Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

personification of that breed. They were not necessarily evil in a moral sense. What preoccupied their minds were not questions of right or wrong but of profit and loss. This analytical indifference to human suffering was aptly described by one Rothschild when he said: 'When the streets of Paris are Q

running with blood, I buy.' They may have held citizenship in the country of their residence, but patriotism was beyond their comprehension. They were also very bright, if not cunning, and these combined traits made them the role model of the cool pragmatists who dominate the political and financial world of today. Disraeli well described this type when he wrote of Sidonia:

He was a man without affections. It would be harsh to say he had no heart, for he was susceptible of deep emotions, but not for individuals.... The individual never touched him. Woman was to him a toy, man a machine.4

It would seem that an absence of patriotism and a cold,

analytical outlook would lead financiers to avoid making loans to governments, particularly foreign ones. Private borrowers can be hauled into court and their assets confiscated to make good on their 1. Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, originally published in England in 1844), p. 225.

2. Stephen Birmingham, 'Our Crowd': The Great Jewish Families of New York (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 73.

3. Quoted in The Neiv York Times, October 21,1987, cited by Chernow, p. 13.

4. Disraeli, p. 229.

THE ROTHSCHILD FORMULA

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debts. But governments control the legalized use of force. They are the courts. They are the police. Who will seize their assets? The answer is another government. Speaking of a relatively modern example of this principle, Ron Chernow explains:

The new alliance [between the monetary and political scientists]

was mutually advantageous. Washington wanted to harness the new financial power to coerce foreign governments into opening their markets to American goods or adopting pro-American policies. The banks, in turn, needed levers to force debt repayment and welcomed the government's police powers in distant places. The threat of military intervention was an excellent means by which to speed loan repayment. When Kuhn, Loeb considered a loan to the Dominican Republic, backed by customs receipts, Jacob Schiff inquired of his London associate Sir Ernest Cassel, 'If they do not pay, who will collect these customs duties?' Cassel replied, 'Your marines and ours.'1

One of the great puzzles of history is why governments always go into debt and seldom attempt to put themselves on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis. A partial answer is that kings and politicians lack the courage to tax their subjects the enormous sums that would be required under such an arrangement. There is also the deeper question of why the expenditures are so high in the first place.

Given the mentality of the world's financial lords and masters, as Disraeli described them, it is conceivable that a coldly calculated strategy has been developed over the years to insure this result. In fact, the historical evidence strongly suggests that just such a plan

was developed in eighteenth-century Europe and perfected in twentieth-century America. For the purposes of hypothetical analysis, let us identify this strategy as The Rothschild Formula.

THE FORMULA

Let us imagine a man who is totally pragmatic. He is smarter and more cunning than most men and, in fact, holds them in thinly disguised contempt. He may respect the talents of a few, but has little concern over the condition of mankind. He has observed that kings and politicians are always fighting over something or other and has concluded that wars are inevitable. He also has learned that wars can be profitable, not only by lending or creating the 1- Quoted by Jacques Attali, translated by Barbara Ellis, A Man of Influence- Sir biegmund Warburg, 1902-82 (London: Weidenfeld, & Nicolson, 1986), p. 57.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

money to finance them, but from government favoritism in the granting of commercial subsidies or monopolies. He is not capable of such a primitive feeling as patriotism, so he is free to participate in the funding of any side in any conflict, limited only by factors of self interest. If such a man were to survey the world around him, it is not difficult to imagine that he would come to the following conclusions which would become the prime directives of his career: 1. War is the ultimate discipline to any government. If it can successfully meet the challenge of war, it will survive. If tt cannot, it will perish. All else is secondary. The sanctity of its laws, the prosperity of its citizens, and the solvency of its treasury will be quickly sacrificed by any government in its primal act of self-survival.

2. All that is necessary, therefore, to insure that a government will maintain or expand its debt is to involve it in war or the threat of war. The greater the threat and the more destructive the war, the greater the need for debt.

3. To involve a country in war or the threat of war, it will be necessary for it to have enemies with credible military might. If such enemies already exist, all the better. If they exist but lack military strength, it will be necessary to provide them the money to build their war machine. If an enemy does not exist at all, then it will be necessary to create one by financing the rise of a hostile regime. x

4. The ultimate obstacle is a government which declines to finance its wars through debt. Although this seldom happens, when it does, it will be necessary to encourage internal political opposition, insurrection, or revolution to replace that

government with one that is more compliant to our will. The assassination of heads of state could play an