Introduction: Ron Holland is an author, financial expert, Austrian economist, entrepreneur and international business strategist who believes in a return to limited decentralized government like the Swiss Confederation and the former US Articles of Confederation. He has provided strategic business consulting and advisory services to numerous private and publicly traded companies over the past 42 years in diverse areas of finance and marketing including banking, trust department leadership and real estate, as well as in the investment industry, from broker and retirement consultant to president of a national investment firm. Selections of his essays can be found in the archives of LewRockwell.com and TheDailyBell.com.

Daily Bell: Thank you, Ron, for taking time to sit down with us today. You've contributed to The Daily bell for some time. Why did you make it a chosen platform?

Ron Holland: Although I have spent my entire working career in finance and investments, my real passion has been studying history as I am an information junkie. I always try to determine the truth of a situation rather than accept the usual whitewash fairy tale presented by government-funded historians to the general public. I started with World War II as a teenager and worked back to the First World War, the Civil War that actually wasn't a Civil War at all and finally back to the founding of America.

Thirteen years ago, a few weeks after the birth of my youngest daughter Heidi, I had to attend a financial conference at Oxford University in England and there I met a person who enlightened me about older European history going all the way back to the crusades. I came back home with a suitcase full of books and information and eventually I recognized a connection and hidden theme running throughout history in Europe and America which I kept to myself until I discovered the Daily Bell.

Since then I have primarily studied older history from the reformation and enlightenment back through the Templar period, the crusades and all the way back to the birth of Christianity back to the first civilization in Sumer where Iraq is today.

The Daily Bell is correct about an Anglo-American group of sometimes competing wealthy elites that have used the world as their chessboard and the wealth and lives of millions to generate more wealth and profits for them at our expense. The Middle East problems today, two world wars and the Cold War, the great depression and I fear a greater depression today and the end of debt-based regulatory democracy style governments have all been responses to their actions. The establishment news and historians are attempts at collateral damage control to cover-up the mess these elites have made while accumulating more wealth.

The Daily Bell attempts as far as I can tell to connect the dots and hidden history between financial elites and their actions to amass more wealth from productive people around the world. Today, the internet has opened the door to the truth for those who desire to understand the world around them and not a minute too soon.

I fear, we are approaching a period like World War One and the aftermath which will dramatically destroy and shift wealth, change governments and create wars and economic dislocation not seen since that time. We may have to live through a final Götterdämmerung of violence and economic dislocation as they make one last attempt to complete their plan of one world government and rule.

Only massive crises and wars can create such fear that freedom loving citizens will agree to give up their freedoms and wealth for security. The Daily Bell is right as only the Internet can by-pass the power of the establishment media to educate and prevent this from happening. The battle will be decided over the next decade one way or the other for future generations of Americans and Europeans as our prosperity is sacrificed for the greater wealth and rule of these elites. The Daily Bell is the only major Internet news site dedicated to the publication and explanation of these actions and this is why I'm proud to be personally involved.

Daily Bell: You contribute to LewRockwell.com. What do you think of what they have accomplished in terms of bringing Mises back – and encouraging free-market literacy generally? We think it's a great accomplishment.

Ron Holland: I have known and followed Lew Rockwell for well over two decades and he and Ron Paul are the only two leaders in the freedom movement who have never compromised their integrity and beliefs for short-term gain or public acceptance. This was so apparent following the super-patriotism and war fever following the 9/11 attacks.

In a nutshell, Mises and the Austrian School of Economics along with the current political, economic and financial views and opinions presented by Lewrockwell.com and their promotion of the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign are all that have really stood between the continued battle for the survival of the original American Dream of our nation's Founding Fathers and defeat. When most other think tanks and sunshine patriots caved and surrendered to political acceptance and crumbs at the table of Washington, they stood like a stonewall against the tide of media elite driven public opinion and manipulation.

