raid” to capitalize on new market opportunities.18 The banksters themselves obviously window dress their role in the disaster, as exemplified in this remark by a spokesperson for one of the bank members of the Federal Reserve Board, which is a citadel for the really big banksters; “resourceful banks have designed creative ways to resume business, incorporating “flexibility” and “customization” into their vocabulary, engaging in recovery area investment projects and forming alliances with community partners.”19  That quote is sheer PR. No bankster, of course, other than anyone like a Mayer Rothschild, would boast about turning any disasters to others into bonanzas for themselves.
The Second Great Depression
America has never recovered from this third calamity that in 2008 started sweeping away main street and keeping the banksters and Wall Street high and dry, for the most part through unconscionable and astronomical government bailouts. After doing extensive research on the matter, I have concluded that there is one single, pivotal event that triggered this economic calamity, and I see that at least one Wall Street insider agrees with me.20 That event was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that had prevented banks from operating both regular commercial loans and investments. The banksters gradually were able through lobbying and arm twisting to puncture some loopholes into the law, and then in 1994 the Act was replaced by one that allowed a bank to do both forms of business. The new law led to the creation of megabanks, but because they got greedy and careless with their selling of securities they suffered a financial setback of their own making but still had enough influence to get bailed out by government. It was simply a quid pro deal. One dirty hand washes the other. Or Napoleon Bonaparte would have put it differently; “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.”21
A Line Up of the Banksters
(a) Bank for International Settlement
Before doing the research for this article I had never heard of BIS. Now I know it is the most powerful private central bank in the world with the avowed aim of coordinating and controlling all monetary activities in the industrialized world and indebting it to the International Monetary Fund (a member of the Unholy Trinity to be discussed shortly). It was established in 1930 by bankers and diplomats of Europe and the United States to collect and disburse Germany’s World War I reparation payments. In WWII the BIS was used to launder money for the Nazis.22  As you can see, the BIS is not a wholesome bank to say the least.
(b) The Unholy Trinity
This well-deserved nickname refers to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).23  They became the primary enabler of the globalization of the world’s money.
The trios’ purpose ostensibly from the beginning has been to reduce poverty and to develop the economies of Third World countries. In reality the aim of its work has been totally different, very “unholy.” Huge amounts of money masquerading as developmental loans and contingent on the currency devaluation and paring of the borrowing country’s social programs are siphoned off to huge, transnational corporations, many of which are U.S. firms, and the pockets of the governing and power elite of the country. The country goes further into debt and becomes even more vulnerable to being further exploited, including being subjected to sham debt relief programs.
No matter where on the globe the exploitation takes place there is a similar pattern of corporate/bankster behavior involved that includes such despicable, inhumane practices as relying on militaries and militias to purchase commodities made by forced labor; using armed groups to protect corporate assets; supplying arms to rebel and government forces; actually participating in military actions; engaging in smuggling, money laundering, and illegal currency transactions; and sweat-shop production of goods.24
(c) The Federal Reserve Board
The Fed is America’s banksters’ subordinate counterpart to the BIS and the Unholy Trinity.
A cabal of banksters got together in 1913 at the idyllic Jekyll Island resort off the coast of Georgia (where my family has stayed several times, not knowing we may have slept in banksters’ bedrooms). They coyly added the adjective “Federal” to disguise the intent, since twice before efforts to establish similar controlling banks had failed.17
As you may know, the Fed is made up of 12 branches around the country. All 12 and the headquarters are owned by 10 mega banks, four of which are headquartered in the U.S. As you might suspect, two of the owners are Rothschild banks, one in London and one in Berlin. About 100 very powerful individuals own those banks and thus also own the Fed. It is, therefore, no more a “Federal” agency of the government than is “Federal” Express. Being a private entity, one would expect the government would tax it. Not so, the Fed only pays property tax.17

Remember my including U. S. Congress Representative Louis T. McFadden as one of the likely victims of an arranged assassination? At the time he was Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency. Here is what he said that angered the banksters; “The Federal Reserve Board has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. Our people’s money, to the tune of $1,200,000,000, has within the last few months been shipped abroad to redeem Federal Reserve Notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.”17  Today’s Fed is no less of an abominable bankster.
(d) Mega Banksters at Home
These mega banksters in the U.S. have assets totaling trillions of dollars. They didn’t get these assets through socially responsible investments to help the common good. They got them through bankrolling wars, through bankrupting the U.S. economy with fraudulent subprime securities that plummeted the U.S. into its Second Great Depression, and through all sorts of other ways to fleece the public out of its money. Put simply, these mega banksters are criminals on the loose throughout the country.
The Medium
Bad Capitalism
People, banksters included, do not depend only on themselves to go from birth to death. They must also depend on the circumstances and situations they encounter and sometimes help create. These circumstances and situations are the medium of life.  Bad capitalism is the banksters’ medium. Without it there would be no underworld of banksters.
Adam Smith, the putative “father of capitalism,” was a moral philosopher. He understood the importance of morality and the difference between good and bad capitalism and thought the emerging corporations of his time posed threats emanating from their unlimited life span; unlimited size; unlimited power; and unlimited license.25  How prescient he was!
I have written copiously about good and bad capitalism and have presented a plethora of my own as well as others’ proposals to turn bad capitalism into good capitalism.26 They have all come to naught. The banksters would guffaw if they read my work.
