Notable People's Thoughts on the Federal Reserve System

[Jonny_trigonometry]

So, what are your thoughts on the Federal Reserve? I'll start the thread with some notable people's opinions on the Fed, and related to the Fed.

“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

"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President
[Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized...the worst
legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill." -- Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. 1913

"From now on, depressions will be scientifically created." -- Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

"It is well that the 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

"People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest ...But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond let's the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. If the currency issued by the People were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan". - THOMAS A. EDISON

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” – James Madison

“The national debt is founding in fraud perpetrated on the United States by the international banking interests. The best solution to national debt and social security is for the United States to stop allowing a corporation to print money and charge us interest to do it. The Federal Reserve should be abolished as a starting place to liberate the United States from false dependencies.” – Andrew Jackson

“My agency in promoting the passage of the National Banking act was the greatest financial mistake in my life. It has built up a monopoly which effects every interest in the country”. – Salmon P. Chase – Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury

“Before passage of this Act, the New York Bankers could only dominate the reserve of New York. Now, we are able to dominate the bank reserves of the entire country.” – Senator Nelson Aldrich – On the Passage of the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank

“The Government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles.. the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.” – Abraham Lincoln

“If this mischievous financial policy is which has it’s origins in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedence in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy ever monarchy on the Globe. “ – Times of London - In response to Lincoln printing “Green Backs”.

"A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world--no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." --President Woodrow Wilson

After previous attempts to push the Federal Reserve Act through Congress, a group of bankers funded and staffed Woodrow Wilson's campaign for President. He had committed to sign this act. In 1913, a Senator, Nelson Aldrich, maternal grandfather to the Rockefellers, pushed the Federal Reserve Act through Congress just before Christmas when much of Congress was on vacation. When elected, Wilson passed the FED. Later, Wilson remorsefully replied, "I have unwittingly ruined my country"


So, it's well established that many people with deeper understanding of money and our country abhor the Federal Reserve banking system, and fractional reserve banking. What Is my opinion? I would say that I'd have to agree with them, Thomas Edison said it best. I disagree with a gold backed money system, because gold is easy to monopolize, I agree with a central banking system, but I disagree that it should be in private hands and thus controlled by private interests (the money changers). If we had a pulbic central bank that utalizes a fiat money system, it would be a dream come true, we'd have greenbacks again!

 

[Pengwuino]

Why didnt you leave any space for those who support the system?

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

they don't deserve it. To support it is to claim that you have more understanding than all those who I quoted.

 

[wasteofo2]

they don't deserve it. To support it is to claim that you have more understanding than all those who I quoted.

All of your quotes are from far before, or nearly directly after the Federal Reserve Act was passed. All of these figures are far removed from our present state of being. What centralized monetary institutions were in the 1700's and 1800's, and what figures from those periods thought of them, don't necessarily reflect the reality of what one specific centralized monetary institution has become in the year 2005. What was said about the Federal Reserve before WWI doesn't reflect what it has become in 2005.

If you're building a case against the ideal of centralized monetary institutions, that's one thing, but to take general statements like those of Jefferson, made hundreds of years ago, and apply them to a very specific current institution is really just ridiculous.

You're quoting attacks against a system which is no longer as it was when the attacks were made. It'd be like me saying Mao must be unseated, for he is ruining China, or trying to incite people to topple the British government, because in 1856, it was un-democratic.

Why not bring up some evidence of current malevolence perpetrated by the Federal Reserve, and build a case off of that?

Furthermore, times have changed since Edison, and unless I'm horribly mistaken, we aren't on the gold standard anymore...

 

[Pengwuino]

they don't deserve it. To support it is to claim that you have more understanding than all those who I quoted.

So your saying no economist has ever had a positive few on central banks? Or are you saying that people who disagree with you are not worthy of having an opinion?

 

[wasteofo2]

So your saying no economist has ever had a positive few on central banks? Or are you saying that people who disagree with you are not worthy of having an opinion?

I think what he's saying is that since people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn't like centralized government institutions, and Thomas Edison didn't like the gold standard, that we shouldn't like the Federal Reserve in 2005.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think its confirmation bias...

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I think what he's saying is that since people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn't like centralized government institutions, and Thomas Edison didn't like the gold standard, that we shouldn't like the Federal Reserve in 2005.

