When the Music Stops: Reflections on the End of the Everything Bubble

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For over 90 years, the vast majority of Americans have unknowingly participated in the greatest financial deception ever devised—a scheme so masterful that even today, most people neither understand nor question it. This deception depends on the public’s ignorance of the most fundamental financial principles—chief among them, the difference between money and debt. But it wasn’t always this way.

Consider, how prior to 1928, every Federal Reserve note carried a solemn promise: "Redeemable in Gold on Demand at the United States Treasury or in Gold or Lawful Money at Any Federal Reserve Bank." This meant that the paper American’s transacted with—represented a direct claim to real, physical wealth. The notes were called gold certificates, on account of their exchangeability for gold coin, and at any point they could be exchanged for gold at a fixed rate of $20.67 ounce.

The gold standard ensured that farmers, factory workers, and businessmen alike all operated within the same natural monetary order—anchored in gold. As a consequence, time and effort were being rewarded with nature’s most perfect form of money, ensuring that an individual’s hard work was preserved. It was this foundation of real money that ultimately safeguarded American sovereignty.

The Founding Fathers understood this well. Having fought the Crown and the global banking elite tooth and nail to establish America as a sovereign nation, they enshrined sound money into the Constitution itself: "No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." ~ Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 1

The authors of the Constitution recognized that indebtedness—whether of an individual or a nation—was the fast track to deprivation and servitude. This has been recognized throughout every iteration of history, with the Bible foreshadowing much of modern history with the passage; “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

Honest money has always been a threat to those who seek control—whether rulers, banking elites, or any would-be oppressors. If gold represents sovereignty and debt represents slavery, then the path to enslaving a population begins with replacing gold with debt. This is precisely why, once the banking cabal had secured control of America’s money supply, their first priority was to sever the dollar’s link to gold.

With control over the issuance of currency firmly in their grasp as of 1913, following the establishment of the Federal Reserve, the plan of gradually stripping the dollar of its gold backing was set in motion. But such a drastic shift couldn’t happen overnight—it required a crisis, one severe enough to break the public’s will and push them to accept radical reforms to the current financial order.

The first step in this process was the engineered boom of the Roaring Twenties. With the newly established Federal Reserve now dictating monetary policy, interest rates were artificially lowered, making credit cheap and abundant. This flood of easy money fueled a massive stock market bubble, real estate speculation, and reckless borrowing by businesses and individuals alike.

For a brief moment, prosperity seemed limitless—ordinary Americans were swept up in the illusion that wealth could be created not through hard work and sound money, but through financial speculation. Yet this illusion was a carefully laid trap, designed to set the stage for an economic catastrophe that would consolidate control in the hands of the banking elite.

With all the necessary pieces in place, the cartel made its move in 1928. The Federal Reserve abruptly reversed course, sharply raising interest rates and triggering a severe contraction in credit. As banks and brokers called in their loans and margin calls were issued to speculators, the artificially inflated markets began to unravel. The crash of October 1929 wiped out millions of investors and set the stage for one of the greatest economic retractions in American history.

It was at this moment, the Federal Reserve poured fuel onto the fire, by selling vast amounts of government debt. This led to a sudden contraction of the money supply—right when the economy needed more, not less, liquidity. The contraction of credit, and subsequent defaults, led to wave after wave of banks failing. Oftentimes leaving depositors with nothing. The Great Depression had begun.

The hardship that followed was unprecedented. Starvation, homelessness, and economic desperation swept across the nation. People who had once lived comfortably were now begging for work, their life savings wiped out overnight. Looking back on the actions taken (and not taken), it’s clear that the collapse was deliberately prolonged. A calculated step toward severing the dollar’s link to gold. At the same time, it enabled a massive looting of the nation’s wealth, consolidating power and prosperity into the hands of the very elites who had orchestrated the crisis to begin with.

Between 1929 and 1933 the circulating supply of money fell by a third. The nation was desperate for dollars and the longer the crisis continued, the more willing the public were to accept radical solutions that promised to alleviate the crisis. Enter Franklin D. Roosevelt, who upon taking office in 1933 wasted no time in enacting the will of the bankers. Under Executive Order 6102, he made it illegal for American citizens to own gold, forcing them to surrender their coins, bullion and Federal Reserve notes that promised to pay in gold coin, for newly issued paper dollars. The public were compensated for handing over their gold, at the fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce.

Then, once the gold was in government hands, it was revalued to $35 per ounce—instantly devaluing the dollar. The rationale for the confiscation was that the money supply could only be re-expanded if more gold was on hand, given the dollar was legally required to be backed by gold at a ratio of 40%. Of course, it was the Federal Reserve who were responsible for the sharp contraction in the money supply to begin with. And the preceding bubble. Problem-Reaction-Solution.