1. The Federal Reserve System constantly inflates the value of our dollar by printing money out of thin air. 2. Graph: The value of a $1 Federal Reserve Note in 1913 dollars (the year the Fed was created). 3. The Fed even recognizes its inflationary activity. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says: "When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." 4. American economist Irving Fisher said: "Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess." 5. "Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities, intrinsically, a 'dollar' bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries." - Modern Money Mechanics Workbook, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1975 6. If you or I did what the Fed does when it prints money, we would be found guilty of counterfeiting and locked up for a very long time! 7. Inflation steals from hardworking Americans by diminishing the value of the money they earn. 8. This destroys the purchasing power of the American people by causing the price of everything (like groceries and gasoline) to rise. 9. In this way, inflation works as a hidden tax- one of the steepest and worst taxes Americans have to pay. 10. "Inflation has now been institutionalized at a fairly constant 5% per year. This has been determined to be the optimum level for generating the most revenue without causing public alarm. A 5% devaluation applies, not only to the money earned this year, but to all that is left over from previous years. At the end of the first year, a dollar is worth 95 cents. At the end of the second year, the 95 cents is reduced again by 5%, leaving its worth at 90 cents, and so on. By the time a person has worked 20 years, the government will have confiscated 64% of every dollar he saved over those years. By the time he has worked 45 years, the hidden tax will be 90%. The government will take virtually everything a person saves over a lifetime." -American filmmaker and lecturer, G. Edward Griffin 11. "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft." - John Maynard Keynes 12. Alan Greenspan wrote in one of his more sober moments before rising to Chair the Federal Reserve: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." 13. Inflation hurts the poor and middle class the most because rising costs of living don't affect the lavish life-style of the wealthy nearly as much as they affect struggling middle class Americans; and rising costs can positively break the budget of poor families who are already barely making ends meet. 14. Inflation rewards people who live beyond their means at the expense of people who save because it is easier to pay off today's debts with weaker future dollars. 15. This is why inflation encourages borrowing and debt while discouraging lending and saving. 16. In this way, inflation fuels rampant consumerism while keeping productive capital out of the market. 17. As a result, inflation slows economic growth and the creation of real value. 18. This is what caused the economic contraction that Americans are currently still suffering through. 19. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, economic contractions were called "Panics" and were usually very short lived. It was after the creation of the Fed, that the United States would sink into multiple, deep, and long-lasting recessions and depressions. 20. American economist Milton Friedman said: "I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that... the severity of each of the contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 - is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements." 21. The Federal Reserve System pumps bank reserves full of paper "money" that it prints out of nowhere- as a result, banks over-lend because a bank lends on the basis of its reserves, and with an artificially-growing reserve, a bank will extend an artificially high amount of credit. 22. This is exactly what fueled the over-speculation that would ultimately cause the Great Depression. That's right- the Fed caused the Great Depression. 23. American financier Bernard Baruch said: "Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England....At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences....I felt that sooner or later the market had to break." 24. The Great Depression sunk the entire world into a global depression, creating the economic circumstances of desperation and dire poverty that allowed autocrats like Hitler and Mussolini to rise to power and assume to themselves "temporary" emergency powers. 25. Among other reasons, this means that the activities of the Federal Reserve may have been a contributing factor to the rise of National Socialism, Italian Fascism, and World War II. 26. The Fed also caused the over-speculation that happened during the 90s Dot-Com bubble, which crashed and burned when the party was over and very little real value had been created by many of the Dot-Com companies. 27. The Fed also fueled the housing bubble which collapsed in 2008 along with the credit market, pulverizing the U.S. economy and hurting the lives of millions of honest, hardworking Americans. 28. The economic crashes caused by the Federal Reserve are always used as a justification for the government to get bigger, assume more powers, nationalize more industries, spend more money, and control more of our lives. 29. The Fed is quite literally an even bigger Ponzi scheme than the one Bernie Madoff perpetrated. 30. The Fed is not even a part of the U.S. government. It's a secret, private, central bank. 31. You heard that correctly: all of this power is concentrated in the hands of wealthy, private bankers, not the American government. 32. In fact, in Lewis vs United States, June 24, 1982, the 9th Circuit Court ruled that "the [Federal] Reserve Banks are not federal ... but are independent privately owned and locally controlled corporations... without day to day direction from the federal government." 33. As such, the Fed's members and decision-makers are unelected officials who wield immeasurable power over our lives, property, and future. 