Guest Post by Nick Giambruno
It’s hard to believe the United States government was ever debt-free.
But it happened once—in 1835—thanks to President Andrew Jackson. He was the first and only president to pay off the national debt completely.
One biographer says the former president viewed debt as a “moral failing,” a sort of “black magic.”
When he became president, Jackson was determined to rid the US of its national debt. After all, debt enslaves you to your creditors.
Jackson knew that being debt-free was essential to independence. This outlook resonated with many Americans back then.
With that in mind, Jackson attacked the institutions and powerful people who promoted and enabled the federal debt. This included the banking elites and the Second Bank of the United States, the country’s central bank at the time and precursor to today’s insidious Federal Reserve system.
While campaigning against the evils of national debt and central banking, Jackson miraculously survived an assassination attempt when an assassin’s two pistols both misfired. Shadowy interests tied to the central bank were almost certainly behind the effort.
However, Jackson survived and went on to “End the Fed” of his days. He successfully bested the central bank—and the powerful interests behind it—and shut down the Second Bank of the United States.
He also repaid the federal debt in full, which was no easy task.
Jackson couldn’t squeeze the American people with a federal income tax to repay the debt. It didn’t exist at the time and would have been unconstitutional.
He also couldn’t simply print currency to pay off the debt. Perpetuating such an insane fraud—which the Fed does on a massive scale today—likely never entered his mind.
Instead, Jackson had to rely on tax revenue from other sources, mainly import tariffs and excise taxes, to pay down the debt. He also drastically cut federal spending and frequently vetoed spending bills.
Jackson’s determination worked. By January 1835, the US was debt-free for the first time.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last much more than a year. After that, the US would never again be debt-free—not even close.
Revenge of the Central Bankers
After Jackson succeeded in ending the Second Bank of the United States, anything associated with a central bank became deeply unpopular with the American public. So, central bank advocates tried a new branding strategy.
Rather than call their new central bank the “Third Bank of the United States,” they went for a vague and boring name. They called it “the Federal Reserve” and managed to hide it from the average person in plain sight. As a result, over 100 years since its founding, most Americans have no idea what the Federal Reserve is or what it actually does.
Ironically, Jackson’s face has been on the $20 “Federal Reserve Note” since 1928. So in a sense, this symbolic move is central banking advocates giving the middle finger to one of their most steadfast opponents.
After all, the Fed is really the “Third Bank of the United States.” No doubt, Jackson would have been disturbed at having his face on its fake confetti money.
In any case, most Americans today have no idea who Jackson is, what he did, or why he did it.
To the extent he is ever mentioned, the media, academia, and the rest of the establishment unjustly besmirch him as—you guessed it—a “racist.”
That’s exactly what the Deep State—the permanently entrenched bureaucracy—wants. It doesn’t want the average citizen to understand why Jackson shut down the central bank and (temporarily) freed Americans from national debt bondage. Doing the same thing today would be a mortal threat to their power.
This is one of the reasons the establishment will try in the coming years to replace Jackson on the $20 bill with the more politically-correct Harriet Tubman… pushing Jackson further down the memory hole.
Trillions and Trillions
You often hear the media, politicians, and financial analysts casually toss around the word “trillion” without appreciating what it means.
A trillion is a massive, almost unfathomable number.
The human brain has trouble understanding something so huge. So let me try to put it into perspective.
If you earned $1 per second, it would take 11 days to make a million dollars.
If you earned $1 per second, it would take 31 and a half years to make a billion dollars.
And if you earned $1 per second, it would take 31,688 years to make a trillion dollars.
So that’s how enormous a trillion is.
When politicians carelessly spend and print money measured in the trillions, you are in dangerous territory.
And that is precisely what the Federal Reserve and the central banking system has enabled the US government to do.
It took 146 years after Jackson fully paid off the debt in 1835—or until 1981—for the US government to rack up its first trillion in debt. The second trillion only took four years. After that, the next trillions came in increasingly shorter intervals.
Today, Congress has normalized multi-trillion dollar federal spending deficits.
The US federal debt has gone parabolic and is scores of trillions.
If you earned $1 per second, it would take over 988,665 YEARS to pay off the current US federal debt.
And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.
The US federal government has the largest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.
The debt will keep piling up as the US government continues to pay for political promises. It’s virtually inevitable.
The federal debt also represents an outrageous crime inflicted on the next generation. They are the ones who will be stuck with this massive unpaid bill from today’s spending, and it will turn them into indentured serfs.
