The 100th Anniversary Of The Federal Reserve

[jojo]

Read it and weep...........

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/on-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-federal-reserve-here-are-100-reasons-to-shut-it-down-forever

[O.S.O.K.]

The fed banks have extracted untold amounts of wealth from the American people and indeed, the world. They need to collapse! Just a word to the wise, be prepared and don't be the ones getting hurt bad when it happens!

[stinker]

Maybe we should print another 100 billion and have a big ass party to celebrate the occasion.

[Kadmos]

Sorry, but...God bless and keep the Federal Reserve Bank!

Without it very few people would be in the middle class, very few would be able to actually own property (land), and very few would be able to borrow the money necessary to start a small business.

This country would look much more like Africa, and much less like Europe.

[Integratedj]

Maybe we should print another 100 billion and have a big ass party to celebrate the occasion.


I think all of America equipped with flame throwers and a map would be more appropriate for what they've done to us.

[Integratedj]

Sorry, but...God bless and keep the Federal Reserve Bank!

Without it very few people would be in the middle class, very few would be able to actually own property (land), and very few would be able to borrow the money necessary to start a small business.

This country would look much more like Africa, and much less like Europe.


What ever the fuck your pussy little slave mind needs to keep telling itself.

[Kadmos]

What ever the fuck your pussy little slave mind needs to keep telling itself.

Without the federal reserve bank and the two chartered US banks that preceded it anything west of the Mississippi would likely still be French territory, we likely wouldn't have been able to raise the funds to fight the war of 1812, much less WWI or WWII.

At best a few colonies would remain, but more likely this land would be part of the German empire

Without this wonderful system first set up by Washington and Hamilton this country would look nothing like it does now.

I personally get a bit tired when half educated fear mongering nitwits who only understand enough about it to show their ignorance of the subject attempt to shock people with their stupidity.

Case in point, the article starts in part with


#2 The Federal Reserve is actually "independent" of the government. In fact, the Federal Reserve has argued vehemently in federal court that it is "not an agency" of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

#3 The Federal Reserve openly admits that the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are organized "much like private corporations".

#4 The regional Federal Reserve banks issue shares of stock to the "member banks" that own them.

#5 100% of the shareholders of the Federal Reserve are private banks. The U.S. government owns zero shares.

Four arguments that all say the same basic thing...it's a private bank.

I really hope this isn't news to anyone, it's certainly no secret. Apparently it was meant to shock us. But what would be really shocking would be a government that has the restraint to run a bank for more than 10 years or so without completely destroying the value of the currency!

Of course it's a private bank! Trusting a government to run it would be insane. It's not the Federal Reserve that has built up this massive debt, it's the US government. And when the US government wants to print money to dig itself out of the hole it created the FRB rightfully tells the government to go suck eggs, it's not going to happen.

This was one of the main conditions when Washington and Hamilton set up the First Bank of the United States...it had to be a privately owned bank, else-wise they would not give it a charter.


Here is another example of the ignorance


#12 The Federal Reserve has become so powerful that it is now known as "the fourth branch of government".

No, the "fourth branch" is commonly known as the press, the citizens, and special interest groups. Sure the FRB is included in that as well, but it is hardly known as "The fourth branch"


Now here comes a factiod that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic


#17 Today, the U.S. tax code is about 13 miles long.

Only at number 17 and already have to start including irrelevant facts...

[alismith]

Trusting a government to run it would be insane.


This would apply to the government running health care, too.

[Adog]

Without this wonderful system first set up by Washington and Hamilton this country would look nothing like it does now.

It should be the 250somethingth anniversary...:oh:

[Kadmos]

It should be the 250somethingth anniversary...:oh:

It really should. Sadly the 1st and 2nd banks were limited charters, we would have come alot further if we had the more stable credit all throughout. We ended up with a few generations who lost their life savings because small banks folded up without the backing of something like the federal reserve.

It's really amazing how much this system has freed up people to realize their individual dreams. Before this system very few could get loans for things like houses, education, or small businesses. Not to mention the government's (sometimes dubious) ability to borrow, allowing us to have great public works like Hoover dam, the highway system, the canal, space program, a massive armed forces, etc.

[Adog]

It really should. Sadly the 1st and 2nd banks were limited charters, we would have come alot further if we had the more stable credit all throughout. We ended up with a few generations who lost their life savings because small banks folded up without the backing of something like the federal reserve.
Since the elimination of the gold standard, the FED has no backing now either. Seems as though we are back to square one.
I agree it's worked for peoples individual dreams. Work your ass off, buy a bunch of stuff, get in debt up to your eye balls, the bank owns all your stuff....that's the American dream.

