Tilt-A-Whirl

I’d have to imagine that Vince Vaughn and Arlo Guthrie’s understanding of the mechanisms by which Central Banks manipulate interest rates and the money supply is second only to that of Ron Paul himself, so their endorsement obviously carries a lot of weight.

@Serolf Divad:
Hey, Vince Vaughn is a finanshul hexpert of great reknown.

Have respekt for the man who “coined” the term, “You’re Money” or in Paultard, “Your Money.”

I hate to admit it, (because I consider Ron Paul a suppurating lesion of a human being) but I kind of agree with his position on the Fed.

But then I’m a card-carrying Red, too (see user name). Go figure.

I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

@pinkoscum: You and Woody G., which may explain Arlo’s endorsement. Barely.

These ad hominems are discouraging. I expected a little more logic than that here. It’s conceivable that Ron Paul may not be wrong on every subject.

Could anyone give some justification for keeping the Fed. Anything. Is it because the Fed has successfully eliminated economic booms and busts? Because it consistently treats everyone equally? Because Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernacke are such champions of the middle and lower class? Because borrowing money at interest, creating a debt that is literally unpayable (there is only enough money in existence to pay the principal but not the interest) to a private corporation is the best possible way for this nation to manage its supply of money?

@Dave H: My financial history is rusty, but while the Fed certainly isn’t above criticism, eliminating it has sounded to me like one of those simplistic Libertarian bullet points, advocated by folks (the good Doctor excepted) who have no clue what they’re talking about.

Especially in the recent context of eliminating all those other early-century institutions that were clearly “holding us back”. For some reason, all those indicators of income disparity and such date back to 1981.

But to the point, for which I’ll happily stand corrected by someone with a clue: The Fed was founded in 1913. The last of two previous failed attempts at a national bank was killed by Andrew Jackson.

The late 19th century was characterized by a wild boom-bust cycle in the United States. Depressions were considered a necessary, if unpleasant, fact of life. The 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech by William Jennings Bryan was delivered in that context — he feared that a proposed gold standard would harm debtors, while an alternative silver standard would allow for inflation that would inherently reduce the cost of debt.

The Fed was the ultimate solution to that decades-long turmoil, although obviously it alone couldn’t prevent or solve the Great Depression. Other solutions, such as Glass-Steagall, would follow.

So: Allowing for reasonable criticism about how well or poorly the Fed has done its job, and whether it’s been assigned the right job to do — I’m wary of yet another cry to eliminate a financial institution when the consequences of that action are poorly understood. Unless everyone really wants another Gilded Age.

@Dave H: “…Because Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernacke are such champions of the middle and lower class?”

Oh, brother…

Greenspan is ANYTHING but that. As a disciple of Ayn Rand, he is above all else a Foaming True Believer in the “free market” gospel.

He once said his number one priority was “keeping wage inflation in check”, which did nothing but harm the Working Class and helped sink the economy along the way.

Sorry, you won’t find any love for Wall Street insiders like Greenspan or Bernacke from this commie bastard.

And I don’t believe a private, for profit corporation should be controlling the nation’s money supply thereby having a complete stranglehold on the rest of us, all the while making a tidy profit for a select few ultra-wealthy elites in the process.

It’s long past time to nationalize the Fed. <==Read it again.

@pinkoscum: I imagine the argument against a, um, federalized Fed would be that its current structure insulates the institution from hack politics.

I don’t have a position either way on that, except to note that, in the end, all institutions are human. We have a Justice department, and laws on the books, but shit that does.

@nojo: “I imagine the argument against a, um, federalized Fed would be that its current structure insulates the institution from hack politics.”

Well, there’s the rub. :-(

We either get a bunch of shitferbrains, self-serving politicians controlling the money supply or we get a bunch of greedy self-serving corporate cronies controlling it.

Maybe the first place to start is to give DC a giant enema, publicly finance any and all elections, revoke corporate person-hood and try to get the People (as in We The…) in charge for a change.

(Yeah, like THAT’S ever gonna happen.)

Ugh…I need a drink.

@nojo: J. P. Morgan’s big and plump, eighty-four inches around the rump…

-“Washington Breakdown”, P. Seeger, W. Guthrie, et. al.