Over 417 years ago socialism failed at Jamestown. Private property rights and free enterprise led to survival and prosperity.

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CATO: Private Property Saved Jamestown, And With It, America – 1607

May 14, 2007 • Commentary

By David Boaz / The CATO Institute

Four hundred years ago today 105 men and boys disembarked from three ships and established the first permanent English settlement in North America. They built a fort along what they called the James River, in honor of their king.

The land was lush and fertile, yet within three years most of the colonists died during what came to be known as “the starving time.” Only the establishment of private property saved the Jamestown colony.

What went wrong? There were the usual hardships of pioneers far from home, such as unfamiliar diseases. There were mixed relations with the Indians already living in Virginia. Sometimes the Indians and settlers traded, other times armed conflicts broke out. But according to a governor of the colony, George Percy, most of the colonists died of famine, despite the “good and fruitful” soil, the abundant deer and turkey, and the “strawberries, raspberries and fruits unknown” growing wild.

The problem was the lack of private property. As Tom Bethell writes in his book The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages, “The colonists were indolent because most of them were indentured servants, expected to toil for seven years and contribute the fruits of their labor to the common store.”

Understandably, men who don’t benefit from their hard work tend not to work very hard.

Over the first two years, more colonists arrived from England, including women. By 1609, there were 500 settlers. And within six months fewer than 100 were still alive. People were desperate. They ate dogs and cats, then rats and mice. They apparently ate their deceased neighbors. And some said that one man murdered and ate his pregnant wife.

By the spring, they had given up. They abandoned the fort and boarded ships to return to England. But miraculously, as they sailed out of Chesapeake Bay, they encountered three ships with new recruits, so they turned around and tried to make another go of it. The additional settlers and supplies kept them alive.

But when a new governor, Thomas Dale, arrived a year after the starving time, he was shocked to find the settlers bowling in the streets instead of working.

Dale’s most important reform was to institute private property. He allotted every man three acres of land and freed them to work for themselves. And then, the Virginia historian Matthew Page Andrews wrote, “As soon as the settlers were thrown upon their own resources, and each freeman had acquired the right of owning property, the colonists quickly developed what became the distinguishing characteristic of Americans – an aptitude for all kinds of craftsmanship coupled with an innate genius for experimentation and invention.”

John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, said that once private property was instituted, men could engage in “gathering and reaping the fruits of their labors with much joy and comfort.”

The Jamestown colony became a success, and people from all over Europe flocked to America.

Private property is essential for economic growth; people don’t work and invest if they can’t reap the fruits of their labors. Property ensures that people will work to better their own condition and that of their families. And that work and investment then benefits the whole society, much more so than the attempt to force people to work directly for the common good.

But property does something else. As the American Revolutionary Arthur Lee, great‐​grandson of a Jamestown colonist, wrote, “The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” Property is essential to making the government dependent on the people, not vice versa. It divides power, limits government, and protects freedom. No country has ever enjoyed freedom of the press, freedom of religion, or political liberty without secure property rights.

So, on this 400th anniversary, let us remember the original Jamestown settlers, who demonstrated the failure of collectivism. Their suffering during the starving time did more than any book could have done to lay a secure foundation for private property rights and thus for the freedom and prosperity we enjoy today.

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The Leviticus 25 Plan is essential for America’s survival today. We must return to a system where citizens retain the right to allocate resources individually, in ways that best meet their personal needs and desires in a free market system.

It is critical that America return to a system of economic liberty and individual freedom and self-reliance. We must eliminate dependence on government.

We must have an economic acceleration plan that returns America to a system of government fiscal restraint, the massive elimination of debt at the personal, and governmental levels, and state and federal budget surpluses.

The most powerful economic acceleration plan in the world is loaded up and ready to go.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

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Fortis Bank SA/NV was a large Dutch-Belgian banking and insurance conglomerate, the 20th largest revenue-generating company in the world in 2007. It assumed a conspicuous degree of debt-driven ‘underwater status’ during the global financial crisis – and ended up receiving billions in bailouts from various government entities, including the U.S.

Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011:                                                                                                     “Fortis Bank SA/NV, the banking unit of Brussels-based Fortis, was broken up after getting 7.2 billion euros ($10.3 billion) of capital from the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg in September 2008. It was later nationalized. Belgium sold a 75 percent stake in the bank to Paris-based BNP Paribas SA in an all-stock transaction that took seven months to complete. In a 2009 report, Fortis disclosed borrowing as much as 58.7 billion euros from the emergency liquidity lending facilities of the Belgian and Dutch central banks in October 2008. Data show Fortis Bank also tapped the U.S. Federal Reserve’s discount window, taking a $7 billion overnight loan on Sept. 29, 2008, and as much as $26.3 billion in February 2009 from the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and Term Auction Facility.