Public Banking to the Rescue?
Since the banksters made America’s public money private it stands to reason that a straightforward solution to ridding America of the banksters or at least curtailing them would be to establish a network of public banks throughout America. That is precisely what Ellen Brown, President and Chair of the Public Banking Institute is trying to accomplish. Through her stature and persuasive skills, she managed to get published in the OpEd section of the establishment paper, New York Times, no less, a piece promoting public banking.27 Her efforts are quite commendable and worth following.
Two additional strategies I should think would be to abolish the Fed and replace it with a truly Federal Reserve of Public Banks, and to prosecute and jail banksters instead of looking the other way or giving them token fines. Doing all this would take a herculean political effort, and I don’t expect it will ever happen.
Conclusion
A two-sentence conclusion ought to be enough. One, the banksters control most of the world’s money and will stop nothing short of fueling wars and creating economic havoc to keep growing their money and control. Two, commercializing peace or commercializing war — never the first, daily routine the second.
Acknowledgments
Wrongdoing is like mushrooms, thriving in the dark. The Fed shrouds itself in secrecy. In 2012, the Fed attempted to rebuff a Freedom of Information Lawsuit by Bloomberg News claiming that as a private banking corporation and not actually a part of the government, the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to the “trade secret” operations of the Fed.17
It is basically through the alternative media that we learn about the Fed’s secret dealings and its adverse impact on society at large. It was an article from the alternative media, for example, that told us the Fed is ruining our economic future because it caters to itself and the rest of the banksters.28  People drawn to the alternative media should rightly be fed up with the Fed.
As the author of this article who relied so heavily on one individual’s trailblazing efforts to dig up the facts that the government withholds, I must acknowledge Michael Rivero, who dominates my list of footnotes. He is my Internet friend of yesteryear. Without his efforts I could not have written this article. It was his quote, “Behind all wars are bankers” that I cited in one of my books. It was only after rereading one of my book reviews about corporate gangs, which ironically had little to say about banking, that I conceived the opprobrious “banksters.”29

1. Brumback, GB. “Corporate America Unmasked“, The Greanville Post, January 3; OpEdNews, January 4; Dissident Voice, January 4; Uncommon Thought Journal, January 7, 2018
2. Brumback, GB. Soaking the Public: The Insurance Industry and Captive Government, OpEdNews, July 11; Dissident Voice, July 12; 2016.
3. Lendman, S. Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity, Clarity Press, Inc., 2012.
4. See: Complete List of BANKS Owned or Controlled by the Rothschild Family.
5. Noer, M. “The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time”, Forbes, July 29, 2005.
6. Dmitry, B. “Rothschild Wealth Is Now Greater Than 75% Of World Population Combined,” January 21, 2017.
7. USWGO. The Rothschild Dynasty Funded Both Sides of Every War, USWGO, March 14, 2011.
8. Collier, A. “Perspective on the World”, March 7, 2014.
9. Washington Blog. “Bankers are Behind the Wars“, April 18, 2014.
10. Ibid.
11. Khabieh, B. “Obama Approves $800m Funding for Terrorist Groups in Syria and Ukraine”, Reuters, November 28, 2015.
12. Profess, B. & Clifford, S. “Suit Accuses Banks of Role in Financing Terror Attacks”, The New York Times, November 10, 2014.
13. Beenes, M. & Snyder, S. “Don’t Bank on the Bomb, A Global Report on the Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers”, PAX, March, 2018.
14. Rivero, M. “All Wars are Bankers’ Wars“.  See also, pik_artist, “Judge Poisoned After Ruling Bank Forclosure Is Illegal and All Mortgages Are Null and Void, Hub Pages, January 17, 2018.
15. Engdahl, WF. Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, 2009.
16. Brumback, GB. The Devil’s Marriage: Break Up the Corpocracy or Leave Democracy in the Lurch, 2011, pp. 151-152.
17. Rivero, Op. Cit.
18. Klein, N. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. 2007.
19. Owens, D. “After the Storm: Banks Respond to Katrina’s Punch”, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Spring, 2006.
20. Rickards, J. “Repeal of Glass-Steagall Caused the Financial Crisis”, U.S. News and World Report, August. 27, 2012.
21. Rivero, OpCit.
22. Epstein, E.J. “Ruling the World of Money”, Harper’s Magazine, 1983.
23. Peet, R. Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO, 2009 (Second Edition).
24. For more on the Unholy Trinity and the globalization of the world’s economy see John Perkins’ riveting book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 2004, and my review of it in Personnel Psychology, Vol. 59, No. 2-Summer, 2006, Book Review Section, pp. 489-493.
25. Smith, A. The Wealth of Nations, 1776.
26. See Brumback, Op. Cit. 2011; and also, Brumback, GB. Corporate Reckoning Ahead, 2015.
27. Brown, E. “Public Banks Are Essential to Capitalism”, NYTimes Op Ed, October 2, 2013.
28. Parramore. LS. “How the Federal Reserve is Destroying Your Economic Future”, Alternet, April 16, 2015.
29. Nace, T. Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy, 2003. I reviewed this book in the 2004 Fall Issue of the Book Review Section of Personnel Psychology, pp. 780-783.