It’s doubtful Congress considers this even for a second. They are always eager to send scores of billions to faraway foreign lands or the latest boondoggle.
Of course, this is not a groundbreaking revelation. People like Ron Paul have warned Americans about the dangers of the federal debt for a long time.
It’s just that nobody has heeded these warnings. And no one has taken serious political action to address the problem. Nor is anyone likely to.
In short, the US government is approaching the financial endgame and can no longer disguise its bankruptcy. The Fed cannot stop its extreme money printing, nor can it raise interest rates in any meaningful way.
If we step back and zoom out, the Big Picture is clear.
We are likely on the cusp of a historic shift… and what’s coming next could change everything.
The economic trajectory is troubling. Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the course of these trends in motion.
The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation.
That’s precisely why I just released an urgent report on where this is all headed and what you can do about it… including three strategies everyone needs today.
Click here to download the PDF it now.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Anyone trading the Nancy Pelosi Index ?
One of the best stock pickers in America. I wonder how she got her skill?
And the ‘experts’ say you can’t ‘time the market’ …
What do they know? Nancy Lugosi (the Beast from the Bay) has been doing it for years … same with Dianne Feinstein …
Be your own federal reserve and End The fed.
Pay off your debts.
Do not go out to eat. Do not buy a new car. Do not buy a new house. Do not go on vacation.
Until your debt is paid off.
Make more sense. Buy everything you need for future survival now on corporate credit and a laugh at all the defenseless starving smucks when the FRN collapse commences. Debt free will do you little good when you don’t have a 10,000 rounds and massive hoard of vienna sausage for the nuclear winter.
…sad but true.
The FEDGOV would go broke if it sold Booze and Pussy.
At a discount….
Prove me wrong….
Proving you wrong would be impossible, except for the Pussy, the members have been making lots off that over the years. I have seen governments lose money on everything from casinos to golf courses.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that the Fed felt the need to put up fencing…look out for what’s coming.
you misspelled (((“cohencidence”))).
In politics, even King FDR said:
“If it happened, you can be damn sure it was done on purpose. In politics, nothing ever happens by accident”.
I did not borrow any monies in my name so feel I owe no monies.
I also agree with some posters here,you cash strapped go into debt and be prepped,your credit and so called social credit score will mean nothing in the crash which tough is needed.
We hopefully like the mighty Phoenix arise from the ashes of our self immolation.
I asked this of the cruel accountant and didn’t get a reply so I’ll ask again.
I owe no debt and have always maintained a not debt position, mostly because to me, owing anyone/thing is to be beholden to them/it. Which I refuse to do.
But, recently I’ve been thinking that at this time, a better strategy would be to gather as much debt as you are able to. As inflation eats away at everything you’ll be paying off that debt with their inflated dollars. When the economy crashes that debt will be effectively erased.
Anything you acquired with debt becomes lost in a sea of debt cross the land. There would be millions of cars, homes or whatever that will go back to the bank. Do you think the bank is going to be able to force 10’s of millions from their homes?? Confiscate a 100 million vehicles?? Not likely. Additionally if you use debt money to buy gold you’d be turning fake money into a real asset.
So to me, there is no real incentive to work at being debt free but the opposite at this point. yes/no?
Good luck with that. If all those what ifs don’t work out, and there is a bushel of them, you end up screwed, or worse in prison / debt prison.
Understood, but screwed?? Only if the ponzi continues unabated and even then you pay the debt with their fake money. You still end up with an asset, unless you are buying shitty newer vehicles. You ALREADY are in a debt prison, so how would this be any different??
I’m certainly not in a debt prison. Once again, it depends on a lot of ifs. If the ponzi scheme continues, your pay has actually went down, because it hasn’t kept up with inflation. In order to pay it back with their fake inflated money, you would have to be making more of it, which has not been the trend. That is certainly is being in a debt prison still.
So your whole trump card is if the system takes a shit you would have somehow gamed the system. Doesn’t seem like good odds to me. Let alone looking at one’s self in the mirror, but some people can rationalize that I guess.
But I’ve always tried to pay as I go, not that it has been a cake walk so.
Who’s money is the govt spending??? Its all tied to you. You are indeed in prison, you just refuse to acknowledge it.
EDITED: You/I have been conditioned to save money, stay out of debt. Which is fine, we’re not beholden to anyone. But, either way using the current system seems to be debt is better. I’m not saying over burdened debt. If you use their fake money, you still end up with an asset and if the whole ponzi collapses in the mean time, you still end up with an asset. The bankers won’t come for you.
