The U.S. Federal Reserve – Good or Bad?
By
Leon Howard
I have studied this from the
aspect of a working stiff, trying to make ends meet and creating a decent
retirement. There are those who wholly support the Federal Reserve System and
there are those who totally despise it. I have joined the latter. You should know why.
Supporters try to tell us the
Federal Reserve is there to “control” inflation and prevent depressions – from
a working stiff’s prospective that is pure fabrication! What about the depression you never hear of:
The Depression of 1920-1921? Here, the
nation actually followed what Austrian economists recommend: The government
slashed their budget and the Federal Reserve raised their prime interest rate
and the depression ended by 1923 and produced the “Roaring 20’s”!//
I had one ‘progressive’
tell me he’d rather Allen Greenspan (this was a few years ago) would print more
fiat money than to rely on a commodities-based currency, like gold and silver. At the
time I thought he was an idiot and, after learning what a ‘progressive’ was, I
knew he was an idiot! Another
conservative feared that if we went back to the Gold Standard, the government
would manipulate the value of gold and silver. The only thing I can think of here is that
could very well be the case if the Federal Reserve were in charge of our
monetary system when we switch back to the Gold Standard but that is not what I
would propose. I want the Federal
Reserve Act rescinded and the Congress, once again, fulfilling their Constitutional
duties, as stated in Article I, Section 8, Line #5:
“To coin Money, regulate the Value
thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures … ”
Something we must always keep in mind is
what our founders thought on any subject and this subject is one of the more
important ones. Do not listen to those
‘progressives’ and teachers who try to tell us our founders were a bunch of
rich older slave owners who were looking out for themselves because that is a
bald-faced lie! President John F.
Kennedy called a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House and when the meeting
began, JFK said, “This is the most
intelligence gathered together here since Thomas Jefferson dined here by
himself!”
So what did Thomas Jefferson have to say about
central banks, which is what the Federal Reserve is but even worse, the Federal
Reserve is privately-owned! "I believe that banking institutions are more
dangerous to our liberties than standing armies...If the American people ever
allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation,
then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the
banks]...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered... The issuing power should
be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly
belongs." …Thomas
Jefferson -- The Debate Over the Recharter of the Bank Bill, (1809) How profound! And aren’t we almost there now?
When the Congress was debating the Federal
Reserve Act, we had at least one congressman warning against its passage: “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.” Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., 1913
“From now on, depressions will be scientifically
created.” Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., 1913
Every now and then, there is a congressman or senator who
speaks out against the Federal Reserve; Rep. Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on
Banking and Currency for 12 years as quoted from the Congressional Record: ”The Federal Reserve Board, ..., has cheated
the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of
enough money to pay the national debt...Our people's money to the extent of
$1,200,000,000 has within the last few months been shipped abroad to redeem
Federal Reserve Notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks...” McFadden was elected to Congress in 1914 and served until
1934. Though a Republican, he moved to
impeach President Herbert Hoover in 1932 and introduced a resolution to bring
conspiracy charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
He also made a 25-minute
speech on the House floor accusing the Federal Reserve of deliberately causing
the Depression. At the time, the
chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was Eugene Meyer, who resigned after
Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as president in 1933, and purchased the
Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction.
Later
in 1933, McFadden introduced House Resolution No. 158, Articles of Impeachment
for the Secretary of the Treasury, two assistant Secretaries of the Treasury,
the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the officers and directors
of its twelve regional banks. This was
McFadden’s political swan song. In the
election of 1934, he lost his reelection bid to a Democrat by 561 votes.
In 1937, Rep. Charles G. Binderup
of Nebraska, realizing the consequences of the Federal Reserve System, called
for the Government to buy all the stock, and to create a new Board controlled
by Congress to regulate the value of the currency and the volume of bank
deposits, thus eliminating the Fed's independence. He was defeated for re-election.
Others have also tried to
introduce various Bills to control the Federal Reserve: Rep. Goldborough
(1935), Rep. Jerry Voorhis of California (1940, 1943), Sen. M. M. Logan of
Kentucky, and Rep. Usher L. Burdick of North Dakota.
