Silent Weapons: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 47-49

 "Give me control over a nation's currency,

and I care not who makes its laws." 

                                                                Mayer Amschel Rothschild

                                                                 (1743-1812)

Conspiracy theorists do this weird thing where they will use one of their villains' full names. It's not merely Rothschild, it's Mayer Amschel Rothschild. It's not Rockefeller it's Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. It's not a compliment, they aren't paying the person respect--that would be weird considering what they accuse them of; I think this is the behavior of someone trying to imitate their impression of how the elites address each other. No one would dare call Rothschild, "Mayer," he would insist that people use his full name. This is silly, but people like William Cooper can't conceive that these people are just regular people.

Anyway, the quote above comes from our book, and it has many variations. In some cases, it reads, "give me control over the money supply and I care not who sits on the throne;" but it is always a variation on the same theme. The person who controls the purse strings is above the law, in fact, they are the law as far as the conspiracy theorists are concerned. I attribute this to the simple reason that people like Cooper do not understand how economics works. 

Rothschild, the person, is a recurring villain in conspiracy literature. His name even came up out of Congressman Greene's mouth when she tried to blame a California forest fire on a space laser funded by the family. Yes, she never actually said the words "Jewish Space Laser." Her explanation for the fire was that PG&E "Pacific Gas and Electric" has a board member named Roger Kimmel who also is the Vice Chairman of the Rothschild Inc. The story then gets a bit convoluted by the short of it is that Kimmel donated to California Governor Brown's campaign for two things: to get a bill that would remove the liability of PG&E for any fires but also to begin a a high-speed rail program. Greene then asserts that the area of the fire was the exact same area where the rail was going to be built. 

So far it's just an accusation of corruption. Then it says that people claim that they saw blue beams of light start the fires. Who are these people? She never says, but she claims that Solaren has created space-based solar energy generators that collect energy in space and beam it down to the Earth, and then implies that mistakes can be made. Let's be clear, this isn't her saying it was an accident because too much is at stake for PG&E Rothschild.

To most people, Rothschild inc. is just an investment firm. Another big bank with too much money. To people like me, that name carries a very specific anti-Semitic weight to it. The family is Jewish, and they are the platonic ideal of the evil Jewish banker trope in conspiracy circles. When people like Greene use their name it means something. When Cooper does it, well much the same thing, which leads us to a premature problem: is Cooper himself anti-Semitic? I think, personally, that he's anti-Semitic by association. He reads the conspiracy literature which repeats this name over and over again; so he does so as well. We can't call him an anti-Semite because of this name, but it raises suspicion and it would not be inaccurate to say that his toe is in this water. Now I want to save a larger discussion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories for a later chapter--because I know what is coming in this book. So let's just put a pin in that. 

The quote at the beginning is fairly damning so sure, let's toss him in with the Rockefellers, the Astors, the Eisenhowers, and whoever else. I don't think he's actually looked into this at all because that quote is very likely not Mayer Rothschild's. It only appears a century after his death, and even then it is always in slander against the man himself. It does not appear in his writings or any pronouncements. 

What Cooper is claiming here is that Rothschild discovered a component of economic theory known as "economic inductance." The discovery is of such importance that it had to wait until the invention of the computer before it could be applied. Now, this raises the question, "what is economic induction"?

Cooper never says. I tried to look it up and either my browser search algorithms are so warped by my research into this subject that it only returns conspiracy results or it's only a term that exists in the conspiracy literature. These sources either refer to the very paragraph we have been discussing or link to the book itself. It's not a real term but I would like an economics person to reclaim the phrase, I'm sure it can be re-appropriated. 

Cooper defines it through misunderstanding how banking works. He's got a child's grasp on the subject. Economic induction is the appearance of money based on an initial impression. Cooper claims that Rothschild discovered that people would pay real money (via currency) for promissory notes whose worth could potentially be worth more than the currency itself. Ok, what Cooper is describing are securities: stocks and bonds. Grab a thousand dollars and buy some bonds; you are doing what Cooper is describing. The bonds aren't worth anything more than a thousand but in ten years they "mature" and can net a person a profit. I don't have the economic comprehension to explain how this works, but I do understand that this is not a method of control or that it is even some kind of fraud. Cooper is claiming that this is certainly the latter as Rothschild issued more notes than he could cover. 

This could be a problem, but we do not know what kind of promissory notes were being issued. Without details this is an immaterial concern. I am speculating that they were bonds, but they could have been anything. Wasn't this chapter supposed to be about a silent weapon? 

"He (Rothschild) found that the public greed would allow currency to be printed by government order BEYOND THE LIMITS [WC emphasis] (inflation) of backing in precious metal or the production of goods and services (gross national product, GNP.)"

First, I have to give Cooper credit for understanding that economies can be backed by GNP. Gary Allen's book never made that link and Robison wrote before people figured out that this was a possibility. Too many conspiracy theorists, and my former president, think the gold standard is the best way forward. 

Credit aside Cooper doesn't get inflation. Yes, if a state just mints money it creates too much in the supply and then each individual unit becomes worth less. This can be bad and we've seen it in Zimbabwe's 100 Trillion dollar bill which was only worth about .40 US. Inflation is caused by many different factors. Conspiracy theorists love inflation claims because they think that inflation is the only reason Hitler took over Germany. Cooper has the basic Econ 101, first day of class definition of inflation but it's irrelevant to anything that Rothschild or his bank can do. 

His bank can issue more notes than he has currency, but that just means that the notes become worth less and less provided there is no other investment going on. If Rothschild is using the notes to fund a future business and then the business is successful that's fine. If he takes 1,000$ and issues 2000 notes all he's done is value the notes at .50c provided that the initial 1000$ is not being invested in anything else. At best, it's a bad investment, at worst he's running a Ponzi scheme. 

I don't know if conspiracy books jump into finance because they think they get it or if they think that it makes them sound smart. In either case, it's kind of boring and I'm still waiting for this weapon.