It’s also interesting that, when it comes to financial control, you name publicly visible companies (Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, Goldman), but not some others, which have more power and control. The Federal Reserve is an obvious one, as they control the “money” supply in the United States, and affect the world economy. It’s history, and what it is (it’s not part of the Federal Government, but more like a special sort of contractor, “quasi-public” is a frequent description). There are other private, or quasi-public, corporations or entities that rarely get any mention. Not totally hidden, but not in any way advertised. Those include the DTC, the DTCC, and Cede & Co. Cede & Co. is one of the most interesting, as it is the entity that actually holds title to well over 95% (99%?) of stocks, bonds, and financial instruments. Technically, they own everything (almost). Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, they don’t hold title to anything, neither do their investors, it’s all in the name of Cede & Co. There are people who have talked about these entities, like Patrick Byrne, but you can also read about them in the “ABCs of the UCCs” book on Article 8 (Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code lays down all the rules for how the stock market game is played today). The ABCs of the UCC series is published by The American Bar Association.
I also think it’s interesting how history is painted in a certain light. There’s a popular belief that “Nixon ended the Gold Standard” in the United States. The reality is he did no such thing, as there hadn’t been a “Gold Standard” in the United States since 1933 (and arguably 1914). FDR and the many acts passed in Congress in 1933 got rid of coverability to gold of any paper currency (prior, Federal Reserve Notes could be redeemed for gold, despite not being backed by them), and got rid of Treasury issued Gold Certificates (which were backed by gold, at least in theory, and could be redeemed for gold). All Nixon did was end the Breton Woods agreement, and the last connection between the dollar and gold. Whether he was ordered to do this or not, he probably had little real choice, as most of the gold that the government held had already been plundered, and there certainly wasn’t enough gold held by the US to support economy of the United States at that point, not when it was held at $35 an ounce. I don’t think there would have been enough gold mined in the history of the world at that point to support a true gold standard for the 1971 US economy, at $35 an ounce.
Author
