The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

Content Warning: This section includes discussion of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In this section, Griffin recounts antisemitic conspiracy theories that claim that the Rothschild family came to be massively influential in Europe’s political circles due to their control of the banking industry. He repeats several discredited theories about the roles of central banks and loans in England’s campaign against Napoleon and how that paved the way for the Rothschilds to become indispensable to England.

Griffin argues that the Rothschilds and those like them crafted a strategy to make sure governments stay in debt to support financiers. He calls this plan “The Rothschild Formula.” This formula is based on a set of conclusions that could be reached by a man motivated primarily by self-interest and an awareness that government debt benefits the financial sector: that war encourages government debt because a government at war will do anything to ensure victory and avoid destruction; and that perpetual war or threat of war maintains government debt and financial supremacy to top bankers. According to Griffin’s theory, to make sure of the threat of war, financiers can fund both sides of the conflict. Only in the case that a nation refuses to operate on debt is one side allowed a decisive victory.