Web Letters: Fixing the Fed

I agree with Gary Amstutz's submission; however, this to me would be a very temporary solution. This is because the monetary system is inherently flawed, whether you subscribe to the Keynesian, Socialist or Austrian Model of economics, any economy that is based on a monetary system will be inherently flawed and will leave a segment of humanity out in the cold. These kinds of financial crisis will continue, each being worse than the previous one.

I believe that we need to start a debate and talk about a resource-based economy that leaves no one out in the cold. Jacque Fresco said it best:

"A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counterproductive to our survival....

"Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such."

Gary McKay

http://awakenlife.net
College Park, MD

1. Pay off the debt with debt-free US notes (if the US can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill)

2. Abolish fractional reserve banking. As the debt is paid off, the reserve requirements of all banks and financial institutions would be raised proportionally at the same time to absorb the new US notes that would be deposited and become the banks' new increased reserves.

3. Repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the National Banking act of 1864. These acts delegate the money power to a private banking monopoly. These acts must be repealed and the money power handed back to the treasury, where it was under Abraham Lincoln. No banker or any person affiliated with private lending institutions should be allowed to regulate banking.

4.Withdraw the US from the IMF, the BIS and the World Bank. These institutions, like the Federal Reserve, are designed to further consolidate the power of the central bankers over the world economies.

5. Any increase in the money flow should be done so at a rate of about 3 percent or in conjunction with the increase in population. This would ensure a steady, stable money growth. All treasury meetings would be transparent to the public--unlike how they are conducted now.

Issuing money was advocated by Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and Lincoln. Congress has the authority by the constitution to issue currency.

Gary Amstutz

Lake Isabella, CA

I've listened very carefully to Geithner/Summers this week, and they sound exactly like Paulson. They sound like the used-car salesmen that have made a behind-closed-doors deal with the rich and gluttonous. This is my healthcare money, my sales tax money, my Social Security money, my FICA tax money, my fuel tax money, my income tax money. Geithner/Summers are funneling tons of monies, billions to the well-off and throwing crumbs at the soup kitchens. Bernie Sanders asked if the banks are too big to fail, are they too big to exist? Geithner went into a Kabuki two-step. These two guys think we are stupid, and they are correct. The federal government seems to be fueling the biggest Ponzi scheme, at a level never seen in the history of man. Warren Buffet is right: if you have been sitting in a poker game for more than thirty minutes and you don't know who the patsy is, you are it."

James L Pinette

Caribou, ME

The title of your article drew me in as a bear to honey. True, we need to fix the Fed. But when I got to the paragraph that said this analysis was based on a Jane D'Arista book, or article, I stopped.

Your "Fix the Fed" is based on giving the Fed more unregulated powers. I'm sure I read that correctly, and thought you can't be serious. If that's true, here is a novel idea for you. Let's just turn the treasury over to the Fed. Come on, Greider get real.

Samuel Guillory

Opelousas, LA

Hopefully we can turn this economy around and actually focus on solving the deeper, systemic issues for why we're in this situation. Obviously bad banking's a good place to start, the Fed being no exception, but there are other issues, like global poverty, that have huge economic and geopolitical ramifications.

The Borgen Project has some interesting insight into addressing the issues of global poverty, something we can remedy easily and sustainably.

Some interesting figures to ponder:
$30 billion USD: The annual shortfall to end global poverty.
$550 billion USD: The annual US defense budget.

Jon Lilly

Seattle, WA

It was interesting that Citibank started making a profit after the administration sought to limit executive compensation, and these types of banks, generally, no longer need federal help. Call me old-fashioned, but I think we need anti-trust action against all these businesses that are "too big to fail." The Chinese are currently worried about their investments in our banks and debt, so perhaps we can give them these banks in trade for our debt.

As has been previously mentioned in this magazine, we need to separate commercial saving banks and investment banks. Commercial banks can lend money, but not buy or facilitate the buying of stocks. Interest rates should be high enough to encourage savings, and loans low enough not to be considered usury.

Both the article and the comments that followed gave me food for thought, but I will say that you need to keep private enterprise out of government, because they will drive the cost of government through the roof. I do not want to see the profit motive in government.