Do you know that the Federal Reserve is not a government institution?

All those quotes are relevant, because they show the personality of those who run the Federal Reserve, the money changers. Those are the people that instutited the Fed. they tricked Wilson into signing it into law. The only affiliation it has with the governemnt is that it's board of directors are all appointed by the government, but that is eaisly controlled by lobyists which are paid by the money changers if not government officials directly paid off in some way by the money changers.

I also put those quotes up so that you don't have to take my word for it, that the Fed has more power than you may think.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

So your saying no economist has ever had a positive few on central banks? Or are you saying that people who disagree with you are not worthy of having an opinion?

no, you're just putting words in my mouth. Are those people who i quoted all economists? Did I say anything against central banks? Read the first post more carefully, I was pointing out that privately owned central banking systems are not good, not simply central banking systems in general.

Just forget my quick reply that "they don't deserve it". It was made out of angst, the way I see it, to argue for it is to argue for something morally wrong in my opinion, like slavery. You'll just have to forgive me on that because it is an opinion based on my morals. Granted we are talking about morals here, so my normative claim would be: "It is good to acknoledge a hard worker by not charging him/her an arbitrarily chosen amount of interest for using the money you issue him/her. It is better to let him/her (the people, aka government) decide how to issue their own money. It's not in the interest of the nation to answer to a private power, it ought to be free to decide for itself."

 

[wasteofo2]

Do you know that the Federal Reserve is not a government institution?

With your logic, you could say that the State Department or Judiciary isn't a government institution.

All those quotes are relevant, because they show the personality of those who run the Federal Reserve, the money changers. Those are the people that instutited the Fed. they tricked Wilson into signing it into law. The only affiliation it has with the governemnt is that it's board of directors are all appointed by the government, but that is eaisly controlled by lobyists which are paid by the money changers if not government officials directly paid off in some way by the money changers.

They show what individuals from times far removed from our own thought about the money changers of their day. It doesn't show anything about the current Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is of course largely independent of the rest of the government, but if you're going to charge that it's controlled by lobbyists, then presents evidence, not steryotypes about money changers from the 1800's.

I also put those quotes up so that you don't have to take my word for it, that the Fed has more power than you may think.

I'd prefer to take someone's word who is presently alive and knows how the Federal Reserve is currently behaving. Though I'm well aware how immensely powerful the Federal Reserve is. The whole Federal Government is crazy powerful, and it's no secret that the Chairman of the Fed is the second most powerful man in Washington.

 

[wasteofo2]

Granted we are talking about morals here, so my normative claim would be: "It is good to acknoledge a hard worker by not charging him/her an arbitrarily chosen amount of interest for using the money you issue him/her."

If you want to have a discussion like that, say it in your first post, define the parameters and your terms, and maybe people will actually know what you're talking about.

 

[Pengwuino]

You are the one who said people who disagree with you don't deserve an opinion. You even admitted that you said it. I don't see how that is putting words into anyones mouth.

But let's think about this for a second. I'll ignore your comment about it being akin to slavery as that is very disrespectful to those who faught slavery or were slaves themselves. Imagine a private bank that was not allowed to make interest on their loans. How does the bank stay in business? How does it pay its employees? What is your standing on the idea that customers can receive interest on their bank accounts in a bank? If you want to do away with banks all together, how do economies move forward? How does the common man ever afford to buy a house if he has to pay in full up front? How bout a car even? You can't say monthly payments because that again is a form of banking...

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

geez, I didn't think speaking out against the Fed would be this diffacult on this website. I haven't got anyone else's opinion about it, I guess I'm the only one that disagrees with the way the fed works then huh?

Money changers haven't changed. Thier description is timeless, their mentality is focused on making money, they don't care about doing the right thing. The right think to them is the business venture which renders the most profit.

I don't feel that I have to explain why I said what I said in previous posts, just say it then, you think the Fed is doing the right thing. What is your opinion? Attacking me means that you either have looked past the whole idea of this thread, or you agree that a privately run central bank is good.

 

[wasteofo2]

geez, I didn't think speaking out against the Fed would be this diffacult on this website. I haven't got anyone else's opinion about it, I guess I'm the only one that disagrees with the way the fed works then huh?

Money changers haven't changed. Thier description is timeless, their mentality is focused on making money, they don't care about doing the right thing. The right think to them is the business venture which renders the most profit.