[Kadmos]

Since the elimination of the gold standard, the FED has no backing now either. Seems as though we are back to square one.

No, we are way ahead. There is more money out there, more property, more "wealth" now, then there has been gold in the history of the world.

The backing is on faith, essentially, I grant you that...but so what? So long as there is faith in it, that people will work to get it, it retains its value.

Even on the gold (or silver) standards, civilizations still had recessions, depressions, and panics. Actually gold is less stable then good fiat currencies, it fluctuates more. Because the value is continuously adjusted mostly by luck, rather than by design.

Its value is subject to the vagaries of what can be pulled from the ground. Don't pull enough out and you can't have growth. But oddly enough, if you pull too much out, you only are "wealthy" for a short time, your "good fortune" becomes your ruin as you destroy the value of the metal...like the destruction of the Spanish empire...too much silver ruined their economy.

With fiat currency you can adjust the value on the fly, both by controlling the number and value of notes released, and by raising or lowering the interest rates.

You just need to trust the bankers to be greedy, when they fail at that, then you have problems. Such as the 2008 troubles, the FRB kept lowering interest rates at the behest of the government...they never should have done that, they should have been raising them, slowing the real estate market and the growth of the bubble


I agree it's worked for peoples individual dreams. Work your ass off, buy a bunch of stuff, get in debt up to your eye balls, the bank owns all your stuff....that's the American dream.

It's up to people to control their own consumption. It's one thing to borrow to buy a house, an education, or a business...but if you are borrowing to by this years new Iphone, X box, etc....then it's easy to see where your life is going to go.

Average people can build wealth like never before, or get into debt like never before. But on the other hand, we certainly are living much better than ever before, so there is that

[Adog]

You bring up very good points. It's based on trust and faith, both are far too fragile and able to be manipulated. Fiat currency has never worked for very long thru out history. As far as living better than before, sure we've come a long way in the last hundred years. But in the last 10 years, my $20 don't buy near as much as it did back then. My pay check has not inflated to keep up with the inflation. It's not getting better everyday for some folks.
But anyway, love it or hate hate it, it is what it is. I hope it all works out, I really do.

[Sergi762]

Look, don't drown me in rotten tomatoes but this is one of those rare times Kad has a few points. The Federal reserve is a private bank yes, but itself and its regional offices are held by individuals.The aren't some damn secretive cult. The Fed does indeed give commercial banks the backing and the liquidity to operate and without that we'd all be far less wealthy. Bear in mind that Money and wealth are NOT THE SAME. Physical goods like gold, silver, arms& ammunition; these have value that can be, and is separate from US federal Notes.There is also a double edged reason WHY physical goods hold value: they are limited. at the current us, and global population gold could never be used as currency or to back currency: there isn't enough to go around. MY beef with them stem from the connection to European and , recently, global currencies. We should have stayed complete independent from them and kept theirs out. No one from the IMF should have even a tiny bit of say in US monetary matters. Screwing with the reserve ratio also is bullshit. QE should never have happened and frankly: if your nation is about to have a crash let it crash and rebuild on it own. Keynesian economics has its place but at the end of the day substantial& sustainable growth isn't possible with more liquidity.It really isn't sustainable very long term( one planet with a finite amount of resources cannot support unlimited people.) Its like a function that only holds true for a certain range.Too many people: not enough wealth to accommodate them.

[Kadmos]

You bring up very good points. It's based on trust and faith, both are far too fragile and able to be manipulated.

They can be fragile, but they can also be strong. But so long as most people are willing to work for, or trade goods for bank notes, then the system works.



Fiat currency has never worked for very long thru out history.

Before us and the Bank of England, it had never really been done on a large scale. Most fiat currency through history was done by small independent banks or local municipalities or princes, or most often by the local smith (silver or gold)

Usually it centered around one individual or a very small group, the local smith is a great example, he would take in silver and exchange a note for it, a basic deposit. So long as he still was in business, doing ok, then the notes were desirable, by the locals at least.

But take the notes too far away and no one knows the smith or has reason to trust him. Usually in the middle distance people might accept the notes, but often at a discount compared to local currency. This discount shows the drop in faith of the value of the note. As soon as someone accepted 90 cents rather than the full dollar value, the full faith was taken away. People would mistrust it.

Or of course if the smith was getting old and had no sons people would be hesitant to accept his notes. And naturally if there was any hint of impropriety in his character the notes would also lose value.

The early US private banks had the same problems, how much do you trust a note printed by "The First United Bank of Eastern Missouri" when you are looking at it from Philadelphia or San Fransisco?


