Ben Bernanke

Federal Reserve Accused Of Setting U.S. Up For ‘Crash’

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Barack ObamaThe Federal Reserve, that private organization that determines interest rates and the availability of money in America, is going to be examined by a congressional committee whose chairman is worried it is setting the nation up “for a much larger crash in future.”

The plans for a review of Fed actions were announced today by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who heads the Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee.

The hearing will focus on the Fed’s recent practice of essentially loaning money to large banks and others for no interest at all.

“The Federal Reserve is relentless in pursuing a policy of zero interest rates, as manifest by their decision last week to engage in another round of quantitative easing and keep the federal funds rate at zero for another three years,” Paul said.

There are answers to your questions about the complicated Federal Reserve issue in “End the Fed,” “No More National Debt” and “The Case Against the Fed.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced just days ago another round of money printing by the U.S. government.

The Fed’s third attempt at such a maneuver will involve having the government buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities per month, with no set end date.

There is a petition process set up to urge members of Congress to act on plans to audit the Fed.

The central bank’s objective is to keep interest rates low, and thus trigger more spending and more hiring. The Fed has been trying to impact the economy for the duration of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, but its usual tool – lowering interest rates – is ineffective now since those rates have been approaching zero for most of that time.

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WND Exclusive| September 19 2012 | The Jeenyus Corner

The Greatest Hoax in the History of Money ~ The Fed, the Banks, the Lies

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Richard (RJ) Eskow | Nation Of Change
December 2 2011

OP-ED | It took the journalists at Bloomberg News two years – and presumably lots of legal fees – to pry information out of the Federal Reserve that should have been made public long ago. We now know that the Fed’s secret $7.7 trillion lending program wasn’t just the most massive bank bailout ever seen, and it wasn’t just free money for mega-bankers – though it was certainly both of those things. It was also the greatest hoax in stock market history.

No, scratch that. It was the greatest hoax in the history of money. And it was built on lies. How many? Let us count the ways.

Here’s the first one: The banks paid back all the money back that they were given. No, they didn’t. They paid back the principal on these loans. But by obtaining loans at rates far below market value, we now know they received the equivalent of $13 billion in cash giveaways.

Here’s another lie: Fed economists support a free-market economy.

Ben Bernanke is a conservative economist who claims to support a free-market system. But we now know that the Federal Reserve lent astonishing sums to US banks in secret, and Bernanke fought with all the resources at his disposal to ensure that this information didn’t become public. He didn’t just want it to be held back to avoid a panic during the crisis. He wanted it kept secret forever.

I don’t know what you call somebody like that, but I know what you don’t call him: A capitalist. Free markets need transparency, so that investors and customers can make informed decisions and ‘the wisdom of the market’ can prevail. Nobody wanted the market to do its job. When it came to banks, they wanted it to be blind, deaf, and dumb, unable to make sound judgments about their financial soundness.

They still want it that way. They don’t want investors to know how badly Wall Street executives failed at their jobs. They don’t want the free market to do what it does best – thin the herd so it’s free of incompetent managers like the executives who still run our largest banks.

You can believe in the free market, or you can believe in today’s Wall Street. But you can’t do both.

Here’s another lie, one that’s spread by Dimon and others: Giant banks are more efficient. Size brings efficiency in other kinds of business, but these banks needed massive help. America’s six largest banks accounted on any given day for an average of 63 percent of the debt on these loans. The only thing they’re more efficient at is wringing free money out of government-created institutions.

And, wow. Jamie Dimon sure is a hypocrite. As Bloomberg noted:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders in a March 26, 2010, letter that his bank used the Fed’s Term Auction Facility “at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system.” He didn’t say that the New York-based bank’s total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion on Feb. 26, 2009, came more than a year after the program’s creation.

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