I don't feel that I have to explain why I said what I said in previous posts, just say it then, you think the Fed is doing the right thing. What is your opinion? Attacking me means that you either have looked past the whole idea of this thread, or you agree that a privately run central bank is good.

The reason people are "attacking" you is becuase you just started a rather nonsensical thread making unfounded attacks against an institution you appear to know very little about beyond simple prejudices.

If you feel you don't need to defend your positions, why did you even bother sharing them? If you're satisfied with your simple prejudices against central banks, then why come to a forum (where discussion is inherent), and not just be happy with your own ideas?

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

You are the one who said people who disagree with you don't deserve an opinion. You even admitted that you said it. I don't see how that is putting words into anyones mouth.

But let's think about this for a second. I'll ignore your comment about it being akin to slavery as that is very disrespectful to those who faught slavery or were slaves themselves. Imagine a private bank that was not allowed to make interest on their loans. How does the bank stay in business? How does it pay its employees? What is your standing on the idea that customers can receive interest on their bank accounts in a bank? If you want to do away with banks all together, how do economies move forward? How does the common man ever afford to buy a house if he has to pay in full up front? How bout a car even? You can't say monthly payments because that again is a form of banking...

You don't understand that I'm not trying to do away with the banking system. You show your lack of understanding of where money comes from. 90% of the money in the country is fake, ie. it doesn't exist. This is because of fractional reserve banking. Imagine you're a banker way back in the day, and you let people store their gold in your safe, after a while you realize that people don't ask for it back that often, and they trade their recipts that you issue them which say that they have so and so amount in your safe. You then decide to use this to your advantage, and let people borrow money from you at an interest (even though you personally don't have any extra money to lend, since its all the property of the people who trust you with it). Have you not committed a crime? You have just used someone elses money to make money. What if everyone wanted to take their money back, you wouldn't be able to pay every one back, because you lent out more than you have. On top of that you're charging people interest on that money that doesn't even exist. Well this is the status quo of the way the Fed does business. It lends money that it doesn't have out to banks around the nation and charges them interest. Those banks then (by law) are allowed to lend out up to 90% of it, so if everyone wanted their money back, they wouldn't be able to pay it back, hence, they create money out of nothing, and charge us an amount of interest on it (to their liking).

All money comes from bonds issued by the government to the Fed, which then charges the governemnt interest on the money it issues to banks. This is an unnecessary step when the government can issue money directly to the banks. Thats what greenbacks were, and if Lincoln didn't mandate that money system, it's likely that the north wouldn't have won the war. And My referance to slavery is more eaisly understood now, we are (so to speak) slaves of the private interests of the Fed.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

The reason people are "attacking" you is becuase you just started a rather nonsensical thread making unfounded attacks against an institution you appear to know very little about beyond simple prejudices.
If you feel you don't need to defend your positions, why did you even bother sharing them? If you're satisfied with your simple prejudices against central banks, then why come to a forum (where discussion is inherent), and not just be happy with your own ideas?

Tell me where my understanding of the Fed is incorrect. Do you feel you don't need to defend your positions? If you're satisfied with your simple prejedice against my opinion, then why spend your time attacking me rather than just be happy with your own ideas? If you're in the know about how our money system works, then go ahead and show me why I'm wrong.

Again, I'm not attacking central banking systems, just privately owned ones.

I dont' think you really know what I'm talking about, and there is no need for us to argue, I retract my second post because it struck a nerve. I should've explained things step by step until i made that comment. This is touchy subject and I shoul've started talking about it incrementally rather than all at once. there is so much to get your mind around with this topic that it can't all be explained in specific way. The Fed is just a consequence of money changers in their effort to own as much as possible, maybe I should've started a thread about money changers and their evolution through history to the present. on their way they have made many advances, the Fed is one of them but it wasn't the first of its kind, the Bank of England was the first privately owned central banking system. Notice the common way of naming these institutions, which make the citizens think that they have something to do with the government. Then there is the world bank, and the IMF... let's just talk about the Fed, and how it works then, if anyone wants to anymore.

 

[Pengwuino]

Have you not committed a crime? You have just used someone elses money to make money. What if everyone wanted to take their money back, you wouldn't be able to pay every one back, because you lent out more than you have. On top of that you're charging people interest on that money that doesn't even exist. Well this is the status quo of the way the Fed does business.

