The scam of our history - the Federal Reserve?

[shance]

"To those of you who don't get the Federal Reserve System and why it is such a big deal, I will explain it in a simplified summary.

The Fed is a private company composed of the small group of the richest families in history. They print money and loan it to us at extraordinary rates. Why all the fuss about this?

In a nutshell, there is no reason why anybody needs to pay interest to someone who prints money. We owe them zero, but 90% of all our tax dollars goes to pay these few families interest for the money they print for us. Now we're not talking about paying them a couple million per year to print paper, we're talking about handing over our entire nation tax budget every year year after year to PRINTERS. It's THE SCAM of history - and old trick that got Christ crucified, felled Rome, and is responsible for every war in our history.

It's essentially the story of the true evil puppeteers behind the curtain all along. It is THE story no newspaper will print, no TV icon will mention, no politician will touch, and no college course will teach."


Watch the Money Masters and understand how the International Banks Control control America and our lives.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1218050265897360511&q=money+masters

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3731971780119435155&q=money+masters

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3510313821923167501&q=money+masters

[Jim Sagle]

1. Libertarian rubbish.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jim Sagle]

14. You're confused. This a Dem site, not a far-right militia sewer.

[Selatius]

30. Only far-rightists don't trust bankers? Novel idea.

[notadmblnd]

3. and the real kick in the ass is....

that the only thing that makes our paper money worth anything is our belief in it. In reality, it's not worth the cloth that it is printed on.

[oscar111]

7. sounds interesting

i am very rushed. Can you post a screen or two more? Links usually swamp me with pages to plow through. Executive summaries are much to be desired. Thanks much.

[shance]

8. Wish I could. Im headed out as well. Do a Google when you have a chance

There is also a film coming out on July 28th by Aaron Russo, called "From Freedom to Fascism" that will address some of these issues.

[shance]

9. It's a fascinating documentary. I didn't know that Milton Friedman

essentially called the Federal Reserve out on its creation of the 1929 Depression.

This documentary strikes me as a much more informative, accurate description of our monetary history than we were taught in high school.

[notadmblnd]

16. An excellent book if you want to understand the whole thing....

the when and how of it all, is called Rule By Secrecy by Jim Marrs.

[Jon8503]

4. You got it right - thanks for the links. N/T

[grytpype]

5. .

<img src="">

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Prints Money?

Really? Yes! Really, really wrong. The fed does not have the power to print money.
The Professor

[Soloflecks]

13. Yes they do?

http://web.mit.edu/14.02/www/krugman/0923LEC.pdf
THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND THE MONEY SUPPLY
The Federal Reserve is America’s central bank. It has the
unique right to create U.S. dollars. Counterparts abroad: the
Bank of Japan, the Bundesbank, the Bank of England, etc..
Jan. 1 the Bundesbank, Banque de France, Banca d’Italia
will cede their roles to the new European Central Bank.

A central bank’s balance sheet (simplified):
Assets Liabilities
Government bonds Money

In an open-market operation the CB prints money to buy
more bonds, putting more money into circulation – or sells
bonds to withdraw money from circulation. This affects the
interest rate – and because the interest rate affects spending,
it affects the economy

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Wrong Again

Your interpretation of your cite is in error. The source does not specify that the US Fed can print money. It correctly describes the fed as having control of the money supply.

In the United States, the central bank can not usurp the power of the federal gov't to print money. That is a constitutional responsibility of the gov't. It cannot be abrogated or surrogated. That's a legal fact. ONLY the federal gov't can print money. END OF STORY.

Don't lecture me on how monetary policy works, slick. I've been getting papers published on macroeconomic modeling since the early 80's. Your little "explanation" of how the economy is impacted is 11th grade stuff.

There is a big difference between regulating the flow of EXISTING currency and printing money. The fed CAN petition the gov't, through congress, with the approval of the executive, to print additional money, if certain criteria are met to condition the need. They cannot print money of their own accord. If you think they can, then you're simply wrong.

They can increase the total amount of ALREADY printed money in greater circulation or they can retract some, both through bond sales (as you mentioned) or by direct cash infusion into the banking system increasing liquidity.

