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Matt Collins
07-29-2009, 09:25 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300263148640896.html#a rticleTabs=article

Let’s Break up the Fed
The Federal Reserve has done a terrible job at financial regulation. Why give it more power?


selections from the article:

. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which created the Federal Reserve System, did so to forestall financial panics rather than pursue macroeconomic policies. The gold standard defined monetary policy. The Fed was merely meant to “provide an elastic currency” by serving as lender of last resort in times of crisis. The Act also assigned the Fed routine responsibilities for maintaining and improving the financial system—examining banks, issuing currency notes, and helping clear checks.

The adoption of Keynesian and monetarist ideas by central bankers and elected officials subsequently cast the Fed in a proactive macroeconomic role. William McChesney Martin, who served as chairman from 1951 to 1970, said that the job of the Fed was “to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.” This might have been wise in theory, but it wasn’t mandated by the law. In 1977, an amendment to the 1913 Act explicitly charged the Fed with promoting “maximum” employment and “stable” prices. The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act that followed in 1978 mandated the Fed to promote “full” employment and while maintaining “reasonable” price stability.


Legislation also has increased the Fed’s responsibilities for overseeing the mechanics of the financial system. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 gave the Fed responsibility over holding companies designed to circumvent restrictions placed on individual banks. It was tasked with regulating the formation and acquisition of such companies.


Congress further tasked the Fed with enforcing consumer-protection and fair-lending rules. The Fed was made the primary regulator of the 1968 Truth in Lending Act that required proper disclosure of interest rates and terms. Similarly, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 forced the Fed to address discrimination against borrowers from poor neighborhoods.


What we need now is a debate about how to break up the Fed

Pauls' Revere
07-30-2009, 01:39 AM
Wow! spot on!

As it happens, the Fed has been led for more than 20 years by chairmen who had no senior management experience. Prior to running the Fed, Alan Greenspan started a small consulting firm and Ben Bernanke was head of Princeton’s economics department. Given their understandable preoccupation with monetary and macroeconomic matters, how much attention could they be expected to devote to mastering and managing the plumbing side of the Fed? While the record of the Fed’s monetary policy has been mixed, its supervision of financial institutions has been a predictable and comprehensive failure.

Great read thanks for posting and I passed it along.
:D

t0rnado
07-30-2009, 02:01 AM
It is unbelievable how mainstream abolishing the Federal Reserve has become in just a few months.

speciallyblend
07-30-2009, 06:16 AM
listen do you hear it? the chant Audit The fed, notice how the news says washington is pushing this?? hello NO, the people are pushing it and washington is jumping on the band wagon.

Ron Paul 2012, does the gop really have any other option? i think not if they want my money!!

speciallyblend
07-30-2009, 06:18 AM
It is unbelievable how mainstream abolishing the Federal Reserve has become in just a few months.

i hear you amazing amazing and just a few months ago the gop acted like
Ron Paul didn't exist!! i guess the gop is having hard times now trying to remove their feet from their mouths!

Stary Hickory
07-30-2009, 07:50 AM
Since the FED, by it's own words, is independent of the Federal Government and a private entity then it does not need federal laws protecting it's existence.

So I vote we repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and we roll back legal tender laws....and the fed can exist all it wants privately.