Should the government nationalize the big banks? Didn't we have a national bank in the early years of our country's history?

No you should not nationalize the banking system for all of the reasons covered by the people answering this question. It is now a mantra in the corporate media — the only way to fix the banking system is to “nationalize� The banks.

€œA touchy word has entered the public debate about the future of America’s economy. It’s a word that would shock the nation in normal times, but as even Republicans begin to whisper it, temporary ‘nationalization’ of troubled banks is increasingly seen as our last best hope for fixing our financial system,â€? Declares Thomas Kelley, writing for Yahoo News.

Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina defend and push bank “nationalization� Because there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats — both are on the hook to the global elite and the bankers.

Even supposed libertarians are lining up behind this scheme, including the Cato Institute. But then Cato’s directorship is rife with honchos from E-Trade Financial, FedEx, and other big corporations. Cato has hosted Greenspan and Bernanke at its functions.

€œSimply put: Nationalizing ailing banks means the government would tell bank execs to take a hike, and then oversee taxpayer dollars as they course through the banking sector’s veins,â€? Writes Kelley. €œWhen all is well, perhaps after selling assets and operations to new private investors, the government then steps back and lets a newly regulated bank sector float on its way.

€? Does Mr. Kelley really think the government will step back after “nationalizing� The banks?

He seems to think the government is “of the people, by the people, for the people,� As Lincoln put it, when it fact it is of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks. Bank nationalization is merely a code word for a banker scheme to “socialize�

The insolvency of certain banks. In other words, the government — the bankers — are transferring this insolvency to the tax payers who are confused on the issue, thanks in part to the diligent work of Thomas Kelley, Michael Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman of the New York Times, and no shortage of “economists� From the IMF and the banker controlled Treasury.

Even so, most Americans smell a scam in the works. The reason all these corporate scribes are chanting nationalization (banker takeover) in unison is quite simple — the American people are steadfastly against it. €œAll sorts of big government solutions are being proposed to combat the country’s economic troubles, but Americans are clear on one thing: 75% say the federal government should not take over the U.S.Banking system,â€?

Notes Rasmussen Reports. €œOnly nine percent (9%) think nationalization of America’s banks is a good idea, and 16% are undecided in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey,â€? Published on February 10.

Not that it matters. Congress is listening to former Fed mob boss Alan Greenspan, who “may have given Republicans the political cover they need to consider nationalizing U.S. Banks when the former Federal Reserve chairman joined a growing list of experts who suggest nationalization is inevitable,� Reports Reuters.

€œRepublicans typically stand for small government and deregulation, but ideology has a way of being put aside in a crisis. Greenspan has acknowledged he was wrong to oppose some forms of market regulation. €?

Republicans “stand for small government� Is this why the size of government increased substantially under Republican president George Bush? He was the “Mother of All Big Spenders,�

Spending even more than Democrat Bill Clinton and rivaling Jimmy Carter. €œNo president since FDR — who offered a New Deal to pull the nation out of the Great Depression and then fought World War II — has presided over as rapid a growth in government when measured as a percentage of the total economy,â€? Writes Jon Ward.In fact, both Republicans and Democrats stand for increasing the national debt to the point where the economy will implode — and soon.

The debt-driven bubble economy was engineered by the bankers for a specific reason — to create a global economic blowout followed by consolidation. It is no mistake the Federal Reserve overleveraged the financial system, leading to a collapse in asset prices. €œIt is not that the free market failed,â€?

Writes Marc Faber for the Wall Street Journal. €œThe mistake was constant interventions in the free market by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury that addressed symptoms and postponed problems instead of solving them. €?

However, this was no mistake. The credit bubble is a deliberate and skillfully orchestrated scheme cooked up by the private bankers that own and run the Federal Reserve. €œFurther interventions through ill-conceived bailouts and bulging fiscal deficits are bound to prolong the agony and lead to another slump — possibly an inflationary depression with dire social consequences,â€?

Mr. Faber continues. Indeed, and precisely as planned.So-called nationalization of the banks and financial institutions will not accomplish the miraculous feats advertised and supported by the likes of Lindsey Graham and the Democrats and Republicans. It will, however, allow offshore bankers to consolidate wealth and turn the world into a feudalist police state.

Once again, let us return to the CFR historian and author Carroll Quigley, who wrote: “The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. €?

Now they need to sell it to the American people, but the American people are not in the mood to buy. And that’s what Northcom and newly encamped combat brigades in America are all about — if Americans resist the bankster plan for global domination, they will deliver it to them at gunpoint. €?

€œLet’s start in the mid 1700th the British Empire was nearing its height of power around the world. But Britain had fought 4 costly wars in Europe since the creation of their privately owned central bank, The Bank of England. The cost had been high.To finance this wars, the British parliaments here, had borrowed heavily from the bank.

By the mid 1700th the government’s debt here in Britain was 140 million pounds. A staggering sum for those days. Constantly the British government was embarked on a program of trying to raise revenues from their American colonies in order to make their interest payments to the bank.

But in America it was a different story. The scourge of a privately owned central bank had not yet hit. This is Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.

