Thursday, January 31, 2008

Daddy, Where Does the Money Come From?

By Carolyn Baker

A review of the documentary "Money As Debt" by Paul Grignon

The U.S. government is on a 'burning platform' of unsustainable policies and practices.

David Walker, U.S. Comptroller General

Anyone who hasn't watched "Money As Debt," an animated DVD by Paul Grignon, should consider purchasing this extraordinary explanation of money's origin in an economy totally dependent on debt. Almost everyone has seen footage of federal printing presses cranking out paper money, and some of us have even visited a government mint or two and have observed the process firsthand. But like so many other illusions with which the U.S. economy is replete, money is not created by government printing presses.

During the first few minutes of "Money As Debt" I began feeling my eyes glazing over in anticipation that I would soon begin viewing photo footage instead of animation. I then realized that I, like the masses of Americans who demand that every video experience provide them with entertainment, was unconsciously holding the same expectation. I then promptly hit the rewind button and started over, this time listening and watching attentively.

"Money As Debt" is not entertainment-far from it. The film offers amazingly elementary facts about the creation of money in the United States, narrated by a soothing voice, which could make for a bland presentation, yet the film's message is anything but vapid. In fact, if it doesn't leave your blood boiling, it behooves you to check your vital signs.

Beginning with the most fundamental question of all, Grignon asks: Where does money come from? The answer to this question will almost never be found in grammar school-or even college. What we aren't told in formal education is that money is created by central banks.

Banks create money, not from their own earnings or from the funds deposited by customers, but from the borrowers' promises to repay loans. Most importantly, borrowers not only promise to repay, but to repay with interest, and the bank writes the amount of money of both into the borrower's account.

Grignon opens with a story from antiquity. In the days before paper money, goldsmiths produced gold coins and kept them safe for the purchaser in the same way that banks hold deposits today. These goldsmiths soon noticed, however, that purchasers rarely came in for their actual gold and almost never all at the same time. So the gold merchants began issuing claim checks for the gold which made the exchange of gold in the marketplace easier and less cumbersome. Thus, paper money was born which made doing business much more convenient. Eventually, goldsmiths began loaning money to customers and charging interest on the loans, and borrowers began asking for their loans in the form of claim checks. The goldsmith shared interest earnings with depositors, but since no one actually knew how much gold he was holding, he got the idea that he could lend out claim checks on gold that wasn't actually there and soon started becoming enormously wealthy from the interest paid on gold that didn't exist.

Thus began the power to create money out of nothing, but it wasn't long before bank runs began, and banking regulations evolved regarding how much money could be lent out. However, the regulations allowed a ratio of 9 to 1-that is, banks could lend out 9 times the amount of the deposits that were already there. This policy has come to be known as Fractional Reserve Banking. Regulation also arranged for central banks to support local banks with emergency infusions of gold, and only if there were many runs at once would the system crash.

Fast forward to 1913 when that so-called progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, signed into law the Federal Reserve Act which created the banking cartel now in charge of America's money system. For those who have not seen Aaron Russo's DVD "From Freedom To Fascism" run don't walk to see or purchase it. It is required viewing for understanding the Federal Reserve System and the power it has over the U.S economy and over our individual lives. Very few Americans know how money is created and even fewer know how the Fed originated and what it actually does. Does anyone really believe this is an "accident"? As the media guru Marshall McLuhan is reported to have said, "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity."

Whereas U.S. paper currency used to be backed by gold, that is no longer the case, and we have instead a fiat currency backed by nothing except the word of the Federal Reserve that the money is worth its stated value. Moreover, money today is created as debt, that is, money is created whenever anyone takes a loan from a bank. In fact, every deposit becomes a potential for a loan-a process which can be and is repeated many times, ultimately creating infinite amounts of money from debt.

Whereas the 9 to 1 ratio reigned at the beginning of banking regulation, today in some banks, ratios are as high as 20 to 1 or 30 to 1, and frighteningly, some banks have no reserves at all!

