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THE GLOBAL MONEY MACHINE: AMERICA'S FINANCIAL SYSTEM AND THE HIDDEN COST OF EMPIRE



By Kino Smith | Economic Theology


THE FINAL STAGE OF EMPIRE


This is not just a study on the Federal Reserve or fiat currency. This is a reckoning—a panoramic view of how 400 years of colonial violence, economic apartheid, and propaganda have matured into a global machine of organized theft. And now, that machine is turning inward.





We are witnessing the final gasp of empire. Institutions that once cloaked their exploitation in language like “freedom,” “free market,” or “aid” now stand naked. From America’s collapsing infrastructure to its hollowed-out middle class, the chickens of colonial conquest have come home to roost. The land thefts of the plantation have become redlining (Urban Institute). The global slave trade has become modern debt peonage (PBS). The Berlin Conference has been reborn as multinational trade pacts where only the wealthy make the rules (BlackPast).


Call it capitalism. Call it fiat economics. But at its root, it’s always been about land and labor. That’s why empires colonized continents. That’s why migrant labor is still exploited (NAACP). That’s why redlining was encoded into law. The dollar was never the point. It’s a tool to hold land hostage.


And now, the mask is off.


White nationalism—best understood not as a fringe ideology but a global code of elite solidarity—is clawing for permanence as demographic tides shift. From erasing history in classrooms to dismantling consumer safeguards, public institutions are not failing; they’re being deconstructed by design. These aren’t just culture wars—they’re economic preemptive strikes (Brookings).


Behind the curtain sits the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)—the “central bank of central banks.” Above the law. Beyond democracy. Immune from prosecution. While elected governments squabble over debt ceilings, the BIS steers global monetary policy from behind closed doors. Its meetings are secret. Its members untouchable. Its decisions answer to no public (BIS Overview, BIS Governance).


THE HISTORICAL FOUNDATION


The Jekyll Island ConspiracyIn 1910, a secret meeting on Jekyll Island birthed the Federal Reserve. Attendees represented J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and Rothschild interests. They drafted a plan to centralize American banking away from democratic control (Federal Reserve History, Jekyll Museum, Atlanta Fed, Richmond Fed).


From Slavery to Modern Debt PeonageAfter slavery, debt peonage emerged as its economic successor. Though outlawed in 1867, it reemerged through legal loopholes and police enforcement. Today, predatory lending continues the cycle—targeting the same neighborhoods once shaped by redlining (PBS, NAACP - Predatory Lending, MECEP).


The Berlin Conference and NeocolonialismAt the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, European powers carved up Africa without African input. That same playbook drives today’s global extractive economy (BlackPast).




THE MACHINERY OF MODERN EXPLOITATION


  • Rigged Systems of Credit, Licensing, and Land UseExclusionary systems target the poor and racial minorities through “reverse redlining” and predatory loans (Urban Institute, NAACP).

  • Monopolized EssentialsMarket consolidation in vital sectors leads to higher prices and reduced worker income (Economic Strategy Group, ASCE Infrastructure Report).

  • Surveillance Disguised as InnovationAlgorithms and data mining replace accountability and deepen discrimination (SSRN, Harvard Business Review).

  • Corporate Welfare Dressed as DevelopmentSubsidies and Opportunity Zones benefit the wealthy, not the communities they claim to serve (MECEP, Thomson Reuters).

  • A Fake MeritocracyDespite failing infrastructure, privatized gains continue while public systems collapse (ASCE, Pew Research).


THE PATH FORWARD: COOPERATIVE ALTERNATIVES


Worker Cooperatives: Democracy in ActionGround-up business models that put ownership and governance in the hands of workers (Democracy at Work, About DAWI, Resources).


Community Land Trusts: Reclaiming the CommonsLand held in perpetual trust for community-controlled housing and development (Investopedia).


Credit Unions and Cooperative BankingFinancial services organized around community benefit, not profit (National Cooperative Bank).


Democratic Oversight of Global FinanceCivil society movements calling for accountable, transparent international finance institutions (New Rules for Global Finance).


We’re not just in a crisis of economics. We’re in a crisis of imagination.But systems are built—and they can be rebuilt. We don’t need to wait for collapse to dream again.


Because the emperor has no clothes.And the empire has no future.



I. THE HIDDEN ORIGINS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE


It didn’t begin with democracy. It began with deception.

In November 1910, a cabal of bankers—representing J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and European financial interests—boarded a private train under fake names to Jekyll Island, Georgia. Behind closed doors, they drafted a blueprint for what would become the most powerful monetary institution in American history: the Federal Reserve. ¹


By the time Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913—while most lawmakers were home for the holidays—the people had no idea they had just surrendered control of their money supply to private hands. ²


Its twelve regional banks are technically “public,” yet their stockholders are private institutions. These owners get guaranteed 6% dividends, vote for board members, and influence monetary policy. ³ In short, it’s a financial chimera—part dragon, part dove.


II. FIAT CURRENCY AND THE “INFLATION TAX”


The dollar we hold is no longer backed by gold or silver. It is backed by trust—and enforced by policy.

Since the U.S. abandoned the gold standard in 1971, the Fed has created money not by printing bills, but by digitally injecting credit into the banking system. Banks then multiply that money through loans. This system, known as “fractional reserve banking,” no longer even requires reserves. Since March 2020, reserve requirements have been eliminated. ⁴

That means money is loaned into existence.


And it comes with interest.


This creates perpetual debt. A $100 bill costs just under 10 cents to produce, yet it enters the economy as a liability that must be repaid with interest. ⁵ The result? Every new dollar devalues the ones already in circulation. Prices rise. Wages stagnate. The working class bleeds. Especially Black communities, who earn less, own less, and pay more.