In the mid 1700th, pre-Revolutionary America was still relatively poor. There was a severe shortage of precious metal coins to trade for goods.So the early colonies were forced to experiment with printing their own home-grown paper money. Some of these experiments were successful.

Franklin was a big supporter of the colonies printing their own paper money.In 1757 Franklin was send to London. He ended up staying for the next 17 years here, nearly until the starting of the American Revolution. During this period the American colonies began to issue their own money.

Called colonial scrip, the endeavour was very successful. It provided a reliable medium of exchange and it also helped to provide a feeling of unity between the colonies. Remember, colonial scrip was just paper money, debt-free money, printed in the public interest and not backed by gold or silver coins.In other words, it was a totally fiat currency.

One day, officials of The Bank of England asked Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity of the colonies. Without hesitation he replied: "That is simple.In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called the Colonial Scrip.

We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one. " Benjamin Franklin This was just common sense to Franklin, but you can imagine the impact it had on The Bank of England. America had learned the secret of money and that genie had to be returned to its bottle as soon as possible.As a result, parliament hurriedly passed the Currency Act of 1764.

This prohibited colonial officials from issuing their own money and ordered them to pay all future taxes in gold or silver coins. In other words, it forced the colonies on a gold or silver standard. For those who still believe that a gold standard is the answer for America's current monetary problems, look what happened to America after that.

Writing in his aut "In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed. " Benjamin Franklin Franklin claims that this was even the basic cause for The American Ward. In0 Franklin put it in his auto-biography: "The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.

The inability of the colonists to get the power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War. " Benjamin Franklin By the time the first shots were fired in Lexington Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, the colonies had been drained of gold and silver coins by British Ward. In1 a result, the continental government had no choice but to print money to finance the war.

At the start of the revolution, the US money supply stood at $12 million. By the end of the war it was nearly 500 Ward. In0 a result the currency was virtually worthless.

Shoes sold for $5.000 a pair. Colonial Scrip had worked because just enough was issued to facilitate Ward. In1 George Washington commented: "A wagonload of money will scarcely purchase a wagonload of provisions.

" Today, those who support a gold back currency point to this period of revolution to demonstrate the evils of a fiat currency. But remember the same currency had worked so well 20 years earlier during times of peace that The Bank of England had parliament outlawed. Then there was The Bank of North America… Towards the end of the revolution the continental congress, meeting here at the Independence Hall, grew disparate for money.

In 1781 they allowed Robert Morris, the financial super intended, to open a privately owned central bank. Incedently, Morris was a wealthy man, who had grown wealthy in the revolution by trading war materials. Called The Bank of North America, the new bank was closely modeled after the bank of England.

It was allowed to practice Fractional Reserve Banking. That is, it could lend out money it didn't have, and then charge interest on it. If you or I would do that, we would be charged with fraud, a felony.

The banks charter, called for private investors to put up $400.000 worth of initial capital. But when Morris was unable to raise the money, he brazenly used his political influence to have gold deposited in the bank which had been loaned to America by France. He then loaned this money to himself and his friends to reinvest in shares of the bank.

And like the bank of England, the bank was given a monopoly over the national currency. Soon the danger became clear. The value of American currency begun to plummet.

So 4 years later, in 1785, the bank charter was not renewed. The leader of the effort to kill the bank, William Findley of Pennsylvania, explained the problem this way: "This institution, having no principle but that of avarice, will never be varied in its object ... to engross all the wealth, power and influence of the state." William Findley The men behind The Bank of North America, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris, and the banks president Thomas Willing did not give up.

Only 6 years later, Hamilton, then Secretary of The Treasury, and his mentor Morris, rammed a new privately owned central bank trough the new congress. Called The First Bank of The United States, Thomas Willing gain served as the banks president. The players were the same, only the name of the bank was changed.

In 1787 colonial leaders assembled in Philadelphia to replace the ailing(?) articles of confederation. As we saw earlier both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were unalterably opposed to a privately owned central back. They had seen the problems caused by The Bank of England.

They wanted nothing of it. As Jefferson later put it: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson During the debate over the future monetary system another one of The Founding Fathers Governor Morris castigated the motivations of the owners of the bank of North America. Governor Morris headed the committee that wrote the final draft of The Constitution.

Morris knew the motivations of the bank well. Along with his old boss Robert Morris, Governor Morris and Alexander Hamilton, the ones who had presented the original plans for The Bank of North America to the continental congress in the last year of the Ward. In0 a letter he wrote to James Madison on July 2nd 1787 Governor Morris revealed what was really going on: "The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest.

They always did. They always will.... They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper spheres." Governor Morris Despite the defection of Governor Morris from the ranks of the bank, Hamilton, Robert Morris, Thomas Willing and their European bankers were not about to give up.

They convinced the bulk of the delegates to the constitutional convention to not give congress the power to issue paper money. Most of the delegates were still reeling from the wild inflation of the paper currency during the revolution. They had forgotten how well Colonial Scrip had worked before the war.

But The Bank of England had not. The Money Changers could not stand to have America printing their own money Ward. In1 The Constitution is silent on the matter.

