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varian
03-30-2008, 09:48 AM
More on the FED.

... While millions of Americans look with awe to the Federal Reserve to protect the nation's financial well being, millions more mistrust the Fed, seeing it as an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite. ....

... the "Federal Reserve" – which is neither part of the federal government, nor does it rely on monetary reserves – is an unconstitutional, unelected cartel that literally creates the devastating problems it was supposed to prevent.

Today, the entire Western financial world holds its breath every time the Fed chairman speaks, so influential are the central bank's decisions on markets, interest rates and the economy in general. Yet the Fed, supposedly created to smooth out business cycles and prevent disruptive economic downswings like the Great Depression, has actually done the opposite.

"From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the burst of the dotcom bubble" in 2001, charges U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, "every economic downturn suffered by the country over the last 80 years can be traced to Federal Reserve policy."

While many Fed defenders claim it worked valiantly to prevent or minimize the ravages of the Great Depression, in reality the Fed caused the Depression and greatly increased the severity of its effects.

In fact, ... the Fed's new chairman, Ben Bernanke, admits that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the Great Depression. "We did it," Bernanke said, adding, "We're very sorry."

But the Fed's sins go way beyond the Great Depression. "Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy," said Paul, the congressman best known for his steadfast commitment to the U.S. Constitution.

"In addition," said the Texas Republican, "most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people."

... journey back to 1913, to a train on its way to Jekyll Island, just off the coast of southern Georgia, where America's wealthiest and most influential bankers got together in secret and hatched their plan for creating the private banking cartel that would control the American economy. It would deceptively be named the Federal Reserve to create the impression it is part of the federal government. ...

... how Americans' formerly gold-backed currency has been corrupted and much of their buying power lost, thanks to the Fed, and how this continues into the present.

Although today the governors of the Federal Reserve are literally the gods of the nation's money supply and financial policy, in previous eras of American history, leaders warned specifically against an unaccountable, unelected central bank:

* "I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." – Thomas Jefferson

* "Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." – Daniel Webster

* "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." – James A. Garfield

* "All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." – John Adams ...

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varian
03-30-2008, 10:01 AM
The FED's newest fix for the problems that the FED was instrumental in helping to create. It's a 'fox in the hen house' scenario.


Administration Pushes Regulatory Changes
Saturday March 29, 10:04 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Bush Administration Proposes Most Sweeping Overhaul of Financial Regulation Since Depression

... A plan set for release Monday would give new powers to the Federal Reserve so that the central bank serves as the system's overarching protector of stability. ...

... Many financial institutions have declared billions of dollars in losses stemming from soaring mortgage defaults caused by prolonged housing troubles.

In an unprecedented move designed to get credit flowing again, the Fed is allowing investment banks to borrow directly from the Fed, something only commercial banks had the power to do before.

That decision came as part of a rescue effort for Bear Stearns Cos., the nation's fifth largest investment bank. It nearly failed earlier this month before the Fed rushed in with a $30 billion line of credit to facilitate the sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase & Co.

The Fed's moves have put public money potentially at risk and increased calls for greater regulation of investment banks and other institutions. ...

... The Paulson plan would:

--designate the Fed as the primary regulator for market stability, greatly expanding its ability to examine any financial institution deemed to pose a risk to the stability of the system.

--shift the functions of the Office of Thrift Supervision to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, although ultimately the plan envisions just one banking regulator.

--merge the Securities and Exchange Commission with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

--create a national regulator for insurance companies, which now are largely regulated by the states.

--establish a commission to address the abuses exposed in the current tidal wave of mortgage defaults.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080329/fed_overhaul.html?.v=11