The bottom line is that banks can create as much money as we can borrow!

One wonders how individuals, banks, governments, and other entities can all be in debt at the same time, owing astronomical amounts of money. This question is answered when we consider that banks don't lend actual money; they create it from debt, and since debt is potentially unlimited, so is the supply of money.

But what is so wrong with this scheme? Hasn't it been working all these years? Actually, there are several things very wrong with it.

The first issue is that the people who produce the real wealth in the society are in debt to those who lend out the money in that society. Moreover, if there were no debt, there would be no money.

Most of us have been taught that paying our debts responsibly is good for ourselves and for the economy. We imagine that if all debts were paid off, the economy would improve. In terms of individual debt, that's true, but in terms of the overall economy, the exact opposite is true. We are continually dependent on bank credit for money to be in existence-bank credit which supplies loans. Loans and money supply are inextricably connected, and during the Great Depression, the supply of money plummeted as the supply of loans dried up.

Secondly, banks only create the amount of the principal of loan. So where does the money come from to pay the interest? From the general economy's money supply, most of which has been created in the same way.

A visual image is helpful. Imagine two pools of water-one full and one empty. The pool with water in it represents the amount of the principal of a loan; the empty pool represents principal plus interest. The pool of principal has only a certain amount of water in it, so that it can't possibly fill up the other pool of principal plus interest. The rest of the water needed to fill the pool doesn't actually exist and has to be acquired from somewhere.

The problem is that for long-term loans, the interest far exceeds the principal, so unless a lot of money is created to pay the interest, a lot of foreclosures will result. In order to maintain a functional society, the foreclosure rate must be low, so more and more debt must be created which means that more and more interest is created, resulting in a vicious and escalating spiral of indebtedness. Furthermore, it is only the lag time between the time money is created to the time debt is repaid that keeps the overall shortage of money from catching up and bankrupting the entire system. It takes only a few second of reading the headlines of the financial pages during this month, August, 2007, to notice that foreclosure rates and lag time are threatening to meltdown the entire U.S. economy. The preferred method of the Federal Reserve and central banks addressing this calamity is, yes, you guessed it: to create more debt. The lowering of interest rates in recent years, the bombardment of credit card applications we find regularly in our mailboxes, the red ink in which the United States government is drowning are all an attempt to stave off the collapse of the entire system.

Can any sane human being believe that this situation can persist forever? What is the inevitable outcome of a fiduciary game of musical chairs? Monetary historian, Andrew Gause, answered this question:

One thing to realize about our fractional reserve banking system is that, like a child's game of musical chairs, as long as the music is playing, there are no losers.

And finally, a system based on fractional reserve banking is, to say the least, not sustainable because it is predicated on incessant growth. Perpetual growth requires perpetual use of resources and the constant conversion of precious resources into garbage just to keep the system from collapsing.

Grignon suggests that in order to begin addressing and resolving the nightmare of money as debt, we must ask four pivotal questions:

•1) Why do governments choose to borrow money from private banks at interest when governments could create all the interest-free money they need themselves?
•2) Why create money as debt at all? Why not create money that circulates permanently and doesn't have to be perpetually re-borrowed in interest?
•3) How can a money system, dependent on perpetual growth, be used to build a sustainable economy? Perpetual growth and sustainability are fundamentally incompatible.
•4) What is it about our current system that makes it totally dependent on perpetual growth? What needs to be changed to allow the creation of a sustainable economy?

A crucial assumption that must be questioned is the practice of usury or the charging of interest for lending money. Grignon asserts that it is a moral and a practical issue because it necessarily results in lenders ending up with all the money, particularly when foreclosures happen. Not only is debt deplorably profitable for lenders in terms of interest and service charges, but when borrowers cannot pay, as in the case of housing foreclosures, lenders walk away with the proceeds. In a recent article "Panic On Wall St.", Andrew Leonard explains how obscenely advantageous subprime and liar loans have been for lenders and provides damning evidence to support the long-time assertions by Catherine Austin Fitts that the housing bubble has been engineered by centralized financial systems.