This grave defect left the door wide open for The Money Changers, just as they had planned. In 1790 less than 3 years after The Constitution had been signed The Money Changers struck again. The newly appointed secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, proposed a bill to the congress calling for a new privately owned central bank.

Coincidentally, this was the very year that Amshel Rothschild made his pronouncement from his flagship bank in Frankfurt: "Let me issue and control a nations money and I care not who writes the laws" Amshel Rothschild Charles Collins: "Alexander Hamilton was a tool of the international bankers, and he wanted to create The US bank, the Bank of the United States, and did so. " Interestingly one of Hamilton's first jobs after graduating from law school in 1782, was as an aid to Robert Morris, the head of the Bank of North America. In fact the year before Hamilton had written Morris a letter saying: "A national debt, if not excessive will be to us a national blessing." A blessing to whom?

After a year of intense debate in 1791, congress passed the bill and gave it a 20 year charter. The new bank was to be called The First Bank of the United States, or BUS. Here we are in front of The First Bank of the United States in Philadelphia.

The bank was given a monopoly on printing US currency, even though 80% of its stock would be held by private investors. The other 20% would be purchased by the US Government. But the reason was not to give the government a peace of the action; it was to provide the capital for the other 80% .

As with the old Bank of North America and The Bank of England before that, the stockholders never paid the full amount for their shares. The US Government put up their initial $2 million in cash. Than the bank thru the old magic of fractional reserve lending, made loans to its charter investors, so they could up with the remaining $8 million of capital needed for this risk free investment.

Like The Bank of England, the name of the Bank of the United States, was deliberately chosen to hide the fact that it was privately controlled. And like The Bank of England, the names of the investors in the bank were never revealed. Many years later it was a common saying that the Rothschilds were the power behind the old Bank of the United States.

The bank was sold to congress as a way to bring stability in the banking system and to eliminate inflation. So what happened? Over the first 5 years the US Government borrowed $8.2 million from the Bank of the US.

In the same 5 year period, prices rose by 72%. Jefferson as the new Secretary of State watched the borrowing with sadness and frustration unable to stop it: "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution… taking from the federal government their power of borrowing." Thomas Jefferson Millions of Americans feel the same way today.

They watch in helpless frustration as the federal government borrows the American economy into oblivion. So although it was called The First Bank of the United States, it was not the first attempt, at a privately owned central bank in this Ward. In0 with The Bank of North America the government put up most of the cash to get this private bank going.

Then the bankers loaned this money to each other, to buy the remaining stock in the bank. It was a scam, plain and simple. And they wouldn't be able to get away with it for long….

It sounds like, if we were any other country in our current circumstances, bank nationalization is exactly what the IMF would demand before offering us money. It's also what James Baker, Bush 41's chief of staff and Reagan's treasury secretary, recommends And, yes, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington's treasury secretary, was largely responsible for creating The First Bank of the United States, which was essentially a national bank modeled after the Bank of England (except that our bank had foreign investors).

I completely fail to understand how anyone can look at the history of our government's management of money and funds, and think "I know! THEY should be running the banks! ".

When one part of a machine goes bad, you don't replace it with a part that's equally bad or worse. You replace it with a good part.

Nationalizing banks is a very bad idea. Investors tend to run away from banks about to be nationalized. Plus, as companies like AIG and Bank of America continue sinking with federal supervision on board, having federal bigwigs trying to run things is a losing proposition, and is probably merely speeding up the death of the banks so "nationalized."

As all bank stocks are being pummeled into penny stocks, banking is getting more paralyzed not less. Two related issues: 1. Re-enacting the Uptick Rule - Short sellers are currently beating down the financial stocks to levels that even the strong banks like Wells Fargo are being unfairly pummeled down to.

The Uptick Rule was enacted during the Depression and prevented ruinous short selling from killing the market. 2. Bring back Robespierre -- for the bankers that took multi-billion dollar bonuses while their zombie banks were being flooded with government bailout money, they (and Madoff) should be decapitated.

After a short Reign of Terror, executives would then think twice before imagining that such bonuses are merely a form of "market-set" compensation that is the only way to retain executive talent, instead of the rape of balance sheets that it really is. Finally, there were two Banks of the United States in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Apparently, these were private banks created to serve the needs of the young Federal Government.

No. Generally, I don't think government should try to take control over institutions of radical capitalism, such as banks. Or, change laws or political conduct that involves doing something like that, unless a bank crashes (Freddie Mac, Citigroup, etc.).

In that case, I think they should takeover those companies instead of bailing them out. I also think the government should establish a government service, which would act as a "banking system moderator" of sorts. I believe that this sort of "evolutionary neutrality," would help the "flow" of things; it could balance out the distribution of funds, and naturally encourage big banks to implement such changes as, decreasing overall loan interest rates, and increasing overall deposited interest rates.

In addition to that, provide government ATM machines at public locations, which charge no more than $1.00 for a withdrawal, in order to decrease the exploitation of bank members in this way, and giving people more rational, and fair access to their funds.

Well, you're forgetting one thing. We already have a national bank. It's called the Federal Reserve.

Where do you think all the big banks get their money? From the bigger bank!

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.