I'm not sure you understand what you are saying. When you put money (or in your analogy, gold) into a bank, you do so with the understanding that your money will be used to fund loans and investments. In return, you receive interest on your money (or gold). This also has nothing to do with lending money out (not sure why you tried to make such a connection). When you lend someone $100,000, you physically give them $100,000. That is $100,000 out of hte banks hands. Now if this money doesn't exist, I'm sure mortgage lending companies around the world would have noticed by now. You also seem to misunderstand the borrowing ratio the Fed uses. When a bank wants to borrow money, it must have 10% of that money on hand. I believe it's like what we know as a down payment although I'm not really sure if that's the best analogy...

The money is there, bank's can't just magically create it... it's just not where layman would think it is.

 

[wasteofo2]

Tell me where my understanding of the Fed is incorrect.

First of all, every quote you used to critique the Fed is horribly outdated; everyone of your sources is dead, and know nothing about how the Fed operates.

You said the Fed isn't part of the Government, but showed no evidence. Again, it's like saying the State Department isn't part of the Government.

You said that the Fed is controlled by lobbyists, but showed no evidence.

Do you feel you don't need to defend your positions?

I do not. However, I didn't really state any of them, besides that you shouldn't attack a modern institution with quotes from people who died before it was even created.

If you're satisfied with your simple prejedice against my opinion, then why spend your time attacking me rather than just be happy with your own ideas? If you're in the know about how our money system works, then go ahead and show me why I'm wrong.

I don't have a prejudice against your opinon. I'm not an ardent Fed supporter. I haven't put in very much time into thinking about whether or not the Fed is as good as an alternative must be. All I'm saying is that you presented a very shoddy case arguing your point that really wasn't even a case of any sorts. You're just adding in all sorts of things as this is progressing, people are pulling your ideas out of you like dentists pulling teeth, when you should've presented your ideas in a cohesive manner at the beginning so we could have a decent discussion.

Again, I'm not attacking central banking systems, just privately owned ones.

You didn't say this till quite a bit into the thread. Please explain how privately owned central banking systems are any differently than publicly owned central banking systems.

Furthermore, please explain how it is "a crime" for bankers to lend out people's money? That is the entire principal of a bank. If you want to literally keep your exact money, you buy a safe. Putting it in a bank says that it's alright for the bank to lend it out, and that you get an interest rate on your deposited money. Yes, it's true that if everyone wanted all their money back they couldn't get it in cash, but this is true of any system of banks, publicly or privately owned. Simply because there isn't enough physical cash to cover all the money in the banking system, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just all invested in many various things.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I'm not sure you understand what you are saying. When you put money (or in your analogy, gold) into a bank, you do so with the understanding that your money will be used to fund loans and investments. In return, you receive interest on your money (or gold). This also has nothing to do with lending money out (not sure why you tried to make such a connection). When you lend someone $100,000, you physically give them $100,000. That is $100,000 out of hte banks hands. Now if this money doesn't exist, I'm sure mortgage lending companies around the world would have noticed by now. You also seem to misunderstand the borrowing ratio the Fed uses. When a bank wants to borrow money, it must have 10% of that money on hand. I believe it's like what we know as a down payment although I'm not really sure if that's the best analogy...
The money is there, bank's can't just magically create it... it's just not where layman would think it is.

That 10% figure you pointed out is called the reserve ratio, it doen't have anything to do with the amount of money in the bank's safe, but rather the amount of money in balances. So since those balances can't be paid off with the money in their safe, they are borrowing money that they can't "physically" claim.You can't say that mortgage companies know that the money is real simply because they use it, after all, if they have numbers in their account, it must be real right? It comes down to the fact that money is simply what is accepted by people using it. When a bank doesn't have enough money in the safe to pay out all the accounts it holds, it doesn't have any money to lend. Yet it does lend money, and charges interest.

Now change your thinking for the local bank you do business with to the Federal reserve. They are the last say in where money comes from, so in their perspective, they physically don't have the money that they lend out with interest to the government.