If you have nothing then anything more than that is something to work with. I’m not suggesting to load up on debt if you have asset values already.
The only taxes I have is property taxes. Otherwise I’m self sufficient and have no income to pay taxes on. My lodgers pay most the expenses (including the property tax, which is fairly low).
Your taxes are the prison debt we are all in. Don’t pay your taxes and see where that leads. If they want your property, they’ll tax you out of it because it isn’t yours. You are in debt prison, you just don’t want to consider it as that, but it doesn’t make it any less real. You will pay taxes in perpetuity, until it all comes down.
Like I said… I’m still coming to terms with this myself
We all owe the national debt (and local debt, which is what property taxes are), but is far from being a debt prison, unless you make it one. Personally I’ve been saying for decades now those living on the street / homeless are some of the freest. Go do some time in jail or prison, and you will understand the difference real quick.
Dude never heard of bankruptcy…smh.
Yes. And they have already tightened the rules, and it doesn’t mean they can’t do so again. Just think about student loans and what else? Medical bills I think?
I have always done my best to be debt free. There is some logic to it. But what i your wrong on the timing. To me, the biggest issue to me is Karma. Being beholden to the Lords of Karma is a big mistake.
Half of me says sacrifice and save, bruh, and the other half says take the money Deep Shekels creates from nothing and live like dust in the wind.
“There is no antidote, he writes, against the opium of time. The winter sun shows how soon the light fades from the ash, how soon night enfolds us. Hour upon hour is added to the sum. Time itself grows old. Pyramids, arches and obelisks are melting pillars of snow. Not even those who have found a place amidst the heavenly constellations have perpetuated their names: Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in the Dog Star. Indeed, old families last not three oaks. To set one’s name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best of men have gone without a trace? The iniquity of oblivion blindly scatters her poppyseed and when wretchedness falls upon us one summer’s day like snow, all we wish for is to be forgotten.”
W. G. Sebald The Rings of Saturn
Bingo. It is a slippery slope and hard to climb back up.
I tried that back in the 80’s when I was facing default on my house and the personal bankruptcy that was coming when they filed judgment against me. My friend who was a lawyer suggested I buy as much as I could on credit, but nothing they could attach or repossess. We took some great vacations, I bought some jewelry, gold coins and the like.
In the end they did foreclose on my house, but never filed a judgment so I did not owe them. When the 1 year window for filing had closed, my friend checked to see if there was a judgment and told me I could pay off my debt or I could file for bankruptcy. I chose to pay off the debt which took about 3 years and every spare penny I could come up with.
This is what I’m coming to terms with. We already live in a debt ridden system controlled by bankers who look for more inventive ways to steal your wealth. So is taking out debt and putting at risk those bankers fake fiat paper a bad thing??
Taking back from the thieves what they’ve stolen??
I’m adverse to debt but I can’t see the down side really to loading up on debt. Especially if the arterial bleeding the US is undergoing continues, and you KNOW it will.
Just go into it with your eyes wide open. I did not think there was a chance the judgment would not be filed and built some of the credit card debt on way too expensive vacations. The gold coins I bought with the cash advance was one of my better moves. There was no trail to the coins, so nothing they could come after.
They’ll gladly ruin the lives or kill millions with starvation, war, lockdowns, clotshots, etc. but they won’t kick you out of your house or confiscate your property?
Think about it. Who will enforce the evictions when it all comes down??? Who?? Who will collect the millions of vehicles and WHERE would they store them all??? Storing deteriorating hulks of vehicles would be far more expensive than to just abandon them.
Likely you would willingly walk away just like the millions that stayed indoors, wore masks, lined up for the clot shots. But what about the millions who didn’t?? we have the 2nd is an oft touted refrain. While packing your bags with sheriff waiting.
They’ll do what they did in the aftermath of the ’08 fustercluck when too many homes got built that didn’t sell … sometimes whole new subdivisions of homes that weren’t sold were merely bulldozed so that no one would squat in them.
@ Brian
Two things come to mind and these are opinions.
1- Going the debt route and profit from inflation is a screw everybody else I will get mine mindset. Just like the banksters and the fed.
2- much less risk to pay off debt. I have had many friends and family become destitute from the lots of debt hoping inflation will save my ass attitude
I wish you luck either way
I’m going to disagree somewhat.
The screw you debt route isn’t the way I see it. I see it more as taking back what is stolen from us, the people, by the bankers. If someone robs my house, steals my belongings, I’m going to do a few things. One I’m watching over them so taking them will be risky. Secondly, if you DO manage to take them I’m going to want them back. Is this wrong??? Or are the bankers in a class all to themselves whereby the wealth they steal is theirs and you have no claim?? Thats where I’m going off the rails.