In a transformed economy, which I do not anticipate happening in the twenty-first century, banks would exist as non-profit services to society-lending without charging interest at all. But, as Grignon says, if it's the fundamental nature of the system that's causing the problem, then tinkering with the system can't solve the problem. It must be replaced.

One solution might be the replacement of paper dollars with precious metals, which of course, could once again become cumbersome and inconvenient, unless the economic system had experienced collapse and digital and paper transactions were no longer possible.

Perhaps the best solution offered by "Money As Debt" is the creation of locally-based barter money systems in which debt is repaid by hours of work valued at a dollar figure. Additionally, government spending on infrastructure, not using borrowed money, would also create value locally and nationally.

The Federal Reserve banking cartel has been shrouded in secrecy and lack of information among the American people regarding its creation and functioning. One American president appeared to have understood it very well:

Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

~James Garfield, 20th President Of U.S.
Assassinated, 1881

"Money As Debt" is not only a must-see for any American who wants to be politically and economically literate, but is particularly crucial for high school and college students to see in order for them to understand how the money works in the United States. Yet we should not assume that the film's simplicity of presentation ranks it as less than adult because most adults in this nation are clueless regarding the connection between money and debt.

I personally hold no hope of changing the money/debt system which is truly the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the American economic landscape. What I do envision, and what must happen, in my opinion, is its total collapse, whether gradual or sudden, so that the transformation and relocalization of the nation's economic system will be possible, which it is not in the current milieu. However, what we are presently witnessing in the bursting housing bubble and credit crisis may well be the beginning of the end of "money as debt."

The Federal Reserve System

TIM SOUTHERN

The Federal Reserve is an organization with which many American's are completely unaware and few fully understand. Yet this organization does as much, or more, to influence the lives of the American public as do the President or Congress. Why and by whom the Federal Reserve was created, who runs and controls this organization and what purpose they serve has been obscured, by design, from the American public.

Most Americans believe that the Federal Reserve is part of the American government since the word "Federal" appears in its name. However, the Federal Reserve is no more Federal than Federal Express. It is not a government institution but in reality is a private bank that enjoys a government mandated monopoly on the Nation's money supply. In actuality, the entire name Federal Reserve is a misnomer. It is neither Federal nor is it a Reserve of anything. If you wish a simple verification of this fact, turn to your phone book. Check the blue listings of government organizations and you will discover no listing for the Federal Reserve. You will however find a listing for them in the white pages.

The "Fed", as they have come to be known, is a unique organization that has created for itself a very special niche. Since it is not a Government organization then surely it must be a private corporation, right? Wrong. The Federal Reserve is not incorporated, has not filed as a privately owned business, not filed as a partnership of any kind, nor has it ever registered its name as a fictitious name for business purposes. The Federal government does not list them as a government agency, it does not respond on a daily basis to Congress, nor is it subject to congressional action. So just what is the Federal Reserve? No one is really quite sure. They cannot be classified as either public or private. Yet, the "Fed" is, quite probably, the most powerful organization in the world.

The Federal Reserve operates under a tightly veiled blanket of security answering to no one, including the President or Congress. However, since it has complete and absolute control over our money, this means it wields a tremendous amount of power over all of us. In order to unders tand how the banking system has perverted itself, into a corrupt, power-mad entity hell bent on economically enslaving us all, we must examine the evolution of American banking.

Origins of the American Banking System

In 1792, the Coinage Act created the American monetary system, establishing the dollar as the basic unit of exchange. The dollar was defined as 24 3/4 grains fine gold, and the silver dollar as 416 grains standard (892.4 fineness). However, oddly enough, the act didn't establish a mintage of a gold dollar. Instead, it called for gold pieces in denominations of $10, $5, and $2.50, silver coins in $1, $0.50, $0.25, $0.10, and $0.05, and a copper cent ($0.01) and a half-cent ($0.005). The Nation's first mint was created in Philadelphia and it began the production of the gold, silver, and copper coins. With a few exceptions, this was the last period of American history when the American government was in charge of the their own honest monetary system.

