Check Fraud and The Fed

An irredeemable Federal Reserve Note is fundamentally similar to a check written with insufficient funds because both represent a promise that cannot be fulfilled. A check is a written guarantee that the payer has money in their account to cover the amount stated. If the check is written without sufficient funds, the promise is false — the check is a lie.

The Federal Reserve Note functioned similarly before 1933 (domestically) and 1971 (internationally), when it was redeemable for gold. At that time, holding a dollar was like holding a valid check — it was a promise backed by tangible value. When the gold standard was abandoned, the Federal Reserve continued to issue these notes, but now they were backed by nothing — akin to someone writing checks from an empty account.

Theft under the color of law occurs when those in power declare that this fraudulent practice is legal. If an individual knowingly writes a bad check, they are prosecuted for fraud. Yet when the Federal Reserve issues irredeemable notes — essentially bad checks in bulk — the act is treated as lawful simply because the government has sanctioned it. This double standard reveals that the system itself is fraudulent, with those controlling the monetary system exploiting their position under the guise of legal authority.

In both cases, the fundamental issue is the same: an empty promise designed to deceive, justified only by the false legitimacy of the issuer’s position.

In Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale’s success depended on his ability to exploit perception. His checks weren’t backed by real funds, but as long as banks and businesses believed they were, he could continue spending as if they had actual value. His crime wasn’t in forging worthless paper—it was in tricking the system into treating that paper as legitimate currency.

The Federal Reserve engages in the same deception on a national scale. When it issues irredeemable notes, it is functionally writing a check with insufficient backing. Yet, unlike Frank, the Fed never faces a reckoning because the legal system upholds the illusion. The dollar’s worth isn’t based on tangible assets like gold or silver but on collective belief, reinforced through law and enforcement rather than economic reality.

Frank’s checks passed because they looked the part and because institutions were slow to verify their legitimacy. Similarly, Federal Reserve Notes circulate because they are declared "legal tender" and because people delay questioning their actual worth. The critical difference is that when Frank’s fraud was discovered, his checks were no longer accepted. When the Federal Reserve’s fraud is exposed—when inflation surges or confidence collapses—the system does not hold it accountable. Instead, the burden of devaluation, economic instability, and debt falls on the public, who are left holding the losses just as banks and merchants were left with Frank’s bad checks.

In the movie, Frank’s fraud was limited in scale—he lived lavishly for a while, but eventually, the system caught up with him, and the damage he caused was contained. The Federal Reserve’s fraud, on the other hand, is infinitely more destructive because it is systemic, ongoing, and enforced by the very institutions that should prevent it. Instead of facing consequences, the Fed and those complicit in the deception are collapsing the world economy and eroding the fabric of society itself.

When law is replaced with crime, the inevitable result is chaos. A single fraudulent check can ruin an individual business, but when the entire monetary system is based on the same deception, it leads to a cascade of destruction—runaway inflation, financial crises, and the disintegration of trust between individuals, businesses, and nations. What Frank did on a small scale, the Federal Reserve does globally, except there is no higher authority to arrest it. Instead of being stopped, the fraud is protected, its consequences deflected onto the public, and the destruction continues unchecked.

This is the cost of replacing lawful money with a con—when theft becomes the foundation of an economy, the system doesn't just fail, it takes entire civilizations down with it.