Our two wars have been funded by debt, because the Bush administration wanted to give tax breaks to the wealthy. And I think the political sources of this financial mess should also be considered.

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA

We need to nationalize the privately owned and operated Federal Reserve, not reform it. Canada nationalized their Central Bank in 1936. Although Canadian banks got hurt in the recent crisis (mainly due to contamination from Wall Street), they are considered to have the best banking system in the world. Why? Because their mandate as a publicly owned central bank is transparency and solvency, not bank profits.

The Federal Reserve and the twelve reserve banks are all corporations whose operations are run by their member banks and whose profits accrue to those member banks. All twelve Federal Reserve Board members are chosen by the bankers and the chairman of the Fed from among those! The Federal Reserve has proven time after time it can not be trusted to regulate the very banks that run it.

I suggest Mr. Greider, whom I have praised repeatedly in the past, get to the business of insuring the American public that they have a central bank that will run the financial system for the benefit of the country, not the profits of member banks.

Michael McKinlay

Hercules, CA

The Federal Reserve is a mass murderer; it has caused wars that have killed millions of soldiers and innocent civilians. The Federal Reserve has been behind every financial crisis and war we've had since its inception in 1913. The Federal Reserve has no resources of its own. It lends money by printing it. All of the money given to the failing banks and insurance companies, and "lent" to the auto industry is just printed. There's nothing backing it up.

It's criminal for these financial gurus such as William Greider, Jane D'Arista and others to prattle on about how to fix the Fed. We need to get rid of the Federal Reserve. If someone was drilling holes in your head and your blood and brains were leaking out with every new hole, would you pay for a new drill bit because the one he's using is getting dull? That's what the Federal Reserve is doing to the people of this country.

The Federal Reserve is the reason for the national debt, and all of the income tax on individuals goes toward the payment of the interest on the national debt. The Federal Reserve is a cancer on the working and poor classes; and it is the world's best kept secret.

The very fact that so many financial experts expound so much about how to fix the Federal Reserve instead of advising people about how evil it is and how to get rid of it leads me to only one conclusion: these experts want to keep it a secret, also.

Charles Lingenfelser

Brandon, MS

The problem is the Federal Reserve, but the solution is not fixing it, but eliminating it!

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution clearly states that Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. The same article of our Constitution also says that Congress shall have the power to punish all counterfeiters, like the not-so-federal Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is a private Central Bank that is using fiat currency, basically printing (counterfeiting) money out of nothing. There is no backing of our money either. All the gold and silver reserves are gone, there are no reserves, all that real wealth is in the hands of the owners of these private banks.

Go back in American history and you will find there has always been economical problems related to and around central banks. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 (under highly secret conditions, like the USA Patriot Act) and passed through Congress without any real debate or the approval of the American citizens. It was done stealthfully in the middle of the night, during a recess of Congress. And what happened a short amount of time later? The Great Depression.

Fast forward to today: we see all these housing bubbles and interest rates and inflation, which all has to do with the money and the central banking scam a k a the Federal Reserve, and what are we facing today? The next biggest economical catastrophe since the Great Depression. Get the picture yet?

The solution is not putting a Band-Aid on a broken system, the solution is tearing down the broken system. We can then replace the private central banking cartel with a legitimate government banking system under the control of Congress and the US Treasury. They will create, coin and print our American money, backed by something of value like gold and silver. Before 1953 if you were to look at money, the dollar bill, you would see it said "redeemable for silver," and prior to that, "redeemable for gold." Now it just says "Federal reserve note, legal tender, blah blah blah." The only way to save our economy is by ridding our country of a private central bank, not by feeding the same system more of our tax money. As stated in the article, that is only pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it, or even better, that is like throwing gasoline on an already out-of-control fire.

Think about it, do the research and see for yourself. There are some great documentaries that describe this in much more articulate ways than I have stated here. Google these documentaries: The Money Masters and also Fiat Empire. These will break down the Federal Reserve and the current fiat money system that we are using. I would also like to extend an invitation to all to visit my blog.

KRISTOFER PASSAGGIO

North Hollywood, CA