At this point in history, the international banking agents were already in control of the national banks of Britain, Germany and France. They were already practicing their craft of financial manipulation, inflation and deflation, to swamp those nations with debt and rob the wealth of its Citizens. Many of the Founding Fathers, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were determined not to allow the international bankers to control the economy of their fledgling nation. However, others among the Founders, most notably Alexander Hamilton, were already in collusion with the international bankers who were greatly worried about the possibility of the United States having a free, honest and independent monetary system.

The London Times printed an editorial regarding America's attempts to make the creation of money a free Constitutional concern: "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in the North American Republic, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government MUST be DESTROYED or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."

Jefferson fought Hamilton relentlessly over the issue of who would control the new Nations money supply, but it was Hamilton, backed by the influence of the international bankers, who prevailed. Hamilton, aided by a Federalist majority in Congress, succeeded in establishing the First United States Bank in 1791. The bank was extended a 20 year charter. When the banks' charter came up for renewal in 1811, a much different political climate existed. James Madison was now President and the overwhelming majority of Federalists in Congress had been broken by the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Madison vetoed the bank's charter renewal and the Federalists did not have the power or clout to override his veto. The First United States Bank was dissolved and nationalized.

Unfortunately, before Madison could put into place a sound monetary system to replace the now defunct First United States Bank, the second war with England erupted (1812-14) and in order to finance the war, Madison was forced to capitulate to the international bankers and allowed the creation of the Second United States Bank. The Second U.S. Bank operated, in principle, much the same was as the Federal Reserve does today. The bank was permitted to issue (loan) currency to the Government at interest up to three times their gold (or silver) reserves. However, the bank paid little attention to the reserve limitations as greedy politicians, eager to borrow more money to increase their spending, did not hold them accountable for their lending policies and the bankers were only too happy to lend it to them.

Following the conclusion of the war of 1812, the bankers created a climate of extremely easy credit, money and inflation. This was accomplished by keeping interest rates artificially low while increasing the available money supply. Because of this ease of credit and expanding money supply, farmers and business borrowed heavily to expand their operations. This had the effect of creating a period of almost hyper-inflation and the prices of many goods quadrupled during the period of 1812 to 1819. However, the U.S. was being set up for a fall and in 1819 the bankers pulled the rug out from under the American public. Credit was withdrawn, money supplies were allowed to dry up, loans were called and the bankers created one of the first artificial depressions in American history. Hundreds of thousands of farmers lost their farms, many businesses went bankrupt and the bankers were there to foreclose on them all. The national debt, the interest on the money created by the bank and loaned to the government, mounted.

Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828, running on a platform of populism. One of the campaign promises he made was remove the strangle hold the international bankers, through the National bank, had over the American government and the Citizens of America. Jackson kept his promise and refused to renew the charter for the Second United States Bank.

In a speech to Congress, Jackson said of the National bank and its internationalist banking backers: "You are a den of vipers and thieves and I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out ... The bold efforts that the present bank has made to control the government, the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it. ...if the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning."

Lincoln said of the international bankers: "The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes." ... "I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in my rear is my greatest foe."
This brings us to the current international bankers attempt to control the American people and their economy. This latest regeneration of the National banking scheme has been far more successful than the previous two.

The Federal Reserve Conspiracy

Of all the legislation that Congress has even enacted, without a doubt, the Federal Reserve act is the most corrupt, deceitful, dishonest and harmful to the American people. It was a conspiracy most grand -- a plan to control the Nation, and indeed the world, by the manipulation of its finances.

The first stage of the plan took place in 1907 when the bankers began to refuse to pay on demand of depositors and also refused to pay in cash for checks. There was a core collusion of several city banks that force smaller rural banks to follow suit because these banks had themselves deposited their funds in the larger more stable city banks. It didn't take long for this action to reach its desired effect, massive panic and dissatisfaction among the American people with the present bank system. Calls for reform and government intervention were heard from near and far. The Government decided it needed to act.