As far as living better than before, sure we've come a long way in the last hundred years. But in the last 10 years, my $20 don't buy near as much as it did back then. My pay check has not inflated to keep up with the inflation. It's not getting better everyday for some folks.

Well, I hear you on that. Life ain't always easy. If you aren't getting a 3% raise every year you are probably losing money to inflation. Sadly that inflation is necessary to have growth for the economy, but keeping up is up to each of us individually.


Sergi, well said.

[Integratedj]

Without the federal reserve bank and the two chartered US banks that preceded it anything west of the Mississippi would likely still be French territory, we likely wouldn't have been able to raise the funds to fight the war of 1812, much less WWI or WWII.

At best a few colonies would remain, but more likely this land would be part of the German empire

Without this wonderful system first set up by Washington and Hamilton this country would look nothing like it does now.

I personally get a bit tired when half educated fear mongering nitwits who only understand enough about it to show their ignorance of the subject attempt to shock people with their stupidity.

Case in point, the article starts in part with



Four arguments that all say the same basic thing...it's a private bank.

I really hope this isn't news to anyone, it's certainly no secret. Apparently it was meant to shock us. But what would be really shocking would be a government that has the restraint to run a bank for more than 10 years or so without completely destroying the value of the currency!

Of course it's a private bank! Trusting a government to run it would be insane. It's not the Federal Reserve that has built up this massive debt, it's the US government. And when the US government wants to print money to dig itself out of the hole it created the FRB rightfully tells the government to go suck eggs, it's not going to happen.

This was one of the main conditions when Washington and Hamilton set up the First Bank of the United States...it had to be a privately owned bank, else-wise they would not give it a charter.


Here is another example of the ignorance



No, the "fourth branch" is commonly known as the press, the citizens, and special interest groups. Sure the FRB is included in that as well, but it is hardly known as "The fourth branch"


Now here comes a factiod that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic



Only at number 17 and already have to start including irrelevant facts...

Blah blah blah, lefty bullshit, blah blah blah, I'm a fucking slave ass punk bitch crybaby sack of freedom hating cum dumpster smelling garbage, blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

If you are so fucking dense you can't see enslavement when it is all around you, then you can eat a big bag of dicks you leftist cum stain.

[Kadmos]

Merry Christmas to you to!


Last edited by Integratedj; Today at 08:08 AM.

Good thing you edited it, otherwise it might have come off as rude.



you are so fucking dense you can't see enslavement when it is all around you

Personally I think you are dense not to see how it has freed you. Because you can borrow money you are no longer a peasant to the landowning class, you are able to get an education either by borrowing or by public schooling (another side benefit of the system).

Yes, you can get yourself into serious debt, and be "slave" to it, but that's your own choice, debt you signed into by your own hand.

[stinker]

Personally I think you are dense not to see how it has freed you. Because you can borrow money you are no longer a peasant to the landowning class, you are able to get an education either by borrowing or by public schooling (another side benefit of the system).

Yes, you can get yourself into serious debt, and be "slave" to it, but that's your own choice, debt you signed into by your own hand.

Enslavement done at the receiving end of a barrel or at the instigating end of a pen is still enslavement.
It's the exact same damn thing.

The system you sing such praises for has merely replaced the "landowning class" with the "stockjobber or bankster class" and given them the power of legal coercion via government force on top of that. I'm having a bit of difficulty finding the upside of that particular tradeoff... Why don't you just get it over with and go on a rant about "robber barons" next?

But hey, it's all "progress" right?

[Kadmos]

Enslavement done at the receiving end of a barrel or at the instigating end of a pen is still enslavement.
It's the exact same damn thing.

It's not enslavement when you hold the pen. You chose your debts. And your debts can be used for the betterment of your own life. That's not enslavement, that's opportunity!

You can chose the student loan, become a doctor, get a loan to buy a house, pay the loans off, raise a family, travel, etc.

How is that enslavement? You owe what you asked for, and with some hard work, you get the better life.

Without fairly cheap lend-able money nearly no one has that opportunity. Banks weren't lending money to what were essentially peasants when the lending was done in gold.

Case in point, my family came mostly from the Pale of the Settlement, Poland, Lithuania, Russia during the pogroms. By that time they were essentially peasants fleeing for their lives. My great grandparents got the necessary loans to buy a farm, start businesses, and send their kids to universities. The first born here all went to college, all became professionals, lawyers, doctors, accountants. The bulk of them died after long lives, in homes they owned outright, about half of them were millionaires by the time they died.