They have held the enemy and now it is time for all of us to follow the example of another great man in American history, General Robert E. Lee: "Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less."

Daily Bell: Are folks such as those as the Mises Institute a hopeful sign for freedom? What are your primary concerns in the 21st century?

Ron Holland: My view is the efforts of Lew Rockwell and his columnists, Ron Paul and the Mises Institute almost singlehanded stopped the total takeover of the United States by the elites and their neocon quisling. Their goal was to use the United States, our wealth and soldiers to fight their wars of economic conquest to our last dollar and soldier.

My concerns for the 21st century revolve around this ongoing battle. We stopped the first assault – where we would have been defeated without the Internet – much like those at the Alamo stopped Santa Anna's first attack. Now we are surrounded and our enemies are desperate to finish off those of us who oppose their one world agenda, which is designed to reduce us to serfs and vassals.

Daily Bell: Are things getting worse or better for free markets? When did you start to understand what was taking place in terms of creeping global authoritarianism?

Ron Holland: "Freer-markets" are doing better in much of the world especially Asia but worse for the overly indebted Western Europeans and Americans. I'm embarrassed to say that I spent far too much time studying history and financial markets and not enough effort looking at the world around me and creeping global authoritarianism so I was late to the game. The Daily Bell and Anthony Wile's book, High Alert helped me understand the battle that is happening all around us today. Life in the world today is sort of like the Matrix movie and personally for a long time I was unable to see the forest for the trees.

Daily Bell: You were in banking at the beginning of your career. What was that like?

Ron Holland: I was in the trust department and I must say the job and the people were as boring as watching grass grow, but I had a great boss named Gary. He gave me total freedom to do whatever I wanted so there I created the first gold IRA in the United States and this provided a way out of banking. I went to work for James Blanchard down in New Orleans where I discovered Mises, hard money and freedom oriented people and products.

Daily Bell: Is America growing less free and less competitive? What is the American securities industry like at this point?

Ron Holland: Yes, America is indeed far less free and less competitive as we really don't produce products anymore. I let my securities licenses expire back in 2001 but if you want to know what the securities industry is really up to just watch the financial news.

Many Americans believe cable business channels are unbiased presenters of financial and investment news but nothing could be further from the truth. The financial channels are just paid cheerleaders and promoters for Wall Street and the global banking elites. This is their function and although some unbiased commentary and advice does come through along with the propaganda and market stats, usually when a few experts get too fair and balanced and forget their real jobs as celebrity commentators and showman, they are read the riot act and have to fall in line.

The securities industry is highly regulated and it might surprise you but I believe we need real regulation over these activities to protect the unsophisticated general public. The problem is most regulations do little to protect the investment public, remember Madoff and Enron and actually exist to protect the favored players note, "flash trading profits" from new domestic and foreign competition. It is a closed cartel that exists primarily to siphon off excess funds from Americans who have money left after paying their bills and taxes and nothing more.

Daily Bell: What will happen to the dollar? How about the euro?

Ron Holland: Again, not to sound too extreme but I believe the dollar is doomed and we could see a zero loped off within the next decade … i.e. maybe a 90% depreciation in the dollar. This is why I urge Americans to diversify their investments outside US markets and the dollar.

The future of the euro depends on the survival of the European Union and I'm very opposed to this forced union never voted on by the citizens of most member nations and created and controlled by the Anglo-American elites. Frankly, it has served as a dumping ground for bad bonds and mortgage backed securities as well as a protected opportunity for underwriting national debt obligations and debt securities and this has become profit bonanza for the Wall Street banks.

Germany and the German people need to wake up as the real threat isn't to Greece, Ireland, Spain or Italy but Germany itself. Once again, the hardest working people and the leading economy of Europe, may well find their future prosperity destroyed and their political stability threatened by this second illegitimate debt levied on a proud and industrious people by foreign banks and elites controlling their nation.