The conspirators already had their Bill drafted and this artificial banking panic lead to the passing of the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act of 1908. This Act, while taking measures to address the supposed banking problems, more importantly to the conspirators set up the National Monetary Commission. This commission, consisting of 16 Congressman hand-picked by Aldrich, was charted to study monetary systems and recommend long term solutions to the Nations "banking problems".

In November of 1910, the conspirators where planning for their grand coup. They came together at Jekyl Hunt Club, Jekyl Island, Georgia, to plan the take over of the American government. Those in attendance included: Senator Aldrich, Nelson Rockefeller's maternal grandfather; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Frank Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank of New York, Paul Moritz Warburg, a German who was acting under orders from and financed by the Rothchild family; and Benjamin Strong, an aid of J.P. Morgan; and a host of others, representing the power elite of the banking world.

Realizing that whomever controls the volume of money in any nation is absolute MASTER of all industry and commerce, this group set upon its task of controlling the Nations money supply. As Mayer Amschel Rothchild, the grand master of international banking, was quoted:"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws". Of the three methods of conquest of a Nation and its people: Military force, Religious control, or Economic control; economic conquest is the easiest to maintain, especially when it is done without the knowledge of those being conquered.

Senator Aldrich introduced into Congress in January, 1911, the fruits of the Jekyl Island meetings: the plan to establish yet another private, for profit, national bank that would have absolute and unquestionable control of the Nation's money supply. It was the German Rothchild representative Paul Warburg who coined the name: Federal Reserve, a title the he suggested would deceive the American people and the rest of Congress into believing it was a governmental institution that was to be created. In newspaper articles of the time, proponents declared that the Federal Reserve Act would:

* Be a government agency;
* Establish an elastic sound monetary system;
* Prevent the recurrence of panics and depressions;
* Make inflation or deflation impossible; and
* Provide adequate funds for continued economic growth.

All these assertions are blatant lies or at best vast distortions. From among the opponents of the Bill, one lone voice was heard above the rest in objection to this scheme: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Sr. (the father of the famous flyer). Lindbergh understood the nature of what the conspirators had put together and declared that what this Bill constituted was the overthrow of the American government and a scientific basis for the creation by artificial means, inflations and depressions, which would eventually steal the wealth from the American people. Lindbergh was quickly discredited and did not live long thereafter.

These conspirators then set about to make sure that they had a favorable executive branch who would not oppose the Federal Reserve Act. They found their patsy in Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Party nominee for President in 1912. Once small problem remained: Wilson didn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of being elected since the Republicans were then in the majority. The conspirators, needing to split the Republican vote, approach and eventually recruited Theodore Roosevelt to organize a splinter group of Republicans: The Bull Moose Party. With the Republican vote effectively split, Wilson was able to win the election with only 42 percent of the vote.

Over the Christmas recess, when barely enough Congressmen were available to achieve a quorum, certainly what little opposition existed was no where to be found, the Federal Reserve Act was passed (December 23, 1913). Wilson signed the legislation into law the very same day. Despite his campaign promise to veto the measure and the democratic platform that called for opposing a private National bank.

The story of this conspiracy and the intricate details of how this coup was accomplished is far too complex to address in the limited space available to me here. However, a number of works exist that have well researched and in-depth exploration of this National disgrace and I will include a bibliography of some of these works at the end of this article. I encourage all who reads this to research this issue farther. Money and currency is, indeed, the most important issue of any Nation. As John Adams said in 1787:

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."
It is this ignorance that has lead us to the be the virtual economic slaves to the international banking interests.

The National Debt

During the election of 1992, for one of the first times in our history, the National debt was a highly debated topic for the candidates. However, not a single one of the major party candidates ever bothered to tell the truth about the debt, where it came from, to whom it is owed and how the majority of it could be eliminated virtually overnight.