None of that could have happened without lendable money, it was made possible by fiat currency.

After 2,000 years of being kicked across the European continent, they came to where a person could actually not just chose their own destiny, but acquire the loans to achieve it in their own lifetime.

I suppose if you want to call it slavery, well, that's your business, but I know for my family, it's not slavery, it's salvation.

[1 Patriot-of-many]

Kadmos you're insane. The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and charges US for doing so. That's enslavement. You think the ponzi scheme can last forever? When it collapses, it's not just going to hurt, it's going to be the worst depression ever and the most anarchy we've ever seen which will lead to tyranny on a grand scale. We need to end the Fed and get back to Constitutional money mandated by the Constitution. All those involved in keeping this treasonous scheme going should be rounded up, tried and executed. I'll never figure out why you believe it's better for private banks to create phony money out of thin air versus what the Constitution mandates..... Well maybe I have, without the scam your party couldn't spend so much on the socialist country you envision.

[Kadmos]

Kadmos you're insane. The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and charges US for doing so. That's enslavement.

That's enslavement? I think maybe you need to look up the definition of enslavement, because I don't think it means what I think you think it means.

If someone creates something and sells it at a (rather modest) profit, it's not enslavement, it's capitalism.

Think about it, that's all it really is...a product. In this case a medium of exchange. As good as gold, or Pokemon cards, so long as two parties agree on its value.

No need to carry a sack of silver and gold around...but of course you can if you want to, nothing stops you from owning "real money" except perhaps your ability to earn it.

Even when we used precious metal coinage it wasn't free, there was a "surcharge" of sorts, called seigniorage. A difference in the value of the metal itself compared to it's face value. Partly done to stop melting of the coins, but mostly done for the profit it allowed.



You think the ponzi scheme can last forever? When it collapses, it's not just going to hurt, it's going to be the worst depression ever and the most anarchy we've ever seen which will lead to tyranny on a grand scale. We need to end the Fed and get back to Constitutional money mandated by the Constitution. All those involved in keeping this treasonous scheme going should be rounded up, tried and executed. I'll never figure out why you believe it's better for private banks to create phony money out of thin air versus what the Constitution mandates..... Well maybe I have, without the scam your party couldn't spend so much on the socialist country you envision.

Can it last forever? Doubtful. Nothing ever does. But properly managed it can last for thousands of years. It has even shown it can in a manner of speaking outlast the government. The government has had several shutdowns, in some ways ceasing to exist, yet no one questioned if the money was still valid, it kept working just as it should. Many countries ceased to exist yet their central bank currency was still used for several years.

Attempting to switch back to precious metals would almost certainly destroy the economy. There just isn't enough metal. Maybe it could be done on aluminum I suppose, but you are really still talking about a marker rather than something actually worth close to even 70% of it's weight.

Obviously salaries will come down, I suppose 20 to 1 on silver or thereabouts and 50 or so to 1 on gold. Naturally prices will come down as well.

But interest rates will go way up, PM's are simply to scarce to lend cheap.

Imports will quickly taper off, way to expensive to deal with.

Exports will also stop once other countries no longer have gold or silver to pay us.

Plus the other countries, not being limited by what metals can be dredged from the earth are able to outspend us and quickly outpace us in wealth and technology.

Naturally with the shortage we would need fairly strict anti-melting laws, private ownership of gold other than in US coin form would also have to be restricted, and of course as provided by the constitution the value would have to be regulated.

Shortly one would expect anti-hording laws as well. Large private holdings of gold would have to be placed on deposit with the government, and exchanged for a certificate of deposit (bank note).

In many ways the bank notes would be more convenient, easier to carry, easier to hide, harder to counterfeit, and soon would be the preferred method of doing business.

Naturally the government would realize it doesn't actually have to back the full value of the outstanding notes, as never are all debts called in at once. Shortly they realize that in fact the simple belief that the notes are good keeps them working just fine, and their value can be regulated in other ways. Which of course means they don't need to be backed by anything at all!

Oh happy days, no longer is your economy limited by metals that have to be pulled from the ground, trusting only in good fortune to provide. Interest rates are low enough that the average worker can get a reasonable loan, and buy a house, car, or start a business.

We use this system because it's better ;)

[Tomac yokctep]

Kadmos I think when your ancestors came here we had fiduciary money not fiat money like we have now.

[Kadmos]

Kadmos I think when your ancestors came here we had fiduciary money not fiat money like we have now.

It was the cusp, so to speak, about 1905.

The vast bulk of transactions done with paper money, with little thought given to their value against a fixed gold price.