Peak Amount of Debt on 2/26/2009: $26.3B
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The Federal Reserve’s “secret liquidity lifeline” bailouts of U.S. and foreign banks set the stage for a gradual, long-term erosion of the U.S. Dollar.

American citizens indirectly financed those massive ‘free money’ Wall Street financial sector bailouts through a loss of U.S. Dollar purchasing power.

American families deserve nothing less than the same direct access to credit that U.S. and foreign banks received during the global financial crisis of 2007-2010. It is time to restore American families to economic “health.”                                      

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19950 downloads )

Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, based in Munich, Germany, is a financial enterprise consisting of a group of banks that specialize in real estate financing.

Hypo purchased Ireland-based Debfa Bank in October 2007.  Debfa promptly ‘took on water’ in 2008 when a boat load of municipal bonds it had underwritten got downgraded.

Depfa’s heavy debt burdens quickly dragged Hypo down into the debt swamp during the global financial crisis.

And then…..

The U.S. Federal Reserve galloped to the rescue, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, to help bail out Germany-based Hypo in the fall of 2008.

Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011: “Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, a German commercial-property lender with 1,366 employees, borrowed as much as $28.7 billion in November 2008 from the U.S. Federal Reserve through the New York branch of its Depfa Bank Plc unit. That’s about $21 million per employee. It borrowed almost one-third as much as Citigroup Inc., which has 190 times as many employees.

The Fed aid came in addition to 142 billion euros ($206 billion) of emergency credit lines and debt guarantees from German authorities. Hypo, which invested in mortgage-backed securities in the years before the financial crisis, said in a 2009 report that it lost access to short-term funding after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy. Hypo didn’t disclose any Fed borrowings until the loans became public in 2011.”

Peak Amount of Debt on 11/4/2008: $28.7B

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If the U.S. Federal Reserve can rescue foreign financial corporations like Hypo Real Estate Holding ($28.7B in direct liquidity transfusions), from their disastrous investment decision-making – then the Fed also has the power to grant direct liquidity extensions also to American families to help relieve debt burdens and restore the financial health of U.S. citizens.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19948 downloads )

BNP Paribas is the largest bank in the Eurozone and 10th largest bank worldwide. The French bank is headquartered in Paris, with global headquarters in London.  It owns subsidiaries all over the world, including BankWest in the U.S..

“BNP Paribas escaped the 2007–09 credit crisis relatively unscathed reporting a €3 billion net profit for the year of 2008, and €5.8 billion for 2009.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Thanks in no small part to U.S. taxpayers…

Background – Exhibit A:

Zero Hedge  Feb 13, 2014:  US Taxpayer “Bailed Out” BNP Paribas Probed By DoJ & Fed

“TARP Recipient BNP Paribas got $4.9bn of bailouts from the U.S. Taxpayer – Today, as the WSJ reports we learn BNP Paribas has been funding transactions in Iran, Syria and other countries subject to U.S. Sanctions since 2002. The bank set aside $1.1 billion to settle investigations by the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve but as the NY Times reports, investigations are playing out on multiple fronts – centering on whether the firm did “a significant amount” of business in “blacklisted” countires (and routed the deals through the US financial system).”

Via WSJ,  –  “…an internal probe conducted over the past few years “a significant volume of transactions” between 2002 and 2009 that could be “considered impermissible under U.S. laws and regulations...” “involving entities that were doing business in U.S.-sanctioned countries, such as Iran, Cuba, Sudan and Libya during the 2002 to 2009 period.

“BNP Paribas SA on Thursday became the latest bank to disclose the extent of its litigation problems in the U.S., saying it has set aside $1.1 billion against potential penalties related to transactions in countries under sanctions...

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Background – Exhibit B:                    

BNP Paribas Sued by US Over Banker’s Alleged Role in Fraud 

Oct. 19, 2011 (Bloomberg) — “BNP Paribas SA was sued by the U.S. over allegations the Paris-based bank aided a grain export fraud scheme involving commodity payment guarantees provided by the Department of Agriculture.

A corporate banker in BNP’s Houston office allegedly helped a scheme that defrauded the Agriculture Department of at least $78 million through deals he made with four U.S. grain exporters, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Houston.”

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Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011  –  #18 recipient of Fed’s “secret liquidity lifelines”

“The credit crisis accelerated after BNP Paribas SA, France’s biggest bank, announced in August 2007 that it would halt withdrawals from three funds because mortgage-market turmoil “made it impossible” to value certain assets. BNP began taking Federal Reserve loans in December 2007 when the Term Auction Facility opened.