 

[wasteofo2]

You can't say that mortgage companies know that the money is real simply because they use it, after all, if they have numbers in their account, it must be real right? It comes down to the fact that money is simply what is accepted by people using it. When a bank doesn't have enough money in the safe to pay out all the accounts it holds, it doesn't have any money to lend. Yet it does lend money, and charges interest.
Now change your thinking for the local bank you do business with to the Federal reserve. They are the last say in where money comes from, so in their perspective, they physically don't have the money that they lend out with interest to the government.

Money exists outside of the dollar bill. Money exists in equity, money exists in shares of stock, money exists wherever there is value. There is no intrinsic "money" quality within a green piece of paper, our government just arbitrarily deems them to have value, and because of the backing of our government, people value them. Banks do not hold all their equity in the form of paper money, because they need to invest money to earn money, and investment of money is necessary to be able to pay an interest to those who have deposited their money with you. If banks held everyone's money on site, then there couldn't be any interest paid to those who deposit their money in the bank, and there would be no point at all to a bank.

I had honestly thought this issue was burried after FDR dealt with the banking crisis...

 

[GENIERE]

…You show your lack of understanding…

I’m not a big fan of the FR but I suggest you improve your own understanding of the system. Finals are approaching; so far you have scored 0.0%

…

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

First of all, every quote you used to critique the Fed is horribly outdated; everyone of your sources is dead, and know nothing about how the Fed operates.

You said the Fed isn't part of the Government, but showed no evidence. Again, it's like saying the State Department isn't part of the Government.

You said that the Fed is controlled by lobbyists, but showed no evidence.
I do not. However, I didn't really state any of them, besides that you shouldn't attack a modern institution with quotes from people who died before it was even created.I don't have a prejudice against your opinon. I'm not an ardent Fed supporter. I haven't put in very much time into thinking about whether or not the Fed is as good as an alternative must be. All I'm saying is that you presented a very shoddy case arguing your point that really wasn't even a case of any sorts. You're just adding in all sorts of things as this is progressing, people are pulling your ideas out of you like dentists pulling teeth, when you should've presented your ideas in a cohesive manner at the beginning so we could have a decent discussion.

You didn't say this till quite a bit into the thread. Please explain how privately owned central banking systems are any differently than publicly owned central banking systems.

Furthermore, please explain how it is "a crime" for bankers to lend out people's money? That is the entire principal of a bank. If you want to literally keep your exact money, you buy a safe. Putting it in a bank says that it's alright for the bank to lend it out, and that you get an interest rate on your deposited money. Yes, it's true that if everyone wanted all their money back they couldn't get it in cash, but this is true of any system of banks, publicly or privately owned. Simply because there isn't enough physical cash to cover all the money in the banking system, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just all invested in many various things.

I think we're making progress here. So you agree that the total balances in all banks isn't physically there in the safe. Why do you think this came to be? Is there not enough cotton and polyester to print all the cash? I would argue no, it's because the way things are done actually introduces money out of nothing. All the money in all the accounts is mostly just a bunch of hot air, but since people accept it as real, all the sudden there is a bunch more money to use to lend to people and charge them interest. To me, I think its a bad thing to put people in debt with money that you don't even have. Sure some people can make an interest on the money they put into the bank, but you may already know that the average american is indebt about 18,000 bucks. Everyone has a mortgage payment right? Don't tell me that just because a person gains interest on a savings account that means that they don't have a mortgage payment.

The fed is not a government institution, and I don't need to provide evidence because anyone who has researched this will know that it is privately owned, so this shows that you haven't researched as much as i have so far. I can't offer incriminating evidence that the Fed's directors are chosen by government officials for reasons that make both parties rich, but I can offer arguments. If I went and found a bunch of tidbits about how so and so took someone to lunch or to a meeting at a 5 star hotel in italy via a private jet or something, you might not regard that as evidence of so and so's ability to persuade the other person to vote for a specific person to the Fed's board of directors.

At least I hope I've inspired you to research the fed, and come to a conclusion of wether or not you think it's good or bad.

By the way, I did make the distinction between private and public central banks in my first post

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I’m not a big fan of the FR but I suggest you improve your own understanding of the system. Finals are approaching; so far you have scored 0.0%
…

oh, so you're in a position to judge my understanding? What do you know about how it works? why do you adamently reject my arguments?

 

[Pengwuino]

I’m not a big fan of the FR but I suggest you improve your own understanding of the system. Finals are approaching; so far you have scored 0.0%
…

That was rather childish to say the least...