For all the talk of the National debt, the average American Citizen knows next to nothing about it. For every debt, you must have a debtor (the American Government) and a debtee (The Federal Reserve) to whom the debt is owed. You have just learned more about the National debt than 9/10th's of the Nation. To whit, the National debt is owed to the private institution known as The Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the power to coin and regulate the Nations money supply to a private concern that would operate on a for-profit basis. This was clearly a Constitutional violation of Article I, which specifically conveyed this power to Congress and Congress only. To illustrate how the Nation's money is created at profit; the United States Treasury is still responsible for the printing of the Nations paper currency. However, under the provisions of the Federal Reserve Act, it is not considered to be "money" after the Treasury has minted it. Instead, this paper is sold to the Federal Reserve at the rate of slightly more than $20.00 per 1 million bills, regardless of denomination. How this paper becomes "money" is for the Federal government to borrow it from the Federal Reserve. But this money, since the Federal Reserve is a private for-profit organization, is borrowed at interest. Did you catch that? The Treasury Department (that we pay for) prints the bills, sells them to the Federal Reserve for next to nothing, then the Government borrows back this paper at face value plus interest!

It is the principle plus interest on the Nation's money supply that is termed: The National Debt. In addition to the interest on the "money" loaned, interest is accrued upon the interest itself (compound interest), helping to farther inflate the National Debt. And the real trick of the game the Federal Reserve plays, it's master coup upon the American people, is that the debt CAN NEVER BE PAID OFF because the interest amount is never created.

To better understand this, lets simplify the actions of the Federal Reserve system and the Nation's money supply. Suppose the Nation's money supply consisted of only $1,000,000.00 ($1m). It's the first year of America and this $1m figure was all that was needed to run the Government and private sector concerns. Using the principles of the Federal Reserve Act, the United States Treasury would print $1m in various denominations and sell them to the Federal Reserve, who would in turn loan then at interest back to the Federal government. To keep the math simple, let's suppose the terms of the loan called for 10% annual interest with the principle and interest payment due after one calendar year.

The American government spends the $1m into circulation and the economy grows during the next year. When the calendar year has ended, the Federal Reserve comes calling looking for its pay off of the loan. So, after one year the Federal Reserve is due $1.1 million ($1 million principle and $.1 million interest on the loan). There exists only one little hitch in this scenario... from where does the interest "money" come from? The Treasury only printed $1m but the terms of the loan called for interest to be paid on the principle. It is, therefore, impossible for this loan to be paid off. The only option the Government has is it to borrow more "money" to cover both the interest payment on the original loan as well as whatever additional funds are needed to keep the economy growing. As so it goes.... the National debt mounts and over time will become a virtual exponential increase, until the Nation no longer possess the means or tangible assets to cover the interest payments and secure additional loans. The term for this is BANKRUPTCY. This Nation is on the verge of bankruptcy and financial collapse because the American people and our "leaders" were ignorant as to the nature of coin, credit and circulation.

The Final Solution

There does exist a method of salvation, a measure that can be tak en to pull America back from the brink of collapse. This measure, while requiring several steps, would mainly consist of performing the same action as our forefathers did when their National banks attempted to enslave the American people: dissolve them. The Federal Reserve Act should be repealed, today, this minute. The National debt could them be Nationalized and, with the exception of that small portion due private investors, the debt should be written off because of the fraud the Federal Reserve and its international backers have perpetrated upon the American people.
In order to prevent this situation from ever occurring again, a pair of Constitutional Amendments should be adopted that would strengthen Article I by a) prevent Congress from creating a National bank and, unconstitutionally, turning over its obligation to coin and regulate currency, b) forever more bar from Congress the power to borrow and c) prohibit the use of fiat currency and return this Nation, permanently, to the Gold Standard.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

How to Survive - and Profit from - the Coming Currency Recall by Rice & Ciabatoni, LibertyTree Press
Lindbergh on the Federal Reserve by Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr, The Noontide Press
The Federal Zone by Mitch Modeleski, Account for Better Citizenship
Bashed by the Bankers by Byron Dale, Pro-American Educational Foundation
The Federal Reserve and Our Manipulated Dollar, Liberty Lobby