Is the Fed too powerful? I’m not smart enough to know the answer to that question. But it does seem to be concerning others, as this AP article reports:
Dusting off Depression-era emergency powers, the Federal Reserve is extending its reach over the economy as never before, pushing the limits of its authority, if not exceeding them.
Now the nation’s central bank is even becoming a source of loans for companies other than banks.
Radical steps by the Fed under chairman Ben Bernanke — all in the name of seeking to halt the panic sweeping financial markets — are turning it into a financial colossus. They’re also putting the government deeper in debt and taxpayers further at risk if the various moves fail.
And it’s being done with little direct interaction with Capitol Hill. The Fed does not depend on Congress for its budget, including its payroll, and is as much a creature of the nation’s banking system as part of the federal government.
[…] The Bernanke Fed has its critics. Former Chairman Paul Volcker has said its been acting “at the limits” of it’s legal authority. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, made abolishing it a central part of his GOP presidential candidacy. And Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., an opponent of Fed and Treasury bailouts, said recently, “The greed on Wall Street is only exceeded by the stupidity of the Treasury secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve.”
And the Populist Party website says the Fed isn’t even constitutional:
[The Fed] is illegal according to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution which happens to be the inviolable law of the land. The article states that Congress shall have the power to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof. In 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled the Congress cannot constitutionally delegate its power to another group or body. The Congress thus acted in violation of the Constitution it’s sworn to uphold and in so doing created the Federal Reserve System that…is a private for-profit corporation operating at the expense of the public welfare.
Maybe that sounds too much like a conspiracy theory. But in light of the $700 billion bailout rescue package that was recently approved by Congress, and the additional steps being taken by the Fed as the Dow continues to plummet, it does make one wonder. Any financial wizards or constitutional/history scholars out there have some insight into this issue?
Is the Fed too powerful? Do bears like honey? Is the Pope Catholic?
I don’t need Wikipedia or the AP to answer these questions.
MOUSE HAS ALREADY STARTED TRADING HIS DOLLARS IN FOR AMEROS!
I believe it is a toss-up between ‘Big-Business’ and U.S. Govt. Which one do you trust more? Less?
You know it’s funny these things always seem to pinnacle within Octobers.
Read up on the market panics of the 1800’s, early 1900’s (1907) and particularly where tycoon and semi-saviour J.P.Morgan was instrumental. The Federal Reserve System was created from these events. To me the Fed system was a natural and necessary evolution within a governmental process not foreseen by the writers of the constitution. The Fed has only monetary, economic policy to consider. The idea was to keep it free from political influence and intimidation. The structure is to free it from political influence and intimidation from both the president and congress. What some are talking about is recourse if politcally they don’t like what the Fed implements. Essentially, there are people now who want to politicize the Fed or bring it within the political process. These people need to read history as referenced above.
We had our chance to avoid this with Ron Paul… but he was too libertarian independent wacky scary to nominate. I highly recommend Freedom to Fascism, Aaron Russo’s film on the Federal Reserve – Internal Revenue Service Cabal. It is online at freedocumentaries.org
wow Karen. You seem to think “the people” were involved in the market panics. You DO understand that for every stock that is a sold, that same stock is bought by someone? Who do you think is buying all these stocks and funds as the market is crashing around? Who do you think is laughing out loud every time the news says “PANIC ON WALLSTREET”?
Now the government wants to buy interest in smaller banks? Why?
What are they going to do with them? Feed them to the Fed.
Who is it we owe our national debt to? When the Fed prints money for the Treasury, how much do they (The Fed) charge the US in interest on that money?
One World Government? New World Order?
Think again… ONE WORLD BANK. That will be the New World Order… One central bank that controls every government that doesn’t have the armament to create their own world economy. (That’s why we have to get rid of fossil fuels, that’s why we can’t let Middle East countries have nuclear weapons… OIL is the world’s currency right now)
The next thousand years, the new millennium will be known as the New Dark Ages, complete with serfs and Lords, disease and pestilence, starvation and crusades.
The Amero… a rose turd by any other name…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
The Federal Reserve is Guilty of Helping Create the Global Financial Meltdown
Many investors and concerned citizens around the world are showing their outrage at what the Federal Reserve has done to the American economy with their easy money policies which caused the credit & real estate bubble and subsequent global financial meltdown.
Join the thousands who are signing & commenting on the Abolish the Federal Reserve Petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
despite my many differences with kcdad, there is wisdom in
his post. Oil is the world’s currency. I am beginning to believe that
no politician is serous about moving us away from oil, because it
would disrupt the Saudi princes’, Russian despots’, and others’ gravy trains. They aren’t going to let that happen if they can buy some politicians, most of whom are for sale. Conspiracy theory?
Maybe. Maybe all conspiracy theories aren’t fiction.
And we are probably facing a new Dark Ages. I don’t know that it will last a thousand years. Hitler’s thousand year Reich lasted but 12. On the other hand, it might last 2,000 years. Who knows?
Every response here with exception of those by New Voice and Karen shows full ignorance and no understanding or knowledge whatsoever of the current crisis and the other topics.
Doing LSD and smoking weed while reading Das Kapital could never have been a good idea for you others and must have enlarged an already present stupidity and misunderstanding. Do you people ever read?