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

Money exists outside of the dollar bill. Money exists in equity, money exists in shares of stock, money exists wherever there is value. There is no intrinsic "money" quality within a green piece of paper, our government just arbitrarily deems them to have value, and because of the backing of our government, people value them. Banks do not hold all their equity in the form of paper money, because they need to invest money to earn money, and investment of money is necessary to be able to pay an interest to those who have deposited their money with you. If banks held everyone's money on site, then there couldn't be any interest paid to those who deposit their money in the bank, and there would be no point at all to a bank.

I had honestly thought this issue was burried after FDR dealt with the banking crisis...

ok, so you're saying tha fractional reserve banking is needed in order that banks throughout the nation can keep doing what they are doing? Yeah, that's a valid argument. I don't know what you mean when you mention that FDR did something to bury this issue.

This is true, what you describe is how things are done in banks, and you describe that money is simply a measure of what people value. What I'm claiming is that the Federal reserve is not a good thing because it is privately owned (by money changers of course).

 

[Pengwuino]

ok, so you're saying tha fractional reserve banking is needed in order that banks throughout the nation can keep doing what they are doing? Yeah, that's a valid argument. I don't know what you mean when you mention that FDR did something to bury this issue.

This is true, what you describe is how things are done in banks, and you describe that money is simply a measure of what people value. What I'm claiming is that the Federal reserve is not a good thing because it is privately owned (by money changers of course).

One of the major flaws of the banking system manifested intself during the Great Depression where you did indeed have a run on the banks. FDR passed legislation that really fixed these problems, that is what he is talking about. Also, the Fed, like wasteofo2 said, is about as privately owned as the Supreme Court.

 

[wasteofo2]

Johnny, the money isn't made up, and it's not that hard to understand. It isn't some grand plot against America or anything, it's just how banks work. I think about 1/3 of the total money in the U.S. economy is actually represented by paper bills, the rest is invested. The government could do whatever they wanted in regards to printing money, and could print it all, but the fact is that the extra bills printed would be useless and just take up space in bank vaults or whatever, since that money would still be used for investments.

During the Great Depression, everyone wanted to take their money out of the banks. As you've noted, banks don't literally have all the cash they're liable for. As a result, many banks closed. This scared people, and caused them to make sure they rushed all their cash outta the bank before their bank closed and left them with nothing. Naturally, more and more banks closed. FDR declared a national banking holiday, and all banks were closed. He then got on the radio and explained to all Americans exactly how the banking system works, where the money really is, and why they shouldn't feel the need to take all their money out. Then FDR and the Congress initiated Federal backing of bank deposits up to a certain amount (I forget exactly what amount), and that amount has substantially risen since. Look this up and see if you can find a copy of FDR's actual fireside chat. It'd go a long way to helping you see what's actually going on.

What I was saying was I thought FDR explained all of this already, you just don't understand how the banks work, and I'm way too tired to really get into it.

By the way, I still think it's ridiculous for you to say the Fed is privately owned. Show me some evidence damnit. You can't make an outlandish claim that there's this shadow organization of private "money-changers" who underhandedly control the Federal Reserve and then treat it as if you're saying something obvious, like Peanut Butter has Peanuts. That's a very extreme claim, and with an extreme claim, the burden of proof lies on you.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

nope, it is a private bank. Owned by investors, the investors can't make the decisions of the Fed by law (the 1913 federal reserve act, which they pushed into existence), but they can lobby the government to appoint members to it's board that see things the same way as them. It is in their interest to be viewed as part of the government, because the people will think that the fed does everything in the interest of the people.

FDR made permenant changes in that he started social security, the WPA, and other public works projects. He also did temporary things which were needed at the time to basically improve the confidence of the american people in their banks, thus giving them the faith to make deposits, and not make runs on the banks. This didn't eliminate fractional reserve banking though, it just made things so that it can work more efficiently. Some think that fractional reserve banking is okay, in fact a good thing because it puts a bunch more money into the economy, but where does it put the money? In the hands of banks, which use it to lend to people and charge interest to their liking. It may be that fractional reserve banking creates money out of nothing (ie. with no labor involved to back it's value), but that doesn't make it right. It gives more power to those who hold the money over those who use the money. When you take things up to the top, the Federal reserve is a kind of bank that has only one client, the american government. They can choose to restrict or increase the amount of issuance, controling bank runs, and untimately having the power to create a banking crisis, which then FDR had to try to solve.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=federal+reserve+privately+owned&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/frcourt.html

 

[Pengwuino]

Find some better sources jonny, generic google searches and websites trying to sell you something don't cut it around here (or well, besides this subforum :P)

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

what about the court case which proved it to be privately owned?

Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982)What source do you want? isn't Wikipedia good enough?

This may all be new to you, so by all means, research research research

Let me reiterate my main arguemnt. The nation ought to issue currency to its own people, because there is no intermediary that charges interest for their service in this task. All that extra interest is more dibilating than meets the eye, and can be averted by doing something similar to greenbacks (money directly issued to the people). The nation needs a central fiat (not based on gold or silver or anything tangeble) money system, but it doesn't need it to be in private hands.

All this talk about fractional reserve banking is an aside. It would still exist after a changeover to a public federal reserve, but could be dealt with in different ways then, and instead of putting the extra money into private banks, it could (by a change of law)go towards paying for government programs like social security and pay off national debt.

 

[loseyourname]

You want to pay for government programs using the money that people put in banks? Then what happens when someone wants to make a withdrawal? You tell Jonny Retiree to give back his social security check for that month? Or are you saying that interest should continue to be charged, but go toward paying government programs?

 

[sid_galt]

All of your quotes are from far before, or nearly directly after the Federal Reserve Act was passed. All of these figures are far removed from our present state of being. What centralized monetary institutions were in the 1700's and 1800's, and what figures from those periods thought of them, don't necessarily reflect the reality of what one specific centralized monetary institution has become in the year 2005. What was said about the Federal Reserve before WWI doesn't reflect what it has become in 2005.

Alan Greenspan blaimed the Federal Reserve for putting too much money in the market and becoming the architect of the Great Depression in his essay Gold and Economic Freedom of the 1966. Here it is. The essay is under free domain.

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense-perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire-that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.

Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that commodity which serves as a medium of exchange, is universally acceptable to all participants in an exchange economy as payment for their goods or services, and can, therefore, be used as a standard of market value and as a store of value, i.e., as a means of saving.

The existence of such a commodity is a precondition of a division of labor economy. If men did not have some commodity of objective value which was generally acceptable as money, they would have to resort to primitive barter or be forced to live on self-sufficient farms and forgo the inestimable advantages of specialization. If men had no means to store value, i.e., to save, neither long-range planning nor exchange would be possible.

What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. First, the medium of exchange should be durable. In a primitive society of meager wealth, wheat might be sufficiently durable to serve as a medium, since all exchanges would occur only during and immediately after the harvest, leaving no value-surplus to store. But where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible.

More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable. Wheat is a luxury in underfed civilizations, but not in a prosperous society. Cigarettes ordinarily would not serve as money, but they did in post-World War II Europe where they were considered a luxury. The term "luxury good" implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron.

In the early stages of a developing money economy, several media of exchange might be used, since a wide variety of commodities would fulfill the foregoing conditions. However, one of the commodities will gradually displace all others, by being more widely acceptable. Preferences on what to hold as a store of value, will shift to the most widely acceptable commodity, which, in turn, will make it still more acceptable. The shift is progressive until that commodity becomes the sole medium of exchange. The use of a single medium is highly advantageous for the same reasons that a money economy is superior to a barter economy: it makes exchanges possible on an incalculably wider scale.

Whether the single medium is gold, silver, sea shells, cattle, or tobacco is optional, depending on the context and development of a given economy. In fact, all have been employed, at various times, as media of exchange. Even in the present century, two major commodities, gold and silver, have been used as international media of exchange, with gold becoming the predominant one. Gold, having both artistic and functional uses and being relatively scarce, has always been considered a luxury good. It is durable, portable, homogeneous, divisible, and, therefore, has significant advantages over all other media of exchange. Since the beginning of Would War I, it has been virtually the sole international standard of exchange.

If all goods and services were to be paid for in gold, large payments would be difficult to execute, and this would tend to limit the extent of a society's division of labor and specialization. Thus a logical extension of the creation of a medium of exchange, is the development of a banking system and credit instruments (bank notes and deposits) which act as a substitute for, but are convertible into, gold.