“Most Americans have no real understanding of the
operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System
have never been audited. It operates
outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United
States.” Senator Barry Goldwater (R) Arizona.
Rep. Wright Patman of Texas (who
was the House Banking Chairman until 1975), said in 1952:"In fact there has never been an independent audit of any the
twelve banks of the Federal Reserve Board that has been filed with the Congress
... For 40 years the system, while freely using the money of the government,
has not made a proper accounting."
Patman said that the Federal Open
Market Committee (who, in addition to the Board of Governors, decides the
country's monetary policy) is "one
of the most secret societies. These twelve men decide what happens in the
economy ... In making decisions they check with no one -- not the President,
not the Congress, not the people."
Patman also said: "In the United States we have, in
effect, two governments ... We have the duly constituted Government ... Then we
have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal
Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by
the Constitution."
During his career, Patman sought
to force the Fed to allow an independent audit, lessen the influence of the
large banks, shorten the terms of the Fed Governors, expose it to regular
Congressional review just like any other Federal agency, and to have only
officials nominated by the President and confirmed by Congress to be on the
Federal Open Market Committee.
In 1967, Patman tried to have
them audited, and on January 22, 1971, introduced H.R. 11, which would have
altered its organization, diminishing much of its power. He was later removed from the Chairmanship of
the House Banking and Currency Committee, which he held for years.
On January 22, 1971, Rep. John R.
Rarick of Louisiana introduced H.R. 351: "To
vest in the Government of the United States the full, absolute, complete, and
unconditional ownership of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks."
He said: "The Federal Reserve is not an agency of government. It is a private banking monopoly." He was later defeated in a bid for
re-election.
During the 1980's, Rep. Phil
Crane of Illinois introduced House Resolution H.R. 70 that called for an annual
audit of the Fed (which never came to a full vote), and Rep. Henry Gonzales of
Texas introduced H.R. 1470, that called for the repeal of the Federal Reserve
Act. The Federal Reserve System has
never been audited, and their meetings, and minutes of those meetings, are not
open to the public. They have repelled
all attempts to be audited. In 1967,
Arthur Burns, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that an audit would
threaten the "independence" of the Reserve.
The Fed in the 1970s and 1980s:
In 1979, after dismissing Secretary of Treasury Michael Blumenthal, President
Jimmy Carter offered the position to David Rockefeller, the CEO of Chase
Manhattan Bank, but he turned it down [as he had previously turned down the
offer from Nixon]. He also turned down
the nomination for the Chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board.
Carter then appointed Paul
Volcker as Chairman. Volcker graduated
from Princeton with a degree in Economics, and from Harvard with a degree in
Public Administration. He was an
economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1952-57), worked at the
Chase Manhattan Bank (1957-61), was with the U.S. Treasury Department
(1961-65), Deputy Under Secretary for Monetary Affairs (1963-65), Under
Secretary for Monetary Affairs (1969-74), and President of the New York Federal
Reserve Bank (1975-79).
When Volcker was in the Nixon
Administration as the Under Secretary for Monetary Policy and International
Affairs, the executive branch official who works most closely with the Federal Reserve,
he and Treasury Secretary John Connally helped formulate the policy that took
us off the gold standard in 1971, because of the dwindling gold reserves at
Fort Knox. Volcker was chosen because he
was the "candidate of Wall Street." He was a member of the Trilateral Commission,
and a major Rockefeller supporter.
Bert Lance, the Georgia banker
and political advisor to Carter, who became his Budget Director and was later
forced to resign...said that if Volcker was appointed he would be
"mortgaging his re-election to the Federal Reserve." Lance predicted that he would bring high
interest rates and high unemployment. He
was confirmed by the Senate Banking Committee in August, 1979, replacing Arthur
Burns, an Austrian-born economist who was a CFR member with close ties to the
Rockefellers. Volcker was against a
gold-backed dollar or gold being used as a form of currency. He attempted to tighten the money situation in
order to curb the 10% annual growth in the money supply, and to ease the
pressure of loan demands. The result [of
his policy] was a dramatic increase in interest rates, which climbed to 13.5%
by September, 1979, and then soared to 21.5% by December, 1980.
