Saturday, April 18, 2009
It Is Time to Dissolve All Central Banks
As previously noted, the Federal Reserve has failed on its own terms. Specifically, it has failed to provide the counter-cyclical influence on the economy which is its very justification for existing in the first place.
Moreover, prominent Wall Street economist Henry Kaufman says that the Federal Reserve is primarily to blame for the financial crisis:
Even the head of the Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco - during a talk on how runaway bubbles can lead to depressions - admitted:"I am convinced that the misbehavior of some would have been much rarer -- and far less damaging to our economy -- if the Federal Reserve and, to a lesser extent, other supervisory authorities, had measured up to their responsibilities ...
Kaufman directly criticized former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for not using his position to dissuade big banks and others from taking big risks.
"Alan Greenspan spoke about irrational exuberance only as a theoretical concept, not as a warning to the market to curb excessive behavior," Kaufman said. "It is difficult to believe that recourse to moral suasion by a Fed chairman would be ineffective."
Partly because the Fed did not strongly oppose the repeal in 1999 of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, more large financial conglomerates that were "too big to fail" have formed, Kaufman said, citing a factor that has made the global credit crisis especially acute.
"Financial conglomerates have become more and more opaque, especially about their massive off-balance-sheet activities," he said. "The Fed failed to rein in the problem."...
"Much of the recent extreme financial behavior is rooted in faulty monetary policies," he said. "Poor policies encourage excessive risk taking."
Fed monetary policy may also have contributed to the U.S. credit boom and the associated house price bubble ...
This is on top of the widely recognized fact that the Fed helped cause the Great Depression with its faulty monetary policy.
Indeed, if even half of what financial writer Ellen Brown says is true, central banks in all countries are parasitic organizations which do not have the best interest of their host nation in mind.
The central bank experiment has failed.
It is time to dissolve not only the Fed (as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Austrian school economists, and many others have demanded), but all central banks.
Whatever their motivation - whether selfish or altruistic - they have proven to be a net detriment to their respective economies.
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even while agreeing that the Fed was partly responsible for the crisis, the solution to dissolve it completely is to imply that we can do with almost no regulation (as per Austrian school economists) - and there I differ with you strongly. the medicine that you suggest is worse than the sickness. Also, fed is partly to blame, and we know that the crisis was caused by confluence of factors - including unsustainable consumption levels and debt levels of ordinary americans.
ReplyDeleteWho knew, most of all Greenspan himself, that when he said "irrational exuberance" he was looking in the mirror. Yes, he blew it (and admits it), but more significantly, the American public blew it and are to blame as much as single person (we live in a democracy, right?). Two of the three major factors that led to the crisis were either passed with veto proof majorities or passed unanimously after no debate; Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization act respectively. Without these, along with lax SEC rules regarding debt to equity ratios and short selling vehicles, the crisis does not happen, period.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the FED. While not perfect, has done its job for 70 years. Simply flattening out the natural boom and bust cycle that had prior to 1913 crippled the economy for lengthy periods when crises occurred.
As sound as any Austrian Economist's theories may be, the plain fact is that, without methods for empirically proving or forecasting the science, the model is politically impossible in a large democracy.
"Excessive consumption" may be a lot of Americans problem, as was the Fed for a complete lack of oversight and outrageous greed and risk taking. I am not an over consumer or risk taker;
ReplyDeleteso why should I be punished with the rest? Abolish the Fed and start a new one-one that actually has some oversight and accountibility.
While she calls for the end of the Federal Reserve in her book, Ellen Brown says that the solution is for the government to take back the power to create money. The Fed is a private corporation that creates about a tenth of all the money in circulation. This includes buying interest bearing U.S. bonds with cash that they create from thin air. The other 90% of the money that is created is from the individual banks from the fractional reserve system. For every $100 deposited to a bank, that bank can lend $90 directly, but indirectly that will create $1000 in circulated money. This is why Obama is so hot to trot to fund the banks. For every $1 given to a bank, the bank can then create 10x that amount.
ReplyDeleteEllen Brown calls for a monetary system based on Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania, and for the return of the Greenback. She writes that all of the government's income from personal income tax goes to finance the interest of the national debt.
Instead of allowing the banks to get rich from the creation of money, she argues that the government should create the money, funding public works projects and lending no interest loans to local governments.
While she is personally a gold bug for individual investments, she argues against the gold standard, stating that it is mathematically impossible for the government to convert the money supply into gold, and raises issues of how the government would buy gold, especially if it is declaring other money worthless.
[url=http://www.webofdebt.com/]Web of Debt[/url] creates the possibility of an abundant future with low taxes, modern infrastructure, and strong social programs.
For a visual explanation of how money is made, I recommend [url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544&ei=v57uSf6uKKHO-AGqudWRCQ&q=money+as+debt&hl=en&client=firefox-a]Money as Debt[/url].
One thing that all economic theories forget is that people run the system. People are flawed. So even if their intentions are good, either through short-sightedness, incorrectly detailing the plans, etc, mistakes they will make affect millions of people. The problem isn't the mere existence of the Federal Reserve Bank system, it is with the people in charge not doing their job and those in charge of oversight failing as well. Pure capitalism does not look out for the well being of anyone. It exists solely to make money. Government is supposed to look out for the well being of its citizens and government regulation is the only thing that can keep capitalism in check. For me to get money I have to TAKE it from someone else. I'm all for making money but if my making money requires that I implement a strategy that is designed to negatively affect as many people as possible I am not sure I could sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteThe FED is just another system for control and isnt that one of the main reason who seperated from england so lang ago in the first place? Central Banks are no good and only create debt for any country. You should wantch the movie zeitgeist.
ReplyDelete