Secondly, I’m not advocating for over burden debt. I think we all know people who have no financial control, as I was once. I’m talking about smart debt. Buying, like TN mentioned, assets with no ties. If in the end you get it paid, then its yours. If the expected crash happens sooner rather than later then bonus, it’ll be lost in the sea of collapse. I see this more every day of taking back whats been stolen, resisting, tossing sand in the gears.
People whine about everything, few will actually do anything. I’m seeing this more of a way to screw the current system started and perpetuated by thieves. I have no debt and am not in a position to obtain debt. I have no income but given the chance I would seriously consider going eyebrow deep, it can’t get any worse.
And thx for your reply cruel
Your welcome
One variation my buddy’s wife pulled before she died was to take the credit card(s) that were in her name only and run up the balances to the limits — about $30K worth — just before passing. Lots of luck that anyone will have recapturing all of that — especially the stuff she bought for her aging parents and her friends …
Doing my panhandle Florida hobby farm tax numbers now for 2022 and have 15 written offers to buy my land and had about as many phone calls; also think prices are going up here. Farmland can be a bargain and a life saver. My property-tax/assessed-value in Jefferson Co Fl (20 miles from Tallahassee) is $508/122,000 or 4% is very good compared to the same in Tallahassee/Leon Co area which would probably be a $3,000 tax (a huge Welfare Voter Class to support). My unimproved Cairo Ga property tax is 1.2% (very high for no gov’t services at all) and the State Income Tax I’d have to pay there is very high (10%, a huge Welfare Voter Class to support, why I moved to Florida). Unimproved Polk Co Tenn tax is 0.6% and no State Income Tax (except stocks etc). When TPTB Reset to their CBDC in Jul23-24, I bet my ass they will cut off guns and farmland, ration food & fuel, levy Climate & Reparations Taxes, etc. Insouciant Urban liberals took the Clot Shot in the arm; they’ll take the CBDC Reset in the ass. Happy Liquidation Blue democrat Useful Idiot Urban Agenda 21 suckers. PS: Boston is paying $22/hr with $4,500 sign on bonus for city bus drivers and are 300 short; no commercial license required now. How many did they lose because of The Shot? Minorities trying to get to work mainly impacted. The dumb only get dumber.
Ga is a Deep Shekel controlled fag state masquerading as conservation. The largest employer in the state is Uncle Schlomo and most every rural county is controlled by thieving albeit virtue signaling bankers pushing growth via economic development i.e. importing corporate giants with their foreign workers. Ga was a more conservative, both fiscally and socially , state under yella dog democrats.
We miss you Lester Maddox.
Two chief fags that brought the Dominion voter fraud system to Ga, here.
We noticed on our first visit to GA about ’85 or ’86 that there were already too many NYers there for anyone to get out alive … sort of like LA a few decades before that …
“Jackson couldn’t squeeze the American people with a federal income tax to repay the debt. It didn’t exist at the time and would have been unconstitutional.”
News Flash, income tax is STILL unconstitutional, there are also 2 SCOTUS decisions that stand to this day, they both confirmed that the 16th Amendment “CONFERED NO NEW POWERS OF TAXIATION”
The 16th Amendment was also NEVER properly ratified by the states IAW the Constitution, but even with both of these facts on the peoples side, the congress still implemented an illegal unconstitutional tax on the labor of the working American.
This is what happens when a nation goes broke, the Bankers always manage to get their foot back in the door by offering loans with lots of strings to bail out the nation, the nation looses it’s “Sovereignty” They like to use wars to make it all seem like you know, just something that happens when things get real tough. The Civil war broke us, we needed money they offered us a loan, we took it. We then defaulted again, WWI and yep we’re broke again, that got us the “Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Pay attention to that as we seem to find ourselves right back at the very same spot, our current debt is 31 Trillion and climbing, soon the GDP won’t be enough to make the interest payments, and there we go again, right back into another scam, this time it’s called the CBDC and it’s total control over us all.
Organic Act of 1871 started that chain of events to get us to where we are right now. The Greatest scam on earth.
What is the name of this video and is it on Youtube or Brighteon, or Naturalnews, etc? I’d like to have congress just negate all this bankster crap (like Jesus whining them out of the Temple) and if any object give them a speedy J6 type trial and sentence; better yet, suck their brains out like they want to do to our babies.