[We may speculate] that this
economic decline was purposely engineered to cause the political decline of
Carter. In response to the rising
interest rates, Carter said: "As you
well know, I don't have control over the Fed, none at all. It's carefully isolated from any influence by
the President or the Congress. This has
been done for many generations and I think it's a wise thing to do."
During the 1970's, many banks had
left the Federal Reserve, and in December, 1979, Volcker told the House Banking
Committee that "300 banks with deposits of $18.4 billion have quit the Fed
within the past 4-1/2 years," and that another 575 of the remaining 5,480
member banks, with deposits of $70 billion, had indicated that they intended to
withdraw. He said that this would
curtail their control over the money supply, and that led Congress, in 1980, to
pass the Monetary Control Act, which gave the Federal Reserve control of all
banking institutions, regardless if they are members or not.
Even though inflation had
skyrocketed to all-time highs, Reagan kept Volcker on. It was Volcker who started the collapse of the
U.S. economy.
Alan Greenspan, who became the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in 1987, is [also] a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. He has a
bachelor's and master's degree, and a doctorate in Economics from New York
University. He met Ayn Rand, the author
of Atlas Shrugged, in 1952 and they became friends. It is from her that he learned that capitalism
"is not only efficient and
practical, but also moral." In
February, 1995, the seventh increase in the interest rate, within the period of
a year, took place. This put Greenspan
in the limelight, as well as the Federal Reserve. It was very interesting how the media spin
doctors churned out information that totally skirted the issue concerning the
Fed's actual role in controlling our economy.
These interests control the
Federal Reserve through about 300 stockholders:
- Rothschild
Banks of London and Berlin
- Lazard
Brothers Bank of Paris
- Israel
Moses Seif Bank of Italy
- Warburg
Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam
- Lehman
Brothers Bank of New York
- Kuhn,
Loeb and Co. of New York
- Chase
Manhattan Bank of New York
- Goldman,
Sachs of New York
Because of the way the Reserve
was organized, whoever controls the Federal Reserve Bank of New York controls
the system. About 90 of the 100 largest
banks are in this district.
Of the reportedly 203,053 shares
of the New York bank:
- Rockefeller's
National City Bank had 30,000 shares
- Morgan's
First National Bank had 15,000 shares
- Chase
National Bank had 6,000 shares
- National
Bank of Commerce (Morgan Guaranty Trust) had 21,000 shares.
A June 15, 1978 Senate Report
called "Interlocking Directorates Among the Major U.S. Corporations"
revealed that five New York banks had 470 interlocking directorates with 130
major U.S. corporations:
- Citicorp
(97)
- J.P. Morgan
Co. (99)
- Chase
Manhattan (89)
- Manufacturers
Hanover (89)
- Chemical
Bank (96)
You will find these same names as
the owners of the International Monetary Fund; in other words: 10 to 12 banking
families control over 90% of the world’s wealth! Surprised? I was when I learned of this but why hasn’t
our government protected us? Obviously,
we have the best government money can buy!
To understand why, you must remember what they said
and it has been repeated over and over: Mayer
Amschel Bauer Rothschild: “Give me
control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws.”
“The few who
understand the system, will either be so interested from it’s profits or so
dependent on it’s favors, there will be no opposition from that class.” Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863.
The truth has been there the
whole time but our government doesn’t want you to see it because they realize
you would probably have them tried for theft, fraud, and treason, of which they
are guilty. I condemn the Federal
Reserve and think the ill-conceived Federal Reserve Act of 1913, should be
repealed and the gold in the Federal Reserve Banks confiscated as partial
restitution for the theft they have committed on the American People for 100
Years!
Do you think we can find enough congressmen/women
and senators with the intestinal fortitude to get this job done? I think we know the answer to that … Jackasses
and RINOs … There is no courage in either camp!
Here is what the Federal Reserve has done to
the U.S. Dollar, “ … through inflation and then deflation …”
This is why I oppose the Federal
Reserve and would repeal the legislation from Jekyll Island!! Liberty!!!
