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100 Years Is Enough: Time to Make the Fed a Public Utility
Posted on Dec 22, 2013
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt
December 23rd, 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed?
The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century.
Thwarting Populist Demands
The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in response to a wave of bank crises, which had hit on average every six years over a period of 80 years. The resulting economic depressions triggered a populist movement for monetary reform in the 1890s. Mary Ellen Lease, an early populist leader, said in a fiery speech that could have been written today:
Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . Money rules . . . .Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. . . .
We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out.
That was what they wanted, but the Federal Reserve Act that they got was not what the populists had fought for, or what their leader William Jennings Bryan thought he was approving when he voted for it in 1913. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/100_years_is_enough_time_to_make_the_fed_a_public_utility_20131222
annabanana
(52,791 posts)If more people understood the damage the Fed's policies are doing, and what good COULD come from it...
kaPOW
WillyT
(72,631 posts)jazzimov
(1,456 posts)The Libertarians have been trying to shut down the Fed forever. Despite the fact that it has saved our collective economic @ss several times.
marmar
(77,091 posts)This is about re-missioning the Fed, not shutting it down.
Third Way claptrap.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)The thought of giving more control of the Fed to a potential Republican majority is no better than half-fast schemes of doing away with the fed altogether. Nixon's interference with the Fed and the insistence of trading inflation for growth created the stagflation of the 70's. Like it or not the Fed needs to be a quasi government agency free to make decisions independent of political considerations.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)ancianita
(36,137 posts)Congress? They're recessed. The President? He's vacationing. Just wondering. I urged at least a year ago for a movement to press for this government to shut down the Fed, but the "end the Fed" gang have been eerily silent for months now about that. What gives.
RB TexLa
(17,003 posts)be able to collect the collateral property to try to recoup my money? Why would anyone ever lend anyone money?
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)in fact, you wouldn't be able to loan money.
We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out.
It would be the government making loans, not private individuals/businesses. Why should individuals have that kind of power over another? To foreclose, to collect interest, to hold the power of 'the purse'? They may not be 'fair'. They may not take other factors into consideration, and only focus on the money... greed does that to people, I hear.
Think about it, wouldn't it be great? You could get your car loan, and your tag and registration done in the same office. Your home mortgage, your home owners insurance, and your mail forwarded to the new address all at the same place. Not the same time, for sure, you would have to go stand in the separate lines, and someone will be with you as soon as the next clerk comes available.
RB TexLa
(17,003 posts)be able to foreclose on property? Why would anyone pay them back?
Wouldn't they just put those people who don't in jail? That's worse than having to lose a house or car you aren't paying for and have no right to have.
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)It wouldn't be right for the government to throw people in jail for not paying their debts, that's medieval. We don't want a nation filled with debtor prisons... I guess society will just have to absorb the costs. Raise taxes, cut expenses to people who don't neeeeeed it, and forgive the loans/debt.
Oh, wait, I know. This can all be resolved through tax subsidies. Based on a borrower's AGI, they would receive a credit up to and including 100% of the loan 'payment'. If a tax payer has the means to pay the loan, but doesn't, then they would face penalties through the IRS. That takes foreclosure out of the picture, and makes the jail time a matter of tax evasion.
RB TexLa
(17,003 posts)Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)That was the entire point of...
We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)doesn't think my new business venture is a "good risk"? Anyone who needs to borrow money will HAVE TO go to the government for it. I see this system as having some serious potential issues as well as the potential for a significant abuse of power as well.
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)I wonder if this line of reasoning could be expanded to other areas.
I'll have to think on it and get back to it later. Gotta turn in, have a doctor's appointment early tomorrow.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)1. All revenues are banked at the Fed and they in turn let the government borrow that tax money, running up the interest. When you get your tax refund at the end of the year that money is again borrowed to the government and we pay interested on that refund. This is why the IRS will penalize you if you pay in too little and pay in way too much. They want a Zero tax return so we, the people, don't jack up the interest rate.
Did ya'll see the figure on page 2? In 26 years, we've paid the Fed $9 Trillion in interest on a $17.6 Trillion debt. That is almost 50% interest and what do we see - massive unemployment, jacked up interest rates on credit cards and no interest being paid on bank accounts.
Yea, time for the Fed to be nationalized and become a Central Bank instead of 12 private banks that "allow" us to borrow money at shyster rates.
solarhydrocan
(551 posts)is it that private central banks issue the public currency as a loan at interest when the Constitution allows the Government to do the same thing?
The public currency must return to being a public utility, as it was when this nation was founded.
Dennis Kucinich: Federal Reserve No More "Federal" Than Federal Express!
SEN.BERNIE SANDERS-AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE!!
It's not a left/right issue, it's an American issue. And the American people are running out of time!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you. People need to understand that the game is rigged from the very start, from the very structure of the Fed.
In a sovereign nation that can print its own currency, there is no reason other than corruption for the banks to play the role of interest-sucking middleman that they do. The way the system is rigged, there is no possible outcome other than their enrichment and the impoverishment of others.
The central banks create money with the push of a button. They then charge interest for every bit of money that enters the system. The people can never pay back more than was created in the first place. When we cannot pay it back, the banks then come for our very real assets....our houses and cars and everything we own.
Wake the hell up, America.
Henry Ford had it right about a system he profited from:
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Henry Ford