The other countries you mention allow this, because the central bank is actually part of the gov't. They cannot in the United States. You're misinterpreting your own reference.

Not once did i suggest that the fed doesn't affect the economy. Nice strawman. Their very PURPOSE is to have an effect on the economy. So, your comment is apropos of nothing. Sort of like your original post which has factual errors that you refuse to acknowledge.

I'll stack the stuff i FORGOT about economics against everything you'll ever know, any day of the week. And, i've forgotten one ten thousandth of what i've learned!
The Professor

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Dupe

.

[On the Road]

10. They Do Not Print Money

They set the guidelines which allow banks to lend more than the sum of their deposits. They are extremely different things. That allows the Fed a lot of control over interest rates and the direction of the economy. They do not control many other factors, such as asset prices, equity markets, the federal budget, or the exchange rate (except for the effect of interest rates). The Fed cannot order fiat money to be printed for themselves or the government to spend, as some countries have done.

The comment on the Fed being composed of the few richest families is belied by the biographies of the recent Fed Chairmen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_of_the_Federal_Reserve

In the last 50 years, Miller is the only one who may not have been personally in command of the organization.

Manipulation of the economy by wealthy financiers was much easier to argue a century ago. Robber barons like JP Morgan, Jay Gould, and Jim Fisk were infamous for good reason. Some of the actions of the early Fed, eg reducing the money supply during the Great Depression, were bad decisions and hurt the economy. But by and large, since WWII, the Fed has been run by professional economists. While their decisions can be questioned in retrospect, they have worked knowledgeably for the general good of the country.

The Fed is one reason for US success in the last 50 years. The alternative is the uncontrolled environment before 1913, which resulted in alternating booms and busts accompanied by bank panics. Milton Friedman wants the Fed abolished, not me. I just want the Chairman to make sure to take the welfare all citizens into account.

[shance]

12. And how can you know the Federal Reserve is acting in the "welfare"

of all citizens when it acts essentially in private and with essentially no restrictions or oversight?

[On the Road]

19. You Look at Their Actions

The goals of Volcker, Greenspan, and Bernanke have been clearly articulated, and their actions have been appropriate for those goals.

The early Fed was legitimately criticized for tight-money policies that favored the rich over the working class. More recent Feds have been more accommodating -- Greenspan in particular favored economic expansion that has benefited all classes and led to the high-growth, high employment, low-inflation environment of the 1990s. Even Paul Volcker, who fought inflation through astronomical interest rates, gunned the economic engines after inflation had been wrung out of the system in the early 80s.

If the Fed had acted like robber barons, I might agree with the point. But I don't think you realize what a predatory Fed would look like, or how much damage it could have been caused. the progressive economist William Greider promoted more accommodating Fed policies in the 80s book "Secrets of the Temple." Despite Greenspan's fondness for Ayn Rand, the modern Fed has in practice followed those policies and been pro-growth rather than pro-banking interests.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Sorry, but this is a crock...

stuck on dialup, I'm not going to spend hours downloading those movies but I've heard most of it before. And just the mention of the Illuminati makes me suspicious of anything in there.

Money is not created by the Fed, it is created by the normal activity of commercial banks using something called the "multiplier effect." Currency, as opposed to money, is merely symbolic whether it be gold coins, Federal Reserve notes, silver certificates, or cowrie shells. This is the way it's been at least since the Fuggers.

The Fed's primary purpose is to regulate the money supply created by banks by adjusting reserve requirements and discount rates. It does set base interest rates, bails out failing banks and brokerage houses in the short term and other things. Just the activity at the discount window during the Penn Central bankruptcy would justify its existence for all time, and in retrospect it was a matter of bad judgment that keeping tight money at the outset of the Depression kept the Depression going. It looks like loosening the supply at the time, a basic Fed function, could have solved a lot of liquidity problems and staved off much of the suffering.

Elementary macroeconomics explains all of this.