By April 2008, its Fed debt reached $29.3 billion. In 2009, BNP became the euro region’s largest bank by deposits, purchasing Brussels-based Fortis’s units in Belgium and Luxembourg for 10.4 billion euros ($15.2 billion). It issued 5.1 billion euros of preference shares to the French government in March 2009, and reimbursed the state by October. In December 2010, when the Fed disclosed the loans, BNP said it used the TAF “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity.”

Peak Amount of Debt on 4/18/2008:  $29.3B

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BNP Paribas received $4.9 billion in TARP funds from the U.S., and they went on to rake in a tidy $29.3 billion credit extension from the Fed via the Term Auction Facility… “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity.”

They were meanwhile funding significant transactions (Bloomberg) “involving entities that were doing business in U.S.-sanctioned countries, such as Iran, Cuba, Sudan and Libya during the 2002 to 2009 period.”  And they ran a “grain export fraud scheme” which ‘cooked’ the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a cool $78 million.

The $64,000 question: If BNP Paribas is deserving of direct cash infusions from the U.S. government and the Fed, then would it not be perfectly reasonable for U.S. citizens to also qualify for their own direct credit extensions “to assist in recycling and facilitating liquidity” at the family level.

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The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19948 downloads )

ZeroHedge, Aug 10, 2024 | Via SchiffGold.com, – Excerpts:

Americans are already struggling to feed their families and pay their bills, but having predicted every US recession since 1960, the steepening bond yield curve is speaking loud and clear that an “official” downturn is nearly inevitable. With bond prices on the rise as the Fed looks increasingly likely to cut rates in September, the yields are going down and the inverted curve is finally leveling out after an epic two-year inversion. 

And with stocks now crashing around the world, global uncertainty is rocketing upward in a “Black Monday” event, especially as dizzyingly volatile Japan struggles to contain its post-ZIRP doom loop. In other words, the storm may be arriving in earnest….

The yield curve represents the difference in interest rates between long and short-term bonds, and every time it steepens after becoming inverted, a recession soon follows. It’s become a popular indicator because of its surgical accuracy, and because it tends to flash clear and reliable predictions before other datasets can do the same.

10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Minus 2-Year Treasury Constant Maturity

Source: Bloomberg

Even the Federal Reserve admits that thus far, the yield curve crystal ball has never failed. While there are some different yield spreads that one could observe between bonds of varying maturities, recessions tend to hit when the curve flattens and the Fed cuts interest rates – precisely the current scenario.

Unemployment numbers and equity prices are important as well, and last week, data showed that unemployment has gone up, triggering the “Sahm Rule” – a formula which has predicted the majority of recessions since it was devised in the 1950s by Federal Reserve alumnus Claudia Sahm….

Stock markets also flashed a sea of red last week, with Japanese stocks now tumbling further in the worst day since 1987 and the global sell-off, especially in risk assets, is intensifying. The stock market is not the economy, and as for the jobs reports, those numbers can’t be trusted — but if anything, the real employment data is even worse than indicated by official claims.

And if history is any indication, the inverted yield curve tells no lies even as government and Federal Reserve data seek to paint as rosy a picture as possible to reassure markets and continually justify the academic expertise and professional necessity of central bankers.

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America is ‘eyeball deep’ in all sectors debt: Public Debt, Corporate Debt, Household Debt.

Debt service costs are suffocating the economic health of the country.

Washington Democrats and Republicans have no credible plan to clean up this mess, and restore economic health to Federal, State, and Local governments, and Small Businesses and millions of hard-working, tax-paying families across America.

Main Street America Republicans do have a plan — a massive, across-the-board debt elimination plan for America.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19682 downloads )

A look back…

Background – Bear Stearns:

The Atlantic – Jan 25, 2011: Emails Suggest that Bear Stearns Cheated Clients out of Billions

“Former Bear Stearns mortgage executives who now run mortgage divisions of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Ally Financial have been accused of cheating and defrauding investors through the mortgage securities they created and sold while at Bear.

Last week a lawsuit filed in 2008 by mortgage insurer Ambac Assurance Corp against Bear Stearns and JPMorgan was unsealed. The lawsuit’s supporting e-mails, going back as far as 2005, highlight Bear traders telling their superiors they were selling investors like Ambac a “sack of [sh#%].”

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According to the lawsuit, the Bear traders would sell toxic mortgage securities to investors and then sell back the bad loans with early payment defaults to the banks that originated them at a discount. The traders would pocket the refund, and would not pass it on to the mortgage trust, which was where it should have gone to be distributed to the investors who owned the bonds.