Inflation is a silent tax. And we’ve been paying it since birth.





III. GLOBAL EXPLOITATION: THE COLONIAL MACHINE NEVER DIED


If America is the empire, the dollar is the sword.


Even today, nations that challenge dollar supremacy—Libya, Iraq, Venezuela—face crippling sanctions or outright military invasions. ⁶ Through institutions like the IMF and World Bank, the U.S. exports neoliberalism, forces deregulation, and privatizes foreign industries in the name of "development." ⁷


Meanwhile, the global supply chain runs on cheap labor and stolen minerals.


Cobalt from the Congo powers your iPhone. ⁸ Garments from Bangladesh fill fast fashion racks. Food, tech, and fuel are subsidized by exploited lives. Inside U.S. borders, immigrant labor is criminalized but indispensable.


Even nonprofits—those supposed agents of help—often serve empire. NGOs arrive with good intentions and bad contracts. As Arundhati Roy observed, “they are the secular missionaries of the modern world, agents of empire in evening clothes.” ⁹


IV. URBAN PLANTATIONS: THE MODERN JIM CROW ECONOMY


Redlining didn’t end—it evolved.


In Black neighborhoods, credit is denied, rent-to-own traps abound, payday lenders charge up to 400% APR, and car loans hit 29%. ¹⁰ Grocery stores are farther. Insurance premiums are higher. Interest rates are steeper. This is not dysfunction—it’s design.


Black communities pay more to live in neighborhoods redlined out of prosperity. They fund their own dispossession.

And while schools lose funding, police budgets balloon. ¹¹ Surveillance replaces social services. A prison cell is more “affordable” than an after-school program. This is economic containment. A modern plantation with barcodes instead of whips.


V. RACE AS A SMOKESCREEN FOR CLASS EXPLOITATION


Race is not the root—it’s the smoke.


In 1681, colonial elites invented "whiteness" to divide the working class. Poor Europeans and enslaved Africans had begun to unite. So lawmakers created laws to elevate one group over another, gifting poor whites small privileges to secure elite control. ¹²


Today, poor white communities face shuttered factories, poisoned water, and fentanyl funerals. But instead of demanding justice, they are fed racism—an emotional sugar high with no nutritional value.

It’s the oldest trick in the empire’s book: divide the poor, and conquer them both.



VI. SYSTEM RESET: FROM SLAVERY TO SOFTWARE


The old plantation ran on whips. The new one runs on WiFi.


Automation and AI are restructuring labor itself. Data is the new cotton. And those who don't code it or control it will be coded and controlled. ¹³ Surveillance capitalism profits from our clicks. Algorithmic credit scoring determines who gets a home, a job, a loan—or a jail cell.


Meanwhile, BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are developing digital currencies and commodity-backed trade systems to end dollar hegemony. ¹⁴ The empire is being challenged—not by warheads, but by bandwidth.








VII. FAITH, SCRIPTURE, AND THEOLOGICAL INSIGHT

“You levy a straw tax on the poor… though you’ve built stone mansions, you will not live in them.” Amos 5:11–12
“You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Luke 16:13
“He who oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth… will come to poverty.” — Proverbs 22:16

The early African Church Fathers warned against empire. Tertullian denounced greed as idolatry. Augustine condemned Rome’s lust for conquest as a spiritual sickness. They understood what America forgot: wealth built on injustice is cursed.

There is no moral neutrality in economics.


VIII. WHAT MUST BE BUILT NEXT


  • Technical assistance hubs in every zip code

  • Church budgets aimed at cooperative economics

  • A new class of economic shepherds and trainers

  • Media platforms to expose financial exploitation

  • Data-driven infrastructure to track local harm

  • Reparative policies rooted in justice, not pity

“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” — James Baldwin

FOOTNOTES


  1. Federal Reserve History – Jekyll Islandhttps://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/jekyll-island-conference

  2. Jekyll Island Museum: Birth of the Fedhttps://www.jekyllisland.com/magazine/birth-of-the-fed/

  3. Richmond Fed: Federal Reserve Structurehttps://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2015/q1/federal_reserve

  4. Atlanta Fed: No Reserve Requirement (Post-2020)https://www.atlantafed.org/blogs/take-on-payments/-/media/documents/education/teach/lessons-and-activities/15-jekyll-island-and-the-creation-of-the-fed-presentation.pptx

  5. Corporate Finance Institute – BIS Overviewhttps://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/bank-for-international-settlements-bis/

  6. Institute for Policy Studies – Structural White Supremacyhttps://ips-dc.org/white-supremacy-preexisting-condition-eight-solutions-economic-recovery-racial-wealth-divide/

  7. BIS Official About Pagehttps://www.bis.org/about/index.htm

  8. Good Jobs First: Subsidy Trackerhttps://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org

  9. Open Markets Institute: Amazon Monopolyhttps://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications/open-markets-amazon-our-years-of-work-to-address-amazons-monopoly-abuse

  10. NAACP: Sub-prime Lendinghttps://naacp.org/resources/discriminatory-sub-prime-and-predatory-lending-practices

  11. Urban Institute: Redlining Report (PDF)https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/Addressing%20the%20Legacies%20of%20Historical%20Redlining.pdf

  12. New Rules for Global Financehttps://newrulesforglobalfinance.org/democratic-governance-and-parliamentary-oversight-new-rules-for-global-finance-coalition/

  13. HBR: Surveillance Capitalismhttps://hbr.org/2019/01/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism

  14. SSRN: Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy?https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4292299


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