A free banking system based on gold is able to extend credit and thus to create bank notes (currency) and deposits, according to the production requirements of the economy. Individual owners of gold are induced, by payments of interest, to deposit their gold in a bank (against which they can draw checks). But since it is rarely the case that all depositors want to withdraw all their gold at the same time, banker need keep only a fraction of his total deposits in gold as reserves. This enables the banker to loan out more than the amount of his gold deposits (which means that he holds claims to gold rather than gold as security for his deposits). But the amount of loans which he can afford to make is not arbitrary: he has to gauge it in relation to his reserves and to the status of his investments.

When banks loan money to finance productive and profitable endeavors, the loans are paid off rapidly and bank credit continues to be generally available. But when the business ventures financed by bank credit are less profitable and slow to pay off, bankers soon find that their loans outstanding are excessive relative to their gold reserves, and they begin to curtail new lending, usually by charging higher interest rates. This tends to restrict the financing of new ventures and requires the existing borrowers to improve their profitability before they can obtain credit for further expansion. Thus, under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth.

When gold is accepted as the medium of exchange by most or all nations, an unhampered free international gold standard serves to foster a world-wide division of labor and the broadest international trade. Even though the units of exchange (the dollar, the pound, the franc, etc.) differ from country to country, when all are defined in terms of gold the economies of the different countries act as one--so long as there are no restraints on trade or on the movement of capital. Credit, interest rates, and prices tend to follow similar patterns in all countries. For example, if banks in one country extend credit too liberally, interest rates in that country will tend to fall, inducing depositors to shift their gold to higher-interest paying banks in other countries. This will immediately cause a shortage of bank reserves in the "easy money" country, inducing tighter credit standards and a return to competitively higher interest rates again.

A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold, and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post- World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.

But the process of cure was misdiagnosed as the disease: if shortage of bank reserves was causing a business decline- argued economic interventionists-why not find a way of supplying increased reserves to the banks so they never need be short! If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely--it was claimed--there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. It consisted of twelve regional Federal Reserve banks nominally owned by private bankers, but in fact government sponsored, controlled, and supported. Credit extended by these banks is in practice (though not legally) backed by the taxing power of the federal government. Technically, we remained on the gold standard; individuals were still free to own gold, and gold continued to be used as bank reserves. But now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks (paper reserves) could serve as legal tender to pay depositors.

When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates.

The "Fed" succeeded: it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market-triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's.

With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued that the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain's abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. (The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed "a mixed gold standard"; yet it is gold that took the blame.)

But the opposition to the gold standard in any form-from a growing number of welfare-state advocates-was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.

Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited.

The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which-through a complex series of steps-the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets.

The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/greenspan041998.html

Just because these people came before or just after 1913 doesn't change principle. Just as it is not valid to say that freedom does not necessarily apply to us now because this is 2005, not 1776, similarly, it is not valid to discredit the opinions of the people above just by saying that the people were born just before 1913. Give reasons for your statements.

 

[Burnsys]

I Want The Earth Plus 5%
The truth about money, credit and inflation
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_99/hannigan092099.html

A Phone Call To The Fed
http://www.rense.com/general29/ringring.htm

 

[Art]

A couple of points;
In answer to those who likened the federal reserve to the justice department and the state department the federal reserve is privately owned unlike their examples.
For those who questioned the validity of the criticisms because of their age then I suggest they research the steps JFK took to circumvent the fed and so avoid american taxpayers paying interest on non-existant money. Some believe the currency 'silver backs' he issued directly through the treasury would have spelled the end of the fed if it had continued because this currency was backed by silver with an intrinsic value whereas the fed reserves notes had no intrinsic value and relied purely on confidence. Unfortunately the issuance of this new currency stopped following his assassination but not before he had put $4 billion into circulation in competition with the fed reserve's notes which following his demise were promptly recalled.
For more information see executive order 11110
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm

 

[nevagil]

It's like a chain letter

I've always considered the financial system like a chain letter that can exist as long as everybody acts like it is a valid competent true system.
Printing up money, selling stock by corporations, geez. Our country usually runs a deficit like every year like every other country. It's funny but ridiculous.
Colleges teach economics and business but need government money and grants to survive. It's silly.
I always carry a hundred dollar bill in my pocket just in case, Gil of surrealcity.com