Further on in macroeconomics, one learns that there are indeed problems with managing money this way, and the Fed is not blameless or trouble free, but these problems are not nearly as bad as the alternatives. If we were to, say, get back on the gold standard we would be held hostage to the limited amount of gold in the world, most of it in Russia and South Africa. Economic growth largely depends on an expanding money supply, and metal-based money tends to contract it, as history readily shows.

The problem now is not the Fed, but the humongous deficits being racked up that the Fed is being forced to deal with.

[shance]

15. You haven't even watched the documentary so you can't fairly give

either criticism or praise.

If you want to criticize, then watch the documentary.

You may learn something.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. No I haven't watched it, but...

I do have a degree in economics and I have been hearing crackpot tinfoil theories about the Fed for years.

Central banks have been around for a long time, and even Hamilton was arguing for one way back when. It took over a hundred years to get one here, though.

The alternative is having commercial banks and investment houses run the show and causing trouble resulting in Shays' rebellion, Bryan calling for bimetallism, and other things far worse than a central bank.

It's all in the history books.

[shance]

31. So Milton Friedman's a "crack pot"?

n/t

[bobbieinok]

33. isn't he the far right economist behind prop 13 that destroyed CA schools?

[sable302]

20. 90% of our tax dollars

go to pay off the federal reserve?

:rofl:

that's just too funny

[shance]

23. Which means you are helping a private company profit

being the "Federal Reserve" is a privately owned entity, which almost all Americans probably have no idea that's the case. One just assumes by the misleading title "Federal Reserve" that it is a government entity.

[sable302]

26. that still doesn't explain how

90% of tax money goes to this private group of rich bankers.

So please explain that to me, real clear-like, so that somebody who knows nothing about this can understand.

[Junkdrawer]

22. Dated, but interesting. And since it was largely historical....

the first 3/4 would probably not change it it were made today.

[Odin2005]

24. What a crop of shit. It's a Right-Wing Libertarian conspiracy theory.

The Fed doesn't print money, it regulates the flow of money already in the economy by adusting interest rates for loans. During boom times it needs to raise interest rates to prevent overly fast economic expansion from producing too much inflation and cut rates during slumps to make money easier to get for businesses and consumers.

IIRC, the Fed had to be made as a private institution because of constitutionality issues.

[Rex]

25. Hey, faith based systems are traditional!

So what if it is all just paper...you see 5 lights, no more no less.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

28. Hubby is reading now: Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve ...

Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this penetrating study of the Federal Reserve Board in the Reagan era, Rolling Stone writer Greider (The Education of David Stockman) views the "Fed" chairman (until recently Paul Volcker) as the "second most powerful" officer of government, the high priest of a temple as mysterious as money itself, its processes unknown to the public and yet to be fully understood by any modern president. Controlling the money supply by secretly buying and selling government bonds and thus affecting interest rates, the Fed can manipulate billions in business profits or losses and millions in worker employment and stock, bond or bank account values, the author explains. Greider's conclusions are startling at times. The Fed, he maintains, could have prevented the 1929 crash. He also asserts the "awkward little secret" that the federal government deliberately induces recessions, usually to bring down inflation and interest rates. A time-consuming but extremely informative read.

My husband finds it very interesting and keeps telling me I should read it when he's done. Doesn't seem like my cup of tea, though. :boring:

[shance]

29. I know Burgher. That's what they want us to do. To snooze right over

this topic.

This is the deal. This issue is where the rubber meets the road because it reveals who is pulling all the strings - it reveals who creates, promotes, and initiates the wars and keeps everyone vulnerable to the rich families who, through their secrecy, control and destroy innocent people and lives because they are allowed to do so, primarily through their frequency and lack of accountability.

There is no greater truth these days than "information is power".

[oscar111]

32. still sounds interesting.

i wish all here at DU would be more polite.

Can any answer these Q's that came to mind reading the thread?

Exactly why is it a RW view? Or a LW view?

How is ninety percent of taxes funneled to the Fed owners?

I have no ax to grind on this issue yet. Questions are sincere, and are for both defenders of the OP and for critics of the OP.

PS i am however highly critical of having private owners for the F Reserve. Should be all-government. I also dislike Milton's "three functions of government" nonsense.

[Moderator]

34. locking

flamebait