Heck, they just finished this year paying off the totally trumped up and illegal war debt from World War One back in 1918. France and Great Britain to pay off their First World War debts to the American banking establishment used this. Is Germany is falling into the same trap again?

Will the people of Germany awake and ever learn and finally oppose another sell-out to foreign bankers? They should remember what happened last time this took place. Angela Merkel may well turn Germany into another Weimar Republic if she doesn't stand up for her country.

I believe in sovereign nations and sovereign states and voluntary unions. Confederation style national governments are necessary to create real freedom and prosperity. We need to look at the success of Switzerland and not continue to emulate the top-down forced unions by bayonet or supra-national structures.

If the citizens of the nations of Europe want to form a trading zone and create a common currency to compete with national currencies, I'm all for it. But what the EU is doing is creating the platform for a gigantic financial fiasco to happen. And it's the German people will pay the price for all the national debt created by the politicos in Brussels whose kickback schemes and support of Wall Street bond scam artists seem never ending. Pat Buchanan, said it best in an essay earlier this week titled "European Union: R.I.P."

Daily Bell: What is the driving force behind the decline and fall of the West?

Ron Holland: Our failure to know the truth about our history, traditions, culture and people is a primary reason for the fall of the West. Robert E. Lee said it best, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today." The establishment has successfully hidden our history until the explosion of the history and information Internet. It is news sites like The Daily Bell, Lew Rockwell and historians like Tom Woods and Tom DiLorenzo that give me hope for the future.

Daily Bell: What can be done to stop it? Is America a doomed empire?

Ron Holland: No I don't think America is a doomed empire. Freedom and prosperity may be doomed in the short-run because of Washington and Wall Street but our enemies and occupiers should never underestimate the will and power of an angry and frustrated American people. We will resist the loss of our liberties and the destruction of our wealth and the American Dream of our patriot founding fathers.

I think the best way to restore the American Dream is to go back to the basic limited government structure created by our founding fathers. This was our first government, The Articles of Confederation somewhat similar to the Swiss Republic today. We need to restore state and eventually individual sovereignty under a voluntarily confederation of sovereign states.

Daily Bell: Should America withdraw its troops overseas? Will it?

Ron Holland: Generally yes. However there are spheres of influence, including shipping lanes and bases in nations we haven't conquered or occupied in recent decades, where we could with permission, by duly elected representative governments, retain bases for defensive purposes.

Almost all of our oversees military deployments today are there for economic reasons relative to certain special interest industries or lobbying groups and they do not defend America or make us safer. In fact, our recent actions to conquer and support puppet governments in countries formerly British controlled protectorates stolen after the Treaty of Versailles is just business as usual by the Anglo-American elites which rule over us.

Daily Bell: Will the US win the war in Afghanistan? Why is the US there?

Ron Holland: Well the several thousand-year history of the area would indicate we will not win in Afghanistan as it really is the graveyard of empires. Why we are there of course is obviously to capture Bin Laden dead or alive and avenge the 9/11 attack. Just kidding! I don't have a clue why we are there now but I'll bet it has something to do with surrounding Iran and keeping tabs on Pakistan's nuclear weapons, which I believe really are at risk of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. I did support the original invasion following 9/11 and still wish the perpetrators of 9/11 will be caught and receive what they deserve.

Daily Bell: Will there be a war with Iran? And if so, why?

Ron Holland: I have thought the US and or Israel would attack Iran for over two years now but I've been wrong. Why? Because Iran which hasn't invaded another nation for hundreds of years and was invaded by Anglo-American forces in both World Wars resists us and is sitting on a ton of oil resources. All wars are economic, in my opinion, and they have resources that were controlled first by the British and later the United States before the Shah was overthrown. Having said this, I'm not a big fan of Iran or the Middle East in particular, other than perhaps Turkey. America and other nations would have turned a blind eye to the region – just like we have in most of Africa if it weren't for the oil and the presence of Israel.