It’s this blatant internal awareness inside the Bear mortgage trading division that the Ambac suits says led Bear to implement an across-the-board strategy to disregard its contractual promises and conceal the defective loans….

In 2007, when Ambac started to realize something was very wrong with its high-rated bonds, it demanded Bear provide loan-level detail and reviewed 695 non-performing loans in its portfolio. Ambac’s audit concluded that 80 percent of the loans showed an early payment default….

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Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011:

Bear Stearns Cos. Chairman James “Jimmy” Cayne told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that the Federal Reserve’s Primary Dealer Credit Facility, set up in March 2008 to supply emergency funding to brokerage firms, came “just about 45 minutes” too late. Without access to liquidity from the central bank, New York-based Bear Stearns had to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase & Co., ending 85 years as an independent firm. To prop up Bear Stearns while the deal could be negotiated, the Fed extended a $12.9 billion emergency loan to the firm through JPMorgan. After the deal was inked, the Fed supplied as much as $30 billion to Bear Stearns through the PDCF and single-tranche open market operations to float the firm while the takeover was pending.

Peak Amount of Debt on 3/28/2008: $30B

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U.S. citizens, who did not cheat and defraud investors by peddling toxic mortgage securities – deserve nothing less than to be granted the same access to liquidity that the Federal Reserve supplied to Bear Stearns and scores of other major banks and insurers during great financial crisis of 2007 – 2010.

The mechanism for this direct access to liquidity – a Citizens Credit Facility – via The Leviticus 25 Plan.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19639 downloads )

A look back…

Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011 – Excerpts:

“Wells Fargo & Co. became the largest U.S. home lender and fourth-biggest bank after purchasing Wachovia Corp. in 2008 as that bank was teetering near collapse. Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, borrowed as much as $45 billion in February 2009, a day after regulators released details of how they would conduct stress tests on the nation’s 19 largest banks.

The Fed’s Term Auction Facility was “one of several programs offered by the government that Wells Fargo and other financial institutions were encouraged or required to participate in,” said Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for the bank.”

Peak amount of debt on 2/26/2009:  $45B                                            

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Wells Fargo’s corporate rap sheet: https://www.corp-research.org/wells-fargo

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Honest, hard-working, tax-paying U.S. citizens, the backbone of our Republic, deserve nothing less than to be granted the same direct access to liquidity, through a U.S. Citizens Credit Facility, that the Fed so graciously provided to Wells Fargo & Co and other major banks during the height of the financial crisis.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19639 downloads )

A look back…

In 2007 and 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc engaged in some old-fashioned, end-of-quarter, creative ‘book-cooking” to disguise their quietly snowballing insolvency issues….

Their financial sleight-of-hand involved book-keeping entries known as “Repo 105s” – where late-quarter  temporary loans backed by ‘depressed’ assets were booked as ‘sales,’ with the revenues then ‘used’ to pay down debt.  This provided “window dressing” for their quarterly reports to, naturally, make ‘management’ look good.  Lehman would then ‘buy’ the asset back and add the old debt back in early in the new quarter.

Lehman ran up $50 billion worth of ‘Repo 105s’ in 2008.  Auditor Ernst & Young ‘winked’ at the Lehman ‘shell game.’

The financial crisis quickly blew the game up in the fall of 2008.

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Bloomberg  Nov 28, 2011 – Excerpts:                                                                       

“Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused to authorize a government bailout for the New York-based securities firm. By then, the Fed had supplied liquidity to Lehman’s main brokerage unit, Lehman Brothers Inc., for months, reaching $31.1 billion in June 2008.

On the day of the bankruptcy, Lehman’s Fed loans reached $44.8 billion. Barclays Plc took over some of the debt after buying Lehman’s North American securities business, according to court testimony. Lehman Brothers Inc. repaid $38.5 billion on Sept. 18, and Barclays’s Fed borrowings jumped by $49.1 billion to $63.8 billion that day, the data show.”

Peak amount of Debt on 9/15/2008:  $46B    

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In review – ‘book-cooker’ Lehman Brothers received massive liquidity infusions from the Fed… and Barclays received massive Fed-generated liquidity access to buy ‘book-cooker’ Lehman.

Meanwhile, U.S. citizens, who did not ‘cook books,’ and whose money was used to transfuse Lehman and Barclays, have not been allowed similar access.

It is time now to level the playing field and grant U.S. citizens, through a Citizens Credit Facility, the very same access to Fed liquidity that Lehman, Barclays, and dozens of other banking titans received.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2025 (19639 downloads )