34. Such power concentrated in the hands of so few is opposed to the democratic values of the United States. 35. American economist Milton Friedman argued: "The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank." 36. As Congressman Louis T. McFadden said when speaking in the U.S. Senate: "The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the International bankers." 37. American Founding Father, James Madison said: "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance." 38. "It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -Industrialist, Henry Ford 39. "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." -U.S. President, James A. Garfield 40. The Federal Reserve System is unconstitutional. 41. American historian, George Bancroft wrote: "Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States." 42. U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson said of chartering the first Bank of the United States (a precursor to the Fed we have today): "To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution." 43. The Federal Reserve bank is a coercive monopoly, and coercive monopolies are bad. 44. The Federal Reserve has spent even more money than the U.S. Congress in the last year without your vote, without your consent, without your power to stop it, and without any oversight from the American people or even the U.S. Congress. 45. The Fed has never been audited. Not even once. We audit the books of every publicly-traded corporation, but not the biggest and most powerful central bank in the world. Does that make any sense at all? 46. "Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity." -English historian, Lord Acton 47. "Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny." -American author, Robert A. Heinlein 48. U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater said: "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside of the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States." 49. Think of it this way: the Federal Reserve does with money what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did with housing. 50. Actually... the Federal Reserve does with housing, what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did with housing. 51. The Fed has perpetrated more abuse on the American people than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Enron combined, while hemorrhaging money like oil spilling out of the Exxon Valdez. 52. In fact the Fed has played a direct role in creating the climate, circumstances, and means that made so much abuse from these other financial companies possible. 53. Woodrow Wilson, who was President at the time of the Federal Reserve's creation, came to deeply regret signing the Federal Reserve Act into law. 54. He said: "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world-- no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." 55. The Federal Reserve allows the government to overspend by lending it money out of thin air. 56. In fact, as Congressman Wright Patman said: "The Federal Reserve bank buys government bonds without one penny." 57. This fuels and incentivizes the growth of big government to the detriment of small business and civil liberties. 58. "This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on Earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill." - U.S. Congressman, Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. 59. The U.S. existed for over a hundred years without the Fed- the world will not end without it now. 60. The world certainly won't end as a result of auditing it. 61. "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." - Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain 62. "The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks." -Lord Acton 63. American reformer and abolitionist, Horace Greeley wrote of independent central banking: "While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have manipulated a system of oppression which, though more refined, is no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery." 64. "To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything." -Economist, Fredrich von Hayek 65. "If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon." -U.S. Congressman, Robert Hemphill 66. "The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it." -U.S. President, Andrew Jackson 67. "If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations." -U.S. President, Andrew Jackson 68. "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson 69. "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." -U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson 70. "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero." -Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire 71. "Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." -U.S. President, George Washington 72. "We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people." -U.S. Senator and politician, Daniel Webster 73. "Of all contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." -U.S. Senator and politician, Daniel Webster 74. Auditing the Fed would deliver something to the American people that they badly want and need, something that the Obama Administration promised to deliver: more transparency! 75. Auditing the Fed makes practical sense. Why would Democrats or Republicans want so much power in the hands of a small group of wealthy bankers? It is antithetical to both their political platforms and respective ideologies. Auditing and abolishing the Fed is a non-partisan solution to a serious problem. 76. If we don't audit the Fed now: mark my words- THE DOLLAR WILL COLLAPSE. Period. No- exclamation mark! *Bonus reason: There is a grassroots political movement afoot in the United States today that has had enough with Washington's tyranny and taxation. We have staged tea parties and swarmed town hall meetings. We are raging against the injustice and corruption in Washington and we will determine the outcome of the 2010 elections. Any U.S. Congressman who does not help to audit the Fed now does so at his or her own peril. We will not forget.