Daily Bell: What is the point of these wars? Was President Bush sincere in starting them?

Ron Holland: I believe Chaney, Halliburton and big oil had far more to do with our intervention in the area than Bush. The point of the wars, starting with the war criminal Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran and his use of gas, was the purported build up and existence of "weapons of mass destruction." Bt in my opinion it has always been about oil resources more than anything else.

Daily Bell: Was the Civil War the turning point for American civilization? Has America been getting less free for centuries?

Ron Holland: No, it was the turning point for maintaining a limited de-centralized government but not for American civilization. The right of peaceful democratic state-by-state secession, as taught at West Point and believed by most Americans North and South, offered the best resistance to tyranny. Remember there were several secession movements in New England prior to the lawful secession of the Southern States.

The right to nullify actions of the federal government and the right of states to voluntarily withdraw their membership in the voluntary union was and still remains the best defense against a powerful central government in the US and in Europe. Every people and regional area should have the right to leave and declare their independence – just like we did in our original Declaration of Independence!

I believe America has been getting less free since Woodrow Wilson who I rank the second worst president in our nation's history but only for part of the population. Native Americans and African Americans are far more free and better off now than earlier in our history and I applaud the progress our nation has made in this regard. It didn't take a war to do this as the evil institution of slavery was dying a natural death here as elsewhere but again like all wars, this war was primarily economic in nature.

The war was a political war but for economic consequences. The power of the southern states in Congress had to be destroyed in order for the domestic banking elites and the agents of the Rothschild banking dynasty to create a powerful central government. Following the destruction of the South and Southern power in Congress, these interests could move forward with a central bank and the income tax in 1913.

My Quebec friend, John Remington Graham, in his book, Blood Money – the Civil War and the Federal Reserve, presents the best discussion of this in my view. The book is available on amazon.com and I hope The Daily Bell will interview him in the future. He is also the author of A Constitutional History of Secession.

Daily Bell: What about the European Union? Is the EU doomed?

Ron Holland: I certainly hope so, at least in its present form. We have already discussed this and I hope it is reestablished as a voluntary decentralized organization like the Swiss Confederation and America's first legitimate government, The Articles of Confederation. There is nothing wrong with nations working together for economic or even political reasons but when elites arbitrarily give away national sovereignty without the people having a say in the action, this is morally wrong.

Daily Bell: Can austerity save the EU? Is austerity coming to the US?

Ron Holland: Voluntary or legislative austerity is impossible with the current "mob rule" democracy is present in every western government except for Switzerland. There the rights of referendum and initiative still give power to the people rather than unions, financial or other interests in most areas.

The European nations need to return to control by their citizens rather than the EU, which as we have seen in recent days has been propped up and supported by billions in bailout funds – ultimately at the blinded expense of the American taxpayers and future generations of Americans. This secret, manipulative and destructive bailout mechanism is certainly a financial crime against the American people and I hope, but severely doubt, that proper justice will be served.

Daily Bell: Will the Fed's reflations save the US economy? Is the Fed necessary for the US?

Ron Holland: The actions of the Federal Reserve have certainly lengthened the period of the collapse while slowing what could have been a total meltdown of the markets in 2008. I personally believe doing nothing and getting everything over quickly would have been the best solution both in ultimately preserving our wealth and liberties but only time will tell.

I don't think the Federal Reserve is absolutely necessary for the US economy, as I would prefer to see a full currency competition and some type of limited central bank entity controlled by the voters rather than powerful and secretive banking interests. It is easy to be anti-Fed, as the institution in its current form only represents wealthy banking elites, but earlier this year at FreedomFest (www.freedomfest.com) I moderated a panel of distinguished anti-Fed types and even a former Fed Reserve Bank governor about what to do after we abolished the Fed.

I was looking for answers but no one really had any idea about what to do after the fact. I want to see the Fed abolished but replaced with something accountable to the people along with free-market currency competition. I think this is the best we can hope for but I'm open for suggestions.

Daily Bell: What will happen to Ben Bernanke if Ron Paul takes over the committee supervising the Fed?

Ron Holland: This will be a great educational opportunity for the American people and a somewhat humbling experience for the Fed Chairman and I'm looking forward to this happening. Still anything could happen to the committee and Ron Paul before then as the power elites want to prevent the spreading of the truth about the Federal Reserve and their insane monetary policies at all costs. I ask all readers to pray for the safety and health of Congressman Ron Paul and that is all I will say on the subject.

Daily Bell: If the Fed is somehow reduced in power and size, will it make a difference?

Ron Holland: Yes any meaningful reduction in power, authority and size would be positive for the United States and negative to those who control our nation and seek to tax and confiscate our wealth through dollar depreciation. Anything would be an improvement over the out of control central bank that has been ripping off productive Americans by reducing the value of the dollar by upwards of 98% since 1913.

Daily Bell: What are you doing now? Update us on your activities. You work in Europe and America. Contrasts?

Ron Holland: I must admit that I really enjoy what I'm doing now. I've been retired from the investment industry since 2001 and today I write for a number of publications including LewRockwell.com, The Daily Bell and the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter.

I love talking and writing about politics, history and about what is happening in America today and how current policies and social structures threaten the wealth and remaining liberties of all Americans. I also like to look for and educate fellow Americans and concerned citizens of other nations about possible "private solutions" to these "public problems." And that is why, while recognizing the importance of helping people to understand the destructiveness of what is happening around us, it is ultimately creating profit opportunities for investors outside the US and the dollar that give me a higher sense of import.

I love Europe and especially Switzerland as well as the culture and history. The unique and successful Swiss form of confederation government and direct democracy is the new model the West should follow, in my opinion. I hope someday to again reside and work in the greatest nation in the world, the Helvetian Confederation.

I also love my country, the United States of America and like the low prices that will exist in the US for a little while longer until the dollar collapses along with regulatory democracy. But I refuse to submit to those who would sentence our posterity to permanent serfdom and poverty for an illegitimately created national debt and an all-powerful federal government.

Frankly, I do what I do for the future of my children and grandchildren and in remembrance of the bravery of the earlier generations who gave their lives resisting Great Britain and the later Washington invasion of the Southern states.

Finally, I want to say thanks to The Daily Bell and all of the elves who work together to restore liberty, free-market solutions and sovereignty to Europe and America. God willing we will resist the Anglo-American elites plan for an all-powerful one world government designed to benefit only the them, their central banks and other special interests.

Daily Bell: Any other comments?

Ron Holland: Every month or so I privately visit the burned shell of historic Sheldon Church near Charleston, South Carolina.

It was one of the Lowcountry′s most historic and beautiful churches but all that is left are four brick columns, some historic brick walls and the graveyard, as this house of worship was burned twice in the 300 years of its existence.

The church was first destroyed by the British in 1779 but rebuilt following the American Revolution. Later, this peaceful church was again burned by the American War Criminal, General Sherman in 1865 but never rebuilt as the economy in this rural area never recovered from the devastation of Sherman's March To the Sea.

Now when I visit this quiet, sacred ground I think of all the wars and destruction caused by the British and American financial elites. This twice-burned church serves as an example their endless wars of aggression often targeting civilian targets from the 1700's until present around the world.

Today, like my forefathers before me in two wars, I pledge to peacefully resist their efforts through educational efforts and political action. Yes, they may well bankrupt our nation due to the national debt and they will likely destroy our currency and take our remaining wealth and freedoms in their frenzy to continue their activities for a while longer. But thanks to the Internet and defenders of freedom like Ron Paul, Anthony Wile and Lew Rockwell, these elites will never destroy our will to resist.

I'm Ron Holland, and I represent another generation resisting